Work life Balance and the Holistic approach to hiring

There we go. Good morning, everyone. This is Danielle and Tim with ND Out Loud, and we're talking about work-life balance. And we're also going to be— sorry, sound, double sound. And we're also talking about the hiring practice around work-life balance, because that really should be part of our hiring practices. Now, Tim has looked up all of the stats and all of the things on this. I did not look up any stats for this. This one.

Yeah. So, you know, like my focus, you know, like going back to my career— well, not going back to my career because I'm currently in it. Apologies for the dogs, everyone. It's like commotion going on right now. So my, you know, my whole career is kind of centered around this directly and indirectly. And it's interesting that some of the workforce programming that is considered to be government programming is really around this as well. So like when you talk about registered apprenticeship programs, which is an area of expertise for me, it's really about creating a platform and a roadmap for someone to be able to develop their career from the very beginning stages of a high schooler and have a full roadmap of how they get to an area of expertise and earning good money and having a career. But like embedded in that is work-life balance and kind of a, like I said, really circling back, and I'm probably gonna say this a bunch of times throughout the conversation, having a roadmap, having a structure in place. There's so many employers that are just sort of like, you know, I kind of like this person. Let's just try them out and see what happens. And then 3 months later they're gone because they don't have a specific structure or infrastructure built into their practices to hire them and to retain them. So it's not so much the hiring practices, it's the retention aspect of it. And so that's what we're gonna talk a little bit about, about some strategies that I've seen, strategies that I've read up on, and what we really need to see employers do. Because I'm gonna sound like a broken record in some of our previous conversations. We are in a workforce period of time in which there is a shortage that is currently happening that is only going to get worse. So basically, for better or worse, employers are in a place in which they're going to be forced to come up with different strategies to hire and retain workers. So let's help employers not be forced and help them to proactively make those changes rather than it being Oh no, we can't find anybody. So therefore now we need to start like looking at different ways of doing things.

Doing things in a panic is never good for a company especially. But the other part of that is you will have built a reputation of not doing those things. So you're not going to get the high-quality employees, the highly qualified employees, because you're not going to be an a desirable employer. And that's a big thing that we really need to talk into this conversation is current hiring practices, current work-life balance issues, current inclusivity. And I know those are words that people don't like hearing right now. All of those things are forming the public's opinion of you. Glassdoor is a huge part of this. And if you've got people, especially younger generations, Gen Z— is the next generation starting to work yet? I think they're starting to be in the workforce now. I feel old when I say that. But if there are a lot of negative reviews about work-life balance, about managers not being well trained, about not being accommodating it all and creating a stronger proactive productivity plan for your business, you're going to have all these negative reviews. And when the workforce gets smaller, people are going to be in demand and you're going to be searching for those ideal employees and you're not going to have even a chance at them because nobody's going to apply.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, you know, we're, we're in this environment where it's, um, it's kind of a mindset that The people in the HR profession had, and that's absolutely not backed up by data, is that it's the idea that nobody wants to work. That's why we can't find anybody. It's, it's not that. There are people that want to work. They're one, they're having a very difficult time finding the job, or they're waiting 3 or 4 months for the employer to get back to them about whether they've been accepted for the position or not. Literally 3 or 4 months. I've had many, many conversations. Or there's even interested where something like this happened to me last year where I had an employer. And I'm sure this employer is probably going to watch this podcast and I'm totally okay with them watching this. But they hired me. They gave me an offer. I accepted. They then did the background check. I passed the background check. So no problems there. But then, then they had come to realize later on that I didn't have the, the, the right type of Cal degree or credits for the, the role that they, they wanted to fill. And so therefore they rescinded my offer. And as far as I know, that role is still open. So they still haven't found— it's been quite some time. Maybe they've already filled it. I'm not sure, because it's been a while since I've checked. But a while ago it still wasn't filled. So they lost on— they lost out on a very talented individual that was very excited and motivated for that role. So there are methods all throughout the whole process. And so, like, I'm an adjunct professor at Boise State University, and I do professional development for HR professionals here in Boise and really all over Idaho, really all over the Pacific Northwest. on hiring practices and helping HR professionals hiring, recruiting individuals understand the data that's behind everything that's going on to help them understand that they need to have some better practices when it comes to hiring.

