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The Frontlines with Discount Tire's Chris Bodlovic
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In this episode of The Frontlines Podcast, host Tim Sackett sits down with Chris Bodlovic, Head of Talent Acquisition Strategy and Systems at Discount Tire, to explore how one of America’s largest tire retailers is rethinking hourly hiring across more than 1,100 locations. Drawing on leadership experience at Discount Tire, Cisco Systems, and Amazon, Chris shares a practical, data-driven perspective on recruiting frontline talent at scale while preserving the human experience that defines the company’s culture.
Chris takes listeners inside Discount Tire’s effort to compete for talent in a challenging hourly labor market. The company hires people without prior tire experience, trains them from the ground up, and offers a legitimate path from an entry-level store position to running a location with significant earning potential. The challenge is communicating that career opportunity to candidates who may see only a physically demanding hourly job—and who can often earn similar wages doing easier work elsewhere.
Tim and Chris dig into how Discount Tire is reducing time to contact, using conversational automation to engage candidates whenever they are ready, and giving local managers the flexibility to move quickly. Chris reveals that nearly 90% of candidates offered an automated conversational path choose it, approximately 88% complete it, and more than 40% engage outside normal business hours. The goal isn’t to eliminate recruiters or managers—it’s to use technology to get qualified, interested candidates to meaningful human conversations faster.
The conversation also challenges talent acquisition leaders to stop treating retention as someone else’s problem. Discount Tire’s workforce data uncovered a striking connection between scheduled hours and turnover: retention peaked at roughly 21.2 hours per week, while employees receiving 15 hours or fewer experienced dramatically higher attrition. That discovery reframed a perceived recruiting problem as a workforce planning and scheduling problem.
Finally, Tim and Chris look ahead at AI’s role in frontline talent acquisition—from intelligent scheduling and automated interviewing to personal career agents that may eventually bring jobs directly to workers. Chris also warns against “artificial expertise”: AI tools built by people who don’t understand recruiting, selection, bias, or the quality of the underlying data.
For TA leaders working in retail, hospitality, manufacturing, distribution, healthcare, or any high-volume environment, this episode offers a powerful reminder: recruiting technology only creates value when it solves the right business problem. If you want to hire faster, retain longer, improve workforce planning, and prepare for the next generation of AI-powered talent marketplaces, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.
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Transcript
Introduction and Co-Host Change
00:00:03
Tim Sackett
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Frontlines podcast. I'm your host, Tim Sackett. My co-host Madeline's not here today, but I brought in some talent to begin with. So we'll get right into it.
Chris Bodlevic's Career Journey
00:00:15
Tim Sackett
Chris, don't you introduce yourself to everybody, the millions of listeners we have worldwide.
00:00:20
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah, you bet. Chris Bodlevic, have strategy systems and TA at Discount Tire. ah My path ah was through Cisco Systems and Amazon, and I found myself here about five years ago.
00:00:35
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
Lifestyle Change: Seattle to Scottsdale
00:00:36
Tim Sackett
So you're yeah are you guys headquartered out of like Arizona, Phoenix area?
00:00:40
Chris Bodlovic
Scottsdale.
00:00:40
Tim Sackett
or just and that you're That's Scottsdale, so that's where you're headed.
00:00:42
Chris Bodlovic
Yep.
00:00:43
Tim Sackett
Have you been there for and are you like a lifelong Scottsdale person?
00:00:47
Chris Bodlovic
ah i was Sorry, say that again?
00:00:50
Tim Sackett
Are you like a lifelong Scottsdale person?
00:00:52
Chris Bodlovic
no, no, no. I was in Seattle for 40 plus years.
00:00:55
Tim Sackett
Oh, wow. Okay.
00:00:56
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah. So, yeah, big, big change for sure.
00:00:57
Tim Sackett
that's a huge change.
00:01:00
Tim Sackett
Do you like it?
00:01:01
Chris Bodlovic
I do like it. This state actually is a lot more diverse than I ever thought. Came here a few times golfing, never thought much of it. Like just hot place, but it's actually pretty cool.
00:01:08
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:01:11
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah. I think I like the desert, like dry climate, sunny. Like I'm like, how can I like feel bad about this? like I'm in Michigan. So it's like gray and crappy most of the time. So, you know,
00:01:20
Chris Bodlovic
Well, that's where we were founded, Ann Arbor. So counts of I guess. if
00:01:25
Tim Sackett
I know it's crazy. Cause they have like, you have like but discount tires out of Ann Arbor. I think bell tire was also out of Detroit too. Right.
00:01:33
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah, honestly, not not the not the thoroughbred tire guy, but yeah.
00:01:33
Tim Sackett
i think it's, it's
00:01:39
Tim Sackett
I always think it's funny though how like competition kind of breeds more competition when like one place, like all the pizza places you have like Domino's and Little Caesars. Like again, like they kind of grew up next to each other for the most part. It's crazy. You know?
Tim's Discount Tire Experience
00:01:50
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah, and we have a lot of regional competition, mom and pop. There's some that have been acquiring that trying to play broader in the space nationwide, but we pretty much dominate as far as in the U.S.
00:01:59
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:03
Chris Bodlovic
for sure.
00:02:04
Tim Sackett
Well, I'm definitely a customer. I can't tell you. like like Having three sons that are all grown-ass men at this point, like the amount of tires I've had to buy for cars over the years has it been insane. so I've been plenty plenty of discount tire like locations.
00:02:19
Chris Bodlovic
Absolutely.
Chris's First Job Experience
00:02:21
Tim Sackett
Chris, we start every pot off with a question, which is what was your first frontline kind of hourly hiring job?
