Breaking the Mold: Creative Strategies for Recruitment and Retention

Well, you're in for a treat today on this episode of Chats with Jason as we're breaking the mold creating strategies for recruitment and retention. I've absolutely loved recording this episode for you, and I hope that you walk away with some great, actionable insights to help you attract and retain great talent in your business. Now today's guest has been the CEO of Masterstaff, Inc. For the last 23 years. Her name is Jennifer Sheets and she was absolute, absolute hoot to interview and so insightful. Now she hosts her own radio show in Nashville, Tennessee, called Master the Workforce, which can be heard around the world as it's streamed live each Sunday at 11am Central Time. That's Central Time, US. And she's also an Amazon bestseller, a mom. The list goes on. Speechless. It was a fantastic conversation. I don't want to keep you from it. So let's now dive in to how we can break the mold and create strategies for recruiting and retaining great talent. Hey, Jennifer, it's so great to have you on the show with us today.

Oh, it's great to be here. Thank you for having me.

Oh, it is absolutely my pleasure. And congratulations on the new book, the Human Capital Lifeline Revolutionizing Corporate Success. One employee at the time. Now, I used to work for a company with 600,000 employees.

Employee time, isn't it?

I've got my work set out, but of course, it's the intentionality of one employee at a time. Best selling book. Congratulations.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. There was a lot of work put into that and working on my second one as we're talking, so hopefully even better than the first.

Fantastic. Well, I'm also working on my second book at the moment, so congratulations.

That's great.

Thank you. I understand, though, the pain that we put on ourselves to make the second book better than the first. In fact, if I didn't do that, I'd probably already have the second out. But the show is not about me. It is about you and your excellent work that you do. Now tell me what led you to write your very first book.

Complete frustration. Complete and utter frustration. I started my staffing company 23 years ago in a hole in the wall, little old motel building that literally had brown shade carpeting and brown paneling on the wall that the landlord had to cut birds and squirrels out of it. So I mean, when you talk about start from nothing, I had nothing. And in the 23 years I've had the company, we've placed over 35,000 people in positions all over the United States and Canada. And I have literally watched the big, big dogs, the biggest corporations, companies, third parties, vendor management, companies, anything, you name it, completely. And u destroy the human part of what we do, which is the one thing that nobody can guarantee because if we could, we'd all be trillionaires. So I just had a complete frustration. I just want to shake people and wake them up to what is going on and what's happening and why we have the labor shortage.

So I hear that you don't think the pandemic is the reason we have the labor shortage that we do.

No, not at all. This started in the early 2000s. What the pandemic was was like the band aid that just kind of flipped off at the end of like, you know, just like revealing something terrible and ugly that we had been seeing going on for a long time. And a matter of fact, this was one of the reasons why when we had the global recession that we had in the late 2000s, like that 2006, 2008, you know, all that in time in there, what had started to happen even at that point in time, and it is becoming where we're doing a streamlined blockchain mentality of how we take our HR part, our componentry, the heartbeat of what we do, and try to put it like a line item and outsource it or even inside our own companies. Maybe it's not outsourcing, maybe it's just doing it the same every single place that we have. It's that cookie cutter mentality of trying to rush through it and keep it the same as everything else that started it. And the vendor management companies, managed service providers, all of those were the big, big thing that started in the early 2000s to, to having corporations and companies think this was the mentality that they needed to have in order to keep costs linear and fixed in that area.

And so if I'm hearing you correctly, it's that approach to outsourcing. And companies of all sizes are outsourcing HR functions, having the AI do it.

Too, which is insane.

Yeah, well, that's a whole other challenge. I saw a comment other day from a colleague, a dear colleague, and it was, if you're using AI, you're getting information that is two years old.

