Floyd Jerkins on Recruiting and Retaining Talented People

Hey, hey, hey, hey, that's great. We're going to hit about 65,70, so no complaints on this.

Well, Ron, you know, if we look back at what was happening prior to the pandemic, and if we just look at the online learning component, you know, we know that online learning was trying and there was a lot of effort and money being spent trying to move into an online learning platform. Major universities, you know, were Some of them were doing well with it, but others were kind of dipping their toe in it. You know, is it something that's going to have value? Well, as the pandemic hit, I mean, it forced this whole process to move forward with regards to online learning. And the teacher systems have struggled. I mean, it's been a major upheaval. with the learning curve for students, you know, coming home for parents trying to manage children. And now, so when we look at the business side of things, you know, I think the pandemic has force fed, you know, a lot of these that were trends before that are now becoming the realities. You know, we just didn't see before too much of where employee went for lunch and got another job and they quit. That's in a nutshell, that's, you know, the great resignation. I mean, that's the current term, you know, that's been out there for a while. And while it's got a lot of, you know, meaning, it's the underlying challenges that I think the business owners have. You know, how do we address this? You know, I think we're seeing more and more people, Ron, the employee side that are waking up and going, you know, I don't want to work. you know,80 hour weeks anymore. You know, I want to have a life, you know, I want to move back home to where I was at before, where I felt good. And maybe where I grew up at or the place that I felt comfortable, you know, it's, it's becoming more about taking control of their work, you know, and that's, uh, for a lot of the old command and control style leadership styles, you know, that's still pretty tough to contend with when employees are dictating to us, you know, so that. That affects the dated operations of all kinds of businesses.

Right, right, right. And we see that across the board. I mean, there's, you know, several segments of the marketplace have exponentially grown in profitability. And that in itself leaves some vulnerability because if they budget towards it, how do you, you know, budget for three years when you've had a 110% increase? You know, I mean, if you budget that strong, you know, I'd be pretty wary of that myself, Ron. You know, even the Labor Department's recent statistics, I mean, they're projecting in 2022,23% of the employees, you know, are going to be leaving their jobs. You know, that's a huge, just that stat alone is huge. And what that's going to mean to day-to-day operations, customer service, you know, running a good peak department. I mean, I started to write an article, Ron, that was, and I was struggling with the concept of it because I got to get that stuff here first. You know, if I can get it in my brain and get it organized, and the title is what kept deterring me. It's like, when is running at 70% good enough? You know, I mean, I was always from the school, man, we've got to be 95%. We've got to run strong. We've got to run hard. But now, you know, if a company runs 60%. 70% of their capacity, if they're satisfying 70% of their customers, that might be deemed okay. You know, well, that's, that's just as foreign to me, you know, so these, you know, so we talk about, you know, just the recruiting aspect, you know, how do we recruit, you know, I think the old, you know, traditional methods, you know, are very, challenging today. You know, well, you know, we know when a service department is at four technicians run, we know that we probably really can't afford to have a full-time service manager. You know, we need to be five, six, seven full techs, you know, before we have a full-time service manager. Now that's not a service manager. working on equipment a little bit or delivering equipment, that's a full flip. Same thing in the sales department. How many salespeople do we need before we have a true sales manager? Not someone that's always ordering inventory, but always working with the sales team. Well, I think as we look at these organizations, when is a time in which we have a full-time recruiter? I mean, traditionally that role falls back on the HR department. Well, HR is doing 87 things. You know, most of these organizations, the HR still, they may not get a seat at the strategic table. You know, when we're sitting around with management level talking about the next three to five years, do we have HR involved in that? You know, are they doing more than just pushing papers? Are they involved strategically? So I think there is a, you know, there's a number there that says. When an organization gets to a certain size, we need to have a full-time recruiter, you know, but I'm challenged too, Ron, because the, you know, when I look at, you know, the organizations and we say, all right, we have a, you know, a real problem with recruiting, you know, my, my consultant brain, my old operations brain kicks in and says, okay, well, let's, let's first look at our own culture. You know, how many people have left us? You know, if we keep hiring people and people are leaving, well, let's try to figure out how to fix the problem of, you know, if a knucklehead in an organization leaves, I mean, yay, you know, somebody that we wanted to be gone. But for a good champion, for someone that's got good skills and they leave us, man, that's, you know, we can surely go out and hire them. But everybody, you know, we've had that discussion. you know, a hundred times around about the cost of an employee and, you know, how much does it cost and, you know, all that. I mean, most, you know, sometimes I don't know if business owners really see that because they would affect change in their cultures to affect the exodus, you know, because I think that's important to look at.

