What’s Going On In HR Today with John Baldino and Robin Schooling

Phil Wilson, Michael Vandervort, Robin Schooling & John Balindo.

Phil Wilson: [00:00:11]

And we’re live, Michael.

Michael Vandervort: [00:00:13]

Okay. Well, hello. This is another edition of The Left Boom Show. Today we’re going to talk about what the real deal in HR is with a couple of friends and experts in the HR field who were kind enough to jump on and join us. So first of all, hey, Phil, how’s it going today?

Phil Wilson: [00:00:34]

I’m doing good. Now that we’re running, I’m good.

Michael Vandervort: [00:00:39]

Yeah. I know. It’s always like this big tension thing- will the technology work this time? John was at a conference when I saw him, one of our guests, and they were doing their show live from the stage, and he was like, “Oh, no, it’s not working right this minute.” But they just kept rolling on so I was very impressed by that. We’ll introduce John in a second. What we’re going to talk about today is essentially coming out of the pandemic, all kinds of problems that everyone in our profession lived through.

[00:01:10]

A lot of things were broken and a lot of things are still kind of messed up, although we’re well into the recovery period. So, we want to talk about the state of air and where we’re at, and some of the some of the things that people are dealing with in the profession. That’s the big umbrella topic. And to help us do that today, I’m really excited to have my lovely co-host from my other show Drive Through HR, Robin Schooling. Hey, Robin, welcome to The Left of Boom Show.

Robin Schooling: [00:01:42]

Michael, it’s wonderful to chat with you on a different channel.

Michael Vandervort: [00:01:48]

You’re the guest for a change instead of the co-host. And then also John Baldino from [unintelligible 00:01:56], who Robin works with. John, also, thank you for joining us today in the first show that we’ve done with a pair of guests. So, this is going to be a little bit different for us in terms of the vibe. We usually open the show with what we call the hero question. Phil is actually in the process of getting ready to release another book called The Hero Assumption. And so, the hero question is a good starting place for us. So, the question is, and I’ll go to you first, John. Who is somebody you believed in early on and that made you who you became today besides your mom?

John Baldino: [00:02:35]

So, family definitely was a big influence. I can’t deny that. But I guess in a professional setting I had a manager very early on in the 80s 1980s. Let me be clear there. Once you’re around as long as we’ve been right, it’s the 1880s but it’s the 1980s. She probably saw more in me than I saw in myself. And so, she often would give me the opportunity to stretch in assignment without telling me I was being stretched in assignment. And it wasn’t until after I looked back and thought, look, that was [crosstalk 00:03:25] you got to do all that stuff.

[00:03:28]

But if you had told me ahead of time, I probably would have said no. So, I know that she really believed that I could and so set it up to, again, trick me into it so that I would see my own success. Her name was Linda, and I won’t forget her for that.

Phil Wilson: [00:03:47]

That’s a great story. That’s a common theme in a lot of these stories is the idea that they see you 2 or 3 steps ahead of where you are today, where you see yourself. And that’s a big difference.

Phil Wilson: [00:04:14]

That’s not construction, right?

Michael Vandervort: [00:04:17]

I don’t think so. It seems to be random. No, it’s gone now. So, sorry about that. Yeah.

Phil Wilson: [00:04:22]

I may edit that out.

Michael Vandervort: [00:04:24]

That came from the perils of live recording. Robin, who was your role model or hero or whatever you want to call it?

Robin Schooling: [00:04:34]

On the professional side, to go along with John’s professional side of it, my first HR manager. My first manager in HR was very similar to Linda. My second was the person who really, I think, changed me into the HR professional that I became. I joined a nonprofit. I worked in recruiting. I was in-house. Started in recruiting. I was a recruiter for a midsize bank in the Midwest and wanted to explore the rest of HR because I dabbled in some other things.

[00:05:19]

I went to a nonprofit agency, with 100 employees, a faith-based, Catholic-based organization, and the executive director was a former nun. And so, we always tried to get her to live life differently then. I get tingles even thinking about working there still. And this is many, many years ago. It was the most mission-driven, values-driven. At our soul, at the core of what everybody did was just so human and it was serving the clients. These were single parents, teenage parents, cocaine affected parents. It was hard work. And we were just this very human organization.