Oh, without question. And you're getting information that somebody programmed in. This is like people forget about this. Like computer programs just didn't poof out of thin air. They're programmed by individuals. And when people say, well, a machine is learning, they have a complete misconception. They think this machine has it's like a deity. It has a brain and it's just decided to, like, come up with these things. It's the way the mathematics work in the programming that just takes and takes information and it digests it. And whatever you put on the Internet, it discerns as fact. So whatever you decide to put information for it to grab from, it can't grab a book off a shelf. Right. It has to take information that we as human beings put in there. But yet we're believing everything it's saying is, this is how we should run our companies, this is how we should outsource. Or maybe it's just how we have to run our, you know, human resource departments. And then we get this, this whole, whole. What's happened is, is that people don't know how to recruit, retain at a level that's human like. And then they give excuses as to what the reasons are why they can't find and keep talent. And it's the tools that they're using and the mentality that they're using that's making that happen. And this is why last year was the. It was the great. What do they call it? The great resignation. 55 million people in the United States alone resigned from their jobs. If AI and all these new handy tools and all these recruitment technologies that are out there that everyone's using are so great, then why did 55 million people resign from their jobs?

Exactly. Exactly. It brings me back to technology that's been around for a long time. I'm not in the industry, so forgive me for not knowing the term. When you submit your resume, there's some software that scans your resume and determines whether you need to go through. Right. And now you can go on to Udemy or Thinkrific or any of those sites and get the top 10 ways to guarantee that you'll get through that system. Because it's all keyword generated that just says to me, well, you're going to employ people, or perhaps not, but you're going to at least interview people that have worked out a game, the system, as opposed to people that know how to do the work you need them to do.

So there's two. That's twofold. 100%. You're correct on that. You get that kind of, I want to say, maybe sculpted, created. Not entirely true. So you have that issue and then you have people that are using that tool as if that's what they should have in their own company. There's a reason why, you know, Coca Cola and McDonald's are not the same product in same company. They don't have the same thing, they don't run the same. They're not in the same locations. Different areas require different type of culture. You know, people find different things important, from work schedules to everything, right? And so what you've done is you've, you've reduced us down to an algorithm, right? That's what happens. Reduce down to an algorithm. And now that's what we're taking hr. Individuals are, are accepting that whatever is given to them is, that's what the tools that they need to use to decide who they should hire. And they're using those keyword. And because now on the back end of it, as I use tools, right, and I put my keywords on whatever's tossed over to me, I'm, I'm thinking that whatever they gave me, those are the qualified people. And what, what the argument on the other side is that argues me, it says, well, if you have the right people in place, you know how to ask the right questions to get through that, you are discriminating against so many people that cannot even get into that system. You're also looking. And I know it's not any different in the UK as it is in the United States. I bet that there are so many transferable skills that are called something different depending on what area of the country that you are in, that it's impossible. As slang changes, things change, people come from other countries for it to possibly keep up and capture all that, because you have to have that person constantly coding that and updating code. Which goes again to the argument about, well, the machine learns, it only learns what you gave it from the beginning and from what you gave it from the beginning. So it's just very frustrating that we have just relied on this tool and then we can't figure out why we don't have people that, to work these positions that we have, or we can't find people, or it's taking us 30, 40 days to get a human to actually do what we would like them to do.

Yeah, yeah, makes perfect sense. Just, you know, I'm thinking about my lived experience in the US that depending where you are, you're either buying soda or you're buying pop, but you're actually buying the same thing, right?

Absolutely. 100% true. I love it.

And if you can't even agree on what to call soft drink, then how are you going to get other terms? In the book? You deep dive on a number of areas, but chapter one, Lifeline is critical to existence. Now, are you talking about bread and butter actual staying alive? I think you take a different approach. You're looking at it from the employee point of view. What do you mean by a lifeline is critical to existence?

