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Employee Engagement And Entrepreneurship With Chris Igou
10 Plays1 month ago
You need to walk the walk if you talk the talk, just like Chris Igou. A seasoned entrepreneur and business owner, Chris knows what it's like for small businesses trying to recruit, hire, and retain the right people for the right roles. In this episode, Chris joins our host, Curtis Forbes, to discuss how small businesses can build and grow their culture.
About Chris:
Chris Igou started his career as an entrepreneur, owning a home painting franchise in his early 20s. He's spent most of his career in franchising, running and building brands. Today, Chris serves as the Vice President at CareerPlug. He's been a part of growing a number of businesses, but his true passion is coaching others and helping them grow their business to reach their potential.
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Transcript
Introduction and Background of Chris Igoe
00:00:04
Speaker
Hello again, everyone. Welcome to today's Fireside Chat, Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build, where we talk with people building, backing, and running better workplaces. I'm your host, Curtis Forbes.
00:00:17
Speaker
My guest today is Chris Igoe. Chris started his career as an entrepreneur, owning a home painting franchise in his early 20s. He spent most of his career in franchising.
00:00:28
Speaker
running and building brands. Today, Chris serves as vice president Career Plug. He's been part of growing a number of businesses, but his true passion is coaching others and helping them grow their businesses to reach their potential. Welcome, Chris.
00:00:44
Speaker
It's pleasure to have you here. Thanks, Curtis. Good to see you. So coaching others extends obviously be beyond businesses. Just quickly before we jump into all that stuff,
00:00:58
Speaker
You coach football, you coach kids. How long have you been doing that? Tell me a little bit about, you know, tell me how old are your kids? Um, so first of all, I love it. It's, it's a passion of mine. Uh, how old are my kids? We have kids, we have five ranging from seven to 18. one just graduated high school. Congratulations to her.
00:01:18
Speaker
Um, and I have been coaching. i started my career back in college when i played football, got hurt. And I had a great mentor of mine say, hey why don't you coach with us?
00:01:30
Speaker
And he taught me how to coach football. And then fast forward, I had a kindergarten age son and we needed a coach for his team. And I thought I was way too competitive to to do it, but decided to to say yes. And it changed my whole life and I've been coaching ever since. He's now 16 years old I love that. Probably a lot of the same principles that apply, you know, when working in the ah in the world
Journey into Entrepreneurship and Franchising
00:01:55
Speaker
of business. So let's get down to that.
00:01:57
Speaker
Your business, what brought you to entrepreneurship in your 20s and particularly what brought you to franchising? So the story goes, it was a bit by accident. um I started out in high school, I needed a job and I painted houses. And very quickly after a couple summers of that, I realized that, you know, I feel like I could do it better than the person who was running the business. Like many entrepreneurs probably listening to this.
00:02:25
Speaker
And so I took the leap and and opened up my own house painting company. um Simple concepts, but taught me a lot of the values of how to run a business and did that for several years, ended up selling that business. um But along the way, there's a lot of people in that industry that were franchised. and so by By luck, I met several people and and made some investment into some relationships and they got me into franchising.
00:02:49
Speaker
um Took me under their wing and taught me kind of the ropes of what does the franchise world look like and how do you do it? ah And then we spent about 15, 17 years in franchising, um running different brands, mostly in the home and commercial services industry.
00:03:05
Speaker
um But that's really the, it was an accidental way into franchising and just made a career out of it. not to not Not too many people brave enough to do that ah so young. So how did you select that particular franchise? I mean, were there others you were considering?
00:03:26
Speaker
um You know, I think that a lot of times it's just taking advantage of the opportunity that's in front of you. So that's really I didn't go out and look, oh, my gosh, like I want to run a house painting franchise.
00:03:38
Speaker
ah What it what it was is like I knew it. I had met some people. ah My focus was more about I want to run a business. I'll tell you what, like it was also a response to the fact that I had to pay my way through college.
00:03:50
Speaker
So I needed a way to make money that was more than, you know, at that time, seven, eight dollars an hour. um And so it was a way for me to do something I had a little bit of knowledge about.
