EP 145: Exploring job market dynamics: non-competes, solo businesses, and work mindsets with Joel Lalgee

Join host James Mackey and his guest Joel Lalgee, host of The Realest Recruiter, as they dissect the FTC proposal to ban non-competes, weighing its impact on businesses and employees. Discover the balance between protecting business interests and fostering employee freedom, and how emerging trends are reshaping the recruitment industry.

  0:00 Navigating non-compete agreements in hiring
  11:02 Challenges and ethics of non-compete agreements
20:27 Shifts in work mindset and values
25:45 Evolving work relationships and loyalty
33:34 Building trust through authenticity and transparency
39:25 Balancing company culture and business goals

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Our host James Mackey

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:12

Hey guys, welcome to the Breakthrough Hiring Show. This is James Mackey and we have Joel joining us again on the show. Joel, thanks for being here, man, I'm looking forward to working more with you Everyone. Just so you know, joel's gonna be coming on twice a month to record with us and talk about all things. Talent acquisition.

Speaker 2: 1:26

Yeah, great to be here again, James. I'm excited just for this series as well, Like we were just talking right before the show show. It's like we got two unique perspectives business owner leadership and then I definitely, I think, have more of that employee lens. I'm not an employee, I run a business, but it's a solo business, so I'm excited just to get into the topics that we're going to talk about.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Yeah, and so I'm glad you brought up what's going on with non-competes right now. So I think that'll be a good first place to start. So we had the Federal Trade Commission come out saying they're announcing rule banning non-competes. I think that there's this concept of a high level non-compete where the very basic argument would just be to determine if a non-compete is reasonable or unreasonable, just in theory, right, is it okay for companies to have non-competes, or should the power just be completely from an employer perspective or employee perspective? But I think what would be more valuable for our conversation too is just really getting into the nuance of that.

Speaker 1: 2:27

The reality is that the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. To rule out non-competes completely seems quite ridiculous, and this idea of a non-compete. In order to compete, we have to maintain competitive advantage or need to try to attempt that. So we have to consider that. And then we also have to make sure that we are giving folks enough mobility within their industry and their career to be employed and to thrive, and I think we have to take both of those things into consideration. You can't have a competitive market without folks doing what they need to do to compete.

Speaker 1: 2:55

But then you also can't have a market in which people don't have the ability to change employers and use their skill set. So both of those things are important for the economy and you can arguably say they're important from potentially like a moral perspective as well. So I think we could dive into this and because FTC doesn't do a very good job outlining the primary, like the nuance to this, maybe we could also just discuss, okay, when it comes to these findings, what are the top things that should be considered and what would be a reasonable middle ground. Or you might have different perspectives than I do, but we can discuss, like where is that middle ground? What?

Speaker 2: 3:33

does seem fair and what should be considered with a kind of a this type of rule ruling, right, yeah, yeah. And look, there's a couple of people on social media that I think have done a good job. There's a page on, I think he's on tiktok and instagram, attorney ryan I don't know if that's like the full, his full name, but it's. He's name's ryan and he's an attorney and that's somewhere in in the screen name. But I know he's done a lot of content on it and breaks it more down, and he was a guest on a podcast right after I was on the podcast and they said that he did a great job breaking things down. So I think a lot of this, too, is who you're listening to, and obviously I would want to defer to attorneys and lawyers people that kind of understand the full context.

Speaker 2: 4:12

But I think what's interesting is in our industry, like the recruitment industry, particularly recruitment agencies non-competes are always it's just a huge deal for people like moving companies. They are definitely something I think employers within our space use to keep people and sometimes not in the right way. Right If you're billing a lot or you're a top biller, there's definitely been leadership in the right way. Right, if you're billing a lot or you're a top biller, there's definitely been leadership in the past that have kept people in environments that aren't great as well. So I think that for our industry, it really is going to be interesting to see how that would play out, and it's also just interesting to see comments from people in our industry and I've just seen some interesting posts on linkedin, obviously but it's it just brings up the question of like why people do this and, like you said, there's the middle ground, right, and and I think if you're somebody who's leaving a company, you want to act ethically and you want to do the right thing.

Speaker 2: 5:11

But in the same token, it's like employers. You know, sometimes you do have to let people go and you don't want to like, you don't want to make it too, don't want to be. Because I've been threatened with non-competes before, like I remember leaving a company one time. I'd only been at the company for a short amount of time and I got hit hard with like huge email, like really aggressive, like tone. I'm like dude.

Speaker 2: 5:34

I've been there for six months, I've got four clients imagine what it would be like if I had a big book of business and I was like, wow, and ironically I was leaving the company because they didn't have a good culture, so it was just reinforced, and then other places I've left. There hasn't been much of a conversation around it, it's just been like, all right, do the right thing and what's right. We know what's right and I think that's that middle ground we're talking about yeah, there's like the middle ground.

Speaker 1: 6:00

So, like it's on some like attorney website, I could drop the link in the position description, but that's saying that it does not banner other restrictions like confidentiality or non-solicitation provisions, which is what I was going to get at because wait a second here like there is a middle ground. That's important and we don't want to make it difficult for people to be able to move, to have mobility within their career. That's, I think, just very important. You could argue from like an individual or from like a moral perspective in how we treat other people, wanting people to be able to do well in their lives. But it's also important for the economy and you could argue it is important for competitive. It is important for competition, right, you want to compete too? No-transcript that. And same thing here it's saying that it's not going to ban things like non-solicitation provision.