00:02:30
Chris Bodlovic
ah To be honest, ah probably tangential was at Amazon for our warehouses. um That was more of a how do we support the employees coming in, not the direct hiring. This was probably the first job I had that supported um frontline hiring directly.
00:02:50
Tim Sackett
No, I meant like you personally, like hourly job that you worked, like 16 years old.
00:02:54
Chris Bodlovic
Oh, oh my gosh.
00:02:55
Tim Sackett
what like What was your first first hourly job? Yeah.
00:03:00
Chris Bodlovic
Sorry. I was bored during the summer. um I walked into a pet shop. I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian. um The owner, I'm like, hey, can i can I work just for free for the summer just because I want something to do?
00:03:13
Chris Bodlovic
And he's like, are you?
00:03:14
Tim Sackett
How old were you?
00:03:15
Chris Bodlovic
I was like 15. And he's like, like can't I don't know if I can really hire until he's 16.
00:03:16
Tim Sackett
Okay. Okay.
00:03:19
Chris Bodlovic
But i sure. it's kind of weird.
00:03:22
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:03:23
Chris Bodlovic
But he's he said, sure. So I worked for like two months, I guess. He handed me a $100 bill when I was done this summer. i was like, that was like gold. was like, are you kidding me?
00:03:35
Chris Bodlovic
Like was fortune. And he said, hey, you want to, ah I'd love to hire you after school while you're going or whatever and weekends. I said, I'm in.
00:03:42
Tim Sackett
Nice.
00:03:42
Chris Bodlovic
I worked for him all the way through. i had three to three jobs during college actually, but I worked for him for four and a half, five years.
00:03:51
Tim Sackett
Isn't that crazy how like we just like show up and go, okay.
00:03:51
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah.
00:03:54
Tim Sackett
Was it like, is like a pet store like where they had actual live pets too? Or like, it was it just like all the like materials.
00:04:00
Chris Bodlovic
No, it was it was everything. ah Dogs, cats, you know, the at that time, you know, crazy exotic, you know, reptiles that could kill you and monkeys.
00:04:12
Chris Bodlovic
And yeah, and he just kind of turned me loose. He let me kind of do whatever I wanted to do. And um ah he almost treated me more like a son. Occasionally, I'd find myself working on his car too.
00:04:23
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah.
00:04:23
Tim Sackett
Oh, yeah.
00:04:25
Chris Bodlovic
But it was a blast. The gal that started working there with me literally is still there.
00:04:32
Tim Sackett
That's insane.
00:04:33
Chris Bodlovic
I can't even imagine.
00:04:33
Tim Sackett
and literally I – I believe – tell myself all the time I believe and I thought it was like USA Today. Remember when USA Today the paper would have – in the bottom corner, they would always have like some little crazy graphic metric.
00:04:45
Tim Sackett
It would be like 97% of people get married to their cousin or some stupid thing.
00:04:46
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah.
00:04:51
Tim Sackett
guy you know It's like like you were just like, oh my god, this is crazy. And I believe – and again, like I totally believe I read it like that 85% hourly workers
00:05:00
Chris Bodlovic
Sure there.
The Nature of Hourly Work
00:05:01
Tim Sackett
will only work hourly work their entire career. And like, to me, it's a crazy stat. So then I started getting into Claude and GBT and all these, like trying to find, I'm like, I need a reference for this. I know it's true.
00:05:11
Tim Sackett
And they're just like, dude, it's not, there's no, it's not true. Now, the one thing they said, they go, you might've misinterpreted. It's like 80% hourly workers will only work an hourly job. They'll never get promoted from like within to like a management leadership job because of college education and the financial aspects, all that stuff. So that, that might be the case, but I'm always like, I'm like, I meet people like the the lady that you started with and they like you go, man, 40 years, 50 years.
00:05:42
Tim Sackett
And I've like, you know, I worked retail um in TA and HR for a long time.
00:05:42
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah.
00:05:47
Tim Sackett
And I would run into these women that would work in our stores that they started when they were 16, 17, 18 years old and they would retire. And they've worked that job. They've got married, kids, you know, husband died. Like their entire life was spent in this store. I'm like, wow, that's crazy to me.
00:06:04
Chris Bodlovic
That's Joni. And our commute, Sultan to Kenmore. that's no That's no short drive. And she's done that literally her whole life.
00:06:13
Tim Sackett
Isn't that crazy?
00:06:14
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah, it's pretty crazy.
00:06:15
Tim Sackett
It's crazy to me.
00:06:15
Chris Bodlovic
It's funny though, you say that like moving from hour hourly to some salary job. might My transition was literally because, was at Safeco Insurance Company because I wouldn't wear a suit.
00:06:28
Tim Sackett
So there's a you can't get promoted.
00:06:29
Chris Bodlovic
I was like, you know, if you're going to get promoted, you know, you should really consider wearing a suit like everyone else. I'm like, my job description doesn't require it. And they said, but it would be better for you. And I'm like, if I'm going to get promoted because I want to, because I wear a suit, I want to work here.
00:06:45
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:06:45
Chris Bodlovic
So then they promoted me and then they're I'm like, yeah, but you still you still didn't meet the criteria.
00:06:47
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:06:51
Chris Bodlovic
So after I was promoted to salaried job, I quit two months later and went to Cisco.
00:06:58
Tim Sackett
You're like, yeah, I'm out of here.
00:07:00
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah, I'm out of here.
00:07:00
Tim Sackett
So I'll never have to wear a suit for sure. Same thing.