[00:06:19]

And what Rosemary, formerly Sister Rosemary, taught me was it’s okay to be an HR, wear your heart on your sleeve, care for other people, love other people. Even those that may seem like they don’t want your love. And that’s many in the workplace, right? But to really approach HR as a person and to bring all my thoughts and feelings and foibles and insecurities and everything to the job was okay because it made me a better human being and ultimately a better HR professional, a better HR director and leader.

[00:07:01]

To really just invest myself and invest my humanity in HR, not sit behind a closed door, not leave things out in the parking lot. And we didn’t talk about bringing your whole self to work in those days, but it really was that. She changed everything for me.

Phil Wilson: [00:07:25]

That’s great. How do you feel that’s impacted the way you lead now? Both of you, John and Robin.

John Baldino: [00:07:38]

Go ahead, Robin.

Phil Wilson: [00:07:42]

I screwed that up by not assigning not assigning an answerer. Go ahead, Robin.

Robin Schooling: [00:07:50]

For me, it truly has meant again, making connections with individual employees is a lot of what drives me. I’ve worked for ginormous, whatever, 35,000-employee companies. But I still had a scope, a span, a team, a group I served. And so, getting to know people, connecting with them as a human being, connecting with them, joking, going out to happy hour. That was always like, “Oh, my God, no, I can’t socialize with employees.” You know what? No. If the sales department asked me to go to happy hour, I’m going to happy hour. If an employee invites me to their baby shower, I’m going to their baby shower.

[00:08:53]

I don’t think about those boundaries. And, yes, you have to have boundaries when you’re in the situation, right? The first time you go, someone will say, “Oh, tell me what’s happening with at that executive meeting you were at today.” Oh, no, I can’t talk about that. And they move on. They know you can’t talk about it.

Phil Wilson: [00:09:12]

So, you’re more of a Kate McKinnon Office Christmas party HR person. Have you seen that movie?

Robin Schooling: [00:09:19]

I’m not that extreme. Although I have had cocaine at Christmas parties [laughs].

Michael Vandervort: [00:09:31]

So, John, how about you?

John Baldino: [00:09:34]

I think that I’m less rigid is what I would say. And I think that matters greatly to trying to build a company culture is the rigidity of compliance sometimes is used synonymously with human resources. And so, I’ve always been sort of the exception to the rule, I think, in my career where I’ve had employees, managers, come to me and say, “Hey, I think you need to behave better. You’re right on the edge.” And I’m like, yeah, that’s where I want to be. I want to be on the edge.

[00:10:17]

Because I think that’s where it ingratiates you in a positive way with the team because they see that you’re really looking for the heartbeat of the organization rather than just trying to micromanage behavior. And if you can get to the hearts and minds of people, honestly, behaviors function the way that they should naturally.

Phil Wilson: [00:10:44]

Yeah, right. To me, that is the core of the hero assumption. Don’t live in a place where everyone is just trying to skirt all the rules and everyone is looking for ways to get away with something. People want to be great and manage and lead from a place where everybody wants to be great. And yeah, sometimes people screw up, but that’s not the place to go “Oh, here’s section 21, subpart D that you violated.” It’s like, “Hey, what’s going on? This isn’t this isn’t what I believe about you. What’s happening that’s got us to this place?” And then let’s get back to the heroic journey you’re on.

John Baldino: [00:11:35]

I’m the worst person. I don’t know what page anything is on in the handbook. I know somewhere in the handbook it says this sort of thing.

Phil Wilson: [00:11:44]

We for sure talked about this somewhere.

Robin Schooling: [00:11:50]

I think I even wrote it. I don’t know where.

Phil Wilson: [00:11:54]

I remember fighting with somebody over how this was going to be worded, but I can’t find it.

John Baldino: [00:11:59]

Yeah, right.

Michael Vandervort: [00:12:01]

So, we all work at companies, two different practices where we help people in HR with different problems. And the big topic for today, as I said at the outset, is what’s the state of HR. There are a lot of great things that have happened since the pandemic, but there’s been a lot of cost and a lot of wear and tear on people. There’s turmoil in society, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, I guess the question I wanted to start with, and I’ll go to John first. And maybe bring it from a human resource perspective, like how you help. What’s going on in HR and in the workplace in general? And is our profession broken with all the stress and drama that we’ve had? Where are we at?