Speaker 1: 7:08

For instance, in the instance of a recruiting agency, it sounds like you could still have non-solicitation so folks don't go after your existing their customer base, and I think it's. It would be nice to say we live in a world where it's like all right, everyone, let's do the right thing. But the reality is that like people just often don't People have a really good ability to rationalize their decision-making and come up with some kind of like moral theory, that kind of supports whatever, like very self-centered approach that they have or decision that they make. And employers do that and individuals have that, and so I honestly do think that every company, every hiring contract, should have something like a confidentiality or non-solicitation, some variant of those terms, where there should always be a conversation around what is it going to look like when we're no longer working together, like we should be entering the relationship and knowing what it's going to look like when we leave the relationship.

Speaker 1: 8:04

Yeah, I think that's just like a very important thing to do, and it should. Again, it should strike a middle ground where you're trying to ultimately do uncover what the right thing is Right.

Speaker 2: 8:16

Yeah, and look, I think whether you're in a recruitment space, whether you're in the tech space, whatever, whatever space you're in, that it's always smaller than you think it is. And I think that's where and I've just learned this over time right, you're gonna run into a lot of the same people and when, and especially in the recruitment industry, it's like a lot of people know each other and how you treat people really it doesn't matter. And I think I just again I look at my situation where I got hit with something it seemed like really extensive the client that one of the clients I had, who I known, this client, this connection at this company for years, before I even started working at the other company, and it was like they went and tried to get more business but I wasn't there. And the client was like, yeah, I wasn't really doing like business with your brand, I was doing business with joel, but then I didn't.

Speaker 2: 9:10

I was like you know what I'm gonna honor, because this is something like in business again, it's like just honoring what you say you're going to do, being trustworthy, those things still matter. And so I think that's where I think there is just a balance and I'm like, if you're doing things right as a company, from a company perspective, I don't think you have much to worry about. And if you're doing things right from an individual perspective, I don't think it's this huge thing that's going to have a huge shift, because you should just be doing. You're going to know what's morally right. If I'm working at a company I'm not going to take, go, start reaching out to the biggest account at that company.

Speaker 1: 9:45

But the issue is that people do that. Honestly, I've always been very flexible when it comes to non-solicitations. I don't think we might have. I don't even think we for a lot of the folks that we onboarded, we didn't even really have non-solicitations. It was more just approaching this relationship in terms of good faith. And the reality is, even if you have those, there's going to be and particularly in services companies, there's going to be people who just don't really see the world that way. They're going to try to take customers, they're going to do these types of things.

Speaker 1: 10:19

I will just say that there have been situations that I've seen, particularly over the last year or two, in which we had to go through layoffs and then we find out that, okay, we had a couple of situations in which somebody started competing agency and was actively targeting active customers and people have this way too of human nature Any success that anybody's had in their career, it's all because of them. They don't look at A lot of the times, they don't look at the folks that helped them get to where they are, they don't look at the resources available to them. There's no sense of respect and I think that there needs to be rules in place to where everybody again decides what's life going to look like for everybody when we're no longer working together, because the reality is that it just takes one. That's the issue. 90% of people can ask work in an ethical way, but then you'll get one person who will just go for the jugular and try to take all of your customers and have some kind of moral entitlement to believe that they're doing the morally right thing. They might speak to my one and only responsibility is to my family. Therefore, I can do whatever I need to do in business to justify that end or whatever kind of moral framework that they're working under.

Speaker 1: 11:32

And that's not to say that one moral framework is right and another one is wrong. But again, it's important for everybody to, I think, get clear on exactly what we're going to do, what life should look like when we're no longer together. And then, yeah, on the non-compete side, yeah, I think there's a lot of companies, particularly in staffing and recruiting, where the non-competes are just ridiculous man Like IT staffing, so I can't get a job doing it recruiting yeah, and the other company yeah, it's nuts and and I'm not advocating for that and you see those like in a lot of like old school staffing companies, the, the big staffing companies, particularly.

Speaker 1: 12:11

You see that a lot, probably nationwide, but particularly I see that a lot in like the dc market, which is a little bit more old school conservative. You see a lot of these like big non-competes and I'm definitely not advocating for those either. Like those are incredibly too rigid and wide in scope.

Speaker 2: 12:26

I think that those are probably the one. Those are probably the policies that are like that, they're targeting or that are really at risk to be changed. Like you said, they're just rigid and not really. They're not helping people in their career and it's just, it's doesn't.

Speaker 1: 12:42

But yeah it's just, it's honestly, it's not even giving a competitive advantage to the organization because all of the organizations are doing it, yeah. So what is the from a competitive perspective? What advantage if we just outlaw it for everyone, then it's not going to impact the competitiveness of these agencies. It's not like these agencies have intellectual property, right, we need to enforce non-solicitations, right. Like the biggest assets that services companies have are relationships, yeah, and so there should be something to go in with that. But I think alongside of that is yeah, I don't think there should be non-competes toward people working in their field. That's just, it seems dumb.