00:07:03
Chris Bodlovic
Exactly.
00:07:05
Tim Sackett
like My first job out of college was recruiting and like I had to wear a suit and tie to come to it like a cube and sit in a cube all day long. We knew you were never out seeing customers, but somehow you had to show up in a suit and tie. you like It was the dumbest thing ever. Like I hated it. So like I literally had a kid, a new higher grad come in that, um, gotten referred to me and they're like, Oh, go meet with him He can give you some advice or whatever. I'm like, Oh yeah. Like set up some time. He came into the office and he comes in and he's got like the shirt and tie. And I have like literally a polo shirt and shorts on.
00:07:35
Tim Sackett
And I'm like, oh I'm sorry. yeah I should have told you. I am.
00:07:39
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah.
00:07:39
Tim Sackett
I got one suit to my name and it goes to weddings and funerals. That's the only thing. That's the only time I'm wearing that baby.
00:07:45
Chris Bodlovic
Well, having seen it all, you know, at like at Safeco is interesting, not only suit and tie, but it was like the bell rang. That was your 9 a.m. m break, your 3 p.m.
00:07:55
Chris Bodlovic
break, your lunch break.
00:07:56
Tim Sackett
oh Oh. and
00:07:57
Chris Bodlovic
Very rigorous. Right. And then, you know, years later at Amazon, you know, people are walking around in flip flops and PJ bottoms. You know, it's like, what the hell?
00:08:06
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And taking it taking a nap in some cube at 3 p.m. knowing that they're going to be there until 11 p.m. doing something else or whatever.
00:08:13
Chris Bodlovic
There
Hiring Challenges and Career Perceptions
00:08:14
Tim Sackett
You know, it's like – Just kind of crazy. What kind of a crazy work environment? So um give us a little bit of the layout of like discount tire in terms of like how many hourly hires, kind of what's your process? Like we're trying to teach people how to do this better. So give us a little lay down on what you guys do.
00:08:14
Chris Bodlovic
it you bet.
00:08:31
Chris Bodlovic
yeah you bet um so we have probably about applicants that yield about a year.
00:08:42
Chris Bodlovic
Um, been working on the biggest thing since I got here probably is just attrition, you know, cause in that same story, you know, different movie, but in the day, you know, when you start to look at kind of the triggers, especially after COVID, um, and a lot of the research that came out, people looking for just.
00:08:48
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:53
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:09:04
Chris Bodlovic
you know, some some place that cares about them, um you know, like these more humanistic kind of things. It was interesting because you think about the highest attrition companies that I was running into, you know, like FedEx drivers or whatever it, you know, ah I won't cop ah throw out percentages, but don't don't hold me to them.
00:09:19
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:09:23
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:09:24
Chris Bodlovic
But, you know, at some one point, maybe 250%.
00:09:25
Tim Sackett
I know.
00:09:28
Tim Sackett
Oh, yeah.
00:09:28
Chris Bodlovic
You know, some older driving around by themselves all day long, no anything, right? Warehouses, you know, same kind of thing.
00:09:34
Tim Sackett
Oh, I can imagine like the and driver turnover, like warehouse turnover.
00:09:36
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah, we were a wireless building, know, 100%, you know, ah those were really high.
00:09:38
Tim Sackett
yeah. how turn over like o Yeah.
00:09:42
Chris Bodlovic
So we kind of like focus on the culture was good, but we have a interesting problem because um our problem was we have ah an hourly job that's very physical,
00:09:55
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:09:55
Chris Bodlovic
Right. So ah there's that dynamic.
00:09:56
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:09:59
Chris Bodlovic
It's like, okay, I can change tires and get sweaty, dirty and sore as I build muscle or I put burgers for the same price or better, depending on what state you're in.
00:10:04
Tim Sackett
Yeah. You're
00:10:11
Chris Bodlovic
um And ah so it's like, what's the value proposition kind of in that, right? And so our competition, because we don't require any prior knowledge.
00:10:21
Chris Bodlovic
So we'll train.
00:10:22
Tim Sackett
going to train them. Yeah.
00:10:23
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah.
00:10:23
Tim Sackett
Train them up on it.
00:10:23
Chris Bodlovic
we
00:10:24
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:10:25
Chris Bodlovic
So it's an interesting competition. So you got the McDonald's who look at technology as a, how do I just get anyone in there as fast as humanly possible? and it could be in minutes.
00:10:33
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:10:34
Chris Bodlovic
um So the Friday occasional looker um and our you know our people come back in and look at a backlog already on a Monday.
00:10:34
Tim Sackett
Yeah, yeah.
00:10:42
Chris Bodlovic
And it' was like, that's a problem. So our time to kind of reach out to people and the ghosting that happens was was really hard.
00:10:51
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:10:51
Chris Bodlovic
So it's like that was the fundamental problem. Like, how do we think of these as career oriented job? Because we have great stories to tell. um Even at our conference, you know we had Enterprise in the room, right?
00:11:02
Chris Bodlovic
They're kind of known for this leadership and training kind of
00:11:02
Tim Sackett
yeah Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:05
Chris Bodlovic
It's like, how do you how do you get that brand? like um you know and So I think for us is you know when we we when we look at managers of our stores, like they get the, we call it getting the keys to the store.
00:11:19
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:11:19
Chris Bodlovic
And these aren't franchises, these are all just privately owned, but you literally get the keys and you're kind of uncapped in your earnings potential.
00:11:23
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:11:27
Chris Bodlovic
And so we got managers make a lot of money, you know?
00:11:29
Tim Sackett
you're yeah how many So how many locations do you have?
