#34 B Better Interview With Wendy Alexander CEO of NZ B Corp Kin Recruitment

Foreign.

Welcome to the Be Better podcast. This podcast is aimed at helping you go B Corp and beyond. And in this podcast, we connect with other certified B corporations, aspiring B Corps, and other aligned individuals to help you understand the what, why and how of B Corp certification.

Preparing.

This meeting is being live streamed in front of a live studio audience. Maybe, maybe not of one.

It could be one your mother and my mother.

Oh, definitely wouldn't be my mother. She still wishes I went and got a proper job. I feel that's a conversation for a whole other time.

There we go. Right in the Facebook group. I can see us there. I'll keep it open on my other screen in case people do pop up with a question, but. Hello. Kia ora Shamai. As we say in Wales, I'm half Welsh. I'm embracing all cultures. To Wendy from Zoom. Not from Zoom, from Kin. So you've got Kin Zoom on your. On your thing. I've been distracted by Zoom. Yeah. Hello, Wendy.

Kia ora. Tim, I can tell it's your first week back.

Yeah, it's a bit of a loose one, but we'll get there in the end. I was just talking to Jess from the team and she was like, oh, you know, with the podcast, I think we need to extract some content and use them as clips and, you know, we need to try and get rid of ums and ahs and pauses. And I'm like, yeah, I go for more of the sort of Joe Rogan style of podcasting. It's live, it's raw, it's unedited. We're just going to get it out there. So there we go.

Well, I love that you've got a team, Tim. That's fantastic.

We're getting there. We're getting there. Yeah, it's been a. Been an interesting last six months, that's for sure. But anyway, enough about me. Let's talk about you. Who are you? For the people that don't know you, which can't be that many, I would have thought most people know who Wendy is. Who are you? What's Kin? What do you do? Tell us a bit about everything.

Okay, well, hi, guys. I'm Wendy Alexander and the founder of Kin. So we're in the recruitment space, but just a quiet disruptor and cape market probably four and a half years ago now with a different take on recruitment. So part of our focus is on, you know, what is an amazing recruitment process look like and what does a good experience look like? What does, you know, for me, it's all about what does it feel like to work with kin, whether you're a job seeker or a client, you know, it's that high touch, fully immersive experience. And then the other part that's different to the traditional recruitment agency world is we kind of threw out that sales model, that commission model that drives, you know, a certain style of behavior and came to market with an hourly rate, time and materials approach. So we kind of got this providing a much more human, connected experience, you know, at about half the cost of a traditional recruitment agency. And really in the last four and a half years, honestly the business has gone from kind of me in a desk in a corner trying to work out what the heck we might do, you know, to being a team of. I think at our peak we were 14, we're down at 10 at the moment between Auckland and Wellington and just, just having a rip roaring time doing something differently.

What a crazy idea, making recruitment a more human process. It might catch on. I remember just after I graduated I vaguely looked into recruitment as a career path in there were companies in London's recruiting and I spoke to a mate of a mate about it and he was just like, yeah, it's pretty good. You know, you can earn some good money but it's pretty ruthless. I hate all my colleagues. It's really stressful, you know, I don't really like employees and most of the companies I have to work with are just pretty disrespectful. It's like, cool, yeah, I think I'll be okay not to apply for that job.

Sold you the dream, did he?

Pretty much, yeah. So, yeah, I guess. What was it? Was there like a moment that led you to wanting to do it differently or have clearly, I mean you've been in the industry for a while. Was there specific experiences that led you to sort of want to do things differently?

Oh gosh, I don't think we've got time for all my experiences. Some of them are ghastly. But I guess for me, I mean we're based in New Zealand. There's so many small medium enterprises here and the weight of power, Kiwi businesses to be even more amazing is through recruiting incredible human beings. But you know, the SME market, the not for profit sector, you know, they can't afford massive fees and it's just unnecessary. Like it's nutso. There's a lack of transparency around how that works. And then when I think about, you know, the commission model, we know reward drives behavior and you know, if you've got a client who's looking for, you know, A round pig. And you've got a pig that's square, that's got slightly rounded corners. But you're going to earn, you know, five or ten thousand dollars for doing it. You're going to potentially want to bash that, you know, and that's not good for anybody. It's not good for the job secrets. It's not good for the client. And I don't believe it's good for the. For the. For the person doing it.

Yeah, certainly I was talking to, well, a client. I think I've just signed up because I, you know, obviously we've worked together on your B Corp stuff, which we'll talk about hopefully in a little bit. But I also do sales training for companies and my. My whole. And that's really where I came into my coaching consulting career, because that was my background. And it always astounded me how bad most salespeople were. And that culture in most sales organizations of, you know, yeah, like, we'll. We'll just get the deal because we've got to get the deal because the pressure's on to get deals instead of what actually is this the best outcome for everyone? And I think, yeah, that's. That's a sales thing more broadly, not just perhaps a recruitment thing, but a lot of the companies I work with, I advise that they get rid of commission and actually have a. Have a bonus. Because, yes, the sales team are, you know, critical for getting business in, but if there's not the delivery team, if there's not the warehouse team, if there's not the product or whoever to actually get the product out and help the client be happy, then there's no point having a sale. So, yeah, it's interesting that you've gone through and it's been well received by the market in New Zealand.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Gosh, we've got clients that are working with us even before we became a brand. So Kin was incubated within another business, which was an amazing, amazing start. We've got clients who have been with us the whole way, and they, you know, they really just have our team on speed if they're recruiting. So some organizations, we've recruited 50% of the workforce, you know, and you kind of. You walk in there to catch up and it's just. You just know everybody. It's fantastic. So the idea with Kin is that we feel like an internal recruiter in your own business. And that's what we want. We want to feel like that. So develop those really rich understandings over time so that we know the DNA, we know who's going to thrive in that environment. We know what they're looking for.