Speaker 1: 13:33

And I've been in that situation where I worked for a company that had those all-encompassing non-compete situations. They're not enforceable, but the issue is that people don't want to spend the money to get an attorney, or they probably don't have the money to get an attorney. So there's also this perspective of fairness and equity and the reality is, if you work for a billion-dollar company that hits you with a non-compete, there's no. And from a fairness perspective or a justice perspective or any kind of moral thought process, it doesn't seem right for an individual to have to defend themselves against a billion-dollar corporation when it comes to a non-compete. That is wrong. I think it's morally wrong, and so I do think that that's great If we're ending that type of stuff. I'm 100% okay with that, as long as intellectual property is protected. Confidentiality and non-solicitation, particularly for services companies incredibly important that's like. The primary value that a services company has is predictable cash flows and relationships. That's the business.

Speaker 1: 14:44

So if you're doing something to the detriment of that, then exactly I would say arguably you're doing like the morally wrong thing and companies need to be legally protected from people like that.

Speaker 2: 14:54

Yeah it goes both ways it goes both ways yeah, and I think uh, I mean we were talking about it before. I think you know, let's say, you set up a competing agency, right, and you have the non-solicitation after people who are in the same space, because I remember there was one time where it was like you can't go after any like even prospects, and I was like, what's a prospect? So when you email two years ago, that's in your database as a prospect. It doesn't make any sense, so it's. But I think, like we'll see and I've been talking about this more and more I think within the recruitment space, I think we're going to see a lot more like individuals popping up and we've already seen it. It's just a lot more kind of fractional solo shops and I just think, because the technology is so cheap nowadays, because easy to set up a business, like I think and I think some people are aware of this, other people might not be it's like that's up a business, and I think some people are aware of this, other people might not be it's like there's technology now or there's technology in the near future where you can build a website in 10 minutes with AI and it will build you a decent website, and obviously you're going to have to if you want it to stand out, you're going to have to work on the copy and get creative and all that type of stuff and there's probably more value in that. But you know you can buy a pretty healthy tech stack at but did under a thousand dollars now, which is just that was that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, and so I'm not saying like then, oh, there's no use for them. Like large agencies, of course there is. It's like google if they need to hire a thousand people or two thousand people, I'm not going to go to a one man band for that or a solo shop. They're going to need a team.

Speaker 2: 16:30

But I think what I've noticed within our space is you have a lot of agencies, particularly like contingent agencies, that they never scale. They never get past six to ten people. Cultures aren't great, but a lot of those people stay at those companies because they've been there, they built up a book of business and they have a non-compete and they and, but they're worried about leaving and again it's like a difference between the non-solicitation and the non-compete. But I think those are the types of agencies and then like the huge ones, like you say, that just don't have good cultures. I I think more and more people are going to and I think it's just such an entrepreneurial space. Anyway. I think it's going to open up some opportunity for people, and I think the recruitment agencies that have good cultures, that genuinely care about their people, I think they're going to be able to get some really great talent as well, which is exciting for them.

Speaker 2: 17:23

And those are the companies I want to win. I love hearing about the companies that treat people right in our space and train people and care about the employees do great work. And unfortunately, that's not always the case.

Speaker 1: 17:34

It's not, and I think that's what you're saying in terms of people feeling like they're handcuffed to a company because their book of business or whatnot is at that company. That's right and again, I think there's a middle ground to be had, like taking a step back, if you really want to think about this, if we really want to break this down logically and understand the fundamental arguments for things like non-competes actually comes from something called social contracts, which is from Thomas Hobbes' political theory, and basically what he's stating is that anything is better than the state of nature, which is brutal short. So you're trading certain liberties in order to function as part of a society in which that's going to protect your life, your property liberty. You guys can look into it if you want, but the point is this idea of social contract between a government structure and an individual so that we don't have to live in nature, which is we'd be fighting for our lives, people would be trying to steal our stuff, there'd be no property rights, we'd probably be dead.

Speaker 1: 18:30

We'd all die a lot younger than we are right now, and so it's like finding that middle ground of what now he believed, and it didn't matter how bad a government was, you don't have the right to overthrow it, because living under an oppressive government is still better than living in nature. So that's a very like absolutist, almost like a severe way of looking at it. It's not balanced, and so I think it's like a middle ground is okay. We have these social contracts. There are benefits to being employed, right, we're going to receive a salary, we're going to receive benefits like healthcare, we're going to receive potentially paid time off and in return for that, I'm going to trade some of my liberty, some of my freedom, to a, and what we have to decide is what is a reasonable extent. I don't think we should look at it like a Thomas Hobbes perspective of like an oppressive government is still better than no government. Therefore, so an oppressive employer is still better than no employer. Like we should strive to have a just and fair society, and that's what I think the real. The conversation here around non-competes. It's a lot bigger. It's not just about impacting day-to-day. It's like literally how we view structure in society and how we think about structuring our country right, like what are our actual values and what's a fair mental ground. So I think it just comes down to understanding.

Speaker 1: 19:41

Whether it's you being a member, a citizen of a country or an employee at a company, or part of your friend group or part of your family group, there is a certain level of social contract in your intimate relationship, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1: 19:55

There's a social contract in which you are giving up some liberty in return for the benefits of being part of X group, right. And there are some things that seem to be reasonable in terms of giving up non-solicitations Okay, if I'm going to have the benefits of this W-2 salary, of the healthcare, of the paid time off, I am in turn willing to give up a little bit of liberty and say, should I leave this employer, I am not going to solicit their customers. That to me seems very reasonable. Or I'm not going to leak confidential information. What doesn't seem reasonable is a social contract in which power is granted too much in one direction or the other. And I think when you start to get into these overarching non-competes, you start to get into this what we would consider, from a political theory perspective, oppressive government, like you start to get into this oppressive situation in which too much power is yielded by the employer to the detriment of the individuals, and I think that's like where we have to strike the middle ground here.

