An untapped pool of diverse talent: The unemployed | with Colin Donnery

You're very welcome. It's episode 77 of the Shortlist. My name is Johnny Campbell. I'm your host for this podcast and live show which broadcasts Every Wednesday on LinkedIn and YouTube. For those of us joining us, joining us live, you're very welcome. We really appreciate your comments and questions as we go through the show. I And this week we're going to be talking about an untapped pool of diverse talent, the unemployed. But before we get into that, it's Wednesday, the 24th of November. We're heading towards the end of 2021. The pandemic is beginning to rage. And as I'm broadcasting here from Dublin, Ireland, apparently Europe is at the epicenter of this next wave. In fact, in the Campbell household, we've had my eldest son of 13 in quarantine for the last 10 days as he got Covid and thankfully the rest of his didn't. And he's been isolated in his bedroom and comes out tonight and passes his 10 days. And that's a story, unfortunately, that many of us are living through again, as the pandemic surges and rages in Europe and probably the rest of the world, if it hasn't hit those same numbers. So we're still talking about this unique world that's been driven by the pandemic. And we want to talk today about kind of the culmination of what's been called the Great Resignation, which we've talked about in the show in many weeks, combining that with elements of diversity and inclusion and how certain populations are marginalized.

Right.

And it's always, of course, important to be on the lookout for underutilized sources of talent. That's what the recruiting and talent acquisition industry tries to do. And given how competitive the market is, you know, being able to attract star candidates is going to be a huge boon for any organization. Of course, that's the dream. But there's one pool and that often gets overlooked and is often very much not talked about or forgotten, and that's the unemployed. And with an unemployment rate of around 7% in the EU right now, this offers, we think, a huge opportunity for companies to find really amazing employees. And when you look at the fact that minority groups typically are overrepresented amongst the unemployed, it's perhaps also a great opportunity to go find a diverse and creative group of people to attract. So to kind of tackle this topic and join us today with someone who not only holds this cause very closely to his heart, Colin Donnery. Colin is the incoming group chief executive of the FRS Network which is a cooperative social enterprise with subsidiaries in the recruitment, training and agricultural sectors. So he runs a recruitment agency here in Ireland but he's also the founder and director of Turas Nua, which for those of you not in Ireland, which I as most of you is the leading provider of employability services to help the unemployed get back into the workforce. So working on behalf of the government of Ireland to help the unemployed and long term unemployed get back to work. So it's a really unique perspective. Colin has in one hand, you know, running a recruitment agency that has been paid by employers to find talent and the other half are part of an organization that is trying to get the long term unemployed back to work. I think it's one of those most unique perspectives perhaps in the world in this talent space. And I want to have a conversation with Colin today about how important it is to build confidence in employed, how that vital service is empowering a sector of society back into positions of employment. Why this service is going to become more important perhaps in this evolving world of work. Colin, you're very welcome. Thanks for joining us today and you might start by telling us where you're joining us from because.

Hey Johnny, how are you? Great to see you. I'm in Florence and if you look up at the ceiling there in the sort of place I'm staying you can sort of tell it's sort of an amazing place to, to, to be. I'm here just on, on a bit of a holiday so you know, just literally got off a train, jumped on a. And and ran here to, to get. To talk to you. Which is, which, which is, which is great, you know, delighted to be here. So.

And Colin, can you maybe introduce FRS on one side just tells a little about the size of FRS and the focus of recruiting you do there, the teams and then a little bit about Turras Nua and that perspective and maybe you might mention also your involvement in the wider kind of recruiting bodies across Europe and the global network. Because I think I want to just stress it's not just an Irish perspective you have on this.

Yeah, sure. So, well FRS is we're a cooperative first of all. So set up in 1980 we started off I suppose supporting farmers in Ireland, you know, so it's really unique sort of story in the 80s and then naturally we moved into the recruitment sector so we had people specialists on farms and then organizations came to us and goes, you know, can you get us people for you know, sort of driving and you know, warehousing and retail and you know We've since built up one of the largest recruitment companies in Ireland, FRS Recruitment. We've diversified into many different areas. So we have a large training company as well. We've actually one of the fastest growing agri tech businesses in the world now called Herdwatch. We've over 15,000 farmers between Ireland and the UK use it. And that's really for another day. When you drive down the motorway here, when you see fences at the side of the road, we erect those sort of fences and, and so we do lots of weird and sort of wonderful stuff. So back in 2013, 14, after the last major recession, I was president of the National Recruitment Federation and we've been sort of talking to the government about how we could help, I suppose, the unemployed. Just to give you an example, we had over 17% unemployment in Ireland at the time. We had a catastrophic construction boom and deterioration after that boom which just devastated the country here much more so probably than, than most other countries after the, after the last major recession. So in order to, I suppose support people back into employment, we set up an organization called Taurus Noah, which is a Gaelic, Gaelic term and it means new journey. We employ just under 300 people in that business across 40 offices. And I suppose we started really in early 2016. So we've had approximately 150,000 unemployed people through the door since then. So it's quite a large number for Ireland, maybe not for other places, but. And we basically keep those people on our program for a whole year and support them, help them back into employment across all sectors, across, you know, every type of customer background, every, you know, every, every type of role, you know. So literally we see everyone coming through the door and I can, I can talk to you a bit about how we, how we sort of, how we sort of do that, you know, as well, if you like.

