Rob Mann: Good morning, everybody. What's going on, lauren. 

Lauren Jones: What is happening, Rob? I'm so excited to be here with you today. 

Rob Mann: Well, I am excited as always to be here. If you guys are in the chat tuning in, please throw in where you're tuning in from maybe any questions that you have thrown at them in early. I promise Lauren, we'll get to questions this session.

Rob Mann: It is my commitment to you that this session will answer questions. 

Lauren Jones: Yes. I swear. Swear. I have so much time left. I thought about answering questions and then we just got into it and oh.

Rob Mann: what is up Atlanta, Columbus how you doing? Ohio state is kicking butt at wrestling. Alyssa, good to see Addison, Caesar my man. Austin. Caesar we're getting drinks when I come in for exec forum.

Rob Mann: So, I'll be super excited. I do need to get to Atlanta soon. We'll definitely connect. I've known Caesar for two years and we've never met in person by the way.

Lauren Jones: I had the pleasure of meeting Caesar. So, I'm one step ahead of you Rob. 

Rob Mann: Well, I'm sorry for that. Anyway, Wisconsin. What's going on? Sorry about the Packers, but it was an amazing game.

Lauren Jones: I actually watched a football game, Rob, all four of them for anybody who knows me. We don't, my, my, my husband says we don't watch sports. We do sports. 

Rob Mann: Chico in the house for you. 

Lauren Jones: So yeah, I watched Tom Brady. Because it's Tom Brady. 

Rob Mann: You just wanted to see him at the time and I'll find out 

Lauren Jones: He is pretty cute.

Rob Mann: We're all fans. Anyway, I became a fan once you'd left the Patriots. So guys, we had a jam packed session. Lauren and I were really excited planning this if you didn't catch Lauren's session last night with some incredible technology leaders. Is it Anthony from Mitchel Martin. 

Lauren Jones: Anthony Giardina from Mitchell Martin, you had Melissa Brenner from the Eliassen Group.

Lauren Jones: We had Tim Davis from Kavaliro. I mean, I don't even know how I have such brilliant friends. But we had the coolest discussion, we wanted it, we wanted to sort of bring it down, meaning, you know, sometimes we talk about conceptual things and we, you know, we're talking blockchain and we're just get way ahead of ourselves and where we are.

Lauren Jones: And so it was a practical talk about where we are today. Businesses are struggling with large and small, and then talking a little bit about, you know, what's to come in the future, some future predictions, which is, you know, always fun. I love getting, you know, I get very mischievous when we start talking about, you know, what I think is going to happen in the future.

Lauren Jones: And it was really wonderful to hear everybody's ideas and then to get all the collaborative discussion around it, which is why we had no co you know, time for questions. 

Rob Mann: What does it really good session. So if you haven't the whole point of that, if you haven't checked. Check it out as on demand all of the sessions by the way, for the World Staffing Summit on demand.

Rob Mann: So the first thing again, Lauren and I are definitely going to get to about 10, 15 minutes of questions. Unless I get on a soap box and start preaching. Hello, Samantha from Phoenix. Nice to see you. Thanks for jumping on so early in your day. And then, so what we want to do, first thing we're gonna talk about is some sessions that we're excited for, or like a learning session that already went by.

Rob Mann: The next thing we're going to hit is am I ready? So we're going to talk, am I ready to implement technology? Which is a question I get all the time. Am I ready to automate? Am I ready for big data analytics? Am I ready for a connected workforce app, like a working or a Bullhorn connect? And then maybe we'll get to I'm ready for no code.

Rob Mann: That is a great one Caesar. I am in and then our big firms, a little firms struggling with the same things, meaning, you know, your one to 10, your 25 to 50 million, and then your 100 million plus are you guys all struggling with similar things? And then if you guys caught I love a good report from Bullhorn.

Rob Mann: If you caught Mark Hummels what's going on? What's going on guys? Good to see it. You have to tell me how to say that. 

Lauren Jones: That's now.

Lauren Jones: Got to 

Rob Mann: now. I like it. Okay. Well thank you for jumping in. And so we're going to talk about so Mark Hummels brought up the grid report said, you know, talent acquisition is the number one priority candidate shortage is number one issue like think and Lauren and I like and shout out to Adam Conrad, who has a great session coming up. And he's also Great Recruiters as sponsoring the best staffing firm for World Staffing Summit. We are always Great Recruiters when we're there. We never say there's a talent shortage. We say there's a trust shortage.

Rob Mann: And Lauren and I are going to break down why we think that is. And some ideas around getting past it in Philly. What is going on? Trillium staffing as a Jersey native Tom, I know you, but I, as a Jersey native, I love my Philly folk unless we're playing football or sports against each other, because that's a whole different thing.

Rob Mann: Anyway, Lauren let's crack it. What are you, what session did you catch that you were excited about? First and then I'll jump in and give mine. 

Lauren Jones: I am such a Kevin Ackroyd fan from pro unlimited. I don't think he knows this, but last year I saw a live session with him. It was at gig E where he was talking about how to create competitive advantage and talking about the way that work, you know, the way that work works is changing.

Lauren Jones: And I just, I love how he, and he was the one yesterday and I think it was the future of work. But he was the one yesterday that was saying, let's slow our roll. We get so ahead of ourselves in staffing and we're already on the blockchain. And we, we haven't even got good, we don't even have good data.

Lauren Jones: Right. And we've taken, we've got to crawl before we walk. We've got to walk before we run. And I just love how he speaks to the audience and I love how pragmatic he is. And he really speaks in layman's terms. And I love how practical he is for someone that thinks so forward-thinking. He is very much about let's perfect what we have.