Speaker 2: 20:59

Personally, yeah, yeah, no 100, and yeah, it's super. It's interesting. You say, though, it's like a shift 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 in in, like bigger than the actual issue. Right, it's not just about non-competes, like we're talking about bigger, bigger things. One of the things I've been thinking about a lot recently, as well as just these kind of like changes in mindset with how people are viewing work, and I'd be curious to get your take as, like somebody who employs people, you obviously are working with clients as well, so I know your team's maybe you're not necessarily having the recruiting conversations, but your team is are you starting to see like just a shift with just even how people are viewing work as a whole? Have you seen shifts in mentality? What's? Because I think it all ties together. Right, it's just how we're viewing these work and employee-employer relationships. What sort of shifts are you seeing, or have you seen, or are there any shifts taking place?

Speaker 1: 21:56

I think there are, and I think some of these shifts are going to be long-term. Right, like we're just country culture, we're moving in a certain direction. Right, there's a greater shift occurring. Some of it's going to be shorter lived. Right, it's somewhat seasonal. Right, we're coming.

Speaker 1: 22:12

We're still in a suppressed market where limited jobs and layoffs these are big problems and I think whenever you're in a situation in which people are going through trauma to some extent or difficult times to some extent, there usually is a realignment when it comes to value systems. Right, it's easy, like when we were seeing the growth market in tech a few years ago let's go back to 2021. Or, if you want to go back to pre-COVID times, when we had that insane growth market for close to 10 years, when things are going really well, a lot of the times, people start to pour their sense of identity and bend their values more towards who they are professionally. They get this sense of pride and accomplishment. Things are going really well.

Speaker 1: 22:55

We all, probably, are guilty of this, patting ourselves a little bit too much on the back when it comes to the outcomes that we're producing, producing and then what happens is when you go through winter professionally and you start to see all those things get stripped away your job title, your identity, your income, everything that you worked so hard to build over the past decade is just taken from you. And it's like when that type of stuff happens, you start to see this value realignment where you're like wait a second, who am I if I'm not? My career I thought I was this person, but I guess I'm not. Who am I? What matters? And you start thinking about okay, what about my health? My health is suffering right now because of all the stress and all this type of stuff. My relationships are suffering because of the stress. And you start to realize, okay, the family relationships, health. And you start to see this rebalance.

Speaker 1: 23:41

And people have just gotten burnt out so bad over the past several years that their mindset has shifted to essentially valuing these other things, which, quite honestly, this is why sometimes, to some extent, there's caveats to this. It's not an absolute statement, but everybody needs hardship in their lives because that is what aligns our values or helps us prioritize and understand what really matters. So I think some of that's happening, but I think it was also going to happen.

Speaker 2: 24:11

It's been a long time since we've been. I just think the last time I guess COVID was that was just such a bizarre. And then just seeing like the shift right after that, so quickly it was. I just did a post today about like recruiters and how and I was like typing. I was like I was looking at it. I was like, oh man, in 2021, they were like more valuable than engineer not more valuable, but it was harder to find a recruiter than an engineer.

Speaker 2: 24:36

And I'm like and I looked at the date and I'm like we're 2024. That was three years ago and I'm like this is just last four years. It's just been a complete blur. But Last four years has just been a complete blur. But then before that, it was like we had a good run. It's like really like that 2008 to 2011. And then it was almost like a decade of just everything's growing, everything's good, everything's stable, everything's good, like we're at good times, and so for a lot of people, it's like all of the things we're going through with inflation and interest rates and global news, it's it's. It's just like a tougher time. And I 100 agree with you though that and I will make it an absolute statement I think the tough things in life are difficult things in life. They teach you more about yourself than the easy things in life, like I just think that's a principle, right you never know what you're made of unless you face adversity.

Speaker 1: 25:27

Yeah, you never know what you really, what you value. You never know how you're going to act. It's like this, you're right, and that's a big part of it. So I think for some people it's going to be a permanent shift. I think for some people, when the market does start to come back, stronger recruiters or otherwise, you're going to enter, like summer and fall seasons and people are going to forget that winter exists. It's, somebody has a health issue and they're like, oh my God, I should have called my mom more. I got to, I got to go talk to, I got to do this, I got to do that.

Speaker 2: 25:54

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:54

And then they're okay, oh shit, I'll do that next month, like you, immediately go back to your old way of thinking it's that's going to happen to. I do think that and I'm referring to the people that are like our age or maybe older than us or a little bit younger I think one of the things you talk a lot about, like Gen Z and their approach to work. I think that's like different. I think there's two things going on here. I think like one is very situational, based on the economy of the past few years, and that impacted people's values and how they view their work. And then I think there's also one thing that you talk a lot about is the younger generation entering the workforce, which are also viewing work differently too. But I do think it's nuanced, it's different, yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:29

I just I've been. I talk a lot about this on some of my other social channels outside of LinkedIn, because I just think maybe there's more of like a platform to be able to do that. But it's even. I just think about like how work was with like grandparents you don't hear a lot of like grandparents necessarily talking about the culture and like trying to find meaning and purpose. It was like a lot of people were like clock in, clock out and obviously it was like a lot of those jobs were like manufacturing and they were those types of jobs and they paid well or they paid enough to be able to buy a house and do these different things. And now it's just less history. Right, it's just not the time we're in. But also you have this just development of again we just talked about it earlier Like it's just cheaper to start a business than before. There's a lot of tools out there that if you know how to use them, you could do a lot Like.