And so the hiring practices are terrible right now. Again, we talked last week about we need to put the human back human piece back into hiring. Has to, has to, has to. You are missing— if you're a company that thinks you can't get good employees because nobody wants to work, wrong. Because I guarantee you've had 500 resumes put in, but your stupid AI system has rejected them all. So you're not seeing anybody. Or somebody who is highly qualified for the job. I just applied for something. Somebody asked me to apply for a job that 10 years ago was my dream job. And I'm like, why not? I got about 5 minutes into the application process and went, screw it, because I had to upload my resume in 2 forms. They wanted a graphic form and a PDF. Okay, great. I've seen that before. They wanted my cover letter and then wanted me to retype the whole entire thing into their very badly done Form. And I was like, no, no, not worth it. I don't want the job that bad. Forget it.

Nope. Yeah.

And they, they asked me to apply. They reached out to me, not a headhunter, not some random person, somebody who wanted me for the position. They know me, they've worked with me in the past. And I decided not to apply because their application process— and then I was reading through it. It was a 5-step application process and an interview, and then 4 steps for interviewing. I was like, no.

Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that I wanted that I maybe frame this in terms of the really the number one thing when it comes to holistic or just better hiring practices is having a good website that is updated. There are so many employers that I've dealt with that the website says that they have all of these open positions, And then when you call them or you go to apply for the role, and I've been helping customers of mine to apply for this role, you come to find out that the website hasn't been updated in 18 months. And so they have no open roles. And so that's number one. So that, you know, like having an updated website, having a good online presence. So LinkedIn, making sure that you have an active LinkedIn page that shows your company culture, that the fact that you take pride in what you have going on internally, that your mission is something that the company is really passionate about. So, you know, a good online presence is really— that's number one. If you want to have good applicants, that's the number one key. And then we can go beyond that. I'm sure you have some comments regarding that.

Oh yeah, absolutely. So if you don't have a strong online presence as a business— and past employers that I worked for, I noticed, because I go looking every once in a while, see how they're doing, see what they're up to— and their online presence Presence is trash or nonexistent, and updating the website. I just saw a past employer where my face is on multiple pages on the website and stuff still. I haven't worked there. I don't work there. Why is my face still on your website? It shouldn't be. And I mean, just those kinds of things show lack of detail, un. Unwilling to invest in your face, in your mission, in your visibility. And that, that is a red flag to me. If you're not investing in those things, you're also not investing in your people and your time and stuff like that. So as somebody who is looking— not, I'm not actively looking, but as somebody who could be looking for a job, those are things that are all red flags to me. If I don't see you on actively on at least LinkedIn, I would like to see you on LinkedIn, and maybe one or two other social media platforms. I'm not picky of what those are. But I'm Looking, I am looking for that. How are you supporting your community? How are you supporting your employees? Are you celebrating you have an employee who's speaking at some event? I want to see those things. If I don't see those things, even if that event isn't directly related to your company, they aren't speaking for your company. You've just got an employee who is volunteering and speaking at something that's their passion project, Little League, whatever, whatever it is. If you aren't supporting your employees like that, then. You're not a supportive work environment. Why would I want to look at you?

Yeah. And then, you know, interestingly, TikTok is becoming huge for employers for recruiting and then for job seekers looking for jobs. So like, you know, TikTok is such a simple platform that just little quick snippet videos has become a recruiting platform. So are you active on TikTok? Are you active on Instagram? Those are all really important. Really, no matter what Part of the workforce you're a part of, if it's a concrete supply company to a recruiting company and everything in between. Having that type of presence is really important and it doesn't really take that much effort to get involved in those things.

