8 Dec 2025 · 14 min
Kris Plachy argues the pandemic shifted what people want from work, creating hiring shortages that pay alone won't fix. She tells entrepreneurs to rethink job offers around culture and purpose instead, citing Dan Pink's research on what actually motivates people.
Chapters
Well, hey, how are you? I think we should talk more about reinventing and revolutionizing when it comes to being female entrepreneurs, don't you? Let's talk about it.
Well, hi. First of all, I just want to thank those of you who have shared your feedback on the podcast last week. If you follow me on social media, you'll see that I was a little nervous about posting it, given that I said the, you know, vaccine word and I figured I'd get censored or something. If you haven't written a podcast review and you listen to the podcast, man, I would love it if you would. It really makes a difference for more people to see and listen to or see the podcast and listen to it, which is less and less about me, and honestly more and more about helping people find.
Support and a voice in this mess of world that we're in. I mean, lots of great things in the world, too, don't misunderstand me. But I did. I had one person send me a message. She's a client. Hi, you're gonna know who you are. And she.
She said the world has lost their minds over this whole issue. I wish I could broadcast that podcast to the entire world. It's so simple. And I do think, you know, that the more we can help each other sort of move through this moment, the better we can be. And. And so what I want to talk with you about today is what I think about when I think about where we sort of are. So I just did a masterclass on hiring and what to do when hiring is hard. I don't know if the replay of that will be available as of when this releases, but if it is, you can just go to my Instagram profile, Chris at Chris or Chris Hrisplackycoach, and there should be a spot for you to register for the replay if it's still. But the point of it is, though, doing just really, really investing and paying attention to hiring and the challenges that people have been having makes a lot of sense right now. And everywhere I go, I'm aware of it, right? Whether it's my principal at school, my kids school, telling me how hard it is for them to hire, or I was in line to get my blood drawn the other day and they were talking about all the people that aren't working. And it's just. I mean, it's a permeating problem. And, you know, there's lots of articles about it, lots of conjecture. Lots of people have ideas, and certainly I do, too. And none of which are found in much Truth, other than any evidence I might read in terms of data. But if we just sort of sit with where we are as a species, as a planet, species, all sharing an ecosystem, we, we kind of write, we kind of turn life off. It doesn't mean that work stopped. I think a lot of people still main manage their businesses. I know in my case, most of my clients stayed in business and thrived, frankly. They found ways to do that which is so impressive. But a lot of life stopped.
So even if people were finding ways to make money, they may not have been living. And you know, it's like my coach tells me, I have all these numbers in my chart that say that I'm sort of the mama, which I tend to do. I tend to sort of be mama for people. And the mama in me sees lots of wounded warriors, lots of wounded souls, not necessarily admittedly wounded, but you can tell, right? People are just the anger and the vitriol and the quick to temper and hiding and so many mental health challenges. I mean we really are kind of going through it, y' all as a species. So what I see is the issue like if I, if I had, I have a business, I'm not doing a lot of hiring, so it's not really affecting me. And even if I was, I, I guess I don't believe it will most of my clients, I should tell you guys, this is sort of interesting. The clients whom I've had for, you know, a year plus, let's say they're not having trouble hiring and I've talked to a few of them about it and it's sort of because they just know that they can and they hire, they're very clear and they're very consistent and they honor their process and it works. So if you struggle with hiring and you're listening to this and you're a female entrepreneur, you really should just be in the how to CEO program. And by the way, that registration is now open. The day that you're listening to this, we are open for registration. We are going to start November 8th and we are not going to accept new clients until the till next year after this. So I think if you have a little extra cash and you're looking for another extra refund or a tax write off for the year, you should for sure be in how to CEO and work with me and my team. So my point being that a lot of people kept functioning, but not living. And as things change, despite the fact that we're still in a pandemic and there's really still Quite some issues with that. In the world, people are starting to find ways to live. Right. Football games and football. Football and football, depending on where what part of the world you're in, and concerts and planes flying and people going on vacation and there's things happening. And so it's almost like there's a backlog on living life and people are trying to live more life. Right. They haven't lived a lot of life. And I'm willing to bet almost everybody knows at least one person who isn't alive anymore.
Because of COVID.
And whether you're afraid of COVID or not, the truth is we've had a lot of mortality, a lot of in your face about death. Yeah. And I know a lot of people blame the news media. I don't know. I still think 700,000 people being dead is kind of a problem. But nonetheless, we've all been touched in a way. It's been so front and center. And so I just think that there's been this backlog of living, like living your life. And so if someone hated a job and figured out how to make it work, and maybe they got an unemployment for a while, maybe they moved back in with their parents, maybe they moved in with some friends, you know, I don't know what people are doing. I still don't understand how people are surviving. And we also know that unemployment benefits here in the states have been cut off significantly. So that's not it. People weren't spending money either, so there's some savings. So then when we think about going back to work, which, ew, whoever that word is, so awful. Right. You want to go work? Not really. I want to go play.