Speaker 2: 27:21

I look at some of my local businesses around where I'm at and I've talked to people who own these businesses and start asking them like how are you using kind of any AI for things? Or like what kind of technology you're using and they're not using anything. What are you doing for marketing? Oh, it's word of mouth and I'm like. And then you have this like other breed of people who are like typically they skew younger because it's just that they maybe just they have more technology, they grew up with it, they're more familiar with it, more, a little bit more open-minded sometimes, and they're like yeah, like I'm like. I got a cousin who just, like on the side, learned how to do SEO and then just start building businesses, start building web pages for local businesses, and just started funding following leads, and so he'll just build a website and after six months he's the number one ranked in the search and he starts getting calls and just sells those leads. And so you have kind of people who are just thinking differently, like that, and then it's.

Speaker 2: 28:16

I was on a podcast recently and they were this guy's got gen z kids and he was like just asking him about like, jobs and career, and they're like I don't really know. And he said gigs and they're like oh, yeah, I know gigs. And then they were talking again and they were like his kids are like yeah, google's for boomers and I use chat, gpt to find out things. Yeah, like, or I go to tiktok to find out things or I go to youtube, but yeah, I never use google. And you're like what? Yeah, and I think a lot of these changes they happen like subtle and they happen quickly.

Speaker 2: 28:47

But I think like again, like that work relationship, like it's just. I think people have seen like this whole idea of like loyalty for a long time. I just don't see that being a thing for people coming into the workforce. I think there's a lot more mentality of, hey, career is a longer term, I want to learn as many skills as I can, and I think employers it's just learning. How do you make that symbiotic to where you're working with people in this type of new culture as well?

Speaker 1: 29:13

Yeah, I don't know if it was like people talk about the concept of loyalty so I would stay with a company for a long time. I don't know if loyalty should we even really be using the term loyalty? The economy was so different back then and people didn't jump. There was also impressions of folks that moved around a lot more and there was a lot more I think, even probably more so leverage on the employer side. But when it came to employment opportunities which meant that when people got in with a good company they really didn't want to leave there was a lot of factors that contributed to that. Now the employees do actually have a little bit more power, particularly in spaces where there's skill gaps, which is traditionally was tech, not so much anymore. There's a big shift happening there.

Speaker 1: 29:53

I still think that loyalty can have a role, but a role in a healthy relationship in which there is shared decision-making, shared level of influence. There still are opportunities, loyalty or not, in which you can make long-term relationships work within the context of an employer and employee. But that really just comes down to values and how you treat people and the type of people you recruit, and are you really treating them like partners and giving them equal say when it comes to the relationship and the reality is a lot. Equal say when it comes to the relationship and the reality is, like, a lot of the times, that isn't the case and maybe at some points it doesn't even make sense for that to be the case. So that's okay. But we even like when it comes to like shorter tenures and stuff.

Speaker 1: 30:38

Steve Cadigan, first CHRO of LinkedIn, who's come on the show a few times. I think one of the things he always talks about is like the biggest tech companies in the world, like what you're talking about, like Oracle, linkedin I'm blanking on a few right, but with these, a lot of these big companies, these tech companies that are disproportionately adding the most value in the marketplace, all of them, when they were going through the hyper growth in the early days and the growth stages, all of them had employees with average tenures under two years. All of them.

Speaker 2: 31:05

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 31:06

Like LinkedIn, when they scaled from a few hundred people to a few thousand and ultimately became like a billion dollar company. Average tenure of FTEs, full-time employees nine months. So it's like this concept. To derive value from an employment relationship, you need to retain folks for two to five years. If you're not structuring roles in such a way which you're not getting value within the first month and you can't be better off as a result of the employee being there in six months, you're really not doing your job.

Speaker 1: 31:33

Now there are some enterprise account executives with 18-month sales cycles. There are exceptions. It's not absolute, so let's not focus on all the little nuance. But as a general statement, companies need to understand how to get people ramped up faster. Make get. Make sure they get a return on investment, return on capital look at it that way faster. Make sure that they can prevent knowledge gaps so when people leave, they can ramp up a new person faster. Make sure they have a good talent acquisition program in place so they can quickly plug somebody else in like those motions are more important now than ever.

Speaker 1: 32:06

But the idea of tenure, it was never necessary. You see, the most successful companies in the world didn't have folks with good tenure and I think now it's just. This is becoming largely due to the economy, but then also due to, as you said, it's a generational thing as well. I do think it's a trend that's going to continue and, I think, a lot of roles. It's perfectly fine for there to be six to nine-month engagements, I agree, and honestly, there's more fluidity, there's a benefit from the employer side. You don't want fixed costs on your profit and loss. I don't want that.

Speaker 2: 32:38

I think you got to look at the roles. Recruiting is such a great example, right.