00:04:03
Speaker
i got some great coaching from some franchise, the franchisor. And then I was able to make a lot more money than my friends and pay my way through school. So that was really the story. um Well, before we keep going, do you have any tips for anyone or folks considering getting started as a franchisee?
Choosing and Succeeding in Franchising
00:04:23
Speaker
Yeah, you know, i i have ah I have a lot. I think so. First of all, there's a lot of great business coaches out there that can help you evaluate the right franchise for you. So um even if you just Google franchise consultants or business coaches, there's there's a lot of great people that will guide you in the right way.
00:04:40
Speaker
um But I would look just for something that you have interest in something that's going to get you up in the morning. The great thing about franchising is it takes somebody who's entrepreneurial that may not be a true entrepreneur or have that idea, but they know they want to run their own business. So franchising,
00:04:58
Speaker
honestly curtis it's more about finding the right people that are gonna help you along the way than it is about the actual business in franchising most businesses most franchises they can all make money um but it's about the people who are going to support you so i would evaluate the people in the business more than the brand or the concept itself yeah that's uh that's pretty good advice and I really love how you described the the almost the difference between being an entrepreneur and being entrepreneurial.
00:05:27
Speaker
yeah Not a lot of people describe it that way, um but it really I think it really kind of hits the mark. Franchising, as as we've gotten into it, I've learned so much about the space and it's incredibly supportive. When you talk about going and reaching out to business consultants or, you know,
00:05:48
Speaker
folks who who can who frankly can can kind of help you know coach an individual through that. it is It's unbelievably welcoming. ah It's an incredible space to be part of. I think the relationships that you build are, it's really unlike any other space that I know of. So definitely good advice.
Transition to Career Plug and Its Offerings
00:06:06
Speaker
You started as franchise owner, now you are VP at Career Plug. A lot had to have happened between then and now. So I wanna hear about that career path. I mean, how did you become VP from you know owning a home painting franchise?
00:06:26
Speaker
It must be a long story. I know that there's a big answer to that. You know, it's so it's funny. and I'll start with the the advice that I would give is ah I always look at relationships with people and especially new people that I meet as opportunities.
00:06:42
Speaker
um And so this story is derived from that. So I was at the International Franchise Association. I was running a franchise brand at the time and I my brand was really struggling to recruit and hire people.
00:06:58
Speaker
So I had one focus there. I said, i need to find partners that can help our business recruit and hire. um And I networked. I went to the people who I knew, Curtis, and I talked to them. And I ended up getting introduced to a gentleman named Clint Smith.
00:07:14
Speaker
And Clint had this new software called CareerPlug. And he I got introduced and and I said, what does it do? He said, it helps you recruit and hire people. Long story short, I was impressed. He was brand new. He's like, I don't even know how to sell this to somebody.
00:07:29
Speaker
But I said, I really like the idea and I think it can really help. And so we sort of bartered and I said, if you can allow my franchise brand to use it, I'll pay you for it, obviously. um But I'll introduce you to other people in franchising.
00:07:42
Speaker
And we created a partnership at that point. um So fast forward four years later. My brand at at the time that I was running for my franchise brand was using CareerPlug.
00:07:53
Speaker
And at one point, serendipity happened and Clint said, hey, I need somebody like you. Would you come over and lead our our growth? And he recruited me over, made me an offer I couldn't refuse, moved me to Austin, Texas. And, you know, we're we're here today at Career Plug. And we've we've experienced some pretty great growth over the last five and a half years together.
00:08:15
Speaker
So Clint is the founder of Career Plug. He's the founder. Tell us a little bit about CareerPlug. um you know Obviously, helped your that franchise brand recruit um you know and ah obviously ah in ah and attract folks. so Tell us a little bit about the platform. CareerPlug is a software that helps small businesses recruit, hire, and retain talent.
00:08:39
Speaker
Recruit, hire, and retain people in order to grow their business. um And so really what it does, not to be, i don't want to do a commercial here, but it allows that small business owner to post jobs, find candidates, evaluate the candidates, hire them, onboard them, yeah and and really engage with those candidates after they've started for their first 90 days.