Right.

That's right.

right.

You know, the systems and the business systems that are required to manage remote performers is different than the systems and the business systems that many might have. And the SaaS systems, you know, the software as a sales services is a critical component. And there are just literally the market is then flooded in recent years with. Simple tools that are available. You can look today, there's apps that help people manage their budget. And that just wasn't around five or 10 years ago. My grandson's managing that by, and as we were going through that, it's got everything that I want him to have in terms of managing a budget with a push button. So I mean, it just, okay, he passes the test. I don't care how, it's just I want him to do it. So that is important. And these flexible work arrangements and certainly sign-on bonuses, those are current relevant methods to attract talent. But I still contend that if me as a recruiter for you, Ron, I sell the value of this company. Here's what we do. Here's how we do it. Here's why we're the best at what we do. You know, but then as soon as I released them into the staff and they're through the onboarding process, they get with other staff. The other staff will tell them their truth. Their truth might not be right. It may be, but they start to tell the truth that's at the front line, you know, and then that employee starts going, oh, I know what they told me over here in recruiting versus what's happened over here in real life is different. You know, so that those dots have to connect. you know, from an operational perspective. And many organizations have figured that out, Ron. I mean, there's really some that have done a great job of making sure that they're walking the talk, you know, but you can't fight that.

It's tough. You know, and that's organizational structuring. And sometimes we look at the old paradigm of. layered management, you know, but we don't look at the creative side of roles, responsibilities, communication channels, you know, functional responsibilities, just like job descriptions. I mean, if a new employee comes on and that job description is dated, aged, you know, you know, I've said for years, you know, every role probably has three different kinds of job descriptions. And sometimes if I mention that to an owner or HR, it's like, oh, Floyd, that's a bunch of work. Well, no, wait a minute. You've got a young apprentice that doesn't know anything about your business or your market. Well, they're not an advanced person, so you can't give them the same job description as what, you know, somebody that has experience. So, I mean, that's a piece of that. You know, I always like to, this exercise, Ron, it always just, you know, works extremely well that, you know, how do we identify, you know, the people that are leaving, you know, and what does that really mean? You know, most I won't say all, you know, but I see a lot of businesses that really don't do an exit interview. Right. A staple of HR. I mean, it's something that's just like putting your shoes on, you're supposed to do it. But the challenge with that is, you know, what do they say to the HR person? You know, see, I still contend that there needs to be at least two, maybe even three exit interviews, you know, in the organization done by different layers of people. I think they should all ask the same 10 questions. And then they ask their own questions past that. And then they really have a more informed, well-rounded piece of information to determine what do we do to affect how not to let good people go. Because if an employee, Ron, comes to and says, I'm getting ready to leave. And then management starts to say, all right, I'll give you more money. I'll give you more of this. you're in a negative reactionary position. I mean, it's tough. I mean, I don't know what the ratio is there, Ron. Maybe you know that. But how many employees announce they're leaving, they get salvaged from the company with more money, more whatever, whatever it takes to keep them. But then how long does that employee stay? How many of those employees really stay if they've already made their mind up they're gone? I contend it's probably pretty high.

Oh, terrible.

That takes a lot of time to do those reviews. Man, a lot. We've got a business to run. What are you talking about? We don't have time for that. I hear that.

Yeah. And that's, you know, I think that's what's happening is that. You know, a lot of companies, because of the need to hire, they're bypassing the three or four interviews. They're hiring them on the spot. You know, they're giving signing bonuses. They're giving all kinds of, you know, without really, I'm more so concerned about how does that affect the current staff when they bring somebody on, they're mismatched. You know, what's going to happen, you know, as all this settles down, we find our groove. you know, what's going to happen in three to five, five to 10 years, you know, do we have a, another group of lazy assets, you know, in our organization that now we got to figure out how to comfortably, how to profitably, you know, move them on, you know, that becomes a real, you know, sometimes management spends more time managing low performing people than what they do communicating with the high performers and really who makes you the money. You know, I mean, that's. Who causes you frustration? Well, that's not always the place to spend your time.