The one thing, whether you work independently or you work, you're the talent, let's say that other people surround themselves with. Or it's your company. It doesn't exist without the people. Correct. Even if it's a client to buy. Buy the products and services from you or the people to help you scale and you make a great point with someone sets. Well, I'm by myself. But you are by yourself and you have an audience. You have people that they're human beings that are going to decide what you give them is a value so that that transaction can take place. That's monetary. Right. And with that being said, if you are taking something that a person has programmed in and you're putting all your eggs in one basket, that doesn't take into consideration the uniqueness and authenticity that makes your business, whether it's you independently or you as a group or a corporation makes you what sets you apart and provides that uniqueness to other people. Then that. Then you're gone. It's the heartbeat of what we have is us. That's why we live and we breathe. Right. So it's a great question and I appreciate you asking that because I think it's both figuratively and literally. If you start, look what's happened, like, I can even say like in the US how many companies have tried to outsource overseas or leave because they cannot find the people. It's the reason why we are going to face the technology apocalypse because what's happened is, is you see companies and corporations scrambling to be able to fulfill the services and orders that they have. So what they're doing is they're buying into this idea of technology to replace human beings because they don't have to rely on trying to find them or keep them there in the seats or whatever that is that they're doing. The trouble with that is, is when you do that is that there's going to be seven. It's about 75 to 77 million jobs will be automated within the next five to eight years just in the US alone. That that doesn't include everywhere else right in the world. But we do not have the talent pool that to keep up that is either either interested in or understands how to maintain that type of right. And so what is everybody going to do? What are they going to do? And I think that there becomes like a controlled growth type of thing. And when I talk about Lifeline and staying in existence, I mean both figuratively and literally with that.

Yeah, yeah, it makes so much sense. And I boil it down to one word. Humanity. It's, it, it's, it's remembering that we are individuals that interact with other individuals to make whatever happen, whether it's selling to you, serving you, building a bigger company, whatever it is, it's still the individual. And I think that one of the lessons that's in your book, you talk about one employee at the time and, and the overarching message there is don't treat everyone the same. Remember that we are individuals. And I was thinking about a situation where I led a large outsourcing project, you'll love that. Where we took a part, an absolute large number of roles out of the country and we set up operations in the Philippines and also in New Zealand. Now everyone was like, we need to spend so much time and focus on the Philippines team. They won't know how to speak English, they won't know how to do this, they won't know how to do that. Don't worry about New Zealand. Just set up the office and everything will be okay. The reality was though, we had more language issues in New Zealand than we did in the Philippines. Because, yes, although English is the native primary language of New Zealand, the large number of migrants to New Zealand and their migration policies in New Zealand meant that a lot of people applying for contact center roles actually didn't have English as their first language. So we never put them through English language tests. We never took them through. Do you know where Australia is? Do you know these things about Australia? We never said, do you know these things about our clients in the US and so we had this big divide and had to turn completely turn on a dime and go, actually, let's stop assuming that just because the country is X means the individuals are also X. Right? So, and we see that in companies, 600,000 employees, like I said at the start of the show, I can guarantee you, even though all of us may have had the same end goal, the way Germans achieve something is very different to how Australians achieve something or the.