00:11:33
Chris Bodlovic
Uh, 1100 plus and growing up.
00:11:35
Tim Sackett
So you have like 1,100 small businesses, really. I mean, those guys are running their own business for the most part, right? They're running their own P&L.
00:11:40
Chris Bodlovic
Absolutely.
00:11:41
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:11:42
Chris Bodlovic
Absolutely. And corporate services over the last probably decade is we've kind of refined, cause we have, you know, it's more of a, how do we scale faster, better, you know, those realities. Right.
00:11:52
Chris Bodlovic
So you can't be as probably rogue as maybe in the early days, just kind of, kind of grow up right in the, in your company.
00:11:52
Tim Sackett
Yeah, yeah.
00:12:00
Tim Sackett
Yep.
00:12:01
Chris Bodlovic
But even still a lot of autonomy um to get things done, you know?
00:12:04
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:07
Chris Bodlovic
So.
00:12:07
Tim Sackett
So when you think about how you support like hiring at those locations, are you guys like, is the general manager still like, is there, they're in charge of doing interviews and doing like, what's the process of them hiring?
00:12:19
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah, so what what we have two kind of paths. We'll have kind of the walk-in path, we call it.
00:12:25
Tim Sackett
you
00:12:25
Chris Bodlovic
So how do we just get out of their way? So if someone just drops in, we don't want to impede progress.
00:12:27
Tim Sackett
Yeah. yeah
00:12:30
Chris Bodlovic
So yeah,
00:12:31
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah. cinemo No, go outside and get on the computer and do that stuff. Yeah.
00:12:35
Chris Bodlovic
100%. So they can like do a quick scan of a QR in there. It auditely drops them in ISIMs.
00:12:40
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:12:40
Chris Bodlovic
um They can conduct an interview done and push them to hire. like They can do it as fast as they want.
00:12:46
Tim Sackett
Yeah. yeah
00:12:46
Chris Bodlovic
um The normal flows, we've been trying to get away from a lot of the job you know postings and things and really really rely on our own um um job sites and things.
00:12:58
Chris Bodlovic
um So we've done a really good job at that.
00:12:58
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:13:00
Chris Bodlovic
um We've been really lowering lowering the amount of people that we need to get in our pipeline for that. But we have a long way to go. And I think the long way to go for us is closing the gap of time to contact.
00:13:15
Chris Bodlovic
It's the one that's most important to me
00:13:15
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:13:18
Chris Bodlovic
And so we're looking at mainly a lot of our automation around how do we get into some kind of very humanistic conversational interface that can just meet people where they are.
Automation in Hiring and Employee Retention
00:13:30
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:13:30
Chris Bodlovic
and and just get them to a, these these are likely. So when we're making phone calls, they're very deliberate phone calls. We're not getting ready humans in that process.
00:13:40
Tim Sackett
Yep.
00:13:40
Chris Bodlovic
And what we found is, you know i think we're I think we're seeing things that are that other companies aren't. Like we have almost a 90% uptick on people at choosing that path.
00:13:52
Chris Bodlovic
So he's like, you can choose this path or wait for a call.
00:13:54
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:13:55
Chris Bodlovic
Everybody's like choosing the path. ah The completion rate's at 88-ish, so only a few people just bail out.
00:14:02
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:14:02
Chris Bodlovic
um The time they're doing it, some like all of a sudden you're in hours worth of effort it's like, what's going on there?
00:14:10
Tim Sackett
Yeah. No, yeah.
00:14:11
Chris Bodlovic
Well, they started on Friday. They i got to make dinner for the kids.
00:14:13
Tim Sackett
f
00:14:15
Chris Bodlovic
They come back to it. Like that's not a normal conversation with a recruiter, right? Hey, I can get back after I'm done with dinner.
00:14:21
Tim Sackett
oh yeah
00:14:23
Chris Bodlovic
I'm little tired right now. So so we found that most, I think was 40 some odd percent of the people engaging are off hours for us.
00:14:32
Tim Sackett
Yeah, that's good. Yeah.
00:14:34
Chris Bodlovic
So it's like winning. So I think it's just how do we make that secret sauce work better and how do we evolve it?
00:14:36
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:14:41
Chris Bodlovic
that's kind of the journey we're on with that. And the only other critical thing for that was what do you ask? What's your intent through what are we inspecting for?
00:14:50
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:14:50
Chris Bodlovic
Now we spend a bunch of time with our AVPs in the field. And what we really wanted to do was what are the kind of the natural attributes and criteria of which we want to really get to these humanistic things that are around like intent? Like, are they career oriented? Do they do they like team challenges? Do they like like these kinds of things that um kind of start to give you a sense of what folks are looking for and can we meet the need and does our value proposition meet theirs and you know these managers our average time is like seven and a half years so you think about maybe a high schooler coming out or even early in college in seven years could make you know really good money versus
00:15:22
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:15:37
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:15:43
Chris Bodlovic
you know you know that You know what's going on with colleges now.
00:15:44
Tim Sackett
I know.
00:15:45
Chris Bodlovic
They're afraid of the future. Like trade, I mean, a ah thing, right?
00:15:47
Tim Sackett
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:15:50
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:15:50
Chris Bodlovic
Payback for college institutions has always been a problem. So we have an interesting value proposition. I i think i think we're close.
00:15:57
Tim Sackett
Yeah. For years, I actually had um in my neighborhood that I lived in, and it was kind of your normal, you know, upper suburban kind of neighborhood, nice houses and the manicured lawns. And two houses down from me were was two managers of ah like Walmart.
