1627 – People Who Like The Work with Peoplytix’s Brian Gelt

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0:58with us right now brian gelt brian you are the founder ceo of peoplelytics you're on the web at peoplelytics.com it's got kind of a funny spelling so to our friend that's listening best bet is probably to just click on your show notes button information just keep clicking around you'll find where it's got a link so i'm gonna spell it for you it's p-e-o-p-l-e no way i did it wrong. P-E-O-P-L-Y-T-I-X. Peoplelytics. And Brian, it's great to have you here. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me, Josh. Yeah. So what is Peoplelytics? So Peoplelytics is a consulting company. I help companies infuse data into their hiring, retention, coaching, and development.

1:47So we get to help companies actually hire people that are a good fit for the job. So we can identify using our data and our tools, people that are a good fit for any particular role. It can be anything from a CEO or a CFO to a factory floor worker, somebody who's going to fit the job well and actually like the work. Because one of the things we know is when people like the work, they do a better job and they stay longer. So it leads directly into retention. Yeah. Well, this is absolutely an issue that's been top of mind. Every leader's concerned about folks being able to come into a great workplace, have a great culture, great environment, be able to provide an environment that's going to allow people to flourish and enjoy.

2:41Certainly, attracting is a big part of that. You know, but certainly we don't want people that are, you know, just kind of checking out, you know, six months before they quit. Yeah, that's what we want to avoid. So how does people that solve some of these problems I'm addressing? I know that have been big headline grabbers in the past, especially six to 12 months. Yeah, absolutely. That turnover, that churn, I like to call it that six month churn that comes from finding people that are not a good fit for the job. And so what happens is, hey, we can all fake it for a little while, right? Everybody can do anything for a little while.

3:20but then right around three four months we start to see some performance issues we see people stop showing up on time we see them you know with a little bit of a dejected attitude and then in six to 12 months they're gone and you're right some of them have checked out at six months and don't quit till it's 12 months and basically you've been paying them for nothing so what we try to do is we try to understand what are the demands of the job and we're talking behavioral demands. So I want you to think of it this way, a salesperson you would think of as naturally outgoing, talkative, likes people.

3:55And you might think of somebody in accounting as more reserved and really likes numbers. That all makes sense, right? But we hire people to be salespeople every day that don't like talking to new people. And then we can't figure out why they're not doing a good job, right? Or worse, they don't do it. They do just a mediocre job and we keep them for 20 years. Yeah, certainly. So help me understand exactly, are you consulting or is this more of a platform? Help me understand how P-politics fits in with current, whether this is HR or more of a kind of an operations process that we're undertaking?

4:44Yeah, great question. And it's really kind of both, right? So we do focus, a lot of times it's administered through the HR department, but it's really important that the whole management team is involved. Because part of what we do is we understand what are the demands of the job. And we look at our candidates or our current employees and see how they match up. Now, listen, we're not looking for perfection, it's people, we're not going to find perfection. What we're looking for is a really good fit. And then we can coach around the edges. And so a big part of what Peepolitics does is I help companies use this data to coach their people, to develop their people.

5:22So it's not just hiring people that are going to be a good general fit for the job, but it's then helping them to develop those people, retain those people. and we start to deepen our bench so that we can start guiding those people into their next career path. And how did you find yourself in this? And where did Peoplelytics come from? Well, you mean the name? I made it up. No, no, no. Well, Peoplelytics, great name. But yeah, the company itself, like why did you decide that this was something that needed to be addressed. You have a long and storied background in the automotive industry, decades of experience in leadership.

6:03I do. So I was in the retail automotive business for about 35 years. 30 of that was in management. And so basically as a manager and certainly as a senior leader, my job was to find the right people for a job, develop them, coach them, make them better. And I worked my way through it. I learned how to do it. I screwed up everything you could screw up because that's just how we roll, right? Of course, yes. And I tried a number of tools. And then at one of the companies I was with, and I was a partner in the dealership and running this really large dealership, I found this tool called Predictive Index.