Lauren Jones: And we also touched on this, on the technology panel, you know, this allure of technology and distraction, and, you know, we're up to $7 billion in you know, investment dollars. You know, it's really easy to go after the shiniest, prettiest, newest toy, thinking that you've got to keep up with the Joneses.

Lauren Jones: And it's just, you can innovate regardless of where you are and all the technology. And so I loved Kevin's panel. I thought it was brilliant. 

Rob Mann: I like it. The future of work is always a great great topic. And I love that. I love that Caesar is saying that, you know, the future of work has no work at all.

Rob Mann: I'll play. I think we all agree. The future of work is working when you and getting your projects done as efficiently asynchronously as possible. I like Mark Hummel's VMS business. I thought it was fascinating. You know, by the way, so I thought this was a good start from the mark.

Rob Mann: 50% of the VMS positions are now remote. So just like a lot of the staffing industry, it's your talent pools, national and what, and so when I started to work at Bullhorn, I was a little confused because I came from Locums Recruiting, which is healthcare and the healthcare playbook has always been national.

Rob Mann: Right. Cause I might be sitting in Fort Lauderdale, but I'm recruiting for jobs in Clare, Wisconsin, or in Phoenix and I'm placing, so my talent pool wasn't specific. And then when I went to you know, Bullhorn tried to start to wrap my head around, like what you did at Volt or at Star Staffing and for it's more regional or local.

Rob Mann: And so I had to wrap my head around it, but because now these VMS jobs are 50% on the side of there are 50% of these VMS jobs are remote. The talent pool is national and the playbook needs to become more of what the travel nursing groups do, or the local tenants staffing groups do, which has had that national playbook.

Rob Mann: So I thought that was a really good session. 

Lauren Jones: Yeah. When we talked more and more about less ownership, right? There's less ownership of candidates and databases and more and more there's this transparency that's being created. And you know, we've talked long and hard about, you know, marketing internally and externally and how that's going to be a big differentiator.

Lauren Jones: Did you catch the Leslie Vickery session that was yesterday as well? Oh, that's right. It wasn't the same time.

Lauren Jones: All of that. I don't think I've been a part of a session where DE & I haven't been a part of the discussion. They opened the entire conference you know, with some of the chat around diversity equity and inclusion, which I thought was brilliant. They were, you know, optimal.

Lauren Jones: They were talking about new tools, new unbiased searching more distribution to you know, diverse job boards and how to get that done, leveraging, you know, as technology as part of the solution. I just loved the conversations being had yesterday, were where we're bubbling up this conversation, and it's a meaningful part of what we're trying to solve.

Rob Mann: Yeah. And I think, you know, if you've heard me tell the story, but I love the story of beats by Dre. When the CMO, there was no CMO of like always hired a really diverse group because diverse ideas can attract all the different populations. You can get you some really great outcomes, and I don't have a better outcome than being acquired by apple you know, a few years after being founded and just delivering an incredible advertising, delivering incredible brand experiences and just really kind of knocking it out of the park and just because they had so many diverse people in the business to help align with the reality of the world, which is diverse in case you were confused or not sure about that.

Rob Mann: Anyway I'm excited for Kelli Schutrop, our girl Kelli's automation. So it's kind of a strategy around automation. I love that everyone keeps talking about. You know, making these things human. I think Mark said it in a session. They talked a little about automation. I'm so excited. Always listen to that. And I think when we get to, am I ready? The first thing we're going to probably hit on is am I ready for automation, Lauren? Cause that's the question that I get a lot now. 

Lauren Jones: Oh my gosh. Well, and Henna Pryor she's got her list. Okay. So Hannah Pryor, I mean, she's a girl boss, so, you know, three essential changes you must make to your sales messaging strategy.

Lauren Jones: And she is teaching people how to communicate in a way that is going to get the desired response. Right? The way people are consuming information is changing. The way that we communicate has to in turn change and marketing messaging is, you know, kind of quick and fast and dirty now. And we have to kind of get with it.

Lauren Jones: And so I'm excited for hers. My boy, Tom erb, the future of talent, acquisition and retention. I mean, I, you can't, it can't go wrong with. Yes. And then Jeff stats are our boy at Haley marketing, who we did the marketing podcast with. He's got, you know, top titch, top tips to supercharge your sales automation efforts to more clients and more job orders.

Lauren Jones: Again, all, I love all of the focused energy around how we're communicating, the words that we use are important and they can help make the difference in elevating your brand and creating that stickiness that we always talk about on the podcast. And what else here? Well, obviously we've got our buddy Dave Folwell how to source passive talent to improve the candidate experience.

Lauren Jones: I mean, all of these, then we've got Adam Conrad our friend at Great Recruiters. The ROI is, you know, we are in a review based world instant feedback, instant gratification. And so I'm really looking forward to his, and then I could not talk about today without talking about Matt Dichter and Adam Butera and the impact on the candidate and client experience.

Lauren Jones: Obviously, they're going to be talking about staffing and gen but not just a bot, but acceleration. And in that, you know, this connectivity that we have to create with the experience I think is going to be a charged conversation. And I'm really excited about that one. Because those two are Adam with Lead Health staff.

Lauren Jones: Those two are this tour, the steer, our money right there. It's going to be a good talk. 

Rob Mann: So, the only other thing that I'll mention, then we'll jump into some of the topics that we bubble up here is tomorrow at 8:00 AM. So it's the European session in the World Staffing Summit. And the team at Kylo is interviewing three customers on how to basically make paperwork your friend instead of your enemy.