00:16:13
Tim Sackett
And they people had no idea how much money you can make managing a Walmart. And they were just like, you know, they they were like same thing. They had started at Walmart, like right out of high school, kind of worked their way up.
00:16:24
Tim Sackett
And then they were making six figures plus each and they were just like, and people are just kind of like, holy crap, like you're in your 30s and you're living in the a good neighborhood and doing all this like – Like, and then when we were at Applebee's, same thing, our general managers would make really, really good money. And you're just kind of like, people just kind of sleep on those jobs. I think primarily because they're like, well, you have to work a Saturday or Sunday, you have to work nights or whatever. you're like, well, yeah, but you're also, you're managing your business. So you could probably actually, you don't have to work every Saturday and Sunday. you don't have to work every night. Like, you know, was like, you can manage your schedule the way that you need to, you know?
00:17:00
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:01
Tim Sackett
It's crazy.
00:17:01
Chris Bodlovic
And I think pay transparency is an interesting one too, because we've been, we don't really talk about like the, ah what managers can really do or like kind of conservative in that regard.
00:17:02
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:17:13
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:17:14
Chris Bodlovic
But you go to a Texas and Bucky has a you know, Bucky's has a sandwich board out front saying, you know,
00:17:18
Tim Sackett
Oh yeah. Yeah. You can make $170,000 a You're what?
00:17:22
Chris Bodlovic
What the heck? Well, you can do anything in Texas, I guess. But it's like ah um it's like we almost feel disadvantaged by the fact that, um you know, some get really bold with it.
00:17:34
Chris Bodlovic
um But i think I think compliance will start to solve some of those problems for everybody. Yeah.
00:17:41
Tim Sackett
Hey, you sort you started talking about like the retention turnover piece and how valuable that And I think it's ah it's one of those things I think that's lost in the talent acquisition discussion because we always just think of hire more, more, and more, more. more and like i like I love saying like the best hire we've ever made is the one we don't have to because we actually like kept somebody, right?
00:18:02
Chris Bodlovic
Yes.
00:18:02
Tim Sackett
I can be amazing in recruiting if I never have to hire. Yeah. Because we've kept everybody.
00:18:07
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah.
00:18:08
Tim Sackett
Have you found like any nuggets of wisdom as you guys are digging into this, trying to solve this? are Is there certain things around those hourly jobs that are helping keep people longer?
00:18:19
Chris Bodlovic
Oh, yeah, that's an easy one. Commitment.
00:18:21
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:18:22
Chris Bodlovic
I think commitment.
00:18:23
Tim Sackett
Commitment to what though? I mean, commitment to, are there their own?
00:18:25
Chris Bodlovic
to Yeah, commitment to like when I think when you When you have a value proposition that says we care about people, um when you know we have these handshakes coming in.
00:18:39
Chris Bodlovic
yeah i'm a friend I'm a Midwest kid. i was great So there's this there was this inherent thing in me that says when you handshake, that's your bond, you're good.
00:18:41
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:18:47
Tim Sackett
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
00:18:47
Chris Bodlovic
It's never one-sided. You can't have a one-sided handshake, right? So when you if we live like what...
00:18:52
Tim Sackett
yeah.
00:18:55
Chris Bodlovic
we have on our website about who we are and our founder and the and the amazing way in which he built this company and our life principles and all these things and integrity and honesty. Will they experience it when they get here is the question.
00:19:09
Chris Bodlovic
So when we say,
00:19:09
Tim Sackett
That's always, yeah, especially in a multi-unit environment because you'll have some that are perfect and some that are not.
00:19:13
Chris Bodlovic
There it is. 100%. that's the that's the golden string, right?
00:19:19
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:19:19
Chris Bodlovic
You have that experience all the way through. It's like, wow, they really meant what they said all the way along. So when you have this handshake says, you know, I'm going to give you 20 hours a week, 15 hours a week or whatever, and it's like, no, no.
00:19:32
Chris Bodlovic
10 this week, guys, or whatever. And all a sudden it's like, well, you know what the heck's going on? So the early research I did was start to look at what's the sweet spot where retention just peaks. It's like we get a blip.
00:19:45
Chris Bodlovic
And strangely enough, it was at 21.2 hours.
00:19:49
Chris Bodlovic
And I'm like, interesting. Why in the heck 21, two? like such a random number.
00:19:54
Tim Sackett
yeah trying Trying to manage all the schedules.
00:19:55
Chris Bodlovic
But you start to think about it. What's 21? It's over half of 40. If someone's like, I have two part-time jobs. If I could get more hours with one, who are you going to pick?
00:20:06
Tim Sackett
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:20:07
Chris Bodlovic
like So you go to 19, someone's given 21. I'm going to bet bet that I'm going to get more with someone else and I'm probably out. So there's this time.
00:20:14
Tim Sackett
So slightly over halftime. Yeah.
00:20:16
Chris Bodlovic
ah there's this common sense element. But then you start to dive deep into metrics and you're like, whoa, then you get to the oof. You got 22% of the organization that get 15 hours or less in the attrition rate is 190%.
00:20:30
Chris Bodlovic
And your proficiency to get proficient on tires is X, Y, Z.
00:20:30
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:20:33
Chris Bodlovic
It's like you'll never actually to
00:20:33
Tim Sackett
not Yeah. Working enough. Yeah.
00:20:37
Chris Bodlovic
So our our quotient, I think, is how do we do better workforce planning, getting those right people that are career oriented so we can give them the max hours to help fill our schedules and the appropriate timing.