Yeah. Rather than just stack them high, selling cheap, we've got another one for you.

Yeah, absolutely.

Nice. And so I guess, yes, part of doing things differently, this little B Corp thing popped up on your radar. So how did you come across the concept of B Corp?

Yeah, well, there's a thing with founders and leaders of any business and it can feel quite lonely. And often and particularly in the last two years, with everything that's gone on, you feel like you're carrying the world on your shoulders. So I was referred to a leadership group called Collective Intelligence. And I know, you know, know the founder of that business. And, you know, it was very, very quickly became apparent to Ian Harvey. He said, look, the way that your business rolls and your values and everything that you hold dear, you know, your giving program is so aligned to B Corp, you know, what do you think about that? And that was March 2020. So we were just coming into that very first lockdown. That lockdown was tough for our business. We really were smacked around something awful. So my primary focus was keeping my team together and feeling connected. And we kicked off a bunch of intern, one of which was to look into B Corp. So we set up one hour meetings once a week to try and just chip away at what felt like an absolutely overwhelming and onerous process. We ended up having a couple of months that were pretty woeful in terms of revenue generation and work, but we never got to the end of it. And it got put on the back burner. And it wasn't until I became aware of what you do Tim around whispering be caught whisperer that I thought actually maybe Tim can help us to turn down the dial on that overwhelm of some of these questions and help us demystify some of the language around that. So at that point we connected with you and, you know, we'd had a good crack at it, but we really were a long way from finishing. And what I loved about that connection with you is, you know, you really just did make everything in plain language and go, look what they're looking for here. I know it says this, but what they're actually looking for is this. And just put it into clean language and it just cleared the Runway for us. And literally it took five weeks from when we first started talking. Talking to you, pushing scene and getting.

Out of the button. Yeah, yeah, that's typical. Yeah. And you were a really cool. I mean, everyone who's in the group that we're working with are super cool companies. But you're one of those, you know, Ian was bang on, like, you know, everything that you, that we talked about, all the stuff that you were doing, it's like, you are a B corp. You just, you didn't know it. And that, that was really cool. I think that was partly why it was quite easy to get you across the line. Because, you know, and I think there's a lot of small businesses, smaller businesses, like, you know, 10 to 14 is a decent number of people, but when there's, you know, the one kind of the one person in charge who can make. Make a quick decision around, well, yeah, totally. We'll just do it that way if that's what needs to be done. That's always really, really useful. But had you heard about B Corp at all before Ian mentioned it to you? Was it. Was it a tool on your radar? Was there anything around, some sort of certification tool? Yeah, that. Had that been a thought at all? Or was it literally Ian sort of.

Going, hey.

No, I had heard of it. We had a couple of clients or businesses that were in our close orbit who were B Corp. So I didn't really have any depth of understanding about it, but certainly had heard about it. But the more we matured as a business and the more we clarified our values and what was really important to us, the more I felt that B Corp was the way for us to go. And, you know, we haven't changed the way we've done anything. But what it has done, it's really raised my awareness around, you know, we're doing this and that's great. If we just did this little bit more, it would be terrific. And so it's just really put a little bit more rigor around what we do, how we do it. And we've become very thoughtful and considered around a whole bunch of things and then actually just sharing those stories with our clients as well, you know, they're really open to it. So we can actually get that message out to other businesses as well. And that means a lot to us.

Yeah, I think. Yeah. For me, looking at your business, you know, you were, you were doing it. This is just proof that you are really doing it. And like you say, you have that bit of rigor to go. Well, okay, we kind of told you that we may be doing this, but actually, look, we can prove it and it's now been benchmarked that we are doing that. So, yeah, I think you, yeah, you were a really obvious candidate for B corpness. So go you.

Well, I had a question there, but it's gone.

By the way, can we push?

We're in the painful period of waiting.

You're in the waiting.

This quiet dread that when the, whoever it is comes in and has a chat to us, I'll be like, oh my God, that was six months ago.

Yeah, I don't know.

It'll all come back. It'll all come back under pressure. It will come back.

That's cool. And, and so in terms of like the journey, what have you noticed anything from the team? Like was there any comments or, or stuff from the team? Because quite often we see there's certainly like a bit more of a deeper connection, appreciation for that, for the stuff that you are doing. Because you know, quite often you, it's a bit like being the fish in water. Like you're doing all this good stuff but it's like well we just do that. That's just like the kin way of doing it. Yeah. Was it, was there anything around that or you know, obviously you've seen, you said your customers have, have seen something from it.

I think the whole team are just more aware of you know, ethical supply chains.

You know, businesses that we interact with so that values alignment dealing with like for like. So there's, you know, there's parts of the market that aren't quite right for us from a values alignment and that's okay. But there are many part really are bang on. So it's raising that awareness and obviously that B Corp community is one. So there's values alignment there automatically. So that really appeals to us and it's just become part of a, you know, we connect as a team because a lot of our team work really flexibly and remotely and we connect once a week and it's become a part of the conversation every week is around, you know, B Corp. What are we doing, what are we working on, where to from here?

Nice. And so I guess I've had a few conversations this week talking to companies about partnerships to get B Corp out to more people as well as talking to companies about them being a B Corp. And the great resignation is a topic that has come up again and again and again and I guess there's been quite a bit of media attention around this, this concept. But what are you seeing from like boots on the ground, this whole kind of concept of a whole lot of people quitting work or looking for more meaningful work and wanting to do something different in 22, is that real or is it just media hope?