Well, let me come to that. I want to start off, Colin, with a recent news article that came out in the Washington Post and this was published earlier this month and the headline from the Post was why Millions of Job Seekers aren't getting hired in this Hot Job market. I want to maybe ask you for your perspective on this having, of course, you know, one foot in the recruiting world where you're trying to service the employers in this hot job market. Right. And then the other foot in the market for trying to get the unemployed back to work. Right. The article is quite detailed. We'll share the links in the footnotes of the podcast and live as well here, a really detailed article that gives plenty of examples of workers and it's a us obviously centric article in different industries, workers in different industries who for various reasons are finding it very difficult to get back into the job market. And they're trying to highlight this disconnect between that perspective. You know, folks who are perhaps working in the bar industry, hospitality industry, retail industry, services industry who can't find jobs versus the employers who can't find talent. And, you know, in the US it highlights, I think, a gap where there's something like 10 million vacancies advertised and there's 7 million unemployed. So again, kind of highlights the fact that there's more jobs available than there are people to do the jobs, yet people are still finding it difficult to find a job. I wonder if you could share your insights as to, from your perspective in the Irish market, have you seen something similar and if so, what are your thoughts on some of the reasons why there is a disconnect between demand and supply?

So I think the first thing, obviously we're in a sort of, you know, a unique sort of period in time of hiring. You know, we had this sort of situation where we had sort of a sharp shock, you know, actually quite similar to after, like, similar in a way to after September 11th when we had this sharp shock of, of companies just stopped hiring. Right. And a similar thing happened last year in April 2020. So we saw this sort of. The brakes were put on for a number of months and really organizations really didn't know what was going to happen and workers really didn't know what was going to happen. So a number of sectors got really badly hit, as we know, the sort of retail and particularly hospitality, you know, restaurants, fast food, all those sort of industries really got, got hit really, really quick and really, really hard. And people within those industries effectively were, you know, in Ireland and the UK and other areas, they were put on support payments in most areas. And in the. And I think what we've seen on the worker side is that people have really begun to think about what they're doing in their job and what it means to work and like, and how, I suppose the pandemic has affected them personally. And I suppose governments around the world put in, put in a lot of, put in a lot of supports. And I think what we're seeing is in a lot of cases is people are really starting to think about where they're going to go back to work. Right. So, and if we look at what has happened in the States, particularly in the last six months, particularly, particularly in hospitality, they found it very difficult to attract People back into the business. So what traditionally happened in the U.S. it was a tips type culture. So very, very low salaries and you built it up with tips. And what we've seen with a lot of the major sort of chains in the states have increased their salaries exponentially. Like untold of like from you know, $10 to $15, 50% increases in salaries. And they're still finding it difficult to get those people back into, into those jobs. And I think it's, I think it's potentially a disconnect of purpose. Right. So, and we've heard and purpose gets a lot of talk and particularly over the last sort of, you know, five or six years, organizations, you know, this is our purpose. And you know, but I think workers now, regardless of the level they're at or the job they're in, are really looking for purpose that connects. One, connects with the organizations they work for and two, actually what's their purpose and what's the organization doing for them? You know, which particularly around growth, learning and developing and that type of thing. And you know, I think traditionally organizations have looked at people coming in and saying, well, we'll keep these people for three or four years or five years at that level. And I think there's been, that's real one area that we've seen a real push back. And I think on the other side, organizations who are really struggling for talent in other areas we'll say like call centers and you know, I suppose office type roles looking a little bit sort of snobbly is the wrong word. But you know, looking at these workers from retail and hospitality and thinking are they right for our organization, do they have the skills, et cetera. So I think that's the sort of disconnect we're sort of seeing on the ground. But actually in the, since I suppose the last, particularly the last four or five months on both sides of our recruitment business and in Taurus Nua, unemployed people now are seen as a, almost a precious commodity to come in because I think organizations are starting to look at them differently. You know, there, you know, there, there has, I think traditionally there's, there's always been this sort of, you know, employers not really, you know, it's looked upon as, you know, a couple of years ago it was big CSR thing, let's hire some unemployed people. And you know, it can help with our CSR, we're doing good for the community, etc. But I think what's happening now is organizations are starting to really see that these people have lived experiences and Actually, when you, if you invest in them and train them and bring them through your organization, they actually become more loyal potentially than the employees you already have in the organization.