US and we should embrace that. That's the whole point, is that that's what makes it so amazing. And you seeing that there's a difference between, I feel because some people say, well, you're just a hater of technology and AI the absolute opposite of that. What I'm saying is there's a difference between using a Process to make things in quality, better, faster, find a cure quicker, whatever than actually taking it and using it. I equate it to being like a deity, putting all of my decision making power into something that someone, one other human or a bunch of other humans created, that is getting information that is entirely accurate that not everybody has access to. And so to me, there's a huge difference between the two I had. I can come from personal experience of why I feel this way too. My son, when he was 3, was diagnosed with leukemia. And I always tell everybody, if you think that getting a cancer diagnosis for your child is bad once, get it three times. Because he had it two more times after that. And we had to have a state of the art new kind of bone marrow transplant that we spent. I'm from Nashville, Tennessee, and we had to go to Seattle, Washington's Children's Hospital. There was a state of the art new kind of transplant there. The technology that was available in the processes that have come about now saved his life. He's now 17 years old. He has some permanent damage from some things, but he's flourishing right now. And I say this to say I'm not against technology processes. What I'm against is the fact that the perfect example is the Dr. Kim Delaney that came up with this new kind of double cord transplant, didn't put a bunch of algorithms in a computer and just say, hey, tell me what my options are. She went through a 10 year thought process as a human being of what she thought would work and didn't work. And when she tried things before, that had to do with what computers were suggesting they weren't working. It's just like Captain Sullenberger that landed the plane on the Hudson. They gave that scenario to supercomputer 7. 17 of them in the world that couldn't land that. And finally, after I don't even know how many tries it was, if you go and look it up, I can't remember off the top of my head, there was a computer like, I mean, more than 10 that finally landed at one time. And it's because there's something that fires up in humans that's very different in, in evaluating things. And so what when you bring it kind of circling it back down to employees and retention and labor shortage, and what all happened is, is that we're just trying to find. I think we're getting lazy. It's the quicker, easier thing, but with the wrong part of our business. It's the one thing that you have that nobody else can replicate. It's the ideas of the people. I always say hire people smarter than you. The talent that you surround yourself with will be what makes you unique and special and incredible and take what you believe in and just flourish it. And if you, if you take that away from that, you're either going to be non existent or it's going to be the same as everything else or we're all in a lot of trouble because we're never going to get the best of what we, we should have as a society. So I mean that, that's how I feel. I just feel really strongly about, I just want to wake people up to that.

Yeah, yeah. Surround yourself with people smarter than yourself. I think that is a mic drop moment when it comes to leadership advice. Absolutely. And also to think about how, how you recruit. I think it's very easy and quite common, more common than we want to admit that a rehiring manager will choose someone that isn't as smart as them or isn't seen as a threat. And that's a shame. I think that we should be trying to find people that challenge us to be better. And just because they might be smarter than us in one thing, that doesn't mean they're smarter than us overall or contribute more. It's the sum of the whole. Right. It's not just one part. So absolutely love that. Cannot say it enough. Surround yourself with people smarter than you. So I'm going to take that as a guide to recruiting. You need to consider that when you're hiring someone. Now I'm just wondering what's another tip you have for people on a recruitment journey when they're looking to find great people, don't use AI. What should they do?

You have to look at your business, whether it's yourself and you're expanding in different areas. And I'm so glad that you made the point that you made earlier about what it was like in New Zealand and the Philippines. And let's say we scale it down to somebody so somebody's a brand new entrepreneur, they have maybe a smaller business and they're looking to scale it. This is applicable, let's say, to small and large businesses. This was the biggest mistake of why we're in the labor shortage. They did not take into consideration that every arm of your business, every location and every customer is different. Right. So when you're recruiting, you have to understand that maybe this facility that I'm recruiting for or maybe I'm servicing this group of people in this location, they need something different than this. So when I'm hiring talent, I have to mirror that. So if somebody that is, let's say working in an area that is a very busy area and maybe it's something that's fast paced, something that takes someone that has to take some of their own time, maybe they're handsomely rewarded for it. But just saying they have to have that and then you have something else where maybe that division is very linear and they have to be happy just being behind a desk or whatnot. You should have people recruiting that understand both of those things and mirror that when they're hiring. You don't hire the same person, you know to work here, that you work over here. And I tell people that all the time when it comes to even just like warehouses, for example, there's, you don't know that maybe in Las Vegas, Nevada next to New York City, that in Las Vegas, Nevada There's 20 warehouses down the same road doing the same thing, paying about the same amount of money and maybe in New York there's only one, but you got to take 20 trains to get there. You have to have people that understand that so that when they're recruiting, they hire the right fit for those individual roles. Roles. And what companies are making mistakes is, is again we're trying to blockchain it and we're telling all of our HR people or one group of HR to say you hire this way at every location. And I know you know what I'm talking about because they give you the HR handbook and say we're going to do this at every location and we're going to do this in every department. Let's not say location department. It's not the same. That's the beauty of it, of what makes a company work. You don't hire the same mentality as an accountant as you do for sales. I mean maybe that works sometimes, but you know what I'm saying, it's not even the same skill set. So why would you do that when you're recruiting? So my big takeaway, I tell people all the time is you have to have recruiters that are unique to what that, what they're in charge of recruiting from. And I love to your point about hiring people smarter than you, that is, that is the problem is that people are afraid that someone's going to take their job. And I, the guy that CEO of Bridgestone Americas, they change CEOs quite often. And a few years back I had the best advice I was ever given about that. And I talk a little bit about that in my book and, and he shares his philosophy on and he talks about if his manager leaves and he knows that he's on vacation, he doesn't have a job when he comes back. But if he leaves and goes on vacation and he didn't know, he's promoting him because he knows how to run a division and can handle it and move on. And that just comes from hiring people smarter than you and surrounding yourself with the best talent.