Well, I mean there's two questions in there, really. Yes. People are looking for more meaningful work and this kind of like our younger ones, like, I've got four sons, three of them are in their mid-20s and they very much want to work with an organisation that is making a difference. They want to turn the dial on something, whether it's environmentally or making social impact. That's important to that age group through my lens. And then there's people that are, you know, we've had a tough couple of years and people have kind of stood back and kind of gone. Look, I've been kind of trapped at home for a lot of the time. How did that feel? How was I treated? How was the communication through that time? You know, did I have to take a pay cut? How long did I have to do that for all of that thing? And we've kind of largely come out the other side. I think, in typical Kiwi fashion, we've kind of made our peace with where things are at, but it's caused a lot of people to go actually, you know what, life is short and we've dodged a bullet on this, but it's not over yet. What do I really want to do with my time? And so we seeing people who really wanting to work with organizations that align with their own values and they do want to make a difference. So there's definitely that piece there. And then, you know, the great resignation look without Borders the way they are, you know, all the Kiwis that were going to come home have come home. So what we've got now is Kiwi businesses going. We dodged a bullet. We've still got growth plans. I need to answer to my board or whatever, you know, let's crack on. But actually, we've got this finite talent pool that we're all fishing from and the people with the biggest bait are getting the talent. So what's happening is we're all. We're all. We're actually cannibalizing one another. And it's shocking to see, but we're all hunting for talent from one another. Businesses.

Yep.

We've got a smallish div shop that we work with in the Wellington region. You know, they're about 12 people strong. And within about five months, one of the great big globals hunted out five of their team and literally the chief executive was going, if they keep doing this, you know, we are not going to be able to. And ended up reaching out to their chief executive and saying, mate, could you just.

Just give me five minutes to breathe.

You know, But I mean, that's one story, but it's happening all the time. You know, if anybody apart from my mother is watching this, you know, and you've got employees, you know, look after them. You know, we've got. We've had this great, this massive global pandemic, but we've, you know, we've got a mental health pandemic that's rolling through the whole world right now. You know, you want to listen to your people, look at them, check in with them. How are you really? That's a great question. And it's the really that really brings out, you know, what can I do to support you? How can I better support you in your role in your life? It's, it's those questions, the other things that we need to be paying attention.

To right now, rather than just sort of the lip service, you know. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, cool. Yeah, move on. Don't really. Don't actually care. And I don't really know, you know, I don't actually care enough to sort of stop and get to know you to that depth of understanding.

Yeah, yeah. Well, many people do here, but I guess they're just not so mindful. And I think with flexible and remote working, if we're not in the same room and many of us aren't and can go for weeks, you know, do you. Do you know how they are really, like, just make the time to connect and say, look, it's been a tough couple of years. How are you going?

Yeah.

And look, if you got, you know, if you. Do you have EAP available for your employees where they can go and talk to somebody outside the business if they need to, or their family members need to. Small things like that will go a long way to keeping people engaged and loyal and staying where they are.

There was a cool tool. I was part of a remote, like, genuinely global remote team. This was a few years ago now, and one of the guys instigated. This is a really. I found this a really useful tool. I can't remember the guy who invented it, but he. He was like a Silicon Valley tech guy. And as part of the start of every meeting, everyone in the. On the zoom call or whatever or Skype call back in the day would basically say, I am sad, mad or glad. And they'd say what the thing they were. They'd have a couple of seconds to talk about why they were sad, mad or glad, or you could be a mixture of all three. And then after you'd had a time to sort of download, you'd say, I'm in. Which means like I've checked in, I've checked in with the team, I've told you what my mental state is, but I've now kind of parked that and I'm in. I'm now checked in and ready for this meeting. And I just found that really useful because you'd get a sense like if the same person said, you know, I'm sad three days in a row. If you're the boss, it's like, okay. Wendy said she sad three days in a row now about, okay. It might be different topics or it might be the same thing. It's like, okay, I'm going to book a session in with Wendy and have a one to one and go, hey look, I've just said three days in a row. You're not feeling great. What is it? How do we help? And that I think just went such a long way. And we had a really tight team and none of us have met each other yet. Like never. We never met each other. A couple of guys were in Poland, a couple of guys in the us There was me in New Zealand. We've never met each other but we built a really quick team and cohesive team really quickly based on that little, just that small principle.

It's really powerful. We have just a 10, 15 minute stand up every day. And the first question is, how are you really? And the second is what's one thing you're grateful for? And it just keeps that, that mindset of it. You know, it could just be as simple as that. You know, it's a beautiful day to day, but it's focusing on that upward, you know, because we've got tons to be grateful for. But our human brains just tend to focus on the stuff that's not so terrific.

100 like if you're living in New Zealand, either born here or you've made it here by some miracle, like you have won life's lottery really. You know. Yeah, look, you know, there's lockdowns. Yeah, there's stuff, you know, it's not perfect but you know, would you rather be running a small business in the Sudan right now or in Auckland? You know, I kind of think I'd rather be giving it a go here than some. I'm sure there's great businesses in the Sudan. But you know, in terms of opportunities and general, you know, stuff that's potentially going to go wrong for you and the support that you have yet, like you've won the lotto and I think, I think we do lose. You're right. We lose sight of the good stuff that's right in front of us.

Easily done.

Yeah. So are you seeing. So in terms of that, the support and stuff, are you.

Are you seeing at all that it's still, still about money for these in a tight labor market, Is it just about money or are some of these softer things playing more of a role now post Covid, is it kind of like. Well actually I want to know what the support is. I want to know what your, what your true values are. I want to know, you know, is that. Yeah, how are you assessing that? What are your thoughts on that at the minute?

It's a bit of a mix. You know, it depends where you're at and your financial risk profile. You know, if you're, if you're a first homeowner and you've got a massive mortgage, then you probably are going to focus and we do see that. And there's some ridiculous money being thrown around there. And don't even get me started about, you know, worrying about how sustainable that is because the market will correct and the borders will open and how sustainable is it? You can't give a pay cut once you give in a pay rise, like it's just not a thing. Yeah, but you know, we hit a client in Auckland who he worked with. He had an employee and worked with them for 10 years over three different businesses. They were, you know, as tight as anything. And this guy was, and he was paying market probably a little bit better. This employee was lured away for 30k more than what he was able to pay. And you know, it just for that employee, given his life circumstances and age, that was important to him. But many, many others are looking at their current employer and going, how did I feel during the last two years? How was I treated? You know, we, how much humanity was applied to my situation. And they're either feeling intensely loyal and wouldn't leave for anything or they're kind of going, actually, you know what, it's not for me.