One of the things the article called out, Colin, which I thought was really interesting, I hadn't thought about before, was the use of technology in sifting through job applications. Maybe this is more about the direct hiring organizations. The article suggests that something like 90% of hiring companies have some sort of technology screening, automated screening in the applications, and that those bots are algorithms are matching keywords, matching experience. So if you're on and perhaps, you know, discounting folks who have a gap who haven't worked in X amount of months or years as you just the part of the challenge isn't down to the human element around, you know, will you give these people a chance? Do you think it's part of your culture, part of it down to just the tech, you know, weeds them out before they even get to a real person. How much evidence have you seen of that kind of an effect? Or do you think that is there is an effect around the tech in the first instance?

So I think there's a, there's a Jew. I think there's a dual thing going on, right? One on the employer side. Certainly the, the problem is I think employers are looking for very specific things and skills, right? So, you know, we all say, oh, we're hiring, you know, we're hiring for, you know, for talent and, and attitude, but actually we're not. Do you know what I mean? So the more when, when you put in a, put in a chat bot and someone has to answer, you know, 50 questions and run through their previous experience and skills, you're building up a profile of that person. If they have a gap in their cv, if they're unemployed for a year, it's seen as a negative. If they haven't worked for two years or three years, you know, it's seen, it's really seen as a, as a negative, you know, and they don't get through that process on the unemployed side. And we see as with, with a lot of unemployed people. And I have actually an example of it recently of someone coming from retail who doesn't have really great IT skills, right? So when you put them through that process, one, it's not a great experience for them because it's quite an anxious, anxiety inducing sort of process. Now you might say, well, it's just going through a chatbot, but they're looking to, you know, if you're not, you know, really confident in that whole area of, of, of, you know, working with tech and, and that it sort of turns you, it turns you off. So a lot of unemployed people don't make it past the actual logging in. And then when they get in there it's like how do I get here? And you know what I mean? And it's all a bit of a, you know, it's all a bit of a, it's all a bit of a mess for them, you know. So I do think, you know, and, and the bias thing, I don't know whether you remember that Johnny, but you know, and, and the viewers, some of them might, maybe they won't sort of remember this type of thing but when in the 80s, you know, when I, I came from Northside Dublin and you know, in, in okay neighborhood but it wasn't a great neighborhood. And she said oh, why don't you put your auntie's address on that job application, do you know what I mean? And that's the sort of thing unemployed people feel they have to do, you know what I mean? Sometimes it's sort of, you know, put a sheet over it and, and pretend they come from different areas and that type of thing because they, they feel potentially employers, you know, will look at them in a negative way depending on, on where they come from, order or their circumstances, you know, and that's, that's still the case, you know what I mean? It's, it's, there's a, I suppose an unseen bias sometimes there, you know what I mean? And it's, you know, but I think we're starting to see really in Taurus, newer organizations, you know, that we, that we work with really starting to look at the unemployed sort of cohort of people and seeing that bloody hell, these people do actually give us a real source of great talent, great workers, hard workers, etc.

You know, I want to come back to some of the points in that Washington Post article a second but you mentioned confidence. That brings me, I want to share the next news article we, we, we covered from the last week or so which was in Yahoo Finance and it's UK specific and talking about unemployment inequality is adding to the UK's dire labor shortage. And, and this, this article points to some of the comments you just made there Colin, which was around that individuals from, as it defines lower socioeconomic backgrounds and the long term unemployed tend to apply to less jobs, have less confidence in writing a CV as a confidence in doing an interview. So you touched on that, you know, with the example of the chat bot as One example, when you look at the tourist renewal work that you've been involved in the last five, six years, how important is it to build up someone's confidence in all of those elements and what works to do that?