Rob Mann: So if you're up early or if you want to catch up with the man. Especially if you do any VMS business, if you're on here and you do VMS business, you should check out the session with Martin and Raymond. And a few of our customers CrossFit is one of them, I think Austin Frazier. So it should be a good session and highlighting the ways that we help you win that war, which you know, is part of the candidate experience.

Rob Mann: And also part of your team's experience who wants to hire people who full-time creates submission packets for your VMS. That sounds like a terrible reason for really cool humans. So anyway all right, let's get into it before, before you chastise me for saying I'm wasting humans. All right. So am I ready?

Rob Mann: Alright, let's start with automation, Lauren. I get, so I've gotten this question a few times now, and it's kind of nice because when I was selling Here Fish on marketing automation, it came to the point where I would ask people like, Hey, do you have someone to run this? But that doesn't necessarily mean that you're not ready for automation.

Rob Mann: That just means, are you ready to. You know, like, do you have your ducks in a row to take advantage of it? The real question is, you know, like, do you have your proverbial and I'm not going to curse together. So fill in the blank for forgetting. And that means are you using your ATS at the bare minimum prescribed way?

Rob Mann: And usually asking people to do a reverse demo to me about how they're doing X, Y, and Z in their ATS, just so I can look at it and be like, okay, is everyone doing that? Or is that what you tell people to do? And then no one does that. And I've had the experiences of both. So it's definitely a great question.

Rob Mann: And it's very exciting because Lauren, you and I both know that you can bandaid by things or you can rush by things. And 

Lauren Jones: I love that everybody's using that terminology. The band-aid by 

Rob Mann: Not really, it's actually that though, and then not take advantage of it. We've all gone into how many businesses you can answer that.

Rob Mann: And figured out that they have XYZ subscription and they're not using it at all. So if I had, you can guess, but like how many, how often do you feel like you go into a conversation, they're looking to solve something and you're like, oh, but you already have this and that does that, are you using it? What's the anecdotal answer?

Lauren Jones: Yeah. So, you know, Lepa Consulting. I can't have a podcast out talking about Leap Consulting. So we, you know, we had a few dozen customers last year and we tripled our revenues last year and you know, no, but the lesson is A lot of what happens when I'm coming into an organization or we're coming into organization is just evaluating where we are.

Lauren Jones: Right. Let's understand where we are in order to answer that question. Are we ready? You know, I literally was just brought into a business to do a reevaluation of a technology that they just purchased because oftentimes we look at the technology as the issue, as opposed to how we're leveraging it.

Lauren Jones: And oftentimes it's not the technology, it's how we are using it. And so, how we are ready is really answering. Do we have good business practices? Do we have, do we understand our workflows? Are we putting the data in the system? If we can answer those kinds of three things And answer them honestly.

Lauren Jones: Yeah. Put your shoes in it and your system. Right. And that's the way you can say it on the radio without any expletives. But answering those questions will really help you determine if you are ready to take on automation. And I will never, if I'm doing an implementation, I will never turn on automation immediately.

Lauren Jones: I will ask the firm to do the exercise first manually so that you understand what you're automating before you turn that power on. So that if something does break, you can understand the why and the where and what we need to do to fix it. And so the, are we ready is really looking internally and determining how effectively you are leveraging your systems of record.

Rob Mann: Okay. And I'm going to jump, I know we have big data kind of next to clean data and I think. Clean data. It's kind of like that idea of making sure that data gets into the system correctly as prescribed using things like, you know, if we're available, we'll go with our buddies Bullhorn and like the correct note type or a status.

Rob Mann: Like if all of those things are being maintained. I got lucky. I had a, and I always referenced her, but I had an incredible operations person who made some really good decisions about Bullhorn and trained us when we were using it as physicians. And now she is at fluidly locums, which is no surprise why they have the fastest growing locums group every year.

Rob Mann: So shout out to Natasha and Michelle Loethen. But it is pretty clear that if you can get good data into the system, you can get great outcomes and it doesn't have to annoy your recruiters. And I think that's a huge kind of a huge caveat, right? Like how to be strategic and effective and efficient 

Lauren Jones: and leaders need to stay connected to this.

Lauren Jones: Look, I don't, I'm not you know, I don't, you necessarily need to be in the weeds, but oftentimes executives are coming to me saying I have no discernible dashboards. I can't make good educated decisions on my business for my business. And oftentimes it's because we have bad habits. You know, when we're, as a pertains to the field, putting data in the system or not in the system, the other issue that I see primarily happening is all of the disparity of systems.

Lauren Jones: There is no transformation without integration. I've been saying this when I met you, there is no transformation without integration. If your recruiter is swivel chairing, and you are using your ATS as an order repository or just a place where you randomly put data. You are not going to get the ROI and you are not going to be able to make good, intelligent decisions that will help you scale your business.

Lauren Jones: And so, that's the, one of the other things that I see happen all the time is information is everywhere. 

Rob Mann: And that kind of goes to this big data idea, right? So one of the, one of the trends you get another shout out to the Bullhorn crew, but Donnie Payne gave us a really great answer about trends.

Rob Mann: And one of them was mergers and acquisitions. And the fact that people don't understand what you know, these consultants that come in to value a business, you know, in the talks of an acquisition are looking for, and, you know, you need to be able to report on these things and have the right data in the system so that those reports are easy to pull out so that you can You know, derive the, you know, the value of a big trend right now, right?

Rob Mann: Like how many echoes we so able got acquired, but you and I were talking about that's a tech acquisition, but you and I were talking about it that day. And like throughout the day, I think we saw three acquisitions announced through SIA. So we just kept texting each other back and forth like, oh, there's another one.