But it's also, especially if you're a smaller business, it's even more important to do that to get the best talent. I have a company that I— their TikTok and their Instagram cracks me up. They're a cabinet company, okay? They don't do anything amazing. using or anything like that. But now my husband's company now uses them as one of their main suppliers, cabinets, because we love their social media so much. They're showing things, they're active. So we just took a— and they're a small company, they're 25 employees, and another 50-person employee or 22-person employer hired them.

Yep.

And, and there are other companies like They could have gotten cabinets cheaper through a huge cabinet maker for a large business or something. But because there is no personal touch anymore to those things, losing out on business. And this cabinet company just got some kid that won some, some competition or whatever that is now building new custom furniture and stuff for them. So they're getting top talent because of their social media.

Yeah, yeah, it really can. And like, again, you know, we're not talking having to hire someone at a full-time role to take on the social media aspect of a small, medium, large employer. It's just a few minutes a week. And, well, you know, maybe some time getting it all set up and having a strategy in place, but then it's just a few minutes a week of updating it. And that's it. And so the key— I mean, yeah, go ahead.

I mean, I do that on the side.

Yeah. Yeah. And then exactly. And then, you know, the key in that though is like, if you set it up, it has to be active. The worst thing you could do is set up a social media profile and then not update it in 6 months. So like, you have to keep up with that. That's the key in that. But online presence, your brand is really important. So you talk about your business brand and like, what is it, whatever it is you're trying to sell, whatever service it is. But the company itself, as an employer, had a brand that they portrayed to their employees. And that was really key.

It's very much key. And you better make sure that your brand, that your— your brand, that you're being visible out to the world, better match what your employees see internally. Because if there's a major disconnect, If you claim to be a family-owned business and you operate like a family, and I've seen corporations that do this, a lot of corporations that do this, and then your employees start to comment or their family members start to comment, which you can't do anything about a family member commenting, the mother-in-law of the, of the son who has some high-power job or even a low-level management job commenting, yeah, no, you don't, because my son-in-law had to cancel his vacation after he already flew to wherever because you decided you couldn't handle his vacation. You know, like you start getting comments, and I've seen those. And I will tell you, as somebody who owns a marketing agency and does these sort of things, I see those messages. And we talk about those in marketing groups all the time.

Yeah.

Glassdoor, we actually have one day a week where we take apart Glassdoor reviews of companies.

Yeah. And, you know, Glassdoor is huge. Like, I'm not one to encourage people to put negative reviews when it comes to the bad meal that they had at a restaurant. Because, you know, those are small mom-and-pop businesses that really depend on those reviews to maintain their business. But when it comes to a hiring business, I'm all for putting the most negative reviews possible if they're authentic and real. Because these employers really need to learn that there need to be consequences for their actions. Because The American workforce system is damaged. There really needs to be like a major breakthrough. And, you know, we've seen large employers, we've seen like Google, Netflix, and all of them, they really like treated their employees well. They have good maternal and paternal care. They have cafeterias in their buildings, free meals and yoga and Like all of that stuff, and their employees are happy. So we've seen that on the larger level. But when it comes down to the smaller, medium, small mom-and-pop businesses—

Well, and I think that authenticity and that honesty for employees to share that. And I wish that LinkedIn, when you're posting for a job, you could actually see employer rating. Because the link— when you're, you're somebody hiring through LinkedIn, you could see employee rating, like, what is their rating? How consistent are they? What's their resume look like? Like, you can analyze all of that. But as, as somebody looking for a job, I think there needs to be a system out there that makes it easier for employees to evaluate a company. And that's why those Glassdoor reviews and testimonials and all of that need to be out there, even if maternity leave and paternity leave and family leave and all of those things are fantastic where you, where you work, please talk about that too. I want to see those. I want to see those positive reviews. I want to see the positive. And here are a few cons of working here and things that I didn't like. I would like to be able to go into a position fully informed.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, and talking about some other things here, um, you know, I made a list. of some other things that I feel are really important when it comes to holistic hiring practices. So I'm going to kind of like just start reading down the list. But then like if something sticks out, interrupt me and we'll expand on that. Diverse recruitment strategies. So actively recruit from underrepresented groups. Partner with community organizations and educational institutions to expand their talent.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's something, I mean, we, we as working with people who have disabilities and stuff who are perfectly capable of having full-time jobs, but the application process is just difficult. Having the ability for literal, like I have clients who are geniuses, like literal geniuses, have created things on their own and stuff who can't get through an application process. I personally refuse to get through an application process. if it's too ridiculous. But I have clients who can't do it.