You know, I know we talked about maybe in the next podcast talking specifically about training. And I think that subject matter right there, Ron, the testing components, why testing is important, what it tells us from an owner perspective and certainly from a training perspective, what does it tell us about the developmental nature of that individual, that group of individuals? I mean, there's some real patterns there that come out that are telling that once we get our heads around that, we begin to reshape how we manage, how we influence, how we communicate, how I manage. It can really reshape it, you know, all the way through an organization. And it's powerful. Oh,

How long you've been with me is not always an indication of how much you contribute to performance.

That's right.

Now, you know, let's not get people all up in arms because having people been with us a long time is very important. But I think it's what they do that makes a difference, Ron. And that's where I still think, you know, in our job descriptions, we need to have them becoming mentors very early on because I think our senior people need to become mentors. I think our management people need to become teachers. I think if we can incorporate that early on in the organization and when people are new, we have this whole cycle of a learning culture going on. You know, we're teaching, we're sharing, we're not, because sometimes as senior people, I have this working knowledge. It's me, it's I own it and I don't want to give it because if I give it to you, you're going to put me out the pasture and I'm not ready yet. I might be 63, but I've not really done a great job on my personal financial situation. You know, I really don't have enough money set aside to retire. And that's a whole nother discussion about training and development that when they're 30s is when we need to be sitting down with our first layer of professionals and talking about personal financial management, why investing is important. And, you know, that should be a part of the curriculum that's offered to my employees so I can keep them. If they don't have enough money to live their life, well, it may not be because I'm not paying them enough. You know, they're just running credit card debt or, you know, the hundred other things that we're such in this push in society that we have to have everything now.

And reality is, you know, if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. But the ease of credit cards, you know, I mean, I spoke to a gentleman the other day that his son has got $90,000 in credit card debt. And I said, well, I mean, so is that. I mean, how did he get there? Is that college? Is that, oh, no, that's just stuff. You know, and I just, wow. I mean, that's what scare the daylights out of me.

Well, that's where, you know. With recruiting, it certainly is important that we're out trying to find new talent. And some of these organizations now are going international trying to find talent. So that's a whole different set of dynamics that affect how things work. But I think one of the most important things I think any business can do is take a look at your people that are gone, that have left you. You know, I always challenge them, take the last two years and list by name in a spreadsheet all the names of the people I've left you, you know, and then leave several of these other columns where you can start. Did we do an exit interview? What was the reason they left? You know, what were their age? You know, I mean, why did they leave? If you went back and did another interview with them three months after they left you, you know, you're going to get even more information about the truth. about why they left you. But nobody really does an interview past that employee's departure time. You know, and it used to be, Ron, that when someone announced that they were leaving, they were removed from the business.

Yep. You're done. And I think the whole psychology is extremely wrong. You know, I'm still challenged by if a good employee leaves, you know, and we've got to know the truth. Well, who should be really let go? Is it the manager because they didn't manage the department right? Is it the general manager because they didn't manage the division correctly? If we have all these issues with internal conflicts and lack of consistencies and systems and processes and departmental friction that goes on and on and on, how do we blame that employee for leaving? I mean, some don't want to live that way anymore. And so that's why I think this exercise of making a list and looking at those people that have left you. And then, Ron, I think one of the biggest opportunities for dealers to recruit good people is make this list of all these champions. Now, if somebody was a knucklehead, now, you know, but if we had 50 people in the last, you know, three years that have left us, there might be 20 of those people that would come back. You know, but if we don't stay in communication with them, you know, I always make that reference to like, you know, an alumni, you know, you always get these quarterly updates and, you know, what's going on in the company. And I think if you can keep in touch with the good people that left you, they, it's surprising how many would come back because if they leave thinking that the grass is greener on the other side, they get there and go, man, this is. This is brown grass. This isn't any different than what I was. I should have stayed where I was. But if they don't have that communication link, then they probably won't reconnect. You know, they're just on to another job.

You run. I've always said that, you know, your good technicians can hire you a good tech.