00:09:01
Speaker
um It's designed for small businesses. And so I was attracted to it because I have always been working with small business owners. I was running a franchise of small business owners and we needed something that was really easy to use.
00:09:14
Speaker
um Franchise owners are not, you know, typically HR people or technology people. ah So they needed an easy solution. um And we've been growing ever since. And today, Career Plug now works with over 60,000 small business owners using our software to to help grow their teams.
00:09:32
Speaker
Love it. So is does Career Plug primarily work with ah with franchises? Is it all small businesses? And when they do, why are they why why do they choose Career Plug?
00:09:44
Speaker
So it's yes on the small business side. We're we're really focused on small businesses. um We have a passion for it. Clint and I both really believe in that. So we want to help small business owners.
00:09:56
Speaker
um We do work with a lot of franchises, about 400 brands at this point, ah but there are independent business owners that use CareerPlug as well. um the The special thing for franchises and networks that we offer is we have we have partnership programs that not only discount the price for the franchisees, but it also creates a package that's really easy and is turnkey for the franchisees. So um that's one of the reasons why a lot of franchises are attracted to using CareerPlug. We know the business, we know how it works, we can speak the language.
00:10:30
Speaker
Um, but a lot of, honestly, a lot of small business owners, here's why I would say they use it. And this would go for any tool software, not software that they're looking for is small business owners have 12 things to do in a day, right? They're running around.
00:10:46
Speaker
Yeah. You know, you're you're an entrepreneur, right? Like one minute you can be the CEO and the next minute you're taking the trash out as the janitor, right? And then an hour later you're doing the books and you're the CFO again.
00:10:58
Speaker
um And so when you have solutions as a small business owner, they have to be easy to use. but You're not in them all day long, you know, you're not using it all day. So it has to be really easy to use. It has to save you time.
00:11:12
Speaker
It has to save you money. it has to be good. but also has to be easy to use. And I think that's one of the reasons why a lot of small business owners have been attracted to CareerPog, but also why I'm passionate about helping them out.
00:11:24
Speaker
um Which kind of actually already answered one of my next questions. But um so i'm really I kind of want to ease into some some people topics here.
Defining and Practicing Company Culture
00:11:37
Speaker
You know, a lot of organizations have people problems.
00:11:42
Speaker
What kind of problems do you see in these small businesses today? oh In regards to people? Yeah, I'd say people specifically.
00:11:57
Speaker
Uh, gosh, that could go in a number of directions. I, I, I would say the one of the biggest things that I see small businesses make the mistake of early is they, they try, they skip the first couple steps with people, which is what is my culture going to be?
00:12:16
Speaker
What do I want my culture to be? and then how am I going to build that culture? um Real world tactics is like I see a lot of small businesses, they don't know what their mission is. They don't know what their values are.
00:12:29
Speaker
They haven't taken the time to define those things. And so a lot of times i I start there when I talk to a small business this owner, I'll ask those questions. And if they don't know the answers to those, and I'm talking really know and believe those answers, that's where you have to start because those will direct all of the rest of the decisions that you make.
00:12:49
Speaker
You know? um So that's, I think if I was to summarize, one thing that I would, I would say that a lot of small business owners make the mistake of is they immediately want to go sell or they immediately want to go make their product or, you know, no, like what is your culture?
00:13:05
Speaker
That's where I would start. You know, it's funny you say that too. I've even taken a step beyond that because, know, even when folks understand that that's a baseline where everything starts, it also has to be more than just words on a, on a wall, right. Or words in their, in their manual, uh, you know, or a paragraph that, uh,
00:13:30
Speaker
you know, a candidate or an employee reads, you know, on the first day um of their job, but then but then they never hear it again, or they never interact with that that that culture or that value, or right? There's, there's um you know, so...