John Baldino: [00:12:57]

It’s a really complex question. So, thanks for that. I don’t know that I would say our profession is broken, but I would say that we certainly have seen over the last couple of years a partial exodus of practitioners out of human resources. I do think a lot of that is connected to the pandemic and the toll it took on some practitioners within HR and all that they had to manage, which was very different than the life that they may have been living before. But that aside, I would say those that remain were probably in a better spot than previously.

[00:13:48]

And really the onus is on the individual practitioner to take advantage of the better spot that we’re in, as opposed to just being conditionally reactive. I think part of the problem for HR is that we got too used to for too many years being reactive. When the phone rings, when the email comes in, when somebody walks in my door, then I jump into action to solve a problem and to handle a situation. I don’t think our companies need us to live that life 100% of the time. I know what happens part of the time. It has to.

[00:14:27]

But I think that what we’re seeing and what might be missing in the HR world right now is that inspiration towards proactivity, to wanting to get out there and be in and amongst the people. It is a bit more challenging if you are part of an organization that’s hybrid or has a remote workforce, what does that look like? It’s not as easy for me to just, you know, go into the break room and kibitz here and there. I have to be much more intentional about it.

[00:14:58]

That’s uncomfortable for some practitioners as well, but if we don’t take advantage of that, we’re really missing out on the relational component that culturally will influence positively the compliance side of our existence as well. Again, going down one vein, I could go down ten really, but going down that one vein, that’s what people might be missing. They got an opportunity to influence how things were handled during the pandemic. And now that the bulk of that is done, if you’ve fallen back into the reactive “Susie was ten minutes late today, let me go get the form to write her up,” you’re going to be unhappy.

Michael Vandervort: [00:15:46]

Robin.

Robin Schooling: [00:15:48]

Yeah. Exactly what John said. I don’t think we’re broken either. Where I’ve seen us successfully, the collective world of HR and organizations come out of this is these- I’m just going to call the three H’s for want of a better term, because we all like acronyms. And that is with lessons learned since 2020, those organizations and those HR teams that have adjusted have taken this focus on we want a healthy organization. And long gone is the employee old school, let’s think of wellness, let’s do a wellness initiative.

[00:16:43]

We’ve shifted to this deeper understanding of that’s employee wellbeing. It’s physical health. It’s mental wellbeing. It’s financial. It’s social. It’s all of these things that contribute to an inclusive, safe, healthy workplace and organization. So, that’s the one H. And as part of that becomes the shift that again, I think proactive and strong HR teams are doing and that’s promoting this human leadership. There’s your second H where there’s this need and this realization that there’s a need to be empathetic and authentic with managing and leading employees. And so, that’s risen to the forefront.

[00:17:35]

And then the third H. And this is not true of everybody. We know, right? We’re coming from a place of privilege when we can talk about this. But it’s this shift to while everybody’s not fully remote, that hybrid work model is much more of a norm or certainly an expectation now from a lot of folks. And that’s the third age. But that also contributes to potentially a healthy workforce, healthy organization. It contributes to that humanity in leading an organization and leading a team. And I think we can’t discount how that hybrid model, everybody’s not physically in the office together 40 hours a week in the same place, how that’s changed, how HR operates and how leaders lead.

Phil Wilson: [00:18:28]

Yeah. I think that that’s great. What’s a practical tip for folks around something you’ve seen that works? Drucker had the whole thing of culture eats strategy for breakfast. And I totally believe that that’s true. Our organization has been on this cultural journey for a few years now. And it truly has transformed not just the culture, but our results and our ability to execute on strategy. And I’m curious. And this could be around hybrid or might be, you know, something else, but what are some things that you’ve seen really work around keeping the culture strong even though there is this remote hybrid model out there?

Robin Schooling: [00:19:17]

That’s a John answer, because he could tell the stories of what we live.

Phil Wilson: [00:19:25]

Okay. John.