Yeah, yeah. Makes perfect sense. Makes perfect sense. So we've read your book. We've. Or we're halfway through your book and we've got great ideas on how to recruit people. And that's working out well where we're recruiting the right people for the right jobs in the right locations. How do I now retain them? Because sometimes. Well, I'm going to say. Not sometimes, I'm going to say the harder part is actually retaining them than recruiting them.

Sure.

So how do I retain talent?

You have to know your own company better than anything and know your companies better than you, your competitors, I should say than your own. And when I say competitors, I don't even mean people have make a mistake. Like if I'm Coca Cola or Pepsi, that's my competitor. No, your competitor is anybody that has that same role within a vicinity of you that may pay about the same amount of money and have the same benefits. That's where you have to switch your mindset. And so when it comes to retention, you have to know what are the companies offering around you and you have to be creative. And this is again, where we've got off the rails is we're trying to blockchain everything. You have to give autonomy to the HR teams that you have in place or the hiring managers in place and give them an ability to be able to retain people creatively. And not the same everywhere, because I can tell you, like I'm originally from Michigan, right. And one of the things in the factories in Michigan is usually in the summertime you'll find a different schedule. You'll find where they'll work four days, 10 hours, three days off because the summers are so short and people value their time at the lake, in the water and going out with families. So for me, if I know I can't give that kind of money, let's say, to people because maybe the product I send out is a fixed product. I'm a big three automotive maker and I can't really change my pricing on that. But maybe I can offer that new schedule that helps retain people, that stays with my company versus, you know, Xyz company down the road so that they have the extra family time. That's what I mean about being creative. And what that means to you is different than what it means to somebody else. So my biggest advice for that is know what the competition is around you and don't always come to your bosses or look at your own company if you know what your, your financial limitations are thinking. It always takes money to keep people. People are not all motivated always by that. To me, time is the most valuable thing that you can give a person and that's what they need. And so you, you just have to be creative and, and keep that individually with each location that you have or each division you have, and just know your competition.

I love that point around flexibility. And if I dig a bit deeper, remove your own bias from what you think is of benefit or value to your employees. I remember many, many conversations that I've had with business owners where I've said, why don't you open on a Sunday? If you open on a Sunday, I'm like, I'm sure that's going to be a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in revenue, profitable revenue. Why would you be leaving that money on the table? And they've always replied with every single time we couldn't find people to work. I'm like, that makes no sense to me. There are people that would absolutely love to have every Monday off or every. Every Wednesday off and work every every Sunday. There'd be people just like. There's people that actually like working the graveyard shift. Right. And I think that we limit ourselves and our businesses by assuming that everyone wants the same compensation and rewards.

Love that you said that. As a matter of fact, we found one of our companies, which is a worldwide brand that we do a lot of Internet fulfillment with. They decided because they had to run a 24 7. Because if you and I want to order online, right. And we want our stuff, our best time to shop is probably a Saturday afternoon or Sunday evening on our computer. Right? So what they did was they just decided to come together, like, who likes those hours, developed a special shifts for those individuals, and then went to the colleges, went to this place, that place, and marketed this special thing they even went to. Where they went to. One day was just an extra shift. You could take up just one day as opposed to someone had to pull 40 hours, 32 hours, whatever the case was. And it just, it just. We had to. We had waiting lists of people that wanted to work that. So here was their solution. They ran a 247 business. But they were very creative on how they did their shift time to where they kept people. And the argument, the pushback you'll get from a company is that they feel like they have to hire that many more managers to manage that those extra shifts. Here's the thing, when I said hire people smarter than you, put the right people and leadership in your place and you won't have to have 20,000 people to, to manage 10, you know, that's, that's being smart. Your training and what you do and bring in that, that's, that's what's smart. That's efficiency.