00:13:46
Speaker
mechanisms, right. That, that, um that an employer or a small business owner or whatever um can, can create or can implement, you know, where those values, um you know, intersect every little, every little thing that we, you know, that you do during the day, I think is also still mission critical. And they have to believe them.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah. the That, that, you know, yes, yes. A hundred percent. So, How often do you see these things? Or guess maybe maybe you you obviously, you see them getting in the way of growth and progress, right? you Is there ah a way that you can quantify it or maybe even like a real world story that you can give about how these problems kind of get in the way of their organizational growth and and and progress for that matter?
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I could, gosh, I could cite a hundred examples, but I'll give you the, here's where I see it manifest mostly. So for a small business owner that truly takes the time to understand, this is what the culture i want to set is. Like, this is the value. These are the values of our company. This is our mission.
00:15:00
Speaker
And they really believe it. What it does is it starts to lead into, okay, this is how we're going to evaluate people. yeah And we're going to look for people with like values.
00:15:11
Speaker
Um, we're going to make sure, and we're going to be really hard on, on making sure that people have these values and they live them. And those are the only people we're going to bring into our organization.
00:15:24
Speaker
When I see conversely, when I see the the opposite of people who haven't really defined those, they're, they're grasping at straws. And so if I look at a business that has a ton of turnover and we all know turnover is really expensive, um,
00:15:37
Speaker
if if you have a lot of turnover, i challenge a lot of small business owners, like go back to who are you evaluating? Why are you evaluating them? How are you evaluating them? Are these people fitting the culture you want?
00:15:49
Speaker
Or are you just really going out and hiring anybody and hoping something sticks? ah Because if you bring in and you, I don't, you know, sure you've dealt with this, but you bring in the wrong person, they can really upset your culture.
00:16:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Real world example. We had that. I mean, CareerBook had that in early days and and Clint tells this story, our founder again. He brought in a sales leader who was really excellent at sales, really excellent, and but didn't align with the values.
00:16:18
Speaker
And so he started selling a bunch of deals that really weren't aligned with what our our software could do. And it caused a lot of problems. It led to significant amounts of turnover and product issues and delivery and our customer service wasn't good. But at the end of the day, it was because He didn't really believe in the values of what we were doing.
00:16:37
Speaker
And so he ended up having to part ways and bring, you know, refocus and say, OK, this is what we're we're looking for and this is how we're going to do it and bring them in. So I don't know if that's too generic of an answer for you, but I would say that's it's
Hiring Success: Culture, Process, and Retention
00:16:51
Speaker
actually. and And I think how personal the example is, um is is pretty powerful. And what's interesting.
00:16:58
Speaker
sort of in line with, if, with one of the earlier things that you were saying, but do you ever see clients really attempt to fix a a tech problem, an ops problem, a marketing problem? That's really a people problem.
00:17:11
Speaker
I mean, do you see that often and how, and how do you steer them in the right direction? Uh, yeah, all the time, all the time. It's, it's, uh, so I like to call it like, it's the new shiny toy.
00:17:22
Speaker
ah and And a lot of times it can be, you know, hey, we we don't have the right people in place. So what we're going to do is we're going to augment it by buying some software. and And we're going to or you know we're going to outsource this part of the process.
00:17:39
Speaker
um What's harder to do is admit to yourself that you made the wrong decision with the wrong person or the wrong person is in the wrong seat. There's so many books that that reference things like that. um That's hard because you have to have real conversations with real with people.
00:17:56
Speaker
You might have to have, you know, Let some people go. You might have to have a struggle in the short term. um But yeah, no, I see it all the time. And and it's usually the shiny toy. It's I heard something's cool right now. It's AI, right? If it says AI, everybody's interested.
00:18:13
Speaker
Right. um And so I do see that quite often with with small businesses, especially. So when you're helping your clients hire, you know retain their top talent, solve these people problems, um I want to hear about the pattern patterns that you've noticed and and how teams either succeed or actually or stumble and fail right when when putting recommendations into into practice.
00:18:39
Speaker
um Yeah, so if I build on what I was saying earlier, the ones who succeed, they follow the process. It's kind of like really three main steps. And and it's one, it's define your culture.
00:18:51
Speaker
The second one on people and related to people, it's what is my hire process? I just call it the hire process, not hiring. So who am I looking for? What's an ideal candidate? right who do How am I going to evaluate that person?
