In the conversation
Ryan Englin on The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast: Why Should They Want to Work for You
Key takeaways
- People genuinely want to work hard for good employers. The idea that everyone is lazy or entitled is a media narrative, not reality. Give people a reason to work hard for you and they will.
- If you are not attracting rockstar employees, you are probably not attractive to rockstar employees. That is a tough pill to swallow, but it is the starting point for fixing the problem.
- Most companies invest heavily in the customer experience and forget their people are the product. Shift even a few degrees of that attention toward the employee experience and your people will take care of the customer for you.
- Recruiting is a marketing activity, not an HR activity. Change one word from customer to employee and the same tools, the same thinking, and the same processes deliver results with a different audience.
- Most companies cannot define what a good employee looks like. When forced to brainstorm it, the list never includes technical ability. It always comes down to behaviors, traits, and mindset.
- Stop the bleeding before building the pipeline. Half the empty seats exist because someone was sitting there and left. If new hires keep leaving in six weeks, the job market is not the problem. The experience inside is.
I sat down with Scott Ritzheimer on The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast to talk about why the people you want to hire aren't applying and what you need to change about yourself as an employer before anything else will work.
We started where I always start. Core. Not process, not tactics, not which job board to post on. The foundation. People don't leave jobs. They leave people. We all nod when we hear that, but almost no one acts on it. If people leave companies looking for a better person to work for, then we as entrepreneurs have to become those better people. Better leaders. Better communicators. Better at presenting ourselves as a place worth joining. Not just a higher-paying job or one with more hours available.
Scott asked me about the post-COVID shift in job seekers, and here's the reality. COVID pulled back a veil. Workers realized they aren't at the mercy of the employer the way they thought. The gig economy showed them options. Loyalty shifted away from the employer and toward the individual. I don't have a problem with that. But we have to meet people where they are instead of sitting around playing the victim card. "Nobody wants to work" is not a strategy. Nobody wants to work for you because they don't know who you are, what you stand for, or what you believe. We put so little emphasis on promoting our employer brand that we're invisible to the exact people we want to attract.
We talked about the trap I see every single time. No one ever calls me and says "Hey, I need to hire next year." It's always "I have four empty trucks and I need help today." So the first thing we do is stop the bleeding. Quick wins come in two areas. One, we help companies present themselves as a more attractive place to work. The easy version of this is writing a different job ad. Everyone copies the same thing from HR or Google, posts it to Indeed, and wonders why they can't find anyone good. Recruiting is a marketing activity, not an HR activity. Marketing 101 says you have to stand out.
Two, and this is the one most people skip entirely, we stop the attrition. How many of those empty seats are empty because someone was sitting there and left? We put all our energy on hiring because we think "good riddance, they weren't working out anyway." Then we bring in someone we think is a rockstar and six weeks later they leave too. Then we blame the job market. Maybe the real issue is that what you promised on the front end isn't reality once they get inside.
Scott brought up onboarding, and I see this constantly. Companies are world-class at onboarding customers. Top of the market. Best in class. Then they throw a new employee in a truck on day one with no plan, no expectations, and "call me if you need anything." If you're a service business, your people are your product. If you're not creating a real employee experience, all the customer experience work in the world won't matter. Your people will take care of your customers when you take care of your people first.
We also hit something I'm passionate about. Your customer-facing marketing is actually repelling job seekers. "Available 24/7, rain or shine, emergency service, we'll be there no matter what." You know what a job seeker reads? "I'm going to be torn away from my family. I'm taking the phone home every night." We've created this idea that employees are expendable. COVID woke people up to the fact that they don't have to put up with that anymore.
Here's the part I want every owner to hear. People genuinely want to work hard for good employers. They want to put in a good day's work. They want to put points up on the scoreboard. The idea that people are lazy or entitled is media noise amplified by a few people with a big megaphone. You just have to give them a reason to want to do it for you.
Scott asked me what advice I'd give to other coaches and consultants, and it's the same thing I tell every client. Get really clear on what a good person looks like. Most companies have never defined it. When I sit down with supervisors and ask "what makes a good person," the answer never has anything to do with their ability to do the work. It's always about behaviors, traits, and mindset. That's the Core Fit Profile. Build a persona for your ideal employee the same way you build a persona for your ideal customer. Get crystal clear on who they are, how they behave, how they show up, and how they work. That clarity makes it possible to go out and start attracting them.
If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on all of these topics on Titans of the Trades.
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