00:20:49
Chris Bodlovic
At the end of the day, it was really a workforce planning issue.
00:20:49
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:20:52
Tim Sackett
Yeah. And I think it is like, if you think about, and I've been like, I've been on this train like over the last couple of months as I've been out on the road, like talking with all these leaders about all like this kind of stuff is the scheduling piece is more problematic than we really want to realize to talent
Scheduling, AI, and Employee Retention
00:21:07
Chris Bodlovic
Mm-hmm.
00:21:07
Tim Sackett
acquisition, to HR in general, because, and I always tell like you have like the normal, let's just say like, I have to go, i have to call a discount tire.
00:21:15
Tim Sackett
i work there part-time, but i have I have to miss, right. I'm sick or I have a sick child. I don't really want to miss because I need the money. you know And so now I'm missing a schedule. But then also the manager is probably giving me grief because I'm missing.
00:21:28
Tim Sackett
Oh my gosh, you know Saturday is our busy day. You can't call off on Saturday, blah, blah, blah. you like i don't And so now like i I feel terrible.
00:21:33
Chris Bodlovic
for
00:21:34
Tim Sackett
right I feel terrible. like I got take care of my kid. I feel terrible. I'm missing money. I feel terrible because the manager is yelling at me. And the whole thing's ah like a terrible experience. And then I've been seeing these like AI scheduling tools come out where it's like, you know, you text the AI and it's like, hey, I got a miss.
00:21:47
Tim Sackett
I have a sick kid. And the AI is like so friendly. like Oh my God, take care of your child. um we'll We'll find your replacement.
00:21:53
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah. business impact
00:21:54
Tim Sackett
and then Oh, and then by the way, do you want us to put you on the list to get you another shift to pick that up? And you're like, oh, of course. Like, this is great. Like, I can't believe it. And like, those two different levels of experiences, one being real human and one being AI, are night and day.
00:22:10
Chris Bodlovic
Totally, totally. And it's also, you know, you you have the, I think you're, you kind of get used to a certain way in which you've hired. So we traditionally have hired a lot of high school kids after hours and you start to look at scheduling practices. I think what you said spot on.
00:22:27
Chris Bodlovic
And we're actually doing a complete workforce management redo right now, all new tooling.
00:22:31
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:22:32
Chris Bodlovic
Because when you look at these causal relationships, it's like, man, stores get behind. It's like, okay, why? Well, don't worry about it. We've got all the kids coming in at three o'clock after school and we'll catch up again.
00:22:45
Chris Bodlovic
like But why are you behind to begin with?
00:22:48
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:22:48
Chris Bodlovic
Well, because we didn't have AM scheduled people, so we got behind. It's like, well, how do we get AM scheduled people?
00:22:52
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:22:54
Chris Bodlovic
Well, that's hard because high schoolers go to school in the morning. It's like, okay, you need a different person.
00:22:57
Tim Sackett
Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah.
00:23:00
Chris Bodlovic
So I'm not saying they're not a valuable attribute to our company. They are. What I'm saying is it starts to change the mindset of the the kind of person we're looking at, you know, different jobs.
00:23:08
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:23:09
Chris Bodlovic
You know, you kind of look at the Penske modeling, which we do a lot. It's like, these are very hard jobs. They're going to combines and getting elite athletes, right?
00:23:18
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:23:19
Chris Bodlovic
um And they've got amazing hiring practices, but same kind of MO. It's like you don't get to show up late for pit crew or it doesn't work.
00:23:27
Tim Sackett
Yeah. yeah yeah yeah
00:23:30
Chris Bodlovic
So I think there's these natural business relate realities that when you start to really use metrics as an indicator, it's like, oh, yeah, you have some unique problems to solve.
00:23:30
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:23:34
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:23:41
Tim Sackett
I always think too, like we and we just never have the time to get out and like go to the local high school or like – and they always have like the alternative high schools and stuff like going, hey, we have this problem. And like somebody would probably go, oh, we actually could actually move classes to the afternoon and we could yeah you know have these kids come in the morning and work the AM shift, right? And you're like, oh, we could do that? Yeah, we probably could if we would just all kind of communicate with each other, right? It's like –
00:24:06
Chris Bodlovic
It's funny you say that because you you made me think ah when I was at when I had T.A. at Cisco Systems, I was talking to our diversity VP at the time and ah There was ah one of the gals in our Bellevue office who was like, I'm the only gal that is in engineering right now like that I know of.
00:24:29
Chris Bodlovic
like There was very few. And you start to go why is that?
00:24:32
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:24:33
Chris Bodlovic
And it was a pretty systemic problem. It's like there just wasn't a lot of ah girls coming out of high school that wanted to get into engineering in the
00:24:41
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:24:41
Chris Bodlovic
you know ninety s And it's like to solve that problem, how do you get into the high school? So we built Cisco academies and we went into high schools and said, this is this is your earning potentials.
00:24:52
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:24:52
Chris Bodlovic
And they're like, wait, what?
00:24:53
Tim Sackett
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:53
Chris Bodlovic
um And that was what is now known as, I think, Ignite. I think it actually is still a thing, but it was founded up in in Seattle. And similar kind of concepts we're doing here, we're actually going into a ah I don't know if I can say it because it's getting ah announced here quickly, but there is a school in the Midwest area that we're branding and bringing in equipment so we can start to figure out how to build build these things and like towards more towards trade, help with brand ah pipeline creation.
00:25:11
Tim Sackett
OK.
00:25:14
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:25:19
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:25:29
Chris Bodlovic
they already have some skill sets to lower proficiency times. It's like there are all kinds of those opportunities, I think.