6:41And Predictive Index is an 80-year-old company that is a software platform that helps with this data. And it uses assessment tools and things like that. very quick, six minutes to take an assessment for candidates, really valuable. So it was in perfect alignment with what I was already trying to do. And so it made it so much easier for me to be able to identify those people that are a good fit. I made a whole career out of hiring people with no resume for the job. Yeah. Okay. Because resumes, first of all, they're kind of fluff half the time, more 80 % of the time. But more importantly, I found people that were right for the job.

7:26We used to say, you know, hire for attitude, train for skill. I like to say hire for behavioral fit, and then we'll train for skill. Because if they like the work, they take the coaching. And so I was able to really grow and develop these people. And so after about 35 years in the car business, I said, God, you know what, I think I'm done with the car business, but I love developing people. I love coaching. So now I'm helping other companies use these tools to build their teams, to develop their teams and to coach their teams. Yeah. And who do you work with today? I mean, I've got about 60 clients all across the country, everything from automotive dealers, for sure, but to defense contractors, to retail, to software companies, anybody who's got people, the issues are remarkably consistent, regardless of industry, they're people issues, and we can help solve them.

8:29Yeah. What are some of the things that you see in the attraction, you know, kind of the team member, you know, employee attraction side of things that you think are pretty, like, it's not real effective, or maybe something like, man, I wish people would stop doing that. Or, you know, maybe just huge gaps that I think that we could all be aware of to be mindful of, you know, maybe we might think it's getting us what we want. But in fact, it's not. Yeah, well, I mean, a big one is hiring based on resume. And a resume is important. I mean, we need to look at what have people done? What are their experiences?

9:10And some roles require certain skills and knowledge. There's no doubt. But, you know, I hired a lot of people. I probably spent 20 % of my time interviewing for 30 years. So you learn that some people just because they have experience doesn't mean they're in the right job. And so we use this information to be able to identify, hey, how do I put somebody, maybe I've got a good employee in the wrong job. There may be a mediocre performer? How do I help align them with the right job? That's a part of what we do. The other part of what we do is how do I find that young person who's working as a grocery clerk and turn them into a superstar salesperson that makes$100 ,000 a year or more, feeds their family and changes their entire life circumstances?

10:05And I found scores of those over the years. And so that stuff is really important to me. And we, so when I spend a lot of time with the companies that I work with, with my clients, I really focus on how do we get beyond the resume? How do I interview beyond the resume and start to learn and understand people and whether or not they're going to be a good fit for my job and my company? And that's where, you know, it's hard. And I think the temptation, at least what I see, is, you know, that the employer might want to be able to, you know, kind of flip through thousands of candidates and use AI tools and, you know, resume scanning and looking for keywords and try to automate that.

10:55just so that they can then kind of whittle down a much larger pool into hopefully ideally like the three to five best candidates, and those are the ones we'll spend time with. Does that work? Well, it does and it doesn't. Sure. I mean, it works. And that's, I mean, in the current environment, it's not working that well because that pool of candidates is not large enough. But, you know, it does work in concept. We want to start with a large pool, whittle them down, try and find people that we think will be a good fit. Where we go wrong is, and a lot of these, you know, AI tools that scan resumes, they're focused on the wrong things.

11:39They're looking for, in a lot of cases, past experience. But past experience is not necessarily an indicator. It may be. And we want to look at resume and fit behavioral aptitude together. And when we look at that together, we have a much better picture of somebody. Because there are people who have tremendous resume, maybe behaviorally they're iffy, but they've learned to adapt and I want those people, right? There are people without the resume that might be a great fit. I want those people too. I want to expand my talent pool. I want to expand the opportunities. And if all I'm doing is scanning resumes and looking for past experience, I've probably thinned out the talent pool too much.

12:29So what does it look like when, And how do you begin engagement? If you were to do discovery, what kinds of questions would you be asking to see if you might be able to be a value to a potential client? Yeah, I mean, we explore things like, first of all, I talk with a client about what are their issues at the moment, right? Sometimes it's hiring. They can't seem to find the right candidates or a pool of candidates. Oftentimes, it's about retention. It's about that six-month churn that I mentioned. And that comes from job fit. That's just, hey, I hired the wrong person for this job. They faked it for six months and now they're out.