Yep.

But they would be fantastic and an amazing employee at the job. And we have underrepresented other areas. The Hispanic community is very underrepresented in higher-paying, good jobs. The disabled community, the deaf community is absolutely underrepresented. The neurodivergent community, I, I don't want to say that they're underrepresented, But they are undersupported to, to work in some of those things, because there are employees that will see that this looks like an autistic person. I've looked, checked their social media. Well, they'll be great because they're autistic. Yeah, that's not necessarily always true too, if you don't have the right supportive environments. So it's kind of a combination of hiring from those, but understanding how to support those particular— whoever they are, understanding who to hire and how to hire them.

Yeah, you know, I've seen companies like Dell in Texas that had a neurodivergence hiring program. So, you know, we're seeing larger employers that are kind of understanding that they need to have maybe specialized staff that are full-time that focus on certain subsets of certain disabilities and all that. And then I am personally saying, back in my old job when I was working in Connecticut for a workforce program, that there was a manufacturing program that wasn't like mostly Connecticut aerospace, but this was not an aerospace employer, that they made door handles for your kitchen drawers and for cars. And it was like a handle business. That's what it was. And like, I think their catchphrase was, whatever your job is, we can handle it. So it was really good marketing. But They were having a hard time with recruitment. Manufacturing sort of has a stigma that's attached to it that it's old, dark, dirty, oily, and nobody wants to work in them. And so they really worked to do refurbishment of the facility, and then they actively went out and made sure that they hired only women. And 80% of the workforce, the last time I heard, are women. And, you know, women represent about 20% of the manufacturing workforce, and they just really went out there to make sure that they, they, they focused on that. And it is a thriving, successful business. The former CEO is now the manufacturing czar for the state of Connecticut and has representation worldwide. So they went out of the way to really focus on a very niche side of the workforce, and years later they are hugely successful. So didn't take that much strategy. There's not that much work involved in, in a shift in focusing on a certain demographic, and they're super successful. Next thing, inclusive job descriptions. So gender-neutral language, it's a thing in today's day and age where that's important. Focus on essential skills rather than strict requirements to attract a wider range of candidates.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that's so much easier. By not using gender-neutral language, you're ostracizing a very large part, especially of our Gen Z and our Gen Alpha hiring people.

How about blind recruitment? That was a new one that I looked up. Removing identifying information from resumes to reduce unconscious bias in the initial screening process.

I've seen that in a couple places that did that, where you couldn't share your resume. You could— you only show— the only thing that you shared was no dates on anything, where you worked, and how long you worked for them.

Yep. And did that go well?

I worked at that job for 15 years.

There you go.

Yeah.

Skilled-based hiring. This could be a whole other podcast.

You know what, I'm gonna actually add that we'll talk about that next week, because skill-based hiring is a very, very different way of hiring. And I come from a world coming from tech, Where we only hired unskilled. If you had a college degree, you actually got knocked down to the bottom of the pile because a college degree was not favorable. Skills was.

Yeah, yeah. I got a whole bunch of numbers for you on that one. We'll talk about that.

So do I.

Yeah. So here's a big one. What about skilled-based— sorry, employee referral programs? So you incentivize your current employees to recruit.