John Baldino: [00:19:26]

Our organization, pre-pandemic, was remote in nature. There were folks who worked for Human Reso who never stepped foot in a physical location where other Human Reso employees would be. And so, when the pandemic hit the way that it did and you required mass exodus out of physical office and other types of workspaces to go home and try to do some of your work from there, we were really positioned to be able to help organizations do that. And one of the things that I think we started to really tout more was this communication component.

[00:20:19]

How are you touching base with people? What’s the comfort level of doing that? What’s the expectation around that? Robin and I have this wonderful team of 30-plus folks who work with us at HumaReso who every morning still get on to Teams, which is what we use, and they wish each other a good morning, tell something anecdotal from dinner last night or what have you. When the day is finished, they’re running onto the Teams chat to say goodnight and share what plans they may have.

[00:20:52]

I don’t mandate that to be what everybody has to do. They’re not written up if they don’t say good night or good morning. But there’s something authentic that naturally evolved because of the way in which we’ve fostered communication channels and an openness for that. And I think that’s what organizations need, if I’m going to give them some initial advice is around communication. What is that structure like? You may tell me you have Slack, and that’s all well and good, but if Slack is just full of these channels of work, work, work, work, work, then the disconnection is going to be prevalent pretty quickly.

Phil Wilson: [00:21:33]

Yeah.

Robin Schooling: [00:21:34]

And I think another aspect to that, and it’s something again, we do at it Human Reso as well when we get a new team member is the onboarding and it’s the bringing them into the fold. It’s giving them that sense of the culture and that cultural connectivity and connecting with other people. That’s a little more planned in terms of here’s how we want to welcome people. But if we have somebody new, I may never work with this person on a project ever in my life, but here’s employee number 35- the other 34 employees in their first week or two, reach out and put 15 minutes on their calendar, whatever works for both parties.

[00:22:35]

They get on the phone and “Hi. How are you? Let’s find out about each other.” Etc. And so, we work to bring them- again, it’s not bells and whistles and rah-rah, and here’s your donuts. It is this human touch. And they’re hearing and they’re seeing the culture in action by everybody that works here. I think we’re certainly more purposeful about it because we know we’re not going to walk down the hall and see somebody and be able to hang at their cubicle. But that’s okay. Even in cubicle land, that needs to happen more.

Phil Wilson: [00:23:22]

Hey, Michael, just real quick, three practical things that we do that relate to this whole idea. So, our favorite channel in Slack is called Hashtag Random. And it is just whatever randomly strikes you as funny. Anytime someone’s on vacation, we’ve got this thing. I think I started it. You take a picture of wherever you are, just your feet and then a scene. We just had one of our team members in Hawaii this week. And so, she took a picture. She was on a golf course, so she took a picture of just the top of her feet and then the golf course.

[00:24:02]

But that’s a great way to stay connected just on a human level and what’s happening in people’s lives. Another one we do is we call best and best. But like we start basically every meeting where you go around the table real quick and it’s like, what’s the best thing going on in your personal life? What’s the best thing going on in your work life? And it’s a good way to just get connected to what people are working on and also what’s happening in their personal lives. Those are things that are just simple, but they really build on the culture.

[00:24:40]

And then related to orientation, we’re onboarding two new people right now. One thing that we’ve added to our hiring process is you don’t get hired here until the last step. And sometimes we’ll have 2 or 3 candidates each present. You have to do a presentation on how you relate personally to our core values. And so, you do a presentation to the whole room. And it’s a really great way, first of all, for us to all reconnect to the core values. It’s really important to always keep those in mind. But then it helps us see, does this person really like connect to the core values? And those are just three practical things we do here to try to emphasize culture.

Michael Vandervort: [00:25:29]

Yeah. And what I was going to ask a little bit of a follow-up is, we’re talking about HR stuff. In every organization, one of our key partners in the HR field is the other leaders, the first-line supervisors, and other leaders. And there’s a very similar challenge to them beyond HR, each in their own department. Do you think these things that you guys are talking about apply? And do you have any other thoughts on what leaders that are outside of HR might do?

Robin Schooling: [00:26:00]

Yes, they apply. But here’s the key that I found. I found this when I’ve gone into organizations as the new HR leader, for example, and looked at how are we onboarding folks. HR is often obviously the architect and the owner of onboarding and sometimes holds that too close to the vest. First of all, HR needs to involve the managers and have some expectations of the managers. So, at one company I worked at, I went in and we didn’t do a lot of hiring. We had 150 employees. Maybe one new hire a month. 1 to 2 if that.