13:10Oh, is that awful? I mean, everyone, like everyone, you say that, like everyone, I think, you know, collectively groaned along with me or had that pain in their side, like how painful that is. It's painful for the employee. It's painful. It's just a bad situation. It's really rough. And I mean, I was an employer most of my life. And, you know, right about six months is when they're worth their salary. And when they quit, you're like, oh, I just it makes you crazy. But so I help them with some of that. And so we do a lot of discovery and some, you know, some exploring. And that's why, you know, you asked me, is this an HR function?

13:53Well, sure. HR helps administer some of this stuff. But if the executives aren't on board, it's not going to work. It's really important that the executives recognize, hey, this is an issue we need to solve. And sure, it may be HR's primary function, but if it doesn't have the attention of the people in leadership, it doesn't really get solved. It gets covered over. And I'm here to help solve it. So part of what I do in order to get clients started, we do all this discovery. And frankly, we try it out. Even before they become a client and they officially sign on the dotted line, let them try it.

14:34Let's see if it's going to add value. And I'll share a link with you to share with everybody. Please, please do. Yeah, that if they want to try it, they'll try it for free. And we'll try a couple and see if it works for them. And if it adds value, I'm in. If it doesn't add value and it's not perfect for everybody, if it doesn't add value, it's okay. Yeah. What is that? So obviously your website we shared before peoplelytics.com. Is there a particular something they can click on? Yeah. I'll send you that link that they can click on it so that they can actually just go right into the software and try it for free because part of it is software.

15:12There's a software component to it. That's where all the assessments and all the data is crunched. And then there's a consulting part of it as well. And that's where I come in where I help guide my clients how to use the tool, how to get the most out of the tool, because otherwise it's just really interesting information. And I know I ran, you know, in running my businesses, I got 14 phone calls a day with really interesting information and one that was actionable. And I focus on the actionable. And that's what I love about what I do is I am setting my clients up to do something, okay, to move forward, to improve retention, to improve job fit, to improve coaching, and give them tools.

15:58Every tool that they have, that they will have for me, has an action component. Yeah. So again, peoplelytics.com, any other resources that you'd recommend, you know, when somebody goes to your website in terms of next steps? Yeah, so they can go into the website. And again, you know, I'm so sorry, boy, I'm a lousy interviewer sometimes. I interrupted you. Like, okay, literally one second into your answer. I interrupted you. I apologize for that. Okay, so you shared the resource and you'd made mention of the link. We will include that link in the show notes. I just want to put that out there. I'm sorry, Brian, back to you, sir, at peopleytics.com.

16:41No worries. At peopleytics.com, there's obviously there's contact info. You can call us, you can send us a note and we'll get in contact with you and help you go through some of this stuff. We'll set it up for you to try it for free. We can try the assessments for, you know, just to see if it's going to make any sense to you and add any value to your organization. Happy to do that. You can also hit me up on LinkedIn, right? So whether it's peopleytics on LinkedIn or my own personal page where I put up short videos and talk about specific areas and concepts and things that every company is working on.

17:18Almost every company is struggling with everything from what do we do with millennials to how do I coach somebody? And, you know, we try to make those things effective for everybody and put it out there and, you know, Lots of good things will come my way. Ryan, thank you so much for the work that you're doing. You know, again, in resolving pain, I don't think it could be underlined and over the cost of turnover and what that can do to a company and the lost opportunities and the, you know, timing gets screwed up. I mean, it is really one of the most critical things, in my opinion, to get right in any company is that process of attracting the best and the brightest, the right fits, the folks that are really going to gel with your environment and your culture.

18:07Certainly something I hear a lot of. So again, Brian Gelt, founder, CEO of Peoplelytics, found on the web at peoplelytics.com. It's been great having you, Brian. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Josh. Great to be here.

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