Rob Mann: Oh, there's another one. Oh, wait, did you hear about that? Like, it was just all M&A activity. 

Lauren Jones: That week, which we predicted early last year that you know, mergers and acquisitions was going to be a hot topic. And then we were going to see more and more consolidation. And can your tech stack affect your valuation?

Lauren Jones: Yes. Emphatically it can. And the lack of documentation that you have, or the lack of clarity in your process and workflows can affect that. And so it's really important that when you're asking the business or we ready that we look at it objectively, we look at it honestly, and then we create a plan if we're not where we need to be.

Rob Mann: Yep. And so I think all of this and maybe kind of wrapping up, you know, how would you know, how would you describe to someone if they're ready to take on a work in or a Bullhorn connection. 

Lauren Jones: How would I, well, I'm obviously that we have clarity of purpose. Right? What do we want it to do? What do we want the experience to be?

Lauren Jones: Both internally and externally. And yeah. Yes. It's definitely a hundred percent. Raymond. I love that he's here. Your tech stack can not add to your valuation, but can definitely reduce your valuation, a Raymond. Okay. What did you ask me now? I totally forgot because cause Raymond, 

Rob Mann: yeah, no. So, we were talking about, Hey.

Rob Mann: You're going to, you're going to implement work in or, oh. 

Lauren Jones: Yes. Clarity of purpose. And this is where some basic requirements come into play. Oftentimes I come in and we think that we need it. But we don't know how we would apply it. And when we don't know the how and the why there's no point spending the money.

Lauren Jones: And so we want to create an experience and we need to be able to tell our implementers exactly what we want this experience to be like for all of those that are going to be engaged with the technology. When you have clarity of purpose you can execute brilliantly on an implementation. 

Rob Mann: I like that.

Rob Mann: That's such an easy way to say something that may not be the easiest. 

Lauren Jones: I know it is not easier said than done, but if you're going in and asking if I'm ready and really answering it honestly, and then going through an evaluation to determine, okay, what am I doing today? Where are some of the gaps?

Lauren Jones: And then how do I get there? It's just very straightforward, don't get emotional about it. It is. And this is about re yes, it's feedback. You need an objective. Let's let the facts tell the story. And I have business owners who are emotional, you know, about this, and we have to let the facts tell the story.

Lauren Jones: And that will give us clarity of purpose and ensure that the experience that we create through implementation is reflective of, you know, our desired outcome. And I, it sounds so I know it is more simply said than it is simply done. 

Rob Mann: Okay. Yeah. The execution of that is where the guidance is needed and you need some experience wrapped around it, right.

Rob Mann: Yeah, because running that project is different than maybe running a standard project, but good stuff. All right. This one's for you. Since I usually don't have this conversation, big businesses are struggling. The same thing that little businesses are struggling with 

Lauren Jones: That was a brilliant question that I saw kind of over and over and it's sort of a theme that's carried since 2020 hit is and that's part of why we, you know, opened the conversation with what our business is challenged with today.

Lauren Jones: And in general I thought that no one was immune from this, you know, distraction Jackson that we have going on. You know, all of the technology enterprises and small and mid-sized firms are all struggling with understanding everything that's out there and determining where do I spend my R&D dollars. If you have R&D dollars, where do I put my energy?

Lauren Jones: And I think that, I think it was Tim Davis yesterday who said it so brilliantly, he was like picking actual problems. You know, when there's so much distraction going on in an enterprise, and again, enterprise is not immune to this because oftentimes they're making decisions without understanding what the field is really suffering from and picking actual problems to solve for not being hyphotical is not what might be coming.

Lauren Jones: And I thought that was a brilliant way to kind of hone in on what's important and execute. 

Rob Mann: Well. I think one of the things that I thought was interesting about what he said in that conversation was sometimes what you think the problem is not what the actual business needs or wants, right?

Rob Mann: The field needs or wants. 

Lauren Jones: Listening to your people is so fundamental. I, and I think that was reiterated a few times yesterday that we have to start listening to our end-users internally and we have to start listening to those that are engaging with our brand externally and really look at potential trends as they come in and and all, and there was no business, no size business that was immune from that.

Rob Mann: No I think so I love this, you know, I love this idea of applying SaaS, right? SaaS business ideas too, and it's listening to your customers and then figuring out, you know, what they're like and starting what they're actually saying to you. Maybe what they're saying is a little bit kind of hiding what the actual issue is.

Rob Mann: But you can't, you've got to serve your first customer first, right. So if you have your first customer, it is your internal employees, right. He served them first by listening. And creating great products. So the great product for a recruiter is their enablement, their tools that they're enabled on their training and you know, the day to day, but you got to listen to them first season.

Lauren Jones: Caesar is asking a great question. How do you listen effectively when there's so much noise out there? And I think it's listening and then validating. And that is often the missing step is let's listen to what they're saying and validating through good data. This is why data is so important because it's a point of validation to a potential issue.

Lauren Jones: And if, and that's why we were talking about ROI. If your potential vendor partner is coming to you and cannot articulate what their ROI will be and how you will track it without, know, wizard wizardry, then you need that. Is it? That is a penalty flag. 

Rob Mann: And the ROI be, you know, setting a timer and seeing how much time is saved per human interaction with this thing.

Lauren Jones: Well, they need to be able to articulate that to you. This isn't something, this is some miracle point of data that we have to go track down. And so, you know, Caesar, to answer your question, we want to listen and then we want to validate, and we want to be able to leverage data to do that. That means that you need to enter it into the system.