Okay, so this is a huge, like, it's such. I'm. I'm passionate about this area. I'm. I'm reading. I've read this book twice. I don't know whether you can see it here. It's called How Confidence Works by Ian Robertson. He's a. He's a professor in Trinity College, Dublin. Everyone should read this book. Right, so effectively, what we do. So when someone comes to us in Taurus now and are unemployed, we don't just sit down and have a chat with them, right? So we do an assessment. We developed an assessment with the, with the University of Sheffield Hallam back now, six years ago. And so we look at their distance from the labor market across about 10 measures, right? So skills, mental health, helps caring, either whether that be for a senior or for a child transport. And confidence. So we measure confidence and it's probably the critical building block for. And they'll come on to people in the workplace in a minute. But in terms of an unemployed person, right, so without confidence, effectively, what you've mentioned there about them not applying for jobs happens, and it's this sort of, you know, you know, circular and sort of thing that happens to them where they find it really, really difficult to get out of it, you know, and it is something that could be worked on. So once we, once we do the assessments, so we look at it and then we look at the barriers and we deal with things, you know, like to be drugs and alcohol, you know, we look at that and how we can help. Can we refer them to, you know, to local specialists, you know, if there's serious mental health problems, we'd get them talking to people in the health sector in Ireland and then we start working, you know, on skills, you know, and as we work on all these different things, and I suppose the number one thing is that they have to believe we're invested in them, right? So that's really critical. And if you walk into one of our offices, it's a totally different sort of environment than an unemployed person is used to walking into. They're not walking into a sort of a glass screen, as I used to call them, bulletproof screens, with a. With a. With someone to advise them, sitting behind us. They're sitting down beside their personal advisor who's working through this. I suppose the challenges they Have. And one of the things in Ian Robertson's book, which is really interesting and we've absolutely found is, you know, you've got to give a sort of a sense of hope and direction first before you take on the challenges. It's really critical that, you know, there, those barriers and that's done through, I suppose, the look and feel of our offices, I suppose the great people we have working for us across, you know, across our 40 offices. And then it's about working on those sort of challenges. And as we do that, their confidence builds, right? And there's a. I suppose the, the funny thing is sometimes people come to us and what we notice is like, so we have them on program for people on program for 12 months. And what we notice is there is sometimes to get a job too quick, right? So one of the things we, we've got to get them to do is with, look, when you're unemployed, you're out of the habit of work. And it's, it's a habit. It's getting up in the morning, it's getting washed, getting clothes on that you feel good in. And you know, that's, that's really part of it, you know what I mean? And it's, I suppose people, you know, who've been unemployed for five years, six years, seven year, eight years, you know. And I was trying to think of a situation, Look, I met just when I read the book, I, before I read a book, I was sort of, I'm a naturally confident person, I think, and you're probably naturally confident. And I was trying to get to a situation, you know, and, but it's, there's things you, you've really got to work on. And I was trying to put myself in a place where. When am I not confident? And I don't know whether you noticed this, right, but if you ever wake up at 5am in the morning or 4am and your brain goes to the darkest place all the time of like the negatives, do you know that sort of feeling, right, where it's like what, you know, what, you know what's going to happen? And this is, oh, this has gone really wrong and how am I going to fix this? And this thing goes on, right? And if you imagine an unemployed person is like that all the time, the.

Fear all the time, all the time.

All day, every day of this, how am I going to get over this? You know what I mean? And really in the same way as you and I and everyone else that, you know, has, has, has a lot of confidence in what they're doing is you get over that by dealing with the issue. You know what I mean? So it's like, you know, not really forgetting about the issue and moving on. It's about actually, you know, challenging yourself to actually have these expectations of yourself. So you sort of get this sort of path of where you think you can go and then you sort of take the barriers away one by one. So I suppose what we do then is really it's about putting those opportunities in front of, in front of people, you know. But it's interesting, confidence really works when people, you know, overconfidence and this type of thing of, of having, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, fly to the moon, I'm gonna be an astronaut, etc, if people over pitch on that, it tends to backfire. Do you know what I mean? Because what happens is they don't reach it. They don't reach those sort of roles that they think they're going to get in. So it's about expectation and, and setting the bar. Yeah. At a sort of a bit of, a, bit of a little bit of a stretch to get there. And you know, and I know I'm sort of talking here a little bit, going on a bit, but. No, no, no. Yeah.

If I, if I can give you my perspective. I heard an article, sorry, someone is on the radio in the last week in Ireland and they were talking about this topic because they were talking about how people talk about, have a positive mental attitude, Right. And I've always hated that, right. I've positive person like you, but it's like, it's dismissive. It's like, oh, you just need to be positive, have a positive mental attitude. I've never believed it worked, but I've never had the science and somebody come on and they look, done the research and said, listen, it doesn't work. But what does work, maybe this is akin to what you're saying, Colin, is being realistic and that somebody who is struggling with this. If you say, for example, there's some people, someone like you 76% of the time can get a job in this. That's the fact. They go, oh, okay, that's a fact. It's not saying you can do anything you want from here and you can be amazing, you can be a millionaire tomorrow. Which is mental because it's just so far removed from reality. It's saying don't, don't have a positive mental attitude. Have a realistic attitude. Because when you're, when you're full of that fear and doubt. You make up stuff that's not true, probably. Whereas if you can focus on, here's the thing, that's actually true, and I could do that, and here's evidence of it that allows someone to build the confidence back to, okay, maybe I'll give it a go. Whereas if you go with the whole crazy, you can do anything PMA type attitude. Yeah, it backfires to your point.