I'm needing a bit more. I definitely, I remember post earthquake here I was working for a US based company with their regional head office in Japan. And then my office that I reported to was in Australia and the, the morning of the earth, you know, the first earthquake here was like 4:50 or whatever it was in the morning.

After we kind of got our stuff together, we bolted out of the house and went to, we moved inland because we were worried there was a tsunami coming. Like you don't know what's happening. And I checked in with My. With my boss in Aussie and he's like, oh, so sounds like you've had a bit of an earthquake. Cool. Are you still able to get to Auckland on Monday? And I was like, I don't even know if the airport's like, there anymore. Like, meanwhile, my wife's company were basically, hey, look, we've put two months salary in your account. Tell us what you need. Completely different.

Yeah.

And literally the Monday after the earthquakes, I had to, or might have been a week or so after I was on a plane to Auckland and I'm kind of like, I had my emergency kit with me like an absolute, like, frightened rabbit. And that stuff just really did stick with you. And I left that company not that long afterwards. It's like really like you just. And then the same again. I actually went over to a training course in the US and the February earthquake happened here and I was halfway through the training course and I said to the instructor, hey, look, there's just been a massive earthquake at home. I can't get hold of my wife. There's nothing on the news here. There was nothing on stuff yet. I don't know what's going on. I might need to leave the course early. And he said, well, if you leave the course early, you will fail and you will not be allowed to come back and redo the course. It's like, dude, this is like, I don't know if my house is standing. Do you think I'm going to be focused on taking this exam anyway?

Wow.

It's like.

Yeah, so, yeah, it goes a long way in situations.

Certainly does. Yeah. Just be a good human. It's. Apparently it's harder than it. Other than it. Than it should be. Yeah. But that's interesting. Yeah. And I think that, yeah, it's probably right. Yeah. Some people will need to take the money because of where they're at. But it's kind of good to hear, you know, clearly I'm trying to build a community of businesses where it's more about, you know, the good that you do and the contribution and the meaning and the purpose you get out of it. Because I think, you know, you mentioned the mental health stuff and for me that is the, the untapped solutions of the mental health crisis is the meaning and purpose in the work that you do and seeing the good that you're creating rather than, well, I know that I'm destroying the planet, but hey, they're paying me 30k more than I got paid to destroy the planet by the last lot. So I can Live with that. Yeah.

Thinking about the. If you can remember the impact assessment clearly, like one of the sections is on workers. So were there. What was that like for you? Was there surprises in there in terms of questions that they were asking? Yeah. Or was it. Was it pretty much expected? Yeah, just talk to me about that at a sort of a high level.

Yeah, it's interesting. I thankfully knew that you were going to touch on this, so I dived back in this morning, which I need to refresh myself. I mean, a lot of it is matrix and, you know, we all kind of keep those. We've got HR systems or payroll systems that capture that around, you know, diversity and, you know, gender mixes and things like that. But there were other things around, you know, health and wellness that it was just lovely to see come through and what organisations are doing and it just, you know, opens your mind about what else is possible. You know, are we actually doing pretty well in that space or could we potentially do a bit more? It looks at your hiring practices and how open you are to things like flexible working and a real focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, you know, which is a journey we're on. And it's, you know, I don't think there's ever an end destination on that front, but really just raised our awareness, you know, we're an all female team and I have tried so hard to balance the gender, just as simple as that in our business, but just haven't, haven't been able to do it. But it's just actually raising awareness around, you know, potentially the interview process that we go through isn't really playing into the strengths of male applicants. And so it's really made us open our eyes around our own practices around that and recruitment. So it was really terrific.

Nice. What sort of tips would you give to a company that's going through the B corp assessment from, you know, or if you're thinking about this, because, you know, there's always a few companies out there like, oh, yeah, we'll do it one day, but, you know, we just want to get our ducks in a row a little bit more before we. We sort of go ahead on it. But from what you've seen of it and from your experience, what are some things that you would advise a wannabe in terms of getting some. Getting some policies or concepts in place from a B corp perspective?

Yeah, I guess I'd start with, you know, what's your motivation for doing it? You know, what's your. Why? Because it is a big commitment. And then, I mean, for Us what worked well was spending some time in that environment and understanding, you know, who else is already in there and do I feel like there's a real alignment there because if those guys are in there and I think in respect and you know, think they're terrific in what they do and how they roll, that's terrific. So, and then spend some time in the nitty gritty and understanding what the ask is around the questions because it is onerous. It really is onerous. And then kind of working out well, what has given me the overwhelm around not moving forward with this and for us it was demystifying the language and actually just trying to make sense of what are they really trying to understand from us here. And that's the point that we reached out to you, Tim, and that, you know, you just clarified everything and made it so simple. And literally we'd spent a year agonizing over where we were at and we flirted with it and then got overwhelmed and pulled back. But you know, as soon as we engage with you, we were familiar enough with it that we felt confident. But actually you just really just helped us accelerate things and get it over the line. So, you know, if they can align with an organization that's done it and can give them some guidance or align with yourselves, you know, it just makes things a lot, a lot more clean, a lot smoother.