That would be fantastic because we all know in networking and growing a business and scaling, networking is the only way to really do that. It's who you know, not what you know. And well, I mean, it's a combination, but But man, what would it look like if your company had a good enough— like, your employees liked you well enough to refer somebody to work for you?

Dude, yeah, man.

I mean, I remember— okay, I remember the days when this was a thing. Like Kodak. Kodak was huge on this. There were whole— and like, we come— Tim and I come from a family Where 90% of the family either worked at Kodak or for A.C. Delco, like multiple family members, because they would refer each other and they would come in and they worked there from high school all the way to retirement. Like how many of our family members worked at Kodak and A.C. Delco? Multiple. This used to be a thing.

Yeah. Yeah, it was. So that's such a good time to go back to that. And, you know, Danielle, you and I could be people that can provide the framework and structure For that. And, you know, it's interesting, like, when you talk about the whole idea of Kodak, one thing that I always felt was super interesting, and, you know, keeping in mind that this was, you know, we're talking back in the '20s and '30s and '40s when it was really, really in its heyday. And if you know anything about Rochester, New York, you can drive up 390 and you see the start of Kodak Park, and then you have to drive a good 10 miles to get to the other side of Kodak Park, just along the highway. And then the other roads that were diagonal from it. I mean, it literally was 30 to 40% of the city of Rochester, which back in the day was actually— it was a bustling type of place. It was very busy. It was becoming a boomtown before things really took a downturn in the late '70s and early '80s. But so Kodak was an employer. That invested in their employees back in the payday. They had a theater that was just for Kodak employees, a bowling alley. They had bars and restaurants that were all there where like it was a place where families could get together after work and, you know, the buddies can get together and have a beer after work right down, literally right on the property. They had like Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope there, you know, doing performances. And like they, they invested in their employees to really make sure that they were happy, which means they were productive.

Then they invested in the community. So I took private voice lessons and flute lessons and stuff. I performed at that Kodak Theater because they would open it up to little tiny, like 4 things like that. It would be 8 or 9 different people who offered voice lessons and piano lessons and things like that on a Saturday afternoon. They'd open it up to the community to allow us to use the theater for dance recitals and music recitals and all of those things. And I remember that they would bring in At Christmas time on Friday afternoons, every school that won their all-county chorus, all of the— we— they would bring into the main Kodak building and we would sing Christmas carols and employees would give us hot chocolate and cookies and donuts and apple cider and all of those things. But it became a— it was such a huge community investment for them.

Yeah. Yeah. And then they made an insane amount of money. But then things evolved and the old owner passed away. And, you know, the culture of the company changed. They became a place where it's only about the bottom line and they didn't care about their employees. And then, you know, 1983, '84, you know, layoffs started happening. And then, you know, there's some other layers in that when it comes to, you know, just the economic state and the the North Atlantic Treaty that played into them in terms of the companies then moving to China and moving all of the production over there. That's a whole other discussion. But it's not what it is today. And it really comes down to because they would not treat their employees well.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. And then we had zero— I mean, most people are like, Rochester, New York, where is that? But Rochester had Kodak, Bausch and Lomb, which is the contact company. Xerox started there, the printer company. AC Delco, which is part of the GM, part of the GM family. So we had multiple factories that were all for that. And one of the top— IBM had a small thing.

HP.

Digital, uh, Digital Computer Corporation is where— Digital Equipment Corporation, where I started way, way, way back just out of high school, became HP, became HP. And that's all Rochester, New York. And that actually, Digital Equipment Corporation, was part of computer design and support and all of that for Kodak. That's where that originally started and they broke off.

Yeah. So really what we're trying to say is that we need to go back to that and, uh, we need to be proactive in that and employers They're worried about, well, how much is that going to cost? But how much more is it going to cost to be short-staffed, to have unhappy employees that are less productive? And so all of that is worth the investment.

