Ryan Englin on Work Positive: Why Nobody Wants to Work for You

I sat down with Dr. Joey Faucette on Work Positive to talk about why the "nobody wants to work" complaint is a mirror problem, not a market problem.

We opened with the gut shot. Why do employers keep saying they can't find good people? Because it's easier to complain about it being hard than it is to do the hard stuff to fix it. Every single time. Owners tell themselves they're the best company in their industry. But they never define what "best" means to the person they're asking to show up every day. Their definition of best and the job seeker's definition are worlds apart. And nobody takes the time to close that gap because that's the hard work.

Here's what I told Joey straight up. It's not that nobody wants to work. Nobody wants to work for you. That stings. It's also fixable. But you have to look in the mirror first. It all starts at the top. If leaders aren't doing the right things, the rest of the team won't either.

We dug into one of my strongest convictions. Recruiting is a marketing activity, not an HR activity. Companies hand this problem to HR, and HR does HR stuff. They don't do marketing stuff. Meanwhile, job seekers go to your website and see messaging about bending over backwards for customers, working nights and weekends, being available on call. That's great for selling to a customer. A job seeker reads that and thinks, "There goes my kid's T-ball game. There goes my weekend. Why would I work there?" Your online presence is either attracting people or repelling them. Right now, most companies are repelling the exact people they want.

I brought up the rock stars versus superstars distinction. Rock stars are the foundation of your team. They stick around. They've had the same job for eight years. They haven't interviewed since. And they're going to bomb the interview because they don't practice interviewing. Superstars interview brilliantly because they do it every six months. They come in wanting to be CEO in two years. We keep hiring superstars when we need rock stars, and then we wonder why our best people keep leaving. The four-stage interview process we teach flips this. It puts the candidate's needs ahead of yours during the hiring process. Make the interview experience so good that the candidate walks out calling everyone saying, "Pray for me. I want this job."

We talked about authenticity and the gap between what's written on the wall and what walks down the hall. I shared the story of a CEO whose core values were "hungry, humble, and smart." He read the Lencioni book, adopted the words, and was the least humble man I've ever met. His COO confirmed it. Values mean nothing if leadership doesn't live them on the hard days. Employees see through the facade every time.

Joey asked about creating a positive culture. I pointed to Gallup's Q12. Question number 10. "Do I have a best friend at work?" If someone answers yes, they are six times more likely to be engaged. Six times. We never talk about this. We don't invest in it. We don't create opportunities for people to build real friendships at work. That's the hard stuff. But that's what moves the needle.

I shared the story of a young woman who showed up for her first day at a new company. No one knew she was coming. No desk. No plan. Three days later they fired her for not performing. This is what happens when onboarding doesn't exist. Imagine instead she was greeted by name, introduced to a buddy, and shown where the bathroom is. I watched an HR director quit after six months because on day one, no one showed her where the bathroom was. That set the tone for everything. The 2412 Launch onboarding process we built addresses exactly this. First two weeks are about belonging, not productivity.

People don't leave jobs. They leave people. Yet 99 out of 100 job ads say nothing about who you'll work for. Nothing about leadership style, communication, culture, or what the company does to replace friends, family, and fun. Money is never the real driver. If someone is happy, engaged, and has good friends at work, a $2 raise from a competitor isn't even enough for them to return the call. Money becomes the excuse only after everything else has already fallen apart.

I left Joey's audience with one tactical move. Let your people tell your story. Ask your employees to record a 60-second selfie video about what it's like to work at your company. Share it everywhere. If you can't find one or two people willing to do it, that tells you everything you need to know about your culture right now.

If you liked this conversation, I go deeper on employer branding, the Core Fit Hiring System, and how to build a team people fight to stay on over at Titans of the Trades.