Nice. And then I guess in terms of like specifics, under, under the, under the employees or the workers section, was there any, any specific advice you'd, you'd give? I mean things like an employee handbook is a useful thing to start thinking about in terms of, you know, just what you need to score points on the, on the workers section, clearly training and development, you know, employee satisfaction. Yeah. You know, there's a few things that maybe if you're a smaller or medium sized business, you might not actually have done yet because it's kind of like we're a fast growing team. Everyone seems to be happy. No one's resigning. Cool. We'll just take it. That engagement's at 90% plus. Yeah. Any. Anything that you would advise from, just from your experience in sort of recruitment and people world in terms of like, yeah, getting on the front foot for the workers pillar.

Yeah, I guess it's putting on, putting the hat on of your employees and thinking about what does a good employee experience feel like or thinking about what organizations that you've worked in yourself that you felt valued. And the onboarding process was amazing and set you up for success from day one. And then applying that to your own business. I think employees are asking for more and have greater expectations, and they should, than they used to. So being good enough isn't good enough anymore at the moment. And it won't be for a long time until the board is open and the labor market writes itself. And that could be another couple of years yet. You need to be doing all that you can to make that employee experience a good one.

Yep. Why I guess we're calling this thing to be better movement. You've got to be better because it's your employees, your customers, your supply chain, the investment community are all demanding that you be better right now.

So you go with that marketing.

There you go. Hey, it's as if I actually gave it some thought, but I think I did really just sort of came up when I was like, oh, be better. That kind of looks good. Let's go with that. That's how we roll here.

Yeah, that's super cool. But yeah, I think it's going to be interesting because, you know, we're certainly seeing a rise in interest in B Corp. Locally. There's definitely. The UK has now just hit 600b corps.

This isn't going away. And if you're not getting ahead of, you know, if you're, if you're still thinking good enough is going to be good enough, I think you're going to be sorely disappointed, you know, and that's just from looking at your employees. You know, let's, let's not put on your customer pressure, your supply chain pressure, investment pressure, but other pressures that are going to make. You have to be better in the very near future. So it's, it's exciting times to be, to be in this arena, I reckon.

Well, it is a draw card. You know, we've, we've got probably, I don't know, maybe three clients that have been corp and you know, we'll get applications come through and they'll say, I, I'm drawn to them because they are a B corp, you know, and, and if they've got three opportunities in play, which, you know, candidates and job seekers, they do these days, if one's a B corp and two aren't, and, and they're wired that way, they'll, they'll go that way. So it's a differentiator.

That's super cool to hear because, because you, you know, we see that in the literature, as it were, but in some ways it's more powerful to hear that kind of anecdotally from someone who's at the coalface going that actually, I'm, I'm actually seeing this because I know that I know Ian Har, did he go through you to recruit? Was it Bettina? Bettina.

He didn't know.

What a bastard. There he is. Like, I'll have stern words with him about that. But I think the main reason, I think it's Bettina. Bettina. I think the main reason she applied was because they were a big. And that was one of the reasons why she got hired was because she was like, hey, you're a B corp. I just want to work for you because you're a bit like, I love what you're doing but I really want to be here because you're a B corp. So we're definitely, we're definitely seeing that. So yeah, that's cool. Cool to see that you're seeing that and hopefully that this just increases.

What else are you seeing in terms of like purpose in the workplace? Is there any other trends that you think, you know, the rest of the team, the be better community or prospective B corps need to be getting their finger on the pulse for when it comes to sort of generally being more purpose driven and values driven. And what are you seeing around that?

Well, it's walk the talk, you know, if you've got values, you know, are they really embedded across the business and are you living, eating, sleeping and breathing them every day and things that you're doing, things that you're saying, things that you're not saying but you know, but are being observed by people that work with you. It's the rituals. It's kind of like what does it feel like to be part of this team? So it's the tiny little things, it's the thousands of small things that will keep your people in the business.

But you're just focusing on things through an employee lens is the way to go.

Yep.

And then, you know, remuneration, you can't get away from it. It is important. And REM levels have moved to New Zealand. They really have. So just making sure that you're, you know, doing enough to actually kind of meet the market without going crazy. Because honestly we've got a, one of our largest clients. You know, they had a kind of a budget and a goal to recruit 30 to 40 roles in a 12 month period. But in the last two years we got to about.

20 employees in for them and they'd spent their salary, budget that was gone just because the markets moved and they felt like they needed to move with it. But I look at businesses like that who have met the market and I go how sustainable is that in the long term? What's going to happen in three years time if you can't put your prices up, your salary bill's bigger, how sustainable is that? So I think there's a ripple effect from that that we haven't seen yet, but we will see it come out in the next couple of years.

Yeah, it's gonna be interesting the whole the post Covid world that we might enter one day. Who knows when that might be? Yeah, yeah. We've got a couple of questions coming in from. So I guess for people tuning in to the podcast, this is also live streaming in the Be Better 100 community group which is a group for the clients who are currently working with helping them navigate the B Corp certification and go B Corp and beyond. So if you want to ask questions of our lovely guests, you basically have to be in the Be Better community. So we've got a couple of questions here from Laszlo who is also been going through the B Corp assessment with his business and he has said have you. How many and what kind of customers have you turned down as they were not a good fit sort of values based or culturally and how the supplementary, how do you do that?

Do you just ignore the emails or do you actually go back to them and say look, this is why we don't want to work with you.

Yeah. Yeah. So we work with probably around just over 200 clients around New Zealand and we recruit mostly for New Zealand but for some will do roles in Singapore, the uk, Australia.

And for us it is a values alignment. It's also, I hate to be Chris, but if someone's a dick, they're probably not going to work with us if they're not treating us like a partner or they're being unkind or unreasonable to my team. There's just a conversation had and it generally is around a values alignment and it's simply that I can refer them on to another traditional recruitment agency and I will do that but you know, the conversation really simply is, you know, at the moment I feel like we're not a terrific fit and I don't think this partnership's going to be wonderful for either of us. I can refer you onto this business over here that might be a better fit for you at this time.

Nice.

Yeah.