[00:26:55]

And I set up basically a pre-boarding plan for the managers so that if we’re going to hire Sally. Here’s Sally. Sally’s made her appearance. We’re going to hire Sally. Yes, HR is doing their thing over here, getting her drug tested, whatever. But then the expectation shifted over to the department manager. And I encouraged and got to the point where every manager did this. They brought the employee in for lunch to meet the team, folks that they maybe hadn’t met when they were there interviewing.

[00:27:34]

Took them out to lunch in the let’s say it’s 2 or 3 weeks before they start. Took them out to lunch. Got them set up. As time went on and there were more systems that they could get, got them set up on systems so they could start getting invited, get their calendar ahead of time, start getting things even before they walked in the office on day one. They weren’t seeing proprietary stuff or something they shouldn’t, but brought them into the networks. And it was the manager driving that. It was the manager reaching out and checking it was not just HR.

[00:28:12]

And that created a whole different vibe and experience for that new employee and for the other people on the team as well. And the managers liked it because they felt that they were part of the process. They were invested in it and they were given responsibilities. And it was a win all around.

Michael Vandervort: [00:28:38]

I had set up some questions and I’m going to shift away from those questions, but I want to bring some of the themes in instead of asking the questions because with so many voices, it’s hard to fit all the topics in 30 minutes. So, let’s shift gears a little bit. What I did when I invited you guys was I went out and looked at what you’ve been talking about in the last little while and all the different places where you share thoughts. And, John, I know you had a loss recently. You talk a lot about kindness, grief, and diversity.

[00:29:13]

You have a number of themes that you speak about or have been speaking about recently. How do you bring those to play? And how can managers think about those things and deal with them effectively in the workplace?

John Baldino: [00:29:30]

So, first, we need to work from an understanding that not every manager is adept in these areas. And so, if we don’t help to encourage and equip them, it’s really unfair for us to hold them accountable to the degree that we try to. And there are managers who have made their way to the role that they have, just because they were really good at the work that they had done as a contributor. And I’m not belittling that, but that’s the pathway of upward mobility for them. And very little other kind of investment, if at all, had been done for them.

[00:30:19]

And so, when they’re not emotionally mature, when they aren’t comfortable in difficult conversations and you want to get frustrated with them, whether you’re the director of the division or HR or a business owner, you have to stop for a second and think what kind of investment have I offered to them so that they can be equipped better in these things. And so, when I write and when I share and speak on some of these areas, part of it in my mind is I’m hoping that it’s getting to some people who have had little investment in some of these areas.

[00:30:55]

Because at the end of the day, we’re talking to real people. Managers are managing real people. And if you can’t connect with those real people, you will have a very frustrating managerial experience. There’s no way around it. You won’t know how to handle it otherwise, other than complaining. That’s it. That’s what you’ll do. And that’s not a great existence.

Phil Wilson: [00:31:21]

Yeah. And just a real quick build on that. I totally agree. Lots and lots and lots of company trainwrecks start right there. Which is that you promoted someone because they’re a high performer. You put them in a leadership role. You’ve never, ever even explained to them what leadership is. They think that their job is basically to turn everybody into this amazing production performer like they are. And so, that’s where they’re leading from, and it’s like it’s horrible. And then and then you go, why is everything messed up?

[00:31:59]

And when we finally arrive at the scene of the crash, it’s like, well, what did you do to help them, learn how to be a leader? What percentage of their development has been around leadership of people versus production stuff? And it’s usually zero. And then it’s like, well, no wonder we’re here.

John Baldino: [00:32:27]

Yeah. And if you’re in human resources, I know Robin and I can tell countless stories of the difficult news that employees will share with us. The horrible things going on in their lives. The surprise things that happen. They wake up and there’s a horrible accident or health issues somewhere. They come to us because they are hoping for some understanding, empathy, and consideration. Not that we can solve the problems. And that’s the other thing, I think when I write the way that I do or share as I do. You can’t have a three-step process for everything.