So I think if we're now saying to people, hey, it's time to kind of, you know, start earning and doing the things. And it has to be a reasonable trade. And so I think we have like this failure to launch problem. We have people who don't want to launch back in to the world that they were in before. But I don't think a lot of employers have changed the gig. And so if you're still offering the same jobs at the same pay, at the same hours, with the same schedule, with whatever, if you haven't made changes to what you're doing, it wouldn't surprise me that you're not attracting great people.
So one of the things I said in the master class is, have you taken a minute to ask yourself, do the people that I want to attract into my business want me, want us, want my business? Like, am I Are we appealing to them?
So in the. In the spirit of reinvention and in the. In the context of the circumstance we're in where there's a lot of openings and not as many candidates, I think we have sort of a failure to launch. We have people who are just not ready because they've changed. What matters to them has changed.
But so much of the world of work hasn't. And they don't want to. They don't want to do it anymore. And so as female entrepreneurs, this is the question I ask. Because, of course, I think that you are all magical. And I think it's going to be up to the women to change the world, to heal the world.
I think that's our jam, y'. All.
If you're an entrepreneur right now with a business that hires people, you're here for a reason. And so you can either kind of lean into that and be empowered by what you could possibly create.
What could you create.
That doesn't exist that would be.
Delightful for potential employees? And I think too many people think it's about money.
And sure, there's a ticket. Everybody has. There's a great book by Dan Pink called Drive the Surprising Truth About Motivation. It's a really good one. And there's also a TED Talk about it. I'd recommend both TED talks, 18 minutes. It's a lot faster than the book. But he, you know, he did. They did all sorts of studies on money. And really there are. There's, like. There's like food on the table money that everybody has that figure. So for you, it might be 50 grand. For someone else, it's 80 grand. For someone else, it'S 5 million. Right? Like, everybody has their thing, but money doesn't motivate is what they found beyond a certain point. But that's kind of all people have to argue with is the money. It's very tangible. It's a very easy thing. What. But if I have a great culture and I. And I get to work with friends and I get to work with people that I trust and I have respect for, and I have a boss that I really enjoy and that really enjoys me, and I am fed and supported emotionally, intellectually.
People aren't going to quibble over $3 an hour.
And I think that's where you have a tremendous opportunity as a woman to allow yourself to hear and see and pay attention to what's happening. I do believe female entrepreneurs can change the world of work. We built businesses, ladies.
Out of an archaic model. We built businesses based on a system that's been in place for hundreds of years that was created by men, right? And so what if this is the time to change it?
What if it could be totally different? What would it be?
What is that thing? Right? It's like my coach said to me today.
As soon as you have a new desire, there immediately sort of enters in. These are not her words, these are, this is my interpretation. But once you have a really clear new desire that you want to create, it sort of also is complemented by some breakdown and destruction in order to make space for the new desire.
And I do think we have that opportunity right now. We're all sort of coming out of this fog and this ambiguity.
And the only thing that's certain, that was certain to folks for so long was home.
Family that you lived with, right? Like this little world that people got put into. And so now to invite them out of it just seems like it has to be worth it.
And great people always want to work for great leaders and they always want to work for great companies. Always.
That's not market specific, that's just happening all the time. And so as a woman, I just want you to look at the business system you've created. Is it.
Is it what you would want?
You know, as a leader, you can change it. You could do things differently. And I don't think there's ever been a better time to do it.
To be interesting, unique, to have that one offer on the street for a candidate that nobody else can rival because it's just so unique. And I think as women, if we think about our roles as having some responsibility to relaunch, to relaunch people.
To create environments that people can feel safe and seen, find joy, reward, purpose. It doesn't matter what your business is. I think it all matters.
Everything people do matters or you wouldn't pay them for it.
And if you don't know why their position matters, you shouldn't be paying for it. So how about we think about the fact that we're relaunching and we're reinventing and as women we can recreate environments for work in ways that we never have had before and maybe ways that could possibly heal.
Pretty wounded world right now.
One that's eager though an eager world to get back to it.
And if you haven't already, since you've been listening to this, decided to join how to CEO so that you can.
Radically transform who you are as a woman and who you are as a leader and build a high performing team and change the relationship you have with your business and find days off that you've never had before and find a little more self care and make more money and work less.
I think you should totally do it. Go to how to CEO register.com howtoceoregister.com learn everything you need to learn and then let's work together. We start the week of November 8th. Talk to you soon.
Sam.