So, so what we do then. So if you think about it, these people at the moment, we have, I don't know, we've about 15,000 people on program at the moment. You know, 15,000 unemployed people, one year plus unemployed. You know, so we. People with 20 years unemployed, 15 years unemployed, 10 years unemployed. So what happens is our personal advisors are working with them closely on building the plan, right? And then it's about, you know, them agreeing. Yeah, we can. We. This is a good plan. You know what I mean? So. And then we. We use some tech in terms of learning and, and that. And we've got a tutor team that, that sits in there. So one of the key things, particularly in. It really works well in certain areas with your youth unemployment is. Is peer learning, right. And basically getting people together. We've done things over the years where we get that youth unemployed cohort together, and the cohort's a bad word, isn't it? But those youth unemployed people together and, you know, we bring them to great employers, right? And we bring them in the door. We've been in some of the biggest. Well, they're multinational organizations in Ireland. And you bring them in and you walk them around and they go, this is like a different world. Do you know what I mean? And organized organizations have been really good to us. You know, some of the big multi US Multinationals and Irish organizations let us in the door and show these people what's. What's doable, you know, and show them people who've actually, you know, come up that sort of ladder, you know, of success from diverse backgrounds. Do you know what I mean? And, you know, and I think one of. One of the things in that book I was talking about is really one of the key things things is that, you know, we see it with kids, right? So, you know, we all know Johnny Campbell's kids think he's, you know, you know, a billionaire, sort of built this company and everything's been fantastic. Do you know what I mean? But actually, look, I know you from 15 years ago, and you have challenges along the way and all those different challenges. So it's really important that we show people that this is normal, like challenges come along and you overcome them. So the tutor team really work that. About 20 tutors that, you know, we take them. It's obviously that's been one of the big challenges in Covid. Like getting people together in a room is very, very powerful. And it's been a challenge for us, doing it over, doing it over teams and zoom. But we, we've got there, we've, you know, I think this year about 160,000 training instances in the business, you know, and it's, it's just been great to see. So really what happens then is we have our employer services team, right, and they're the, what I would call the advocates for, for all our customers, all our unemployed customers, right? So they're like an internal recruitment team. So basically what they do is there's 30 people in that team and they work with employers and, but effectively we don't just forward people onto, onto jobs, right? So it's like we sort of sit in the middle and we make sure there's a match there. And one of the things we've actually started to do in the last couple of years is challenge employers. So it's sort of saying, look, this person coming to you, you know, like, we, we, we're looking for sustainable employment, right? And people that are able to stay in a job for a long time, not only stay in that from that job. So we're challenging employers to say, look, what are you going to do with this person when they come in? The first thing is, you know, this person hasn't maybe worked in three or four years or five years or longer. You know, you're going to have to support them. Are you, are you ready to support them? Like if there's a bit of a challenge there or not, like, if you're not, look, there's lots of. And that's where the economy has flipped, you know, so employers now are willing to take on that challenge. And then it's, I suppose, a case. And, and it's just, you know, look, we place 45, 000 people into jobs, right? And it's, it's, it's a sort of a big number. It's, it's a bonkers number. And you say it to people, you know, they go, what? Like, what does that mean? And, well, we found 45, 000 people jobs, right? But it's really just the stories behind it, you know, it's just been an amazing. We, we did a. We work with McDonald's, right? So we work with McDonald's all over the country. And we were looking for an employer sort of video, you know, a couple of years ago, and we went down to a place called Carlow, which is in the Midlands in Ireland, into McDonald's and we were interviewing the managers. And it was great. Like, oh, look, you get us great people. And it was a great story. And one of the things is, right, we call it silent success, right? Like no one who's unemployed that we get into a job wants to say Taurus newer gets them a job, right? Because it's almost like a. You've, you know, so our sort of. It's quite tricky for us, so it's trying to advocate for someone, but actually help them help themselves and get that job. So we went down to this McDonald's and I said, can we interview, you know, a couple of the people we placed here? And our government people were like, oh, no. Oh, well, what you mean? And I'm like, well, no, can we just talk to them? And they were like, oh, don't know about that. Like, he could leave in six weeks. And I, I said, well, who cares? Well, if you make a video and then someone comes back and says he'd left the job, I says, but they may, may leave. He may leave in six days. Like, but we just want to understand what's happened. So we, we got two people. A guy, a guy called Brian who's 19, and a woman called Margaret who was 15. And we just talked to them, just tell us, like, what was happening in your life, you know, and, and, and, and Brian was 19. He didn't do well in school, didn't do great in his exams and sort of dropped out. He'd been unemployed for, for two years and, you know, probably had higher expectations than McDonald's, I think, you know, as a, as a, as a job, you know, and, but we sort of convinced them, I think, that, look, you've gotta get on the ladder here, you know what I mean? And, and then Margaret was a. Was a mother who, she'd had kids. She was, you know, early. I think it was about early 50s. And she talked to us about just feeling sort of left behind, not able to. So she'd lost confidence and didn't feel employers wanted, wanted to know her, you know, and, you know, we, our guys work with her and they did a great job and she just, we did this video and it was like, you know, tears all over, all around, you know what I mean? But it was just, just a sense of satisfaction and it was great for the Employer like the employer like you know, McDonald's. There was a, it was a franchise and you know, they just were like, look, this is great, you know what I mean? And can we be doing more? So it was moving away from the, the whole CSO sort of. Oh yeah, we're, this is a box tick, you know what I mean to. And I suppose when you look at that diverse, as you mentioned at the start, that diverse set of like, you know, young people, older people, you know, ethnic minorities, you know, women, you know, that's who are the, you know, the main, as you say, they're overrepresented in the unemployed area. Do you know what I mean? And I think the thing is like one of the things we work with a great organization called Business to Arts. There's quite a lot of people within the sort of creative space as well in that cohort and they come with a different, they come with a different sort of view on life and work and that type of thing. And I think, look, that whole sort of area around future work, it's going to become just so important that we have, I suppose as employers, we're an employer, we employ two and a half thousand people. We've really had to start looking differently at how we sort of look at people and workers and assess them and, and you know what we're, what we're looking for and how they, how, how we actually help them through the process instead of stick, as you mentioned earlier, that chat bot sort of situation of, you know, ruling people out, you know, let's rule everyone in, you know what I mean? And, and then get, get through and find the best person that, the best person for the job and I suppose the best organization really for that person.