Absolutely. I mean, just in your productivity for who you currently have employed alone, because they're going to retire, they're going to leave. You need them to be a good workforce while they're there, all of those things. And then you eventually are going to have to replace them and hire new people. not doing the work now with who you currently have and making work-life balance and community involvement and all of those things a better thing right now. Even if you don't plan on hiring anybody for 10 years, that if you wait until 10 years from now, it's too late.

Yeah. So like, I think that's a good transition into employee retention and how that plays into this as well. And here's some of the things that I have on that, which, you know, I think as we found when I read the other list, that may actually morph into another conversation, a separate one. But Number one, employee resource groups, or ERGs. So supporting ERGs foster a sense of community and belonging among your employees and when shared identities and interests. So a cultural day where you have all of your Hispanic employees together and you cook a bunch of food, and it's a big event to celebrate a certain holiday that's within that culture. And then you have other employees that are not a part of that culture, then learn Oh, this is something that I didn't know. And now you create, you foster a sense of community within your building. Work-life balance. So promote flexible work arrangements. I mean, that's a whole conversation. Remote work options, flexible hours, and generous paid off-time policies.

Absolutely. I mean, can't argue with any of those things. The remote work from home, the BS that I'm hearing out there about you have to come back into the office. People were productive for the last 3 and a half years. Why are they suddenly not now? And if they aren't, oh, let's look at management practices. Let's look at micromanagement practices. Let's look at supporting people who are doing and did well for 3 years. Why aren't they doing well now? Let's fix it. And there are lots of studies out there done about why, how People are more productive in the office than they are at home. Yeah, there are just as many studies on the opposite side. So stop cherry picking and really look at why something may not be working.

Yeah, absolutely. Employee well-being programs. So implement wellness programs that address mental, physical, and financial health, including counseling, fitness programs, and financial planning resources.

Coaching. This is— I mean, this is part of what ND Out Loud does is we can come into a company and be part of your benefit package and support your hidden disability clients, neurodivergent, whatever. I mean, there's multiple things that we can handle there, but we can help them with their financial stability, their productivity, their time management, their work-life balance, all of these things. But also be aware that when we're talking to clients, I worked for a company and every employee had so many issues with work-life balance that I was like, quit. I don't know how many of my clients I told to quit, and it was the company that had brought me in. But honestly, if you can't provide balance, then why should anybody who's a valuable employee stay where they are?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, how about recognition and rewards? Regularly acknowledge and reward employee contribution through formal recognition program bonuses and other incentives.

You've gotta pay attention to your employees. Be involved with your employees. Know what they're excelling at. Know where their weaknesses are. Know where their strengths are. That's where our wide survey comes in, because we can come in, tell you where all the strengths and weaknesses are, prop them up, show you how to expand and make the, the strengths stronger and the weaknesses less of a weakness. All of those things. When you bring in a consultant to kind of look at your team as a whole, every employee, every single thing, it just strengthens every single link in the chain.

Yeah. And then, you know, you, you kind of mentioned this before. Let's say you have an employee that is a Little League coach and something like that, you know, create a culture in which that employee feels comfortable enough to say, you know, hey, you know, Tuesday afternoon, can I leave 45 minutes early so I can get ready and set up for it? Now you have a happy employee that feels heard, feels included, and recognize them for the fact that they won the Little League championship, even though it has nothing to do with what the, what the work, what the well or did the job. Like, that, that's the sort of thing that really kind of creates that culture of acceptance, inclusion, being heard, and happiness.

Absolutely. And all of those things have to be considered for rewards. You know what, that pizza party once a year is not enough. You need to recognize your employees often. Your managers need to be where this happens at. Your managers need to be better at relating, being kind, Being a safe, seen, and heard space for your employees so that they can recognize when something amazing happens. When an employee goes above and beyond, they worked on the weekend to get this report done. Thank you so much. Here's lunch today. Here's a sticker. Here's a new coffee cup. And while those things are kind of stupid, if you're doing them often and rewarding people often, not just as a, oh, we forgot to reward you, we're gonna get you stickers this year. But as a regular part of business life and that business company culture, people will care. They'll want that sticker. They'll want that cup.