Speaker 2: 32:42

Because, it's like a seasonal function, because there's no way that company is just going to grow at the same rate forever. It's always going to have times of scaling and okay, we're hiring more and you're going to have times where you're not hiring as much. So it's just a complicated thing. Sales, you could argue, is maybe one of those roles where you can always do with more sales. But there's limits on that too, right, because you can't always just take on unless you may. Obviously, tech is a lot scalable, but depending on how scalable your business is doesn't mean you're always going to need salespeople. So I think it's just looking at your role and going, okay, is my role one that's just always going to be needed? And then going, okay, maybe it won't be, and I think you're always going to have a core group of people in an organization. I don't think that could go away. Like you're going to have people who are there for a long time, who are committed. But I think it's just weird. We just got into this place of that's every employee then. Or it's like early career people, like when you're early 20s. It's just ridiculous to think that you're like interviewing people and asking them like, oh so where do you see yourself in five years, early 20s? Put yourself in that position. Where were you in early 20s? Were you really thinking about five years in the future? There's a lot that can happen in five years, in your early 20s, and so it's like looking at, maybe it's okay for this short term and for these projects and for this agreed work. We want your loyalties. Just 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 said.

Speaker 2: 34:20

I think it's more of this understanding of like partnerships, like employer partnerships, rather than it just being like almost hey, I'm just going to be committed, no matter what. I think I think for employees like if you can understand this and go all right, obviously we've got things like ai and technology's moving really fast, so does it even make sense for us to even look long-term, because we don't even know where our business is going to be long-term. So it's almost like being able to have those conversations more openly and all I've been thinking about recently is just even interview processes and how people interview people. It's just not working Like. Employee engagement is low, turnover is really high, trust in companies. So I'm like or even interview process and employer branding and how recruiters are selling organizations. I just think there needs to be a shift of a mindset and somehow there's got to be transparency and just more open conversations rather than everybody just going we'll commit you long-term. We have a great culture and we we had. We're a perfect place and you're a perfect candidate. So how do we add in some like authenticity in there in a right way that's actually productive rather than?

Speaker 2: 35:25

I think the point we're at it's get job seekers all the time. How should I answer this question? I'm like would you want like a form? This isn't a video game. I don't want to give you like the double click a, b, c to get the job. Answer it honestly is that crazy? But but then when people do answer honestly, they don't get through. So it's just a weird. It's a weird dichotomy. Yeah, there's this. Yeah, that could be challenging. Definitely, I feel like we're gonna have a lot to talk about in these episodes yeah for sure, and we could keep going and going.

Speaker 1: 35:51

I I think just the one thing, though, is keep in mind is like employers do need to be mindful of the fact that there's a younger generation out there that might be looking at things more in terms of gig economy, but let's not forget also that to some extent, we have to consider people's ages and their responsibilities in life. Short-term contracts sound really great, probably in your early 20s, before you have a mortgage, married kids, these types of things. A lot of the folks that I speak to, they want a position where they're going to hopefully be there a few years. There is a generational thing in terms of shifts in terms of mindset, but they're also like we need to balance that out with the fact that there's also okay. We're talking about folks that are in their early twenties here, so their values are probably going to shift as they get older as well, so there's more to it that we have to shift as they get older as well, so there's more to it that we had to unpack as well and you're 100 right then is you can't treat.

Speaker 2: 36:39

I think it's figuring out what actually matters to you. Is it stability, is it learning new skills? Is it? And it can be a combination of all things, but I think to your point. It's like not treating everybody the same, which I mean, but that's. It was like we're trying to treat everybody the same, but it I mean, but that's. It was like we're trying to treat everybody the same, but it doesn't even make sense logically. Well, no, you can treat everybody, you can be fair in it, it'd be fair.

Speaker 1: 36:59

Exactly so. We strive for fairness, but not treating people the same. It's like there's that's so great A difference, right. Like you, you want to. You should our values. What do we need and how do we align ourselves with the people that If somebody who values a gig economy isn't the right fit for your business, then you have to one figure out can I actually get people that don't have that mindset for what I need?

Speaker 1: 37:27

And so that's where it's okay? I need people that can work at this price point. I need flexibility in my budget to not have a fixed cost, so I have a low price point. I need flexibility in my budget, but I want somebody who's going to stay with me for years. The reality is that those things might not be compatible. You might need to figure out okay, how can I change my product offering or my pricing or whatever else so that I can get folks or whatever that align with more of a long-term mission? Or what do I need to do to shift so that I can make my business model work with people that are more in the gig economy? There's sometimes there's a mismatch between what a company wants and what they're able to, what profile they're attracting.

Speaker 2: 38:05

So there's some things there to consider as well and I think that's where I kept talking about this again a lot where it's obviously I do a lot on social media and I get a wide net of things. But the more I look at like I've just been doing research on like maybe it's companies that have gotten heat for maybe layoffs they've made Just companies that are like trending and it's not like a witch hunt and I'm not going to name names, but I think I look sometimes at company pages and then basically you see, see, let's say, a layoff reaches the news and then you hear like the ceo's remarks okay, great. But then you go to the website and the career page. It's every career pages. We're a great place for everybody, we want everybody, and I'm like this is where the transparency is. Let's just not, let's not just say things, because that's how we sell people on things. How do we bring transparency? And again, it's I'm not saying you put your dirty laundry out there. I don't know what I'm saying, but there's a difference between some of it.