And I guess that's partly your branding, your marketing. You know, when you go to your website you, you get the impression that you're, you know, you are but you're approaching things a bit differently here. So I guess you've done that obviously intentionally to create that brand of. Yeah. And I guess once, once you get the little B badge on your, on your website, that will help even more, I guess, identify the kinds of people that, that, that you want to hang out with, but also that want to come hang out with you. So that's cool. Lazlo's got a second question. He's been very greedy. He is interested in how do you measure employee satisfaction? So there's, I mean, we, we offer like a boilerplate survey template that you can get from us to do an employee survey which would be eligible for B Corp. Certification, validation and approval. But beyond just. I guess that's your basic level. I mean, there's a lot of companies that we work with. You go, oh, employee satisfaction. Yeah, we've never done that. We'll add that to the kind of impact improvement to do list. But how do you measure. How do you authentically measure employee satisfaction over the long term? What tips and tricks have you got for people?

Yeah, it's a great question, Laszlo, and it's not one that I have an answer for. We look as a business, recruitment is not rocket science. It's actually really simple, but it is an art. But our business is simple. We tread lightly in the world through, around policy and process and procedure because we don't need to be. We're not a huge clunky business. So we don't have any formal engagement tools that we use. What we do have because of our size, we're just incredibly connected. And so that engagement piece, if somebody's going off the boil or they've got stuff going on and they're distracted from the business, you pretty much know it on the daily. And a part of that is that just that simple ritual every morning. How are you really? And giving the space and the time and. And then what's the one thing you're grateful for? Because, you know, much as your story was telling about, if somebody's sad three days in a row, you need to really tune into what's going on for them. If somebody in my team struggling to find gratefulness three days in a row, I need to pay attention to what's going on here as well. So. So it's a. It's a little bit. It's not so formal and it certainly doesn't have any tools attached, but I, I'd say we're pretty tuned into it.

Nice.

Any tips or tricks, you know, because, you know, like I say, culture is, Is a really nebulous thing to Sort of try and create. And a lot of it is dependent on the leadership, on the, on the work that you're doing. You know, have people been recruited in successfully? You know, are they a square peg in the round hole? Do they actually want to be that? There's, there's quite a lot of moving pieces when it comes to creating great culture. But, and I, and I guess the risk is you kind of go, well, you know, we've got, we've got a ping pong table or a pool table and we shout you lunch once a week. You know, what more do you people want? Some of that stuff is useful, but how much of that is genuine? What are your thoughts around building a good culture around things like that? Or do you think they're just gimmicks from the Google and Facebook world that mean nothing to most people?

Well, I think it'll mean something to some people, but not to all people. And so whether you've got the purple beanbags and the cool TV and the gaming space and you do yoga and the lunchtime together as a team, whether you do that or not, I honestly, I believe it's as simple as be a decent human being to your employees. You know, my crew are as important to me as my kids are, you know, and I'm very tuned in. If there's something going on, you know, I know about it and, you know, all we can really do is support around the edges. If somebody's got a parent who's, you know, terminally ill and they're dealing with that, then, you know, let's support them through that. If, if they're really struggling because they're in lockdown again and they're homeschooling kids while trying to, you know, keep things together, you know, it's that it's actually just be a decent human being and have your ears for listening and tune in with what's going on, you know, because really, at the moment we want to hold our people close and we want to support them to get through this. You know, in two years, we'll all look back and we'll go, that was horrific. How did we get through that? But, you know, right now we're still in the middle of it and we need to pull our people in tight and just, Just support them through it.

Yep. I think that's great advice because certainly work I've done with teams, you know, sometimes the boss thinks, well, you know, purpose needs to look like this or culture needs to look like this, but the team don't want it to look like that. And you can spend a lot of time on initiatives and ideas that you think are cool, but actually no one else thinks are cool. And it's, it's. Yeah, I think just listening and understanding what people want and need for them to thrive at work. It's so simple, yet seemingly so hard because clearly not everyone's doing it as well as they could do.

One wonderful thing, being a pretty young company, we got to choose our own values and the whole team were involved in that. And we had an amazing facilitator come in and it only took half a day, but at the end of the session, we had our values around and some words around them, and she had us all in this room and had us to stand there quietly and close our eyes and she read out each value and with each value she read out, able to. We'd be took a step forward, stepping into those values. It was incredibly powerful. You know, there were people who were tearful about it and most of us had goosebumps like it was just an incredibly powerful experience. So that, that piece around values and mission, all of that piece, if you can involve your employees in selecting those and owning those, it's so powerful, it just becomes a part of their DNA.

Yeah. How do you, how do you manage that, though, in bigger companies? I guess I spent the first part of my career working for large multinationals and you were just a cog in the machine and people just generally didn't really care about how you were. I mean, this is, you know, 20 odd years ago, I guess now, late 90s, early 2000s. So I guess culture and stuff's moved on a bit. Maybe it's different in a lot of big companies, but you've got a large company with a declared set of values or mission or purpose statement. I guess partly the argument would be we're back to a good recruitment. You know, if you hire people who don't actually fit it, you could end up with a bad situation. But for me, I actually found the biggest thing was I was trying to live the values, but the company didn't really live them. But, you know, how do you, how do you. How can you help really make sure that in large companies where maybe the boss, you know, like yourself, doesn't have the luxury of seeing every team member every morning and looking at them in the eye and kind of shaking hands and going, you actually. All right, do you want to go for a coffee? Like, yeah. How have you seen people do that really well, in terms of, like, really keeping the culture alive when You've got big distributed silos, companies. Any tips on that or is it just impossible?