00:25:34
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:25:37
Tim Sackett
i And I think private industry tends to solve those problems better than government like over history, right? Because it's like we see this in Michigan because all the big autos, they had like, hey, where we need skilled tradespeople. How do you get them? Like, well, give us some robots and stuff and put them in high schools and let these kids start to learn how to like repair these things and you know work on it. All of a sudden you have people coming out with that interest.
00:25:59
Tim Sackett
But before that, like if you didn't ever told them, they're like oh no, every kid's going to college. Like you did that was the only path you had. It wasn't, they weren't selling that. And now you have, again, i think, I hate to call them alternative high schools, but that's what they've been labeled as. I think it sucks. I think they should have everything in one school. So that kid who wants to be an electrician can still go to school with his friends who don't want to go be an electrician. And then they all can show up at three o'clock and go to football practice. Right now it's like, oh, if you're an alternative school kid,
00:26:27
Tim Sackett
Like you almost can't play sports. You're definitely not going to have lunch with your friends. Like, and you're like, well, this sucks. Like I'm ostracized because I want to be a plumber, electrician or whatever, you know? um And so I just, I think it's a, it's a broken model in public ed to like say, no, we can, there's no reason we shouldn't have all this stuff under one roof, you know, and get all these kids to be there. Yeah.
00:26:48
Chris Bodlovic
Funny you say that i was out at Temple University one through two ago and was doing this AI leader certification thing.
00:26:56
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
AI's Role in Education and Hiring
00:26:56
Chris Bodlovic
And this topic came up because they're like, well, what what's even. you know you're talking about high school, but I think where they're worried about directly translates in the high school discussion because they're like, well, online courses that can be handled now by ai So what's the future of those prof jobs?
00:27:12
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:27:15
Chris Bodlovic
And then when they start talking about high school, it's like,
00:27:15
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:27:18
Chris Bodlovic
If we're worried about this first level skill that AI will replace, how do you gain, actually gain experience? So I think that's going to be an interesting, like, how's that actually going to work?
00:27:29
Chris Bodlovic
Because technology will replace what is normally experiential learning and you need good, you need someone to validate the technology.
00:27:29
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:27:37
Chris Bodlovic
So what does that look like? I think that's an interesting topic they were talking about. And then on the high school front, it was, ah what are counselors now saying? Because it used to be what you said. yeah You study hard so you can go to college, earn a good whatever.
00:27:47
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:27:51
Chris Bodlovic
And I think trade conversations are going to emerge in a big way.
00:27:56
Tim Sackett
Oh, yeah.
00:27:56
Chris Bodlovic
ah they you know and i don't know how AI is going to put plumbing in a brand new build of a house. So um I think there's some realities that we're going to see over the next few years that's going to change some of those dynamics.
00:28:01
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:28:08
Chris Bodlovic
but
00:28:08
Tim Sackett
Well, and there and it's it's just a desperate need. I mean, I've seen it for the last like decade plus in like, you know, in the Midwest in manufacturing, you know, begging for skilled trades, like literally paying 75-year-olds to like stay like tool and die makers, you know, I mean, and trying to prop them up because it's like nobody else would go into those professions.
00:28:13
Chris Bodlovic
Thank you.
00:28:29
Tim Sackett
Like it's crazy like how like back, like yeah like yeah I actually talk to manufacturers now that have to go to China to get their tooling done because there's no, There's not enough tool makers here in the United States to even make their tooling.
00:28:39
Tim Sackett
like And you're like, that's just, it's crazy to me that we've gotten to that point, but it's just a reality of the system we're in.
00:28:45
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah.
00:28:45
Tim Sackett
um I'll get you out of here on this one. You were talking about like AI, we've talked about like technology and all this. When you think about this journey of hire to you know, fully functioning, even getting better employee, where do you see AI having the biggest impact for, you know, like, like guess a frontline hiring type of situation?
00:29:06
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah. um I think there's the the focus like The focus we have right now is just on how, like I've mentioned earlier, is just this time to contact scenario.
00:29:20
Chris Bodlovic
But I think where it grows from there is you know we're looking at how do we ensure that that people were passing that quote kind of rate higher
00:29:20
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:29:31
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:29:31
Chris Bodlovic
um are actually the ones that are are getting hired at a higher rate. So it's an experiment.
00:29:36
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:29:38
Chris Bodlovic
And I don't know if it's proved out, but we're experimenting.
00:29:38
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:29:41
Chris Bodlovic
The next logical thing is how do we get those higher bucketed there faster? So we may set some auto interviewing, things like that. um So I think there's this natural course i my my thing is looking at, you know, I'm not fearful of regulation and fearful of technology.
00:29:59
Chris Bodlovic
is I mean, I've been a technologist.
00:30:00
Tim Sackett
It's good. well
00:30:01
Chris Bodlovic
eie Yeah, 100 percent.
00:30:02
Tim Sackett
we always work it. we work It works itself out because, you know, we'll design process around whatever we get thrown. That's right.
00:30:08
Chris Bodlovic
But I think it's like I have a little risk adverse nature, but it never stops me.
00:30:11
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:30:12
Chris Bodlovic
So I'm just more worried about the common sense things we do. And the things that I'm running into is where um and i think I don't know if I mentioned this, maybe and last time we met, I mentioned this this concept of artificial expertise.
00:30:23
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:30:27
Tim Sackett
Yes. Yeah.
00:30:28
Chris Bodlovic
and i That's the one that scares me because i have folks outside of the domain, our TA domain going, I built this agent that can help parse out resumes and and it's just fraught with bias and all these things because they don't know what they're doing.