Yeah, they do. And then how about inclusive leadership to train leaders to be inclusive and empathetic, culturally competent, ensuring that employees feel valued and supported?

Managers— people don't leave a job, they leave a manager. 90— I mean, we, and I'm trying to remember the stat. I think 80% of people who leave jobs, maybe it was 90% of people leave jobs, they leave because of bad direct manager.

I'm writing that down. That, that, that's a good quote.

Because people, if they know how to do the job, that's not the problem. That's never the problem. A manager who micromanages, a manager who expects you to read their mind, tells you to do one thing and then throws a fit when you didn't read their mind to do the opposite thing of what They told you to. I mean, these are just stupid things, but it's very true. A manager who, who has a whole entire team of neurodivergent people. I've been that manager. You have a whole entire team of neurodivergent people. If you don't take the time to learn how each neurodivergent person needs to be spoken to, needs to be rewarded, needs to be acknowledged, needs to be seen, heard, all of those things, then what's your, what's the point of your job?

Yeah, absolutely. Feedback and engagement. So conduct regular employee surveys, anonymous surveys, and—

Actually anonymous surveys. Actually anonymous surveys. And this is what our wide survey is for, is doing things like this. And it's something that we can run in a company multiple times a year if we wanted to, to just see how things are going.

Yeah. And that's, that's the The key time to bring in a neutral company or individual like ourselves to, like, you know, how much, you know, the investment in money is not really that much compared to their bottom line to be able to have that neutral, honest response from your employees. So, yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

Career pathing. So, like, have a transparent career path with your for your employees of what they need to do to get to the next level?

People want to know that they can grow. People want to grow. They don't want— there you are going to— if you have neurodivergent employees especially, you may have one or two that love their little job. They like to hide in the corner and do their thing and don't ever want to grow from there. But that is the exception to the rule. Most people want to grow, expand, scale what their knowledge, scale what they're doing, learn new things, have a variety of things that they do, not all in one day and not for underpay. But they want those things. And if you have a clear path for growth and education, you're going to build a stronger employee base.

Yeah, you know, one of the things that I really like about Amazon, and I know Amazon can be kind of a derogatory term in some ways in terms of how they employ their people, but a lot of people don't know that within most of the distribution centers, They have training programs that are in place that are credentialed certifications and degree programs in fields that have nothing to do with Amazon. And Amazon pays, that's free for their employees to take these training programs. And they full well know that when they graduate from those programs, they get those certifications, they're probably going to leave Amazon. But then that, that puts them in a place of now they're investing in their employees and it creates that culture. So like that, that's kind of a mindset that employers need to have in terms of the career pathing is be happy for that employee that decided to move on to another role that was better for them, was a better fit for those skill levels because of the skills that they built with and the company that they currently work for. But then that creates a culture where now other people are saying that like, oh, okay, so like they're really investing in people. Rather than the bottom line.

Yeah. And next thing is fire. Just as quickly, fire the bad ones. If you have— again, people don't leave positions, they leave bad managers. And that is a really typical thing we see. And don't promote people who aren't great at their job to management.

Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, the last thing I have, which is very much a derogatory term, especially in this election period that we're in, but DEI initiatives. They're so important. So, you know, just the idea of continuously and promote and invest in DEI. There's a lot of employers that have like a little DEI page on the website. It's like, yeah, we have a DEI program, but they don't actually follow it.

Yeah.

And refreshing your DEI program to kind of reflect today's day and age. It's something that always evolves if you have a correct one. And ensure that employees feel included and have equal opportunities for advancement, which is kind of a repeat of what we talked about in the previous comment.

So I think part of the negative negativity that comes in with the DEI stuff is it sort of got— and I put this in quotation marks just because I can't think of a better way to say it— it sort of got hijacked by more political-leaning things.

Yeah.