Rob Mann: Well, also the idea of high fidelity testing at low cost low or no cost. So, you know, if you have a hypothesis about the business, if the field tells you something and you can test it. Test fix without a huge cost, but with a high fidelity and good data wrapped around it, then, you know, but like again, it's discerning, starting with the actual issue.

Lauren Jones: Well, and I think Anthony said something yesterday. It was really cool. He was talking about experimentation of every size and that, and I wholeheartedly, I called her, I call it being a baller on a budget right there. You can innovate and you can R&D at every size of organization, if you put your mind to it and get the right people involved.

Lauren Jones: And again it's asking for the points of information and then validating it and then backing it up with good ROI. 

Rob Mann: Yeah, I love it. Yeah, listening. 

Lauren Jones: That's I know it was such an effective skill. 

Rob Mann: Yeah. If you're, well, I mean, if your employees are leaving, they're saying something, but then they're telling you why they're leaving or not.

Rob Mann: Are you listening to what they're telling you without saying something right with this whole great migration. Great. And this kind of transitions us pretty nicely into this trust issue that we now have Lauren. So, please give us your take on why. Why there's a lack of trust? 

Lauren Jones: Oh my goodness. Well, I mean, I think that COVID the COVID affected us, you know, financially it affected so many emotionally and so much trust was lost with big employers.

Lauren Jones: You know, when the going got tough layoffs happened and people were without work record unemployment. I mean, and so this idea that the employer has your back is, you know, been now it's a bit of a misnomer and I think that's why we're seeing so much. And I think I just posted an article on the percentage you know, estimated percentage of gig working, being over 50%.

Lauren Jones: And because people want control. And so how do we now create an experience whereby there is a sense of control in the process, understanding, you know, what they're applying to, who they're talking to this sort of consumer immediate gratification that job seekers are now expecting because of the experience they had at COVID, we can get our groceries delivered in two hours.

Lauren Jones: We can get food delivered in 45 minutes. You know, we can have somebody go buy a watch for us through Postmates. I mean, it's crazy what we can get done through our mobile devices. And so how do you create that brand trust? Consistency is one and accessibility and transparency, all the scenes, you know, accessibility, transparency and creating a meaningful experience.

Lauren Jones: And that's the. The brand stickiness is and trust that will be created through that type of consistent experience. In my opinion. 

Rob Mann: No, I think, you know, what came to my mind is as a staffing and recruiting group, right. Or, you know, whatever we want to call ourselves, how do we help our customers understand that?

Rob Mann: How do we, you know, say, Hey, you know, we can find people. Yeah. But how are, like, what is your commitment to your life, you know, we're both part of the talent champions council, which the saying is people over everything. Guess what? People over everything, people, if you don't, well, guess what?

Rob Mann: You don't have good people. You're not going to have great profits. It's pretty simple. You might get lucky. You might have some businesses that can do these things, or you're small and not scale. They might have a SaaS product. That's a Chrome extension that you can scale with three people, one success, you doing whatever.

Rob Mann: But the reality is a lot of our businesses are not going to be that way. And so great people are going to lead to great outcomes. And so how can you as a staffing and recruiting vendor help your customers start to understand that? 

Lauren Jones: Well, and you know, I think employers are going to have to get creative. I talked about this on a podcast.

Lauren Jones: I just did, and it's escaping me because it was so early in the morning when we did it and I was still in my COVID Hayes. But no one by the way is going to know that's me because I sound like a dude. But we are, we were talking about the brand trust that's been lost and this great migration of people are going to where they feel connected and where they are paid well.

Lauren Jones: We are going, we have a come up and it's happening. And employers are gonna have to get right with wages, you know, and get right with what they're asking for. Meaning, you're not going to be able to pay $65,000 a year for somebody that has a master's degree. And then this myriad of requirements that you have that are in most cases arbitrary at best.

Lauren Jones: And so I think that, you know, employers need to get right with what is important and have more conversations and maybe, you know, how I feel about the resume. 

Rob Mann: Well, let's talk about that. That's a different thing Tom just threw in a question. I'm assuming Tom, you are from a different market than the US. How is staffing perceived as a career in the US is it something you fall into by default or?

Rob Mann: Okay. All right. Thank you for that. People recognize the sheer joy of working in such a fast paced people centered industry. 

Lauren Jones: Most people, I think in the US it's very funny, Tom. We were as a matter of fact, we do talk about this a lot because you know, a bunch of us just wrote a book and.

Lauren Jones: I think in my like opening chapter, I talk about how like many in the US I sort of fell into staffing, haphazardly, fresh out of school. You know, I worked for a pharmaceutical company as a temp, and then, you know, met there, met the rep. And, but I think that is what makes us so special is we are a collective of a uniquely and different very diverse group of individuals who all have a passion about helping others rise.

Lauren Jones: And there is something, although we are for profit, there is something really cool about saying that you are a part of somebody's story and helping feed their family or help somebody's career, help them accelerate their career. Mentor, you. I have a group of women that I. Mentor, because I feel passionately that women need to help women rise.

Lauren Jones: And so I think many of us came to this industry sort of haphazardly, but I also think that's one of the things that make us just really flipping cool. And but what I will say to answer the other side of that question is I think that new graduates as a matter of fact, I was just, I just sort of took a new little master's graduate under my wing.

Lauren Jones: And I said, we need to align you with a really good headhunter. They have the relationships that you need in the geography that you're seeking. And we need to really articulate what it is that you want so that we can define how we seek it out and using a headhunter or a recruiter is a really great way to do that.