Speaker 1: 39:03

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

Speaker 1: 39:07

If you've ever met a person that you want to be friends with more like, we've all met this person, that like comes across as like maybe a little puts up this facade of being great in all these types of ways where, even if you walk away from the conversation oh that's a really seems like a really impressive person that's not necessarily the person you're gonna hit up. Hey, you want to hang out because if somebody feels unattainable, first of all you're not gonna make a connection. Second of all, it can sound conceited and and arrogant to just talk about how great you are and and you're not going to want to be friends with that type of person either. The type of person that you want to be friends with probably is somebody who is outgoing, probably nonjudgmental, somebody that's in the this is generalizations, right, of course. Like people like to be type of people.

Speaker 1: 39:49

I'm just saying like somebody who's they have a lot of positive attributes, whatever that means to you, but they're also like real, like you're like oh, like you also can relate on, like some of the harder shit, like some of the challenges, right yeah, it's vulnerability like that yeah, like that whole like vulnerability type of thing, where it's like it feels it's a lot more like real and you're actually getting a pulse for someone who somebody really is.

Speaker 1: 40:09

That's going to build a lot more trust. Yeah, I've always said like one way to articulate this, or to live by this principle and the interview process, is companies should be spending a lot more time talking about their problems, their challenges not just like selling hey, like we're doing all this cool stuff, we're working with this awesome tech. You're gonna be working on this project.

Speaker 2: 40:26

We got nap pods.

Speaker 1: 40:27

Here's a couple of the biggest challenges we're facing right. Like we have, we want to develop this product, but we have this massive technical constraint, or we have this thing happening on the competitive side, or whatever it might be, and the goal is to find people that are passionate about solving for that challenge. Yeah, it's not just about people that are passionate about your how amazing you are when it gets to like the things that you're not good at, that you currently suck at. Can you find people that see that as a challenge and be you know what? I have the right stuff to make that better. To me, that's how you build a great company I.

Speaker 2: 41:00

I actually think it's easier for agencies to be able to partner with companies like this, because I think I used to see this all the time. I partner with a company and it's like the classic tell me about your culture. Oh, it's really great. We promote people from within. We've got really work hard, play hard culture.

Speaker 2: 41:19

You just hear a lot of the same things. And then you start going out into the market. You send out whatever some emails. You send out some emails, start talking to people and they're like nope, not interested. Why aren't you interested? Yeah, I just heard bad things, bad things. Would you hear bad things? We had three employees from that company that joined our company and they told us blah, blah, blah. And then you go back to the company. You're like hey, look, I've just done some initial research and it looks like we've got a couple issues. What do you know about this? And most companies are aware of what's going on. They're like yeah, we know this is an issue. And then you just start getting in that conversation okay, so what? So what are some of the things that you're doing to change this? And then you start to approach it from what you just said, which is can you find people who are motivated by that challenge.

Speaker 1: 42:00

There's people out there that want to take it upon themselves to make their employer better.

Speaker 2: 42:04

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 42:05

Maybe it's within their role to do it or not, but you can turn a negative into a selling point.

Speaker 2: 42:16

Exactly, and I think that's the piece right. I just think of what should happen in. There's a level of it in employer branding, there's a level of it in recruitment marketing and then there's a level of it in your actual recruitment process and I think, like you said, you want to have an environment that's inclusive, but you also want to be honest about the environment that people are going into, and I think the fear is we've just created these kpis of like huge funnels and the more applicants the better, and you hear it all the time in agency, right, yeah, just send me as many applicants as you can, it's what? Who else is out there? All of those cliches. Instead of just focusing on what's the quality, I'd rather have 10 quality people that are aware of what they're getting into, for better or for it.

Speaker 2: 42:55

And again, work-life balance I think is a great one, cause it was like suddenly every company's got a great work-life balance. And then you talk to people that are like nah, actually you work like whatever 60 to 80 hours, and I'm like, why just say that? Because, yeah, a bunch of people are going to go. Ooh, I don't like that environment.

Speaker 1: 43:12

Awesome, we just saved a bunch of time, but there's people out there that see their identity as their work, they're going to thrive better anyway. They're going to produce better results. I agree with you and if you can't be transparent and attract the right people, then you got to change your culture. But you can look at it from a hyper-rational perspective as well. You don't have to say I'm changing culture because I value work-life balance, even if you're an employer. You could say from a hyper rational perspective. You could say I'm going to change my culture because I need people that fit xyz criteria so that I can hit my financial metrics like. The concept of culture doesn't have to be this like warm and fuzzy emotional base but that, but that that has what it has.

Speaker 2: 43:55

That's what it's become and I don't know. I don't know, do you because you've? I've been in recruitment for a decade and it feels like it's always been like that, do you? What are your thoughts on? Like that tipping point when, like culture became that? Is that just like evolution?

Speaker 1: 44:10

it's. I think, from a people perspective, an individual perspective. Culture essentially has always leaned on the sides of like feeling and emotion and caring about each other and empathy. And from an employer perspective, I think it's seen as more of a means to an end.

Speaker 2: 44:26

And.

Speaker 1: 44:26

I think actually like neither are the right answer.

