1751 – A Guide to Hiring the Best People with Ryan Englin

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0:58with us right now it's ryan england ryan you are the ceo of core matters and you're the author of the brand new book hire better people faster ryan it's so great to have you josh thank you for inviting me on the show today absolutely well listen this is a the reason i want you on this show is because you're talking about something that uh i think plagues a lot of business leaders And certainly, I would say some of those earlier stage business leaders at the SMB level, because, you know, who we have on our team, I mean, truly, truly is the accelerant for growth in every aspect of what we do. We need great people.

1:40Absolutely. Absolutely. And so many companies, they put an emphasis on the key people or the leadership teams, but they forget that it's the people out there in the trenches doing the work, servicing the customer face-to-face with the customer. They're equally important. So we're recording this toward the end of 2023. And I know there's been turbulence over the past several years in terms of things are a little different now, finding great people. And I think we're absolutely hitting on a pain point. and you serve in an area which has been a little bit challenging over the past few years. Can you give us maybe just a lay of the land of what the hiring environment is like today as of when we're recording this?

2:23Absolutely. So we're talking about the pandemic, changed the world for us entrepreneurs, especially when it came to recruiting and hiring. Here's what happened. It exposed the fact that job seekers have options. They don't have to be stuck in a job they don't like. They don't have to be stuck working for an employer they don't like. They don't have to be stuck in something that doesn't pay well. They have options. And it's opened that up. The gig economy got super exposed during the pandemic. And these people that were in these frontline jobs, which is a lot of the work we do, that frontline hourly worker, the one dealing with your customer or making your product or delivering your service, those people are the ones that said, wait a minute, I can go work someplace where I'm valued.

3:06I can go work someplace where I feel like I belong. I can go work for someplace that's more fun. And these options were exposed to them. And what happened is so many entrepreneurs now feel like no one wants to work and everyone's entitled. They want all this work from home and all this other stuff. And it's like, no, they don't. But that's the only way they know how to solve for what they do want, which is they want to feel like they belong. They want to feel like they're doing something of meaning. They want to feel like they get along with the people they work with. All of those things are what they want.

3:35And so what they say is, well, the best way to solve that problem is work from home. Give me freedom. Give me all this because they don't know any better. And what we do is we teach entrepreneurs that there is another way. There is another way to attract people and get them excited about coming to work for your team. And you can make it happen today. Wow. Okay, Ryan, I'm all ears. Tell me, how do we do that? You know, one of the principles that we talk about in the book, and it's actually on the cover of the book is this idea that we're fishing. And when we think about fishing for people, what do we have to do when we're out fishing?

4:06We have to identify the fish we want. We have to bring the right gear. We have to bring the right bait. And ultimately what we have to do is attract them. We can't go out and look for people. We can't look for fish. We can't go, oh, look in the water there, I see some fish. It doesn't work like that. You have to go where you know the fish are or the people and you have to attract them to your business with the things that they are attracted by. I say this a lot. I share some hard truths in our training and my keynotes. If you're not attracting good people, just consider that you may not be attractive to good people.

4:39And so we have to really flip that on its head and think, how can I be more attractive to the people I want? So what is, and I've heard, you know, I've had this conversation before, right? Where we think that the only thing that an employee wants is the most money that they can get. Sure. And how would you address that? Enough money numbs a lot of pain. and that's really what's happening is you almost have to look at higher pay as a way to bribe people to take the jobs that nobody wants. And that's really what's happening. If people don't want to work for you as an employer, if they found that your culture is a little toxic or that you're not a good communicator or you don't have an effective training program or you don't make people feel like they belong inside your company, they'll take the jobs, but you got to pay them for it.

5:29That numbs the pain of it not being the job that I want. I promise you there are people who go home and go, I hate my boss. I hate my job. I hate the stuff that we do, but boy, I get paid good money. Those people aren't going to leave. But that's the reality. If you want to be able to hire people and compete and still be profitable and not overpay, you've got to give them the things that people want. And so when you take an employee first approach to recruiting and you think about what the employee wants, before you think about what I want as the entrepreneur, as the owner, you can give them so much for so little.

6:03You don't have to invest a lot of money in some of the things that people really want in a job today. And so what would be, and again, I'm sure that you talk about this in great detail in your new book. It's on Amazon. It's everywhere. Again, it's called Hire Better People Faster. But what would be some of those other things aside from just paying? If let's say we say, listen, budget wise, I don't know that I can afford to pay, you know, an additional$8 an hour if I'm looking for service-based, you know, employees that would crush us, you know, from a cashflow perspective, what are other things that I can do to either improve culture or how we communicate or just, you know, again, provide a much better environment for the best quality team members.

6:55Well, this is going to sound probably counterintuitive, but the first thing that you need to do is figure out who's the right person for me. Who's the person that's going to most likely belong? You can have what I would call a toxic culture, and you're going to find someone that thrives in toxicity. I mean, there are animals on this planet that are found living in some of the most hostile environments, and they love it. They thrive there. There are people that are going to thrive in any company culture, but you've got to find them. And what happens is you often put out one message when you really need to be targeting someone else.

7:28So really getting clear on who it is that is the right employee for you is the first step. And there's a process we talk about the core fit profile in the book that walks you through the seven factors that are important to people. But when you think about what job seekers want in a job and an employer, what they really want is things that help them feel like they belong. They want a friend at work. They want opportunities to enjoy the work that they do. If you think about the typical job seeker, they are giving up time with their family, their friends, and the things they do for fun to come work for you.