Lauren Jones: And I think the firms that are showing their value that way are the ones that are standing out in our industry. 

Rob Mann: Yeah, I think it's going to start to, I think there is some appeal to it now. Just knowing how much, I don't know if you heard her, she was just crying. But yeah, just knowing that there are so many open job racks, I'm sure these people are going to be coming out.

Rob Mann: And I feel like, you know, groups like Signature, maybe Insight Global are starting internships for their last semester of college where they're kind of introducing more into the business and what that means. So, it's definitely, I think it's definitely shifting. It might be a slower shift but I can definitely see in the near term it becoming, you know, like at like far to state university has a sales major.

Rob Mann: I think UCF has a sales major down near Florida. And so. Recruiting might not be too far off. 

Lauren Jones: I think the three primary degrees I see in staffing are psychology, sociology and communications. Those are the three sorts of primary educational, you know, backgrounds that I see in our industry, which makes total sense to me.

Rob Mann: Yeah. Makes good sense. I appreciate that. I did not major in any of that and I knew 

Lauren Jones: You were a teacher for the love of goodness. I was a musician. I mean like my education has nothing to do with this industry. So I was into music and languages. My minor is in German, Italian, French, and Latin. So that has nothing to do with staffing.

Rob Mann: How'd you get German in the romance languages of Latin. 

Lauren Jones: It's, it was a requirement for the classical music program because those are romance

Rob Mann: yeah. All right. I got it. Anyway, And your box. Yeah. Understood. Okay, Lauren, we did not prepare this, but this is one of our favorite topics and one of our favorite trends and we'll close on this and then we'll get to some questions.

Rob Mann: Lauren Jones. 

Lauren Jones: Yes. 

Rob Mann: How important is the community to not suffer a talent shortage or a candidate shortage or by the way, if talent acquisition and finding candidates is the number one priority in source continuously. It is beyond a , it's almost no longer true because it just means that you are not working in constraints to be constructive.

Rob Mann: I would like to throw that out there. So please stop complaining about a lack of candidates. I know, right now it's different because of COVID and all the craziness. But in general, if we get into two more years where everyone's like, we can't find candidates, I would question your creativity as Lauren. So instead of just telling people that they're wrong or having issues, why don't we help them with some solutions?

Rob Mann: Yes, we do all the time. 

Lauren Jones: All the time. Okay. So my word of 2022, I think for businesses, and I think a word that we're going to continue to see as, you know, a buzzword or what have you is community. And because with this remote work, which is not going away, thanks to all of the variants, right? Remote work is not going away.

Lauren Jones: So 

Rob Mann: how efficient and people don't want to go to the office. 

Lauren Jones: Right. And I mean, if the statistics you see out there are beyond 50% who do not want to go back to the office. And I think. Customers that are digging their heels in and not creating flexibility are ignorant to like reading the room, know? And but this sense of community and belonging, how are we going to create that in a remote world and technologies that are answering for that and create, you know, Work Lama has their communities Referral Networks, Jobcase does a great job of creating community on their site.

Lauren Jones: But I think you're going to see more niche communities. The health care world has done a really good job of 

Rob Mann: Facebook groups for travel. 

Lauren Jones: Yes. And so groups, communities, where they can have a sense of belonging while still working from home and being independent. I read an article that said that work friendships are dead.

Lauren Jones: That making friends that work is dead. And I don't necessarily agree with it. I get what he was saying is he, this particular individual has buddies that for the last 21 years, they no longer work together. But for the last 21 years, they have this trip that they do every year. And they all started at this, you know, small firm together and now have connected and, you know, created that you know, that.

Lauren Jones: The whole pastime that they do or that, that ritual annual event the lady leaders book club was created during the pandemic remotely. And I think that those businesses that build that sense of community and can do it remotely, are going to create something that people are attracted to because people still desire connection.

Lauren Jones: And so I think we can build and make great friendships. I mean, you and I, my goodness, we've been working together for two years now remotely and you know, I know I forgot the first time we met. So, sorry, that was so dumb. You actually introduced me on stage. It was the lamest thing for me to forget.

Lauren Jones: But the community, and connection people are still seeking it out. 

Rob Mann: Lauren how many communities you are part of. 

Lauren Jones: Oh my goodness. Probably more than I can count. And you know, there are many different groups that I'm passionate about. Oh, absolutely. 

Rob Mann: Okay. I think I'm over, I'm like six.

Rob Mann: So like I think the other thing too, and let me go, let me rewind our conversation back to this, like kind of talk about candidates and being engaged, the quantity of candidates in your system no longer matters. The amount of engagement you have with your candidates is actually what matters, same thing with your clients, right?

Rob Mann: Like you could have a ton, but how engaged you are that trickles over very nicely to this idea of community where if you can create, if you have five people in your community, but everyone's hyper engaged you know, and Caesar's actually the Head of Community and Marketing for myBase pay. And he said, Gary Vee claims, he spends like four hours on online communities just engaging.

Rob Mann: It's a full-time job. So GaryVee these, like the number one, one of the number one, top five influencers in the world. If you don't know who Gary Vaynerchuk is, the idea is how engaged your community is. And like, you know, is it a safe place for everyone? And then once you have that 6 months, 12 months later, it starts to bear fruit.

Rob Mann: And it's more of a patient's thing by the way, guys. So don't expect to build a community and start, you know, eating off of it immediately. It's not, that's not that kind of deal. It is definitely a long term. It's a, do you actually give a crap kind of play? Like, do you feel passionately about what you're building and the community that you're a part of like Lauren, I love Lauren when she talks about her, the ladies leader book club or the thrive group and Caesar's giving great advice by the way.