Well, I haven't worked in many, you know, enterprise level organizations. The ones that I have worked in, it has to come from the top. You know, it's. It's the chief executive, even the board above that, it's the senior leadership team walking the talk and acting. When those values are being violated by any employees, it's being seen to act and actually just, you know, have that conversation. Do you know what it's like in a school situation, Tim? It's the principal who leads the charge, who sets the tone of the entire organ. And organizations are just the same. It comes from the top. It needs to be, you know, I know, you know, the chief executives rock solid on these things. He stands strong on this. He won't tolerate that this is how he deals with this, you know, and demonstrating that behavior on the daily.

Nice. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I think that's, I think it's not Joe Biden president. I think it is his dad who had this quote. It's like, don't tell me what your values are. Show me where you spend your money. And I think that the ethos behind that is like, it's really easy to have your values on the wall and tell me, tell me how good you are and the good that you do, but actually show me what you do and are you investing in your people? If you're telling me that people are the number one thing as a value for this company and our employees are valued above all else. Cool. What money have you spent on your employees in the last 12 months? Are you actually doing that or is it just look nice as part of your recruitment policy?

Yeah, it's such a challenge as a leader, isn't it? It's balancing profit with purpose. And, you know, that's a huge. I mean, look, I'm, I'm not interested in having a lot of cars and a lot of houses. It's just, it's not how I roll. We've. We've got enough and our team are well rewarded, but we, we want it, we want to be able to give back. So, you know, we'll do that. We've got. Our global giving partner is B1G1. And if anyone's interested, you know, look into that, it's fantastic. And the whole team buys into that. They, the charities that we climb in behind, they contribute to. What are the business milestones that we want to measure ourselves against so that that will trigger our giving and we can make a difference in the world. It can be really simple. Like someone on the team has a birthday. We provide 100 days of life saving clean water to families in Ethiopia. You know, it's simple, simple things. And then we've got a local charity partner who's also a client and they're a smaller charity, they don't have a lot to come and go on. But you know, every time we receive a client referral, you know, we make a $200 donation to this charity and that means a lot to our team. Like they cannot, they're bringing referrals in and going, oh, does that mean we get to, you know.

Yeah, yeah, do some more good?

Yeah, it does. Absolutely.

What a crazy idea. What a crazy idea. Doing good. Yeah, be better, do more good, grow good. So where it's at, that's super cool. And yeah, it's the way forward. You know, there's, there's a guy, he's, I think he's a psychologist or, or psycho, something rather. But as in trained, not just the psycho. Dr. Tim Casser. He's based in the US and he's basically spent his time researching.

Materialism versus happiness outcomes. And basically he's proven over his 20 year career that chasing material stuff makes you less happy. It's like it's 100% proven. Yet the whole system that we're in is like, no, have more, have more. Like when you know you need to have eight investment properties and you need to have four cars and, and you need to have a bigger office and all the rest of it. So that's really cool. And again, I think this is testament to the fact that you're going to be a really solid B corp, is that you're built on the foundation of not actually. It's about impact, it's about giving, it's about making sure our customers at both ends because I guess you've got customers on both sides and that you've got, you know, your companies you're recruiting for and the individuals, you're just trying to do it well. And that's super cool. That's super, super cool. We need more businesses doing more good stuff like you basically, which is what I'm trying to do.

It's not rocket science, is it?

It kind of isn't.

It's pretty simple.

It's actually pretty simple, but I guess it's, it's just getting the mental state right. Have you always been that way inclined? Is it, is this like Wendy has always been this person or did you, have you been through the, like, I wasn't like this before. Like, I had a massive, you know, early midlife crisis of conscience. Like, what am I doing? I'm working for these large medical device companies. They're knowingly killing people in the, in the, you know, to chase more money. And I was in that system for 10 years and it took, it took the earthquakes and an early midlife crisis for me to go, this is, this is shit. And this is not, this is not who I feel. I want to be like, so why am I here? So, so that was a big part of my journey which has led me to here. But yeah. Have you always been like, giving Wendy or were you at one point, take Wendy, give me the money, I want the cars?

Well, no, I've never been like that, but I have certainly been in high earnings roles and that comes back to age and stage and financial risk profile. But I guess I'm kind of past that. But I, I definitely, I have an overdeveloped empathy gene. Absolutely. I do. I feel strongly about Kiwi businesses doing great things through hiring amazing people. And if I can play a part in facilitating that, you know, I want in, I want to do it.

Nice. Super cool. Is that, do you think it's come from your parents or do you think just Wendy was just born, like, I suppose, coming from your parents genetically, or was it the way you were brought up? Was there anything specific about that?

I don't know.

Come on, this is all part of the journey. You got to know this stuff. Where have you come from? Where are you going, man?

Well, look, as a kid, if I ever got a new pair of shoes, so my mum raised four of us on her own and we didn't have a lot of money, but if I got a new pair of shoes, I was so concerned that they'd be missing the other shoes in the shoe shop that I used to take them to bed for the first couple of nights just so they weren't lonely.

That's so cute.

So I think I kind of have always been a little bit like me.

Nice.

But don't tell anyone that story. It's a bit.

Okay. That won't, that won't be going to anyone on the Internet, I promise.

Getting a little bit pink now. I've shared that.

That's super cool, though. I mean, you know, we just, we need more humanity in business. I think this, this is the thing. It's like we've had, we've had business for business's sake for, for too long and it's like, it's not fun. Only a few people do well out of it. But actually, when you read Tim Cass's work, you're not doing well out of it. You're psychologically corrupt and you're probably going to bed, you know, crying yourself to sleep instead of hugging your new shoes because you love them so much and you're so grateful for them.

We need it at board level and we need it at leadership level. We need it at CE level because it will filter down and filter through.