00:19:07
Speaker
What are the things that I'm going to to talk to them about or ask them about to make sure that I'm sure, make sure I'm sure that this is the right person for me? Because I can't afford to be wrong. When I have, think small business, when I have five employees, if I'm wrong, 20% of my business is wrong, you know?
00:19:24
Speaker
So you have your culture, then you have your hire, and then you really have, what is my retention strategy? Okay. How do I retain people? And that's going to be about how am I onboarding somebody to have a good experience?
00:19:38
Speaker
Am I connecting with that person? And is that person going connect with my organization? ah what kind of benefits am I offering? And I'm not talking 401k, right? I'm talking, what are what are the benefits? How am I getting somebody connected and and what what are they going to benefit from working here?
00:19:55
Speaker
So culture, hire, retain. When you have all that together, then you have a really good people program. where I see people when they don't have those, they struggle.
00:20:08
Speaker
So if you don't know your culture, how do you know who you're looking for? If you don't have your hire process outlined, how do you evaluate the right person? And you're just kind of guessing. mean, you don't have retention.
00:20:18
Speaker
like, how are you getting people connected your company? What you experience is good people leave your organization. All those are really painful. Yeah. Those first 90 days are super critical.
00:20:32
Speaker
Critical. And totally ah totally get that. So kind of ah you know reflecting on what works in the real world. So among the let's say among the teams and the the organizations that you admire most, which may in fact be career plug, they might be one of them too, um but not just those that you work with.
00:20:54
Speaker
Give me some common traits of the organization, maybe beyond having these three things, but some common traits that stand out you know when they truly get it right, when it comes to finding and retaining the right people. Let's say they have their culture and they know what they're looking for and they're able to retain the right people.
00:21:12
Speaker
What are these characteristics you see in some of these companies you really admire?
00:21:18
Speaker
um You know, I'm going to take a on that question, I'll take a little detour for you. So the it sounds a little weird, but like the one thing that I see a lot of really great companies, the ones I admire is they are in touch with what it is their employees ah value and what, you know, really, how do they connect with them?
00:21:40
Speaker
And then they create opportunities for that. And so what I mean by that is, um you know, again, I'm not going to repeat myself on the the how they know their culture and all that, but they have they've done the work to understand their employee the detour would take on this is if you're working with this new generation of workers okay gen z uh millennial is like the biggest you know part of the workforce today but if you're working with gen z and millennials you need to understand that the the thing they
00:22:11
Speaker
need most, the thing they desire most is connection to your company and it's value. they have to Their role has to have value in their life. It's not money, right? Money is table stakes.
00:22:23
Speaker
it's ah It's not 401k, that's table stakes, okay? It's am I valued in my company and do am i what I'm doing is that valuable? And so I think that the companies that I admire the most, they really are in tune with that. They they can show and they give their their employees opportunities.
00:22:41
Speaker
yeah Some ways I see that, if you really want specifics, it's there's There's big and small companies that they have little incubator opportunities for their own employees, no matter where they are, to come up with great ideas and work on those.
00:22:56
Speaker
That can create value. um Other ones do, you know, they they force it, but they they create connection between employees so that they have, you know, ah best friend at the company and they have people that they can go to.
00:23:11
Speaker
um So I think that's really kind of what I see people doing really well. I love that. I love that. And and I think it it sends a good message, I think, to business owners, HR leaders about things they can do to start building this culture prior to hiring. i mean, you talk about what is your culture, right? And what are we looking for, right? to And then when we find people we're looking for,
00:23:39
Speaker
what happens in those first you know three months that that that they're there. um i think that those are pretty good insights into making that ah experience really
00:23:50
Speaker
more
AI and Recruitment: Impact and Trends
00:23:51
Speaker
effective. um Have you noticed any maybe new or surprising ways you feel companies are kind of leveraging software to to change how they recruit and hire to support their people to foster the culture. You know, you talked about, you talked about how any anything that has AI on these days, people are like running after.