Rob Mann: So if you're not in the chat, check out the chat, if you're interested in community, But I just think there's so much value in and it goes back to this, it goes back to, I don't care. How many candidates are in your database? How engaged is your database on a monthly basis with you? Right. How can you, how often do you talk to them?

Rob Mann: How often do they open your emails? Do they give a crap while you're emailing them besides for jobs? And then how do you build the community off of that? So, there's lots of resources and Caesar's a great one. You come talk to Lauren and I but we, you we think, and there's, by the way, Lauren, how many job titles do you see for community heads right now to people looking for community heads and big business.

Lauren Jones: Oh, my goodness everywhere everybody is looking for. And it's probably a new way of saying, you know, head of marketing, head of the community but I think it's more than that. It's collaboration, it's connectivity activity. It is a meaningful contribution and Caesar's a hundred percent, right.

Lauren Jones: You cannot go in expecting something with expectations and it's going in expecting to give and that those are where the rewards come from. And I think if a brand has that authenticity, that type of authentic mentality, passion, authenticity is the buzzword of the marketing world.

Lauren Jones: People want to know your flaws. They want to know what type of gen Z's who are entering, you know, in the, have entered the workplace and account for 20, some odd percent of the workforce right now, you know, what's meaningful to the millennial is not as meaningful to the gen Z is gen Z's are like, show me the money, show me the path, show me the way to the almighty dollar.

Lauren Jones: Millennials are attached to a purpose and creating communities around those types of things. God bless you. I'm a gen X-er right. Show me the money. But being cognizant of the community that you're creating and the message that you want to create is that awareness is whatsoever important. 

Rob Mann: There's a great book called if you want a backbone to read the author is David Spinks and it is the Business of belonging.

Rob Mann: We talk about it a lot on the podcast and I'm going to throw the link to Amazon in the chat for y'all just to make everyone's life super duper easy. All right. 

Lauren Jones: Yes. But okay. You know, I am a nerd, right? So anybody who listens to the podcast knows, I usually read 

Rob Mann: Lauren shows one book a week. I do 

Lauren Jones: This one is brilliant. No hard feelings, the secret power of embracing emotions at work. This book is brilliant. It's funny, witty, well-written and practical. You know, they talk about frenemies. It is called no hard feelings, the secret, a secret power of embracing emotions at work, because I don't know about you guys.

Lauren Jones: Okay, good. But we have. The conversation has changed at work. We're talking about mental health, we're talking about emotions. We're and we're staying that it's okay. Like having a mental health issue is, and I've made no secret of my battle with anxiety. And so sometimes serious social crippling, social anxiety and for someone who does public speaking, all right.

Lauren Jones: Yeah. Believe it or not. Some of your most profound extroverts actually worry about being in front of people. But no hard feelings. It's fantastic. I'm right in the middle of it. Yeah, it's a must read. 

Rob Mann: I love it. All right. So guys, like I promised, we got 12 minutes left.

Rob Mann: Do you guys have any questions besides why Lauren is coughing into the microphone? I tried to get away from any questions. Everybody. We appreciate everybody tuning in. 

Lauren Jones: All right. I had some hangovers and I prepared some hangover questions from yesterday. If we don't get, can we do podcasts together?

Lauren Jones: Of course, Caesar. 

Rob Mann: So here's the thing though. And I would like to say this when Lauren and I are going to do a podcast together, if you don't smile or laugh, are you really working? 

Lauren Jones: Are you really what?

Rob Mann: I want to call people out. Are you really working if you're not enjoying yourself a little bit? Yeah. Like by the way, how many people have been sitting on these web, like these webinars on this and every conference and you're just like, and then.

Lauren Jones: Yeah, waiting for their turn to talk instead of listening and engaging. Yeah.

Rob Mann: And like having fun with it anyway. Sorry,

Rob Mann: what hangover questions do you have? 

Lauren Jones: Okay, so there were a couple yesterday. It was more on adapting and adopting and how do it was more of a, how do we be nimble? It's this balance of, you know, innovating, there's so much being put on us, not just by our employees, but our customers are demanding more and more.

Lauren Jones: And so how do we adapt and adopt without where in the heck? Where are our people out? So there is this requirement to adapt and adopt without creating fatigue. We already have zoom fatigue. We already have, I, oh gosh. They call it a couple of names for it. Erica Kesselman put out a great article about zoom fatigue and all of that.

Lauren Jones: And so how do we adapt and adopt without killing our people? 

Rob Mann: That's a good question. I think it goes back to listening. It goes back to so like, it goes back to serving your first customer, always right. Listening to that first customer. You go to audio only meetings. Yes, Martin, I am very sassy.

Rob Mann: So the idea being okay, if you like, if the process is okay, you know, then we find out what made my team's day difficult and then it makes the breath of the team stay difficult, right? If you have a hundred recruiters and 30 or 40 of them, maybe say the same thing or something similar about the same process.

Rob Mann: Okay. Then you can kind of assume that another bunch of that hundred probably have the same issue. They're just not saying it. They're just dealing with it. Okay. So how do you, okay, so now you go back and you try to find a solution, whether that's buying something or just fixing something, or maybe it's subtracting something like getting rid of something, 

Lauren Jones: Timing and tolerance, you know, in, in my sort of building your ecosystem and program, there is the timing and tolerance.

Lauren Jones: If you're at your busiest time of year, maybe now's not the time to implement something. If you are, people are up to here and they've reached their tolerance of what they can kind of. Really learn and really adapt, know, maybe we take a pause for the business and for the people, however, I will say building your culture to be a culture of change, acceptance is a huge one.