Yeah, absolutely. I've had many a call center where from 8pm to 8am there was no so called manager on the floor. But every single employee on the floor was empowered appropriately to make the right decision in the moment. I had the call center in Arizona where literally we had university students staffing it and they were one of the best employees ever had. We created an environment and a timetable that worked for them as opposed to saying, well, contact centers are open from this time to this time and you need to work 40 hours. Crazy how we get ourselves twisted up in thinking we must fit a particular way of doing things. So absolute gold that you've shared with us today. I'm wondering what's the best way for an audience member to continue to follow your work and obviously find out when your next book comes out.

Absolutely. I appreciate you asking that. Thank you. A few different things. We have a podcast that's up on Spotify, iHeartRadio, they're worldwide called Master the Workforce. You just look up Master the Workforce. You can find all of our podcast shows that we talk about all different issues with that. We also have a website called Master the Workforce you can go on to. My company is called Master Staff Incorporated. So if you do Master Staff employment, you get me jenniferasterstaffemployment.com and you can also find me on LinkedIn at Jennifer Sheets S H E E T S and you can find me on LinkedIn and I host a radio show every Sunday in Nashville, Tennessee that's broadcast live online. It streams live online. I know that I'm here in the states, but it's 11am Central to noon every Sunday and people can, you know, message me during the show, get a hold of me that way too. So I'm out there and with love to talk to people. I love hearing about things and new topics that are of interest to other people, challenges they may be facing and if I can help in any way, I'm here for it.

Thank you for being so generous. Of course, we're going to have in the show notes, link to the book, to your business, to all those sites that you just mentioned. And I'd certainly encourage people to give the podcast a listen and even the live show, a radio show from Nashville, because Jennifer is an absolute hoot with loads and loads of wisdom and over 23 years of experience leading her own business. So why wouldn't you take the time out of your day to have some fun and to learn along the way? Now, Jennifer, before I let you go after that plug, before I let you go, I'm wondering, what's the one thing someone that's watching the show or listening to the podcast should do as soon as they're done to improve the way they recruit? Or maybe you want to give us two look after their talent better to retain their talent.

If you're talking about recruiting, you need to actually write down what is important to you. The people that have stayed in the roles that they have stayed in, the positions that you're placing in your company. And what is it about them that makes them stay more than one person? Not just because you had the unicorn person, but what makes them stay. Write it on paper. Take that and actually look and see what that looks like, because that's what you want to replicate. And when it comes to retaining employees, look around at what the companies are doing that have low retention rate around you. You know, I always tell everybody that school is never out for the pro, right? Arm yourself with knowledge. You know, the best offense is a good defense. There's all the sayings that are out there. You need to know what they're doing, and then you need to do it better and find the things that actually work for your company and be creative about it and start writing those ideas, no matter how crazy they are, because once you start putting them down, they'll start to make sense to you and you'll be able to come up with something fantastic that will work for you, your company, and help grow exponentially.

Makes so much sense. Get absolute clarity around what it is that you're recruiting for and why people stick when you do recruit them. Fantastic way to end the show. Get intentional about the way you recruit people. Be absolutely focused on the individual, and let's improve the experience, employee to employee. Jennifer, thanks so much for being on the show.

Thank you so much for having me. I can't tell you what an honor. It's been a privilege and pleasure, and I hope I get to see you and talk to you again soon because you are amazing at what you do. And like I said, I'm very humbled and honored to be on your show. So thank you.

Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate you.