00:24:09
Speaker
What have you found people are doing, you know, recently that changed this process or to help support their people or their culture? Yeah, a few things. um So yes, AI is completely disrupting this industry. um Where I'm seeing it effective is in the way that AI can eliminate or significantly reduce mundane tasks, okay?
00:24:36
Speaker
So as an example, you know we have a feature that you just type in a job name and it automatically writes your job description using AI. um And that's cool, okay? that's That's a mundane task that you can eliminate.
00:24:50
Speaker
I'm seeing AI um start to infiltrate initial evaluation of employee candidates, employees, um where AI bots are having conversations with candidates, um handling initial type, you know disqualification type questions or basic qualification type questions.
00:25:11
Speaker
um AI is obviously doing a lot of follow up. It's automating follow up between ah candidates and employers. um I would tell you on the the flip side where the the new trend is going is on retention software.
00:25:28
Speaker
What a lot of businesses today are realizing is there's just not enough humans in order to fill all the positions in certain industries. um There's a reality where you had the biggest generation, baby boomers have now essentially left the workforce and there's just not enough people to fill all of those roles. And so employee retention is really important.
00:25:49
Speaker
On top of that, there's the there's the reality too that good employees, no matter what the labor market is, no matter if it's a tight labor market or not, good employees are always in demand and they will leave unless they feel valued. So ah per retaining those employees is really important. And I'm seeing companies add on software.
00:26:09
Speaker
um Look, I'm not here plugging Mustard Hub, but like adding in benefit software, adding in retention software, adding in um engagement software, things that are trying to help them automate the personal connection and the benefits of working in a company that is becoming incredibly trendy. If you're not looking into it, I would absolutely start looking into that.
00:26:32
Speaker
Yeah. um You said something really interesting about how AI is, you know, doing mundane tasks, but also participating in the evaluation of candidates.
00:26:44
Speaker
Um, I'm really curious to hear your take on the efficacy, at least right right now. it's It's clearly in its infancy. i mean, what what's what's your take on that? Do you feel like you know ah these organizations are making the right choices when selecting the tech and the software that they use you know throughout this employee and and hiring lifecycle?
00:27:08
Speaker
um And how do you feel that I'm curious how you feel about the efficacy of the AI when it comes to that part of the evaluation process. right. So how do I look at that? I think it's a widely debated topic right now and it's hot. And and i the answer isn't defined yet.
00:27:27
Speaker
um My personal opinion is i think it can be used in a really valuable way as a tool to help you evaluate. I would absolutely not rely on an AI generated solution to make a decision on a candidate, either keep, add, remove, you know, any of that type of stuff. So I wouldn't do, i wouldn't do any of that, but I would use it as a data point or a tool to help you evaluate.
00:27:57
Speaker
Yeah. A lot of these various systems are, spit out a lot of data. Do you ever notice ah maybe a disconnect between what's being tracked and what actually drives results, what works?
00:28:15
Speaker
What's being tracked and what drives results? um I think there's a movement right now to track everything. There's a movement to track it all. ah the What drives results is really going to be based on the business itself.
00:28:29
Speaker
um So I don't know if I have a clear black and white answer for you on that. um Well, let me ask you a different question.
Organizational Success and Employee Fulfillment
00:28:39
Speaker
If you could design a dashboard, you're let's say you're designing a dashboard four ah for CareerPlug, right? And it's going to reveal just one key people signal inside an organization.
00:28:53
Speaker
What insight are you going to want it to surface?
00:28:59
Speaker
All right, you you're you can kind tell me this is a cop-out answer if you want, but I would probably define that as fulfillment. Now, there's most likely some data points that are going to need to be ingested to determine what is you know is fulfillment, but it's it's employee fulfillment.
00:29:17
Speaker
And so the data points that I typically would look at is is this person achieving their goals because if they're successful they have a higher tendency to stay if they're not successful they have better tendency or higher tendency to leave um does this person have are they connected to the organization are they involved in outside work things are they involved in committees inside do they have friends inside of of the organization. A lot of that can be facilitated through things like E-NPS, right? Employment employment NPS. um I would also add in there growth.