They can make a text life hell, you know, and there's nothing worse than bringing a, a grade A tech to your shop and announce everybody. All right, this is Billy. He's our new technician. He's great at this. He's great at that. And immediately you create an animosity, you know, in that culture that had they had a chance to be involved. You know, had they had a chance to make an interview and make comments because techs will tell techs. Salespeople will tell salespeople. Parts matters well, parts matter. Everybody, you know, when they're with their kind, they're like, they will relax and say things that they might not say before. And that's what you're trying to do is build a culture. And you do that through the hiring process. You know, it's there. It really does.

That's right. That's right. That's right. Because without, you know, as an owner of a business, I always. You know, even in my teachings, Ron, I still teach the upside organizational model. You know, it always used to be the owner at the top and then it filtered down from there. And, you know, it was early on in my career that I had a consultant that I hired. I'm probably four years into the dealership. And, you know, he just, you know, he just kept telling me I'm the problem. And I said, I want you to fix my people. You know, he just kept, he said, I need time with you, not them. And when it got through, you know, into my head, it was like, oh, my gosh, I had a paradigm shift immediately. And then, you know, that servient leadership really began to unfold. And when people know that, you know, it's they do their best. Now, their best might not be good enough for a particular position, Ron, but that's OK. You know, I mean, I'll find a place for somebody like that in my organization. You know, someone that's only given me half what they can in terms of brain power and energy. You know, I mean, that's that's so this whole, you know, servient leadership, not this command and control. That's a start. That's a piece to the puzzle. You know, we just can't have, you know, this all these concepts that are being implemented today that were sign on bonuses and stay on bonuses. All that's great, but we're still going to have the turnover if we don't fix root cause. And the root cause can be addressed. And it really doesn't, it's not as complicated. All this stuff about, and I'm like you, Ron, I mean, I get a chance now to read and study more than what I've had in my whole life. You know, it's all the stuff about leadership. There's still all these means and all this stuff. Everybody's got this built up and it's not that hard. It's really not. But it starts with a change of who am I in this organization? Who's more important, the owner or the people? Well, the people are.

That's right. That's right. I have a business owner and I spoke yesterday about some of this, that when we look at his financials, Ron, he is, you know, dropping a strong percentage to the net to the bottom line. I mean, he's got the organizations tuned up. You know, they're really strong. He needs to add some more people. He needs to flatten out. a few areas and he's trying. I mean, they're working at that. They still are, but they've identified their, their cultural and their operational issues, not just from a system standpoint, but from people standpoint, they've got a running list of this stuff. I mean, so man, I just big chops, big pat on the back, you know, for that. He'd like to expand, you know, he's fearful of that expansion because if he acquires these other stores, he knows that. that culture isn't the same. You know, how long will it take, do you think, Floyd, for us to get that culture to match ours? I said, how long have you been working on the one you're at? And he said, well, since dad died and I took over and I attended your class, you know,15 years ago. He said, I've been working on it since then. So I said, but you can accelerate that now. You know, because you have this knowledge and you're not fearful of it. And I think that's so important, you know, but the speed at which he can make that change, you know, he's going to lose some people, you know, in that. And as he, and that's, that's very natural. He's going to, but the fear is, you know, he's not, he's too deep in several of his positions, but he's not three deep, you know, and that's always my language of how do we. And we should have three people that can step up in a role and be training and coordinating that job descriptions have to be declared, all that stuff, you know, but that's, you know, and he's got an opportunity, but I was so proud of him because he paused and reflected. He said, my biggest concern, how it's going to affect my current people. And I thought that was just telling in itself, you know, how he's not just out chasing it because the OEM said, you got to make this acquisition. You know, he's trying to figure out what's good for his people. So I thought that was very, very complimentary to him.

A big piece of the puzzle. It sure is.

Oh, I think we've talked quite a bit, Ron, about, you know, recruiting and retaining talent. I think the recruiting part is, as I've said, I think it takes, there's more wheels than just having someone recruiting that causes us to hire more. And that certainly, you know, retention is a component of recruiting. And if we could retain more, you know, and then how do we get our current staff? If I've got 300 employees, but I'm only getting 10 referrals of others that they know of, well, Houston, we have a problem because most people know people. Well, but if we're not getting referrals from our own people, well, that directly relates back to dated operations and cultural issues and communications and all of that. So we have to, there's work to be done there. And I think a lot of organizations are in the middle of this on top of a cell and we're doing a great job, right?

Thanks, Ron.