Lauren Jones: Many companies have, you know, sort of firmly rooted in the way this is, we've always, you know, this is the way we've always done it. And if I had a dollar for every time, I heard that in 2021, I would be a millionaire. Yes, absolutely. I still hear it today. No, of course not. I try I'm a hired antagonist.

Rob Mann: You either raise the rates or you fire them at that moment. I think I'm moving forward. We cannot accept that behavior. 

Lauren Jones: Yeah well, the question is if no one else is doing it this way, then we should probably take a look at it. 

Rob Mann: So I think we're saying it's like, is it really. And then what is the cultural timing of it, right? 

Lauren Jones: Timing and tolerance, and your culture are huge to adapting and adopting without wearing out your people. If you have a culture where you've created, the change is good. Change is not scary, changes, fun, and change will help you help you make more money, help you be efficient, help you do more with less. You can find joy in the constant change, but that is on you as an organization to create that culture 

Rob Mann: and experienced feedback, right?

Rob Mann: Feedback is a huge being open, candid feedback, but not negative, but pro proactive or productive feedback and being accepting and listening to it. That's the other thing, like if someone is caring, if someone cares enough to tell you what they think could help the business and you don't listen, that is a great way to lose it.

Rob Mann: Who's a really good person that cares about your business. 

Lauren Jones: Okay. One of the other questions was what advice would we give the audience based on mistakes that we've made, whether in our career or on behalf of the organization? I love this question. Oh my God. So many mistakes. I mean, like you have no idea.

Lauren Jones: So first off I cared way too much about 360 reviews and all of that. Remember that every point of feedback that somebody gives you is based on bias and how they feel about your bias and where they think you might come from, what their perception of you. Right. So taking that feedback is important.

Lauren Jones: But taking it with a grain of salt is also really important and understanding you have to stay firmly rooted in what, in your moral values and in who you are. But you know, I'm always open to input, but now I listen to that input with a different lens. I also took everything away too emotionally.

Lauren Jones: And so, you I have a totally different outlook and I cared way too much about what people thought. And so now I'm old and crotchety and I give a rip. So that just comes with age. And what other, 

Rob Mann: the older you get, the less you care

Lauren Jones: The less you care, but it's so true. And that's why people who are 80 can say whatever they want.

Lauren Jones: However they want to, whoever they want. 

Rob Mann: I mean, the funniest movie in recent history for me is Bad grandpa with the Niro and blackout from. It's just amazing and Caesar 

Lauren Jones: cares about going bald, right? So we care way too much about what people like career advice. I made way too many moves, caring about what the perception of my resume might be.

Lauren Jones: As opposed to remembering, stay rooted in the fact that a CV is curriculum vitae, curriculum vitae, which means course of life, it's your course of life. And nobody else's, as long as you can articulate why the path is the way that it is and tell your story in an articulate way, you will get hired. I cared way too much about, oh my gosh, what if there was movement on my resume?

Lauren Jones: You know, cause back in the day or everybody cared about, oh she's a job hopper, right? That was always the thing. He's a job hopper. She's a job hopper. Tell your course, explain why you've made the moves. And if there is an impetus and a reason and. You can articulate that. Well, who cares?

Rob Mann: So there's a couple of good kinds of resources for this. So, 

Lauren Jones: I'll use a resume. I don't know. They were invented in 1482. Don't even get me started on the resume 

Rob Mann: or Columbus sailed the ocean blue researching someone. That was awesome. DaVinci wrote to the duke a lot about why such a bad-ass defense builder.

Rob Mann: He's the original Lockheed Martin anyway. But it's kind of true I am away or one of them. So David Epstein's book range is about the power of being a generalist and having these pivots. And then one of my favorite LinkedIn influencers or Twitter influencers by the way, Twitter is an incredible learning place. It is the GM of morning brew's education learning group Karen Herbert McKerrow.

Rob Mann: And she talks about understanding your impact. And like your personal impact statements.

Lauren Jones: I love this question. How do you articulate leaving a toxic work culture in a way that doesn't come across as you're not a team player? Our values didn't align. I mean, period. And if they want to hear more, you know, I think it's as simple as just having a meaningful conversation about what is important to you was no longer important to the organization.

Lauren Jones: And if that's dignity and self-respect you know, but I think that there is a way to shape those conversations where I have always played very nicely with previous employers and tried not to burn a bridge. That is something that I did right in my career. 

Rob Mann: You're allowed not to get along or you 

Lauren Jones: are a hundred percent.

Rob Mann: Go be placed someplace. That's exciting to you that your coworkers excites you, that what the mission is excites you, you know, 

Lauren Jones: We weren't aligned in mission. We weren't aligned in values and that's really important to me doing meaningful work. And yeah. Yeah, I wish I had, and I also wish we have one minute left.

Lauren Jones: I had gone out on my own long ago. Loyalty.

Rob Mann: I remember it was February of 2020? And the way we at first, like sat down and had a phone conversation about you being on the podcast and you were talking about going out on your own or all these people were trying to hire you because they knew they needed, you know, you could probably negotiate your way to like a six, like a seven figure salary to fix some of these companies business as an employee.

Rob Mann: But that sounds terrible. Anyway guys. 

Lauren Jones: So much for hanging with us and talking about the World Staffing Summit and all of the cool sessions coming up and the ones that we've had. 

Rob Mann: Yep. So signing off, this is Rob, 

Lauren Jones: This is Lauren. 

Rob Mann: I'll go do something. Good. Thanks guys. Bye.