[00:33:14]

Honestly, there are times when I just slide over the box of tissues and say, “I’m a happy crier. Here we go. I’m going to join you in this because I don’t have an answer. I’m so sorry that you just found out you have stage four. I am so sorry.” And just sit and cry. I know that I have to be okay as someone who’s a resource to this employee to just sit in it. I know it’s uncomfortable. I know it’s difficult. Ultimately, you’ll get to the place where there are other resources obviously, health insurance, all that good stuff you can talk about.

[00:33:53]

But in the moment they don’t want you to go, “Oh, I’m so sorry. You know that we have an HSA. Make sure that you’re using that card to go and pick up [unintelligible 00:34:04].” That’s what a manager may want to kick into because “I don’t know what to do. Let me latch on to at least the thing that I know. And I know you have health benefits.” That kind of thing. We have to do a better job with that.

Phil Wilson: [00:34:24]

And then the week manager is just like, “Oh, you need to go talk to HR. Oh wait, this sounds personal. I’d hate to talk about that. You need to go talk to HR.”

John Baldino: [00:34:39]

Yeah. I’ll poke the bear just a little bit and say I think this is part of the reason why employees are turning to things like a union. Because their ears will be being tickled by someone who is portraying a care that they may not be receiving in the workplace. And so, if someone is willing to say, “I hear you and I’m going to help you with what’s not good for you,” that feels like an emotional response. You’re trying to get to the heart of what I’m experiencing. Quite frankly, they would be happy to have that experience within the walls of their organization. But because it’s not happening, some of these other outlets become more attractive.

Phil Wilson: [00:35:30]

Yeah. They don’t start with a union, right? Union is the last stop on the trail.

Michael Vandervort: [00:35:40]

So, Robin, we’re getting close to running out of time so I want to give you a chance. One of the things I know you just wrote about recently was, I don’t want to say thinking outside the box, because that’s such a cliche, but about being an innovative HR and that people need to think beyond the status quo. And I know you do that because I’ve known you for a long time. How do other HR people do that?

Robin Schooling: [00:36:08]

Well, I think it’s a challenge. And I’m going to be extraordinarily generalized here when I say this. I think it’s a challenge for far too many HR folks to innovate and try something new and step out of their comfort zone for themselves or their organization. And so, we get into this tendency. And I’m not saying best practices are bad. They’re best practices for a reason. And there are certainly foundational things we’ve got to do without defects. There are best practices that may make sense, but we get into this rut.

[00:37:00]

And so, there are two aspects to it. Either I don’t care, I’m happy with the status quo. Just let me come in. I’ve done it this way for ten years, 15 years, 20 years. It works. Here we go. I’m fine with that. But then there are HR folks who want to shift how HR is perceived, how they do their job, how they spend their time, and the value they’re bringing to their organization. And they want to do that but they don’t know how to start. Or they want to do that, they maybe know how to start but their boss, the leadership team, the CEO, the owner is like, “No. Don’t worry about that. Just do your HR thing.”

[00:37:45]

And so, it’s thinking about how to be innovative, even if the boss doesn’t want you to be innovative. And I think there are some key components to that. Get over Yourself is the first one. It’s not all about HR. You’re not the center of the universe. You don’t need to sit in on every disciplinary conversation, whatever it may be. You’re a coach. Define your role. What’s your philosophy? What’s your mantra? But get over yourself. You’re not the center of the universe is really step one. But you still interact in that universe, so how do you change it? And why should why should you want to?

[00:38:26]

So, it’s being confident in your knowledge. Knowing your shit. Can I swear? I just swore. It’s learning to play organizational politics because you have to if you want to influence and innovate in your organization. Not all politics are bad. So, play those politics internally. It’s speaking the language of the business. That’s a cliche as well, but it’s imperative because you have to demonstrate your value. If you can change, if you can innovate, if you can try something new, different, unique, sexy, whatever, what’s the return that you’re looking for on that and how to measure it?

[00:39:10]

Can you abandon it if things are not going the way you think they should? It’s being agile and flexible. And so, it’s mapping out a plan for innovation and all those ideas in mind as you’re doing it.