00:29:58
Speaker
Is this person on a growth trajectory? Growth can mean they're being supported by the company. Growth can mean they've been promoted. They're on track to be promoted.
00:30:09
Speaker
um but they have some level of trajectory. like You nail growth, you nail I'm connected with the company, you nail success. Those three data points would really lead to fulfillment.
00:30:21
Speaker
So go maybe a cop out answer, but. No, no, no, no. It's well, it's, it's, it's taking three things and seeing how you can put that together into one metric. That's exactly what I did.
00:30:32
Speaker
um Share, tell me a story about a team, ah client, you know, a business. that experienced a turning point, good or bad, right? It can be ah it can be good or bad, but because of a people-related dynamic. So, or maybe a change in their recruiting or hiring process, right? um When...
00:30:55
Speaker
So we i told the story earlier about our sales leader who was a bad example. And we brought in the wrong sales leader who wasn't aligned with our values. and And ultimately what that led to was he was let go. We had eight people that he brought into the organization. All of them were let go or transitioned out of the company.
00:31:15
Speaker
ah So it was a real disaster. um it was It was a tough situation. On the flip side, i would tell you, we we were struggling with our support team. Our customer support team was really struggling to deliver results. and one of the things that we did is we brought in a new leader. We we took our time, we made a decision to bring in the right person. And that one person, just one hire Curtis,
00:31:41
Speaker
completely turned that team around. And they just focused on very simple things like let's deliver on our metrics on a daily basis. right Let's get the data of of your results in front of everybody.
00:31:54
Speaker
um Let's create a a more fun culture. let's Let's have fun coming to work. They just did some really basic things, but the one leader really completely turned that. And now that department with inside of career plug is one of the best performing departments. It has some of the highest ENPS scores in our entire organization. that leader was you, right?
00:32:15
Speaker
That leader was not me. That leader was not me. Um, unfortunately, uh, but I think those are, those are examples of when you get it right, it can be, it can be really good. yeah Um, I would,
00:32:30
Speaker
If you wanted to add in some of our clients, I think solving some big problems like giving them the right technology solution to be able to to find candidates or giving them the right technology solution to be able to evaluate people.
00:32:44
Speaker
um That's been a turning point for a lot of our clients as well. That's, I mean, i that can totally be transformative. Yeah. um Especially when, like when that technology, you know, is really nails it. So when you think of tomorrow's, you know, to do a little bit of future focused or forward thinking
Understanding Gen Z and Millennials in the Workplace
00:33:03
Speaker
here. When you think of tomorrow's leaders,
00:33:06
Speaker
What do they need to grasp about people and culture? And you referenced the new generation, right? So I think that we kind of, I feel like I know what's coming here, but I want you to go into some detail about what do they need to grasp about people and culture that I think a lot of today's leaders might be missing?
00:33:26
Speaker
I would say got to understand the motivation of Gen Z, the motivation of millennials. Okay. and And that motivation isn't make more money.
00:33:37
Speaker
that Yes, they want to make money. Okay. But it's not their biggest, it's purpose. and And is this valuable? Is this something that I'm doing? am ah Is it valuable to me? Is it valuable to the company? Do I have yeah i add value every single day?
00:33:51
Speaker
um that's what they're looking for. And so it's not like, hey, give me more hours or give me flexibility. ah Yes, those things are nice, but they're really looking at am what I'm doing purposeful and valuable to the world, to me, to the company.
00:34:09
Speaker
yeah That's where I would focus. as as companies become more deliberate about how they support their people, you know you talked about the shift and how it's very much moving towards retaining their people.
00:34:21
Speaker
you know and And I think as they become more deliberate about this kind of support, how do you see your own work adapting or evolving?
00:34:32
Speaker
um You know, for us, we we used to be just focused on attracting and hiring people. Like our software was was just that. and And recently we've launched employee engagement and employee retention tools. And what we saw was the shift in the market of going, A, we need help retaining our employees.
00:34:53
Speaker
Okay. that was That was real need for our client base. um And B, we just... we needed to create this connection. Like our Clint, our our founder had a vision.