I suppose I can't and thank you.

Right.

I think those stories are wonderful. It's marvelous to hear the success. 45,000 economy like Ireland is an enormous amount. Can I ask you, wearing that hat as an employer and I'm glad you brought it up. For those listening to the show today and you know who hopefully are moved by some of those stories and feel, yes, this is an area I've overlooked as a recruiter, as a hiring manager, as a head of talent before, you know, what can organizations begin to do to open up their processes to more applicants from this kind of a community. What are the practical ways that you can begin to change those. What have organizations that work with tiras newer done and what are you trying to do with your organization?

So I think you've got to be purposeful about it. First, do you know what I mean? You've got to actually, you know, set out a plan here, you know, just saying, oh, we're going to hire some unemployed people, you know what I mean? Because you've got to understand the impact it has on the organization when, when people come in. So there's lots of funding there to help people and you know, help organizations with that sort of training and, and it's not really about the, the training bit. It's, it's sort of the welcoming bit and you know, it's the, the just you're one of us sort of thing, you know what I mean? Not that you're this, oh my God, you're this unemployed, but you know, and you know, sometimes organizations over compensate with this and it's like, oh my God, you know what I mean? And it's, we gotta, we gotta keep this, we really gotta, we, we really got to help this person and whatever. I, I would say sometimes you gotta, if it's not working out, it's not working out, you know what I mean? The person isn't right for the job. Just you don't, you don't try and try and force it either, you know, But I think just being, I suppose as I said, a little bit more doing things on, on purpose around identifying those sort of, you know, minorities in, in your community, you know what I mean? Like whether that be New York or Boston or, or LA or you know, Munich, Frankfurt, Paris, Dublin, London, you know what I mean? And there's sources of, and there's ways into this. So there's plenty of organizations like ours around the world that do this work every day. A lot of them really small organizations that we work with ourselves and I suppose on the tech thing, I think a lot of the people we deal with on the unemployed side really aren't as tech savvy as you would think. They can use phones and obviously and that type of thing, but you're, you're making them jump through hoops, you know what I mean? And like I think someone was talking to us last week. I was in one of the offices, you know what I mean? And he was on a website for something like 45 minutes. And I'm going like, you know, just make it simple, you know what I mean? A one click apply and you know, that type of thing that, that really just makes it easy for them to, to, to, to get on board and, and you know, but it's, I don't think it's, I think organizations have become savvy to this now, particularly in the last six months, they see this, you know, really like we're inundated with, you know, you know, organizations and companies looking for people from us, from the unemployed cohort. And there's lots of different, as I said, funding and funding streams and training and different things in there to help help companies through that.