DEI is diversity, equity, and inclusion. This means Hiring a diverse workforce, that doesn't mean hiring— and I, I've had this conversation, so don't come at me. I had this conversation with a manager last week. That means hiring— I don't want to hire the purple-haired chick because she's loud. That's not what DEI is for. DEI is to hire the profoundly deaf person, the autistic person, the ADHD person, the— maybe are they LGBTQ? Maybe. But that's not what we're looking at. We're not looking at it from political standpoints. We're looking at it from hiring Hire the underserved communities, hire the Hispanics, hire more Blacks, hire more disabled employees, because you will find valuable and worthy in all of those things. Are they maybe LGBTQ? Who cares? That's not what you're hiring. You're hiring their skills. You're hiring their, their knowledge. And stop looking at DEI as a political-leaning thing. It's not. It is— It's not.

Yeah. So I'm going to say something that's going to be very profound. Are you ready?

Yes.

Okay. Are you sitting down?

Yes, I'm sitting.

So hiring from certain demographics is not taking away the job from the other demographic that doesn't like that term. So what I'm saying by that is we have a worker— so like we have a smaller talent pool than we've ever had before. So therefore, that role that is being taken by the person from another demographic is a role that wouldn't have been filled anyways, unless you're in a place where you have proactive hiring practices in place.

So it just blows my mind. There's like somebody, just a manager tried to tell me what DEI is, and I'm like, wait, no, that's not what DEI is at all. Like, not at all. Yes, you're hiring based on skills. Yes, you're hiring based on knowledge and training and all of that. But start looking at more than the 2 people that you think are available. You have a much wider pool to pull from, and that's what DEI is there for. And it's also there for accommodations for people that need accommodations. Tim needed to turn his desk around. That was an accommodation. I wanted at one point to have a door on my office. I had an office. It didn't have a door on it. I asked for a door. You want to know how long it took them? Nobody had to spend any money. Somebody had to go find the door in the basement that they had took off when they were painting and put it back on the door, the room.

Yeah, it's really, really simple stuff. But, you know, circling back to my original comment, and I'm going to say this over and over again, We're in a demographic shift in the United States, really worldwide, and it's something that's going to happen. And we're seeing it evolve in real time. So you need to be in a place as an employer, no matter what part of the workforce you're in, if you're blue collar, white collar, to have different approaches to holistic hiring practices, having a holistic approach, and then a holistic approach to your retention. And bringing people on like myself and Danielle for, you know, we sit down, we have a few meetings with you. We like it. It's not an overly complicated process. It doesn't cost that much money. But we're here to help. And, you know, we're— we love this. We love to do this. We're passionate about it. So hopefully, hopefully this is something that can stem some additional conversations.

Um, so knowing what's available, knowing what's coming, and changing the messaging you have right now, that really is the key. Change the messaging, change how you're operating in your business. Do this now before it's too late and you can't get the employees you need and you're falling apart because of it. Because one, if you try to do it, then it's too late. You're already losing money. You're not in Growth mode, you're in panic mode.

Yeah, yeah. Let's have a proactive instead of a reactive approach.

Exactly. If you have any questions, if you need any help, if you need a consultant to come in for one meeting or for 6 months, we are here. We are available. We have software, we have DEI initiatives, we have workforce development, we have labor intelligence. We have all kinds of things that's based on data, not just on feelings or any of those things that a lot of companies look at consultants sideways for. We are here to offer you real data and to help you grow your business and increase, increase your productivity across the board and increase your hire— your hireability is not the, the, the word I'm looking for, but increase your desirability for employees to come looking for you. I hope you have an amazing day and come next week. And next week we are going to be talking about— we already— skill-based hiring. So we're going to talk about skill-based hiring next week. Because that's super important. Every time we have one of these, we decide on the next week's conversation because we have too many rabbit trails to go down. Have an amazing week. If you have questions, just reach out to us, uh, Danielle at ND Out Loud, Tim at ND Out Loud. We are here for you and we're absolutely here to help.