Yeah. And I think it is coming. I think there's definitely signals out there. It's just for me, I kind of refer back to my orthopedic experience. The guy who invented the modern hip replacement is a guy called Sir John Charnley. And what I loved about him, like when you look, when you talk about devious behavior in the medical device world, when he was trying to invent the first hip replacement, he injected material into his own body to test the reactions on it. Like, that's a guy that you can kind of go, okay, you genuinely care about your patients because you're willing to put yourself through unsanctioned tests with materials he basically injected like polyethylene before it was medically approved to see what, what would happen to him. But I'm on board with you, John, because you're doing this as opposed to, yeah, we'll try it on a few patients. If we lose a few, oh, well, you know, I'm okay. But he always used to say, you know, orthopedics is a race between the patient and the implant. You know, we're gonna, we're gonna try and put a medical device in a person that's going to restore their mobility in their life. And it, and what we need to do is create an implant that is going to last longer and out survive the patient, patient so that they don't have to have repeated surgeries. And I kind of feel like the purpose race, we're in the similar race. It's like we need to get more purpose driven leaders and businesses before we lose battles, whether it be climate pollution, mental health. Like there's a whole lot of stuff that we can be, that we can fix if we have some good people in some good businesses doing some good stuff, of which you are clearly one.

Of them and you, you're an evangelist for it. It's awesome.

We're trying, we're trying. It's been a while, but it feels like people are finally coming around to it.

Yeah, yeah, this is your time.

I hope so. This feels like it feels like it. So what's. What's 2022 got in store for you? Hopefully. Any. Any big plans or are you just trying to keep going? What. Yeah. What's happening for Kid and the team?

Yeah, we've got a few.

Get your B Corp certification, obviously get that.

That is on the list. 100. Do you know what? I've got a couple of shareholders in the business as well. And you know, we set our sights and our goals toward the end of last year, but over the break, I've taken a good three weeks off for the first time since Kin's been around. And just that third week, honestly, if you can ever get three weeks off in a row, take really made me think with everything that's coming through and rolling out and, you know, alert level changes that are coming our way and it will. I've kind of parked that. So my goal will be what it was back in March 2020 is, you know, keep our people close, you know, keep an eye on them, you know, care for them, hold them tight. I don't think the foot will come off the gas in terms of our clients and their growth aspirations. I don't think we'll be slammed around. Far from it. But, you know, when I look at revenue targets and who of us don't have aspirations along those lines, I've kind of just walked away from that, to be honest. If I can keep my team, you know, doing meaningful work and working with businesses that they love, being well rewarded for what they do and, and keeping up our giving program, that, that to me will be success for the next sort of financial year.

Yep. Nice. I think we get lost in the idea that a steady state place or steady state is actually not. Is okay.

Yeah.

You know, it's like double digit exponential growth. Yeah. Okay. Well, if you can do it and you might need it, you know, happy days. But actually if we can maintain the team, maintain our client work, deliver everything and still be in one piece at the end of the year.

What a crazy idea that succeeds 100%. Yeah. Kin is like my fifth child. It really is. And you know, going back two years, I really was fighting for the life of this, of this, this baby that is Kin. It felt like that it was. It was hard. Yakka. And so you're right. I think success is actually the status quo.

Yep. I feel pretty much the same. Yeah. When that first lockdown, I just watched all my training and coaching clients walk out the door going, well, I don't know, let's maybe reconvene in November, if we're all still alive. And that's kind of like, yeah, sure, haha. And then you're like, okay, actually, yeah, that might be right. Yeah. So it's been an interesting couple of years, that is for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So, finishing up any. Yeah. Any sort of final tips, advice, any words of wisdom you'd like to leave? Anyone who's. Yeah. You know, got looking to do better within their recruitment or sort of HR capacity or B Corp related. Yeah. What? Any sort of final words of wisdom you'd like to leave on?

Well, I mean, I'd invite anybody who's got any curious questions or kind of has been thinking about trying something new with their recruitment process. If you want to test anything out, just, you know, reach out to me through the. Through the Facebook group. I'm always happy to have a chat and share some insights. You know, they might be valuable, they might not, but you. Look, I think when it comes down to it, it's just all be good human beings, you know, it's actually not that hard.

So it's so simple, yet so hard. Yeah. And if people who aren't in the group want to get hold of you, what's your website?

Just www.kin.co.nz k I n happy days.

We'll certainly suggest that if you're a B corp and you're recruiting, you should probably get in contact with Wendy and the crew. And even if not a B corp, you should probably get in contact with kid. Well, if otherwise, you're not complete dicks. Decks need not apply.

Lovely to chat, Tim. Thanks so much for having me on.

No worries. And thank you, genuinely. Thank you for the amazing weather. You know, you're just a really cool company doing cool stuff in a slightly different way that's disrupting an industry and that's what we need. So you keep on doing what you're doing and have a great rest of 2022. But obviously we'll see you before the end of the year, I hope.

Thank you.

Maybe even in person. What a crazy idea that would be. Who would know genuinely? Who knows right now? Awesome. All right, well, cheers, Wendy. Thank you for that.

Ciao for now.

Cool.

Wow. Well done. Gosh, you. You do that whole on the fly.

Thing so well, pretty much, yeah. That's pretty much how I run my life.

I just figured, well, if you're talking to interesting people doing interesting stuff, you'll say something and I'll kind of go, oh, that's interesting. Let's. Let's go there. That's how we do it.

Awesome. Go, Lazlo. Where's Lazlo from?

So he's in Auckland. He runs a business. I think the name is Lassic. It stands for something, but I can't remember what it stands for. But he does sort of business improvement, so helping companies with sort of automation and systems and operationalizing stuff behind the scenes. So, yeah, we've just finished working with him.

We've. We just still live in the Facebook group. I should probably stop.

Stop streaming.

And that's a wrap. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you found it interesting, informative and inspirational. I'd love to know where you are on your BCOP journey. And if you have any specific questions or people that you'd like me to interview to help you on that journey, please do let me know.

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube for other content that you might like also. And finally, if you think that we might be able to do some epic work together, you can check out how that can happen through my website at www.growgood.co. until next time, be better.