Phil Wilson: [00:39:28]

I’d be curious your reaction to this, but I think there’s innovation to do something new, that’s like, oh that’s exciting. And it relates a little bit to what you just said about what’s the business case for it. To me, I always go back to this core culture in every organization. So, what you said about best practices- best practices a lot of times I need to go visit top performers and see how they do things. Well, one of the reasons they’re top performers generally is because they do things that are uniquely suited to their culture. And that answer is not going to be the answer for your culture.

[00:40:15]

And so, if you concentrate innovation around what are the things that are unique about us and how do we double down on that stuff? And there are all kinds of innovative things that you could do around those things that will then make you stronger versus trying to do this new thing that doesn’t even really fit your culture. It might even be totally counter to your culture and it’s going to get rejected no matter how awesome it is at the company down the street. I’m curious. What do you think about that?

Robin Schooling: [00:40:53]

Yeah. I think exactly to your point, the first step that’s often missing in this planning or assessment of what’s the problem we’re trying to solve. What should we study? What can we research about it? And then what will work in our industry, geography, organization, and unique little world that we live in? And thinking it through. I often think one of the most innovative changes I have ever seen is there’s a bakery in New York. And off the top of my head, I can’t think of their name. Grayson bakery.

[00:41:42]

And probably 3 or 4 years ago came out with not doing any interviewing for new hires. They have a list and if you want to work there you go in, sign up on the list and you say, “This is the job I want to do.” And when they have an opening and they have very few openings, when they have an opening, they go to that list and it’s in order. “Okay. Bob, you said you wanted to work in the warehouse. We’ve got a warehouse opening and your start date is next Monday. Come on and be here at 8:00.” Bob is hired. He starts that day. And they will train anyone and anything.

[00:42:21]

And that hiring of the person is basically the interview. You’re working. You’re enmeshed in the culture, the work, the organization, the job. And maybe that’s not the job for you. Well, is there something else you could do? And so, they do that, but they don’t waste their time with let’s interview, let’s this, let’s that. Nope! You want to work here, all you got to do is be on the list and you’re hired when we have an opening. That’s mind-blowing.

Michael Vandervort: [00:42:57]

That’s what’s cool. Kind of scary, but it’s cool. We’re up against time. So, last question. But first of all, thanks so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it.

Phil Wilson: [00:43:07]

Yeah. Thanks so much. This was great.

Michael Vandervort: [00:43:09]

Thank you. So, the last question to wrap up is as we head into the new year, I know you both go to a lot of conferences. Phil goes to a lot of different things, although we’re very niche. What HR or other type of conference event are you looking forward to most so far in 2024?

Robin Schooling: [00:43:33]

I’ve got so many.

Michael Vandervort: [00:43:38]

You have so many. Pick one.

Robin Schooling: [00:43:41]

I would say I’m between two. I would say Unleash, probably.

John Baldino: [00:43:54]

I agree. There’s a new one next year called Epic that Mark Stelzner and some other folks are heading up in April, and I’m speaking, so it sounds self-serving. Sorry. But I’ll be speaking at that one. It’s brand new. And it’s really focusing in on instead of the HR tech side, on the people considerate side of what’s out there and how do people do great work in that space. So, looking forward to that.

Michael Vandervort: [00:44:30]

And I know your answer is going to be way different Phil. But what about you?

Phil Wilson: [00:44:34]

I’m a huge fan of the CUE conference. We go to that twice a year. We spent a lot of time at CUE and love that organization, the work that they do, and the content that they do. So, that’s the one I’m looking forward to the most. We’re going back to Savannah, which is the next stop. That’ll be fun. So, I’ll put that one out there.

Michael Vandervort: [00:45:06]

Savannah in the spring is pretty nice. It’ll be a good stop. I love CUE. I’m looking at trying to get to Epic. I put in a drivethruHR bid for media credentials, so maybe we’ll do some shows from there. We’ll see. But you never know how that’s going to go with new conferences because it’s hard to front people in. They have to make money. Again, thanks so much, you guys. We’re going to go ahead and get out of here. The show will probably go up in January. We’ll let you know when that happens, but we appreciate it. Happy holidays.

Robin Schooling: [00:45:42]

Happy holidays.

John Baldino: [00:45:43]

Happy holidays.

Phil Wilson: [00:45:46]

Yeah, it’s great to see you both. Thank you.

Robin Schooling: [00:45:50]

Thank you.