You reminded me, Colin, of a story that one of our, one of our presenters, Joanna by, received an MBE for her work with diversity, inclusion and equality in the uk, only got her Queen's Medal last week. I think she told a story of again coming from a socio economically disadvantaged background herself. And she talked about how employers often offer opportunities, again with good intentions, for folks to perhaps do an apprenticeship or training. And many of them, and we've been guilty in social talent many years ago of doing this training program is that are, you know, you work for free to get the training and it's like, you know, get that up and running, you know, someone should be happy to get the training. And she points out, she said, you know what, what typically happens is you somebody who's come from a more privileged background who understands their own perspective and tries to apply it to the market they're hiring from. She said, I came from a background, I couldn't afford to get to the job. So when someone says, you know, you should give me the opportunity to train and get experience and you know, you do a work placement for free or very little, it's like this person doesn't have these choices. And one of the articles, the Yahoo article we shared there pointed out the difference between, you know, those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, can't travel as much, can't change location, don't have someone to support them to work for free or low while they build up skills or training, you know, you're. Those from higher economic backgrounds who don't tend to be as unemployed, can get support from families. Families will help them financially in all these different environments. It's again remembering these other things to your point around changing the process to go ask yourself, is this job opportunity that we're creating here really set up for somebody who is on the margins, who has been unemployed many, many years, doesn't have the same support network and structures and backgrounds. Are we really helping that person? Like, has that been your experience that maybe employers with best intentions just don't have the right lens to really understand the market they're hiring from?

Yeah, I think, look, I think, I think the, you know, the talent acquisition sort of community is starting to get to grips with this. But Leaders within, you know, organizations like C Suite and whatever are, can be a little bit detached. And I think, honestly I think our community is really doing a great job and in this whole area and I definitely think they're, they're looking at, they're looking at things potentially really through the, as you say, through the, to the, through the wrong lens really. You know. And I think as we, you know, as we, as we progress with, you know, look and we talk about how people lose jobs and you know, obviously anyone can have, you know, a situation where they just something on their personal life, it affects their job, they lose their job. Then you have to the sort of automation of, of, of lots of jobs. And you see those 10 types of things, right tend not to be revolution. They're evolution, right? So you don't sort of sit around and think like did the revolution that has happened is covet, right? But what's happening in the background is we're seeing huge amounts of automation of jobs and so we're going to see lots more people moving into types of what I would call maybe underemployment and unemployment, you know what I mean? Who wouldn't necessarily have been there before, you know what I mean? And over. Look, we all know the thing about sort of how many people worked in agriculture, you know, 100 years ago it was sort of something like 200 times what it is now, you know, and how that has been automated. So it sort of creeps up in you, you know what I mean? And, and, and that's sort of what I would call the, the future of no work, you know what I mean? As we, as we, as we sort of, as things get automated and look, you know, in, in, in 50 years when my kids and grandkids are there, I think and we see the way hours are reducing, you know, we're working less and, and that type of thing. So this is going to become like really a sort of an everyday thing. And we've seen it and the real challenge is I think with, with people, you know, we've seen lots of senior people come into Taurus Noah with you know, you know, who've been on high salaries and, and, and I think it affects them sort of mentally from a mental health perspective the most. You know, it's that move from a sort of a safe environment to a, to a real, real challenge. And, and it can be difficult and I think governments and you know, society is really going to have to start thinking about, thinking about that. And you know, as we, as we move along, as I Said it's very much evolution and it's sort of creeping up as we see we talk about chatbots, like chatbots really weren't around probably seven or eight years ago and they're taking over the jobs of call centers. You go on to, go on to most, go on to most sort of insurance sites and there's nothing wrong with that. Like you know what I mean? Organizations are now, most, a lot of them don't work very well, you know what I mean? Some of them, some of them are okay and, and that, and, but that change is, is happening and, and really society and governments really have to have a think about how do we, how do we move? Because we all talk about oh yeah, we're all going to be working, you know, much more creatively and you know, we're all going to be working you know much more in our head and, and not manually etc. But I don't think we've thought about well what's the effect that's going to have on, on the person itself, you know what I mean? And how many people are really going to be left behind in, in that type of. Because look we see in the US the numbers, you know, are, that have been left behind, you know, you know, in, in, in the Rust Belt and, and that type of thing, you know, so it's, it's front and center and, and I think Covet has probably been a bit of a, bit of a wake up call on, on both for organizations, workers and, and sort of governments.