Speaker 2: 44:28

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

Speaker 1: 44:31

I think it's in the middle. As a company, you should never just see people as a means to an end. So, even if you have a good culture, still doing it from the perspective of a means to an end probably isn't the type of leaders that people want to work for. They don't want to feel like the company is only doing this because they have to. They want to work for leaders that there is a level of empathy and care in terms of how they interact with the employees. From the other perspective, employees should not expect companies to do things sheerly out of empathy and care. There needs to be an understanding that to some extent, culture is driven by producing an environment that is going to cultivate the outcomes that the company is going after. So it's like this combination, like a healthy culture, should be both of those things. There is this like emotional care aspect, but it's not just that. It's not just about it has to be also aligned with what are the North Star metrics that the company needs to achieve, and it's that balancing act.

Speaker 1: 45:29

A lot of the times when companies can't find the right folks or there's friction between people getting frustrated when they're hired, have you truly found the right balance between those things. If you can't be transparent and get the right people, then something's probably out of center with this equation of means to an end pure empathy, care. Where do we meet in the middle? And if you're finding that right middle ground, you should be able to set realistic expectations with people and then you should be able to get the right people. If you make sure you have a little bit of care, you have care, compassion, but you're also doing what's right for the business. It's finding that middle ground. You find that middle ground, you can find great people and you can get people that are going to work harder do what you need to do within reason.

Speaker 2: 46:11

Yeah, it's super. I don't know. I've got like a million thoughts in my head going on, but no, I just. I was actually just at a conference yesterday up in Milwaukee and one of the speakers was just talking about this whole idea of like sustainability and that automatically people think environmental sustainability. But he's basically talking about creating cultures where people are paid well right, because if someone's not paid well, they're not in a good place there. It's very hard for them to be as productive but then creating environments where people can do like creative work and just looking at it If you look at your business, how long, if nothing else changed, could people actually keep doing the job without getting burned out and all this other stuff. But it just really made me think about what you're saying and it's like finding that middle ground.

Speaker 2: 46:59

I think we have to have more of these conversations because I on a literally every time I talk to somebody and you know who's hiring they all repeat very similar things when it comes to culture and I think it's like leadership has to drive those honest conversations and create a space for people to actually I'm not saying like vent, even vent about things, because I think there are certain times where, as an employee. You just have to understand like there are going to be things that are frustrating and you don't need to, you don't? You don't have to like vent that out every single time, and then there's even a bet. There's a balance, right, if you work for a company, being a part of the culture I talk about this a lot of my content, probably more from a cynical point of view, but part of being a part of a culture is like going along with things and like supporting the company culture and being positive. Those are all things which people don't really talk about. But when people hire you, part of your pay is like representing the brand well, like being a good, being excited about the work that you're doing. But I think there's a room for an honest conversations about challenges and I think that it's just.

Speaker 2: 48:11

I don't think people feel comfortable airing out those things because there can be that sense then like all right, you're just not a fit. And I've seen it a couple times where particularly people who just join companies people have been at the company for a really long time oh, they're not going to be a fit. I remember one instance where I was mentoring somebody and it was like a lot of leaders were like, yeah, I just don't think the person's a great fit. I was like, dude, been here for six weeks, you gotta give up a chance. They're feeling this pressure and then it's three years on, they're like a great performer and a top performer.

Speaker 2: 48:45

And I'm like, again, it's like when you bring people into an organization I've experienced and I probably experienced it's more like smaller companies but there can be that like we've got this culture and no one can come into it and it's this weird thing that can happen.

Speaker 2: 49:00

And oftentimes it's like those companies are the ones that, on the face of it, everything's exciting, and then there's this underbelly where people are actually experiencing things but they don't feel comfortable bringing them up. I think it's like as leadership, it's's again, like you said, finding that middle ground of like how do we have these conversations to where people feel safe? How do we do it in a way that's realistic? But I again, I think that's starts with recruitment and onboarding and like bringing people into a realistic environment, cause I think some people will know some of the culture stuff and, like the culture video, some people will know there's just an element of BS in there anyway, and obviously not everybody's happy about everything, but not everybody. There will be people who genuinely think this is the perfect place. I will work here for the rest of my life, and then it's six months later. They're like confused, and so I'm like how do you bridge that gap?

Speaker 1: 49:49

Yeah, yeah, we're definitely gonna have to continue this conversation. Yeah, we're definitely gonna have to continue this conversation. It's been, uh, it's been excited, for sure, for sure.

Speaker 2: 49:58

I'd love to hear from people too. Obviously you have both of our profiles. If you're listening out there and you have like thoughts on this or like questions, or even just you're like, yeah, here's what we've done, I'd love to just hear from people on this as well, because I just think I don't know anyone that's figured it out. And yeah, obviously we work with just lots of different companies, so you get to see lots of different angles and similarities and trends and all that type of stuff.

Speaker 1: 50:22

Yeah, for sure, everybody tuning in, feel free to reach out to us on LinkedIn. All right, I know Joel's on pretty much every relevant social platform LinkedIn's good for this.

Speaker 1: 50:30

Okay, cool, cool. All right, joel, hey, man, this was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to recording again in a couple of weeks. Here Again, everyone, we're going to be Joel and I are going to be recording an episode every couple of weeks, so it's going to be a fun of ongoing segment of the show and, joel, thanks for partnering with me on this. Man, I'm really pumped about it.

Speaker 2: 50:47

Yeah, thanks for having me. We'll talk soon, excited for the next couple of months there as.