8:02And at some point in time, you can pay them enough to say, hey, it's a good trade-off. Or you can create family environment, a friendly environment, and make it fun. And they'll go, wow, the same things I'm giving up to come work here, I get. you don't need to pay me more for that. And they'll stick around. They'll produce more. They'll make you more profitable. Everybody wins. Are there a couple of things that you hear that make you cringe? You know, one that I've heard that really feels, I've heard a lot of criticism of the statement of like, we're like a family here. You know, when they talk about their work environment and it's like, it's like, you know, you get what they're saying, but maybe not say it like that.

8:47We don't let anybody put out that we're a family. That's not part of the messaging because I know a lot of people that don't like their family. And so when they hear family, they think of their family and that just doesn't resonate. But what are the things that happen within a family unit? Caring for each other, investing in each other, supporting each other, understanding that when I hire somebody, I didn't just hire a worker. I got the whole package, their drama, their hopes, their goals, their dreams, their health issues. I got everything. Well, that's what a family does. A family supports you no matter what.

9:20And if you can think about that from an employee-employer perspective, hey, you've got some stuff you got to deal with a kid that's got maybe some problems in school. And so you need to get them to tutoring at two o 'clock. If you can create that flexibility for them so they can go pick up their kid, and you can't do this for everybody. I get it. We've all got business to run. But if you can find ways to help support them and the things that are important to them, the things that they live for, you'll have a much better job attracting people. So I don't use the word family, but think about that, what the family unit's really about.

9:49It's really about supporting each other through thick and thin. First off, I'd love for you to address the value of diversity in the workplace. And then what can employers and leaders do to attract a diverse workforce? So yeah, value and what should we be doing to attract more? Yeah. So the reality is that we all have biases. like we all have stereotypes. We all have this stuff running in our head. One of the first questions I ask people is say, Hey, do you picture this role being filled by a man or a woman? And they're like, that's a weird question. Like we can't ask that. I'm like, but I understand, but you have a bias.

10:23And almost always they answer me real quickly. Oh, this is going to be a woman filling this role. Well, now that I know that I can create a process that removes that intrinsic bias. I can create job ads. I can create interview questions that removes that, knowing that they already have that bias, if that makes sense. So recognizing that we have a bias and then building a system and communication around it to remove that or to make that bias less appealing to that leader is one of the first things that we do. So instead of just saying we need a diverse workforce and we promote diversity, well, if we're focused on promoting diversity, what happens?

11:00Our biases become stronger and we focus more on the things that we believe. And so as much as we say we want to be diverse, it ends up almost backfiring on us versus saying, let's acknowledge that we have biases and that's what's creating a less diverse workforce. And then let's work those things out in the system, if that makes sense. That's interesting. The reason I bring this up is because we just did kind of an audit. You know, what I want and the value that I perceive, I mean, there's so many values, but even just strictly from, you know, you could talk about kind of doing good versus historic and systemic and remnant, you know, maybe unfavorable conditions, right?

11:40And so there's justification there. But I think that there's an economic argument for that as well. So, you know, it matches your customer base. And so therefore you should have those variety of different backgrounds and ideas kind of coming into it. I believe personally, I think that that makes it better. Anyway, the reason I asked that is kind of working on our diversity. I don't want to say statement, but I feel like, you know, it's one of those things. It's like, if you're living it and it's just part of your culture, then you don't need to flaunt it a whole lot, I guess. It will be easy to perceive that this is a place that is welcoming, that sort of thing.

12:13I would love to talk more about that topic. But listen, I want to make sure that people pick up your book. It's called Hire Better People Faster. Could you share just a bit about that? Again, it's on all the booksellers, even including Walmart, Amazon, and so forth. But who needs to read this book? And what's the transformation that will take place? I wrote this book for people like my dad. So my dad was an owner operator, grew up in the blue collar space, and he worked crazy hours all the time because his business owned him. He was the one, like if he didn't show up when the plant went down, the plant didn't get back up.

12:48Like if there was a problem, he was the one that had to solve it. If there was an issue, he was the one that had to be involved. And so he got pulled in all the time. And we all know entrepreneurs like this that have really struggled to trust people, to build effective teams, to let go of some of these things so that they can actually sit in that owner's seat. So I wrote this book for those people that are constantly drugged back in. Some of them would probably say, oh, I feel like I created my job for myself, right? Or I'm the only one that can fix it. Or if I want it done right, I have to do it myself.

13:18Like these are the beliefs that they have. This book is going to open up their eyes to say, wait a minute, you can hire people that are going to care more than you do, that are going to be more effective at it. They're going to be faster at it. The customers are going to like working with them more than they like working with you. This book is for those people. And when I wrote the book, I wanted to make sure it was very tactical. There are a ton of strategy books out there and culture books out there and all these books helping you with the mindset and how to think about this. But there's not a lot of books that are telling you how to do it.

13:48And that was something that was really important to me. I'm very much a how-to guy. So this is a how-to manual. You can open up to chapter six and start focusing on the tools in chapter six and get those implemented. And then tomorrow you can say, you know what? I want to do chapter three. And you can move around to where you need the support the most inside of this book. Yeah. Awesome. Ryan Englund, again, your website is corematters.com. Your new book is called Hire Better People Faster. It's available everywhere. Aside from that, is there anything that maybe someone's saying, Ryan, I'm going to read the book.

14:24I need your help. How do you work with folks? Yeah. So there's two ways we work with people. We have everything from just training. If they just want to get access to our deep dive training, to being coached, we even have some opportunities to do the work for them, to help them with building the entire system, implementing it, screening applicants, doing the things that are just time consuming. Cause a lot of this stuff with recruiting and a lot of it is just hard work and you just got to grind sometimes. And so I'm building a team to help support these entrepreneurs that want to get out of that and really build effective teams.

14:58So everything from more training to we'll coach you through it. We'll guide you through it to we can even do it for you. Ryan Anglin, again, founder of Core Matters, your new book, Hire Better People Faster. Ryan, it's been great having you. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Josh.

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