I hope so. And just to kind of summarize for those listening, if this has engaged your brain to think about, you know, what you could do to really take advantage of an untapped pool of talent, but also to think about what you need to do to actually make sure you're ready to bring in such talent. To Colin's point, it isn't. It requires a different way of thinking about recruiting, different way of thinking about how you'll have someone in your business and well then also there's something that are just the same like you got to treat the person like a normal staff member, one of your team as well, which is really important. Colin, we've hit time and I really appreciate your, your time on this. I likewise could talk about this topic. What I'm fascinated with. We've set up a couple of programs with Open Doors Initiative in Ireland with National Industries for the Blind in the US around taking folks from disadvantaged backgrounds and train them as recruiters for example. And we're learning it's not just about the training to your point, it's about building their confidence, the skills to then have someone help them advocate for roles and other things. It's more complex than just give the experience, but it's part of it, right? There's more to it and you have to be more mindful as an employer looking to hire individuals from different backgrounds, which is so true. Wonder if you wouldn't mind closing Colin with one last piece of advice. We ask every guest on the show, as you know, to leave with us one piece of advice. They've either been given throughout their career by somebody else that resonated or that they've managed to kind of garner themselves and their own experience that could be helpful for our audience. So what would that one piece of advice be from yourself?

So I, I think it's for, I suppose, the leaders and managers and anyone who's managing people around confidence, I think. And it, again, in, in that book I talked about, it came home to me that it's, it con. Giving people confidence almost gives them a sort of a, you know, almost a superpower. Right? But on the other side, undermining confidence. It actually, it gives it. There's a feeling of power when you undermine someone and undermine their confidence. It's a sort of a natural thing that happens to you. You sort of go, oh, you know, I. I'm in control here. You know what I mean? And it's. I think if people can just. In their. Every day, when they. We think of it, when they think about. If they're undermining people, it can sometimes actually feel good for you and just to maybe step back and, you know, it's a, it's. It's a really, it's a, it's a really negative thing that can sort of get out of control with, with leaders and managers. And it's. I think if you're, if you're in an organization and you're seeing it happen around you with other people, I think because when we, when we take confidence, I think away from people, you know, it can lead to destructive sort of, you know, relationships and behaviors and that type of thing. And I know it's a bit of a bit of a cheesy one, but, but I think it's a, it's, it's a really important thing. If we, we all just took that every day and said, well, because it actually, you sort of, you know, you take. And it can happen in a discussion about a project or about work or whatever, and you, you know, you take a heavy hand and you know, you see by dismantling someone's sort of argument, you know how he was sort of, you put them almost we call it in Ireland put, we put him in his place type of thing. You know, it's, it's not a, not a nice thing. I think you're right.

I see people do it often where someone's making a point and one of the points they're making is slightly incorrect and you leap on that they're generally correct but you want to point out that something they said is not correct. You undermine them, kills their confidence. And what is it? What does it gain?

You get a little.

Why no more than them. I pointed out something but literally nobody wins. Nobody wins and probably somebody loses massively. And it's. Yeah, it's a good reminder. Really appreciate that. I can thank you for taking time out of your, your trip to Italy to join us, rushing to get the hotel to join us with a carpet on your roof as you pointed out as well, which is only in Italy, only near Florence. Dying to have you on again to get your updates on, on many other topics. I know you come from a background of rich knowledge in many, many areas and as you say, FRS is involved in many, many businesses. If anyone wants to get in touch with tourist new in Ireland, if anyone's listening who's interested in hiring from that market, what's the best way to reach out?

Just, just go to touristnua IE T U R A S NUA N U A IE and you know, on the employer side of or you know, any, any partners, anyone looking to partner with us and that type of thing and just listen a shout out to yourselves. Johnny, in Social Talent we've been working with you for you know, a long time. I remember you doing the sort of face to face stuff and turning it into a fantastic sort of online training resource for, for us in, in frs and it's actually just been in, you know, great to work with you in terms of, you know, the support you give us, you know, personally and coming along to sort of events and, and just show shout outs and, and I think, I think the recruitment sector is a better place for you being in it man, you know. So well done.

Thank you, really appreciate that and thanks for supporting us all through these years. We'll stop with our, our mutual love and I just wish you the safe trip back home. Watch out for the girl Coronavirus and we'll talk again soon. Thanks Colin.

Thanks a million Johnny.

See you later and thank you for listening. Come back next week for show 78 next week we're going to be having another good friend of social talent and ours. Mine in particular, Robbie Miguel Podrick, who is the founder of the Talent Summit here in Ireland and the CCO of Sigmar Recruitment. And Robbie's going to share his insights on how to attract and retain tomorrow's talent. So, sticking with a similar theme, Robbie's been working with tons of thought leaders, employers around the world in the Talent Summit that he's brought to the biggest talent conference here in Ireland over the last five years or so and runs one of the biggest recruitment agencies in Ireland that's growing like crazy and has tons of insights to give us there. So join us next week this Wednesday 1st of December, 1st of the December season and that's going to be usual time 4pm UK Ireland, which is 11am the east coast, 8am the west coast of the US as well for that show. And don't forget, you can find out more about all of our shows and find links to the podcast links to the previous shows and upcoming shows by going to socialtown.com forward/the shortlist and thanks to those of you listening live with your comments as well. We'll see you next week. Sam.