00:30:41
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:30:46
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:30:46
Chris Bodlovic
So um I think there's this, I typed it in I read it, therefore I'm an expert. I think that's just so dangerous. So I've been more like paying attention to the things that are emerging around and below me more than what I'm trying to do, honestly.
00:30:54
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:31:02
Tim Sackett
yeah yeah
00:31:02
Chris Bodlovic
um I think the resume match to um job description is a great example of crazy to me. Because it's it's human dependent on how good a job description was written to begin with because you're only going to match crazy person.
00:31:16
Tim Sackett
so many moving variables on it, right? Yeah.
00:31:19
Chris Bodlovic
All right. So, um but I think, you know, I'm a technology can solve for anything. It's like, what do you really need to solve for?
00:31:25
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:31:29
Chris Bodlovic
um and I'm also pretty, pretty set on there's this, there still has to be, there will always be for discount because we have high integrity and we want to get to know people, care about what they need, want, and that will always be a human interaction.
00:31:39
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:31:44
Chris Bodlovic
So it'll be about getting them there faster.
00:31:47
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:31:48
Chris Bodlovic
But I don't see us replacing that dynamic.
00:31:52
Tim Sackett
Yeah, I agree with you. I think there's, we're going to see a lot of testing where people are, it's almost like this, this, this time to fill numbers are raised to zero. It's it' just like, Hey, I can do all this tactical stuff to get them in front of the human to have the conversation and also maybe deliver other signals.
00:31:59
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah.
00:32:07
Tim Sackett
Like, you know, whether that's personality stuff or job sample stuff or whatever. um So that we're trying to, like you said, get those, the higher people up higher, know, and get in and hire a higher percentage of those people.
00:32:18
Tim Sackett
i think that to me, that's kind of where directionally, I think people should spend their time, right?
00:32:21
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah, I agree.
00:32:23
Tim Sackett
so
00:32:23
Chris Bodlovic
And the only watch I have above that is how much are we investing in that mode that and maybe this is a different show.
AI Transforming Job Markets
00:32:30
Chris Bodlovic
But I think there's just going to be this concept of open marketplace.
00:32:35
Tim Sackett
yeah
00:32:36
Chris Bodlovic
These, you know, we've already seen the death of the resume, all these things. I think I think AI is going to transform the connected nature of available jobs. things that suit and it'll be, they'll come to the candidate, not the other way around.
00:32:50
Chris Bodlovic
And then all of a sudden, what does that game look like?
00:32:51
Tim Sackett
Yep. Oh, I know. Yeah. I've had been been having this conversation of like having your own career agent that's managing your career for you and bringing back like, hey, this job came over open over here, talked with their agent.
00:33:06
Tim Sackett
we We think you're going to be a good fit.
00:33:06
Chris Bodlovic
There it is.
00:33:09
Tim Sackett
What do you think? You know, it's like all this stuff like, because I don't like you and I having a job, whatever. Like if someone reaches out to us, that's, you know, like, oh, i'm not but I'm not out searching for a job. But like, should I, should I be, should I always have somebody doing that for me?
00:33:22
Tim Sackett
I think you should. and would I be willing to pay $12.99 a month to have my own career agent? Probably, right?
00:33:29
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah, yeah.
00:33:29
Tim Sackett
It's log like right next to my Netflix and Spotify subscription, you know, whatever.
00:33:33
Chris Bodlovic
There it is.
00:33:33
Tim Sackett
Like, so I'm like, it had.
00:33:34
Chris Bodlovic
The notice will pop up on your TV.
00:33:35
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:33:36
Chris Bodlovic
You can make 50 cents more an hour. I mean, I literally, you know, you think of, i you know, i I was working with this startup and and their concept was very interesting. it was almost red finish.
00:33:48
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:33:49
Chris Bodlovic
It's like you pull it up and it's just a map of your surrounding area and it just had all of these hourly rates.
00:33:57
Tim Sackett
Yeah.
00:33:57
Chris Bodlovic
Like, oh, i I would want to make that. It's not that far of my house. You click on it and it shows you the job.
00:34:01
Tim Sackett
Uh-huh. Yeah.
00:34:03
Chris Bodlovic
Like that mindset shift is completely different.
00:34:03
Tim Sackett
And no and all the like ah yeah and all the all the data shows like if you're going to hire hourly, you start from like a mile from your location. You just go out in one mile increments like you know because you're more likely to retain, hire the closer they are to those jobs.
00:34:17
Tim Sackett
you know It's crazy.
00:34:18
Chris Bodlovic
there There it is, because if you've got a good agent built that's your self-agent and they're using, you know, good LLM with, you know, um technology that does associations, the first thing it's going to say is, I wouldn't take that job because it's going to cost you more in gas and it will take you to get there. Take this one instead.
00:34:35
Tim Sackett
Exactly. 100%. Yeah. it's worth It's worth the money. All right, Chris, where can people find you if they want to yeah connect with you?
00:34:39
Chris Bodlovic
Yeah. So anyway.
00:34:44
Chris Bodlovic
ah LinkedIn. but i'm ah I'm Chris Bodlevic. Every Bodlevic in the United States I know personally. They're my family. i' Very easy to find. Appreciate it, brother.
00:34:57
Tim Sackett
That's awesome. All right.
00:34:58
Chris Bodlovic
Take
00:34:59
Tim Sackett
Everybody, that's Chris. Discount Tire. Check them out. Go buy your tiresome discount. And that's another episode. We'll see you soon.
00:35:08
Chris Bodlovic
care. take care