00:35:04
Speaker
He said, you know what I don't, I don't want to be transactional with our clients. I want to really, I want to be purposeful. I want to help them grow their business. So I would say that's probably how we have evolved mostly, most recently.
00:35:19
Speaker
it It's such a an important perspective too, because I think in the world of you know in the world of hiring a lot of ATS systems, so much of it has become commoditized that um there an effort has to be made right to deepen that relationship with your own customers and your own clients. right um You want to retain those clients, right? for you know and And help them well beyond that transaction.
00:35:49
Speaker
So that makes ah that makes perfect sense. So business leader comes to you for advice on how to get it right when they're growing and retaining their team.
Core Values and Disciplined Execution
00:36:02
Speaker
You're on an airplane, you're about to get off, everybody's got their bags and people in front of you are leaving. You have an opportunity to tell him one thing before he runs down the jetway.
00:36:15
Speaker
What's your advice? Wow. i There's a lot of gravity to this question here, Chris. You're on the line. So we've been talking about, their theyre they are growing in their business.
00:36:29
Speaker
what let's Let's assume, let's hope so. Yeah. um Man, i I don't know. I feel like I would hope I would come up with something more inspirational. But um I mean, if they're if they're if they're doing all of this right, if they're doing all of it right, I just want to tell them to keep going.
00:36:50
Speaker
yeah um And if they're not, call Career Plug because we can help. Yeah. No, no. I... I think, you know, I don't think I'm answering your question, but I think I would would remind a lot of small business owners, and I do, just to, hey, this isn't about a new shiny toy.
00:37:08
Speaker
Like, this isn't about what software are you going to go and find. It's about the basics, which is focus on your culture first, okay? Focus on what you want to be, um and then just be really disciplined to doing that.
00:37:21
Speaker
Like, this isn't your question, but one of the things that I see small businesses do so often incorrectly is they chase the next opportunity and they forget who they are at their core.
00:37:34
Speaker
we've been really successful because we've we've said no to so many different opportunities. and And we've just stayed razor sharp focused on who we are, what we do best, how we're gonna help our clients. that's That's great, that that works. It reduces the complexity within your business.
00:37:52
Speaker
I'm hearing the coach come out in this question because you know The reality is, and and and there's some you know some very famous and popular sayings out there that undefeated seasons right or or impeccable records don't come from chasing wins.
00:38:17
Speaker
They come from chasing excellence every day. and It's about being disciplined. right Hard work works. um you know, not to not not to bring it full circle, but we kind of do, right? Because you coach you coach kids, right? And if you're disciplined and if you play to win that down, right? If you play to win, you know, that job on that play, every play,
00:38:49
Speaker
And some of that comes along with focus on the fundamentals, right? The fundamentals are what what will win. um You know, and it's true in business. It's true on the football field.
00:39:00
Speaker
You know, those things are are kind of the same. So I think that that does answer the question, you know, if I may put it succinctly like that. You know, there's, there's something I tell a lot of the football players that I coach and it's, I can tell who's going to be really good and who's not. And it's not in a game. It's not who scored the touchdown. It's who loves practice.
00:39:22
Speaker
And, uh, and those people who are excited to show up to practice every day, like eventually they're going to grow and eventually they're going to get it and something's going to click. But if you love practice, if you show up every day and you love what you're doing, you're going to win.
00:39:34
Speaker
You will. Yeah.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:39:37
Speaker
I love that. And that's a great way to sort of, uh, wrap this up. Chris, I love chatting with you. We've gotten to know each other over the last little while. So it's always a a pleasure chatting. Thank you so much for being here. This is fantastic conversation.
00:39:53
Speaker
Well, thanks for having me, Curtis. It's always fun chatting with you too. Hopefully there's a nugget or two in in this conversation that can help somebody else out. Oh yeah, and me. I know I'm going to go back and watch it, but thank you all for tuning in to Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. If you got any value out of the conversation,
00:40:11
Speaker
Share it with a friend or colleague. ah Check us out at mustardhub.com to see how we help companies become destinations for workplace happiness and turn culture into a competitive edge. Until next time.