Recruitment, retention & workplace culture: what does the future hold?

welcome to the future of Tourism podcast I'm David peacock stop owning your own contents young leaders are stepping up bring everyone to the table and imagine they're wild anew [Music] how do you cut through the Clutter when it comes to recruitment and retention how do you inculcate corporate culture in a predominantly remote Workforce Mike gamble is a friend and Ally to this industry he's the CEO of search wide Global dominant talent and recruitment entity in the sector in North America his work to include expand and future-proof the industry is manifesting projects outside his core businesses like the not-for-profit Force for good tourism diversity matters that was established in February 2021 Ryan Bolton has been in Senior Management and Tech Innovation for more than two decades from Google through to voice over IP technology and all points in between to his current role as view for your product simpleview he's worked extensively at managing both on-site and remote teams on Mission critical digital projects and products around the world and he has very specific views as to what it takes to be competitive in the recruitment sector these days good morning Mike good morning Ryan good morning David morning thanks for having us hey it's pleasure to see you both again Ryan we'll start with you how are you where are you what's it like I'm great coming off of uh a very relaxing Thanksgiving holiday with the family uh I'm currently well I'm I'm usually based out of Pittsburgh but I'm currently in Tucson at the uh simple view headquarters and um yeah great to be here talking with you very good Mike how are you where are you I'm great David thank you uh Sam uh great Thanksgiving with the family I'm in Minneapolis and I think we're at about inch six of the snowstorm uh we expect about eight inches so um yeah it's it's a little bit of a blizzard outside but glad to be here well glad to have you both here um we've been monitoring and talking about the topic of equity diversity inclusion employment retention attraction corporate culture off and on throughout the entirety of coven and I think it's it changed a lot of things in its course um why don't we start here Mike give us a 30 000 foot view we've been through the great layoff we've been through the return to work we've been through the incredible uh mobility of talent I don't know how to explain it where are we at December 2022. oh yeah a great question David you know you and I talked in 2020 and I think my quote was it'll take years to absorb the talent that's been laid off and furloughed well I was wrong about that I mean how how we went from uh our industry was at about a 35 unemployment at the peak of of covid um the nation I saw close to 17 how in the world could we get below four percent so quickly um that's the question right I and so what I would say about our industry is we still have a front line issue and it's a pretty big issue there's still 1.1 million uh open jobs and not enough workers to fill those but for the leadership pipeline you know the management VP and then the c-suite it that market is still tight um but it's starting to loosen up a little bit the big issue that we're seeing today is housing continues to be housing you know eight months ago 12 months ago it was a lack of housing today it's the lack of affordability and the ability for people to get in um at a reasonable interest rate and that's impacting people who we have to move who aren't working remotely um that's an obstacle and so that's again another interesting twist in this two or three years uh that roller coaster that we've been on but I think that pretty much sums it up from our perspective and from our clients perspective well that's a good place to throw to you right I mean you start uh as the vice president of product it's simple you not quite three years ago you've been through this roller coaster ride jumping on just as it all started to unfold and then you've been through the whole um recruitment uh difficulties and and the rebuilding phase tell us what you've seen so just to clarify I joined simple view uh in October of last year so I was not a part of the DMO space through uh you know the hardships of coven so uh I joined at a time where I feel like uh we were almost at a full rebound right um and being a part of a software company that Services the DMO space uh you know my challenge is slightly uh slightly different than dmos specifically right I I work for a software company I have to come compete with other software companies um so while we are in the DMO space and service the DMO space uh you know I'm I'm competing with everybody from uh you know the big guys uh like the Googles the twitters the the Amazons of the world and um probably more poignantly the uh the small more intimate software companies that I prefer to work for uh particularly at this point in my career uh where you know individual contributors and leaders of small software firms can truly kind of see their their their work move the needle so in in that context Ryan what's what's the competition for talent like well uh it's Fierce right so uh the the challenge that the software industry faces today is that uh if I am not able to offer uh really every role within my uh organization uh the product organization and the r d organization including engineering I cannot be competitive I simply can't be competitive on on a on a national level uh all things being equal being paid benefits culture and all the things that people care about when they join a company that person is going to accept the remote role 10 out of 10 times so if I am unable to offer uh my positions remote I simply can't compete so okay Mike listening to what Ryan said there at the senior level in recruitment in Tech in our industry the DMO industry and its ancillary Parts you service many companies like miles and simple you and mmgy with placements when you see that kind of pressure um what what's what kind of what kind of outcomes is that pressure creating in this industry yeah I'll be interested to hear Ryan's thoughts on on you know the market today as we see the tech layoffs especially in Silicon Valley what we're hearing from some of the other industry tech companies is that they're having a lot of success you know finding the talent that that perhaps was laid off uh by some of the bigger so again I'd love to hear Ryan's perspective on that so we we do have a couple of tech opportunities that we're searching right now and and last month on those assignments has uh has loosened things up a bit in our in our funnel is a bit more full than it would have been right I would say probably six or eight months ago we were doing similar searches and it was a lot harder I guess my point is than it is today so we feel like at least we're able to to find and attract um Talent a little bit more quickly in the tech space today than we were even six or eight months ago I don't know if you find it finding that as well yeah you know it's interesting I the big guys I think are finding a very uh a very good way of automating a lot of their processes which you know results in automating people out of roles uh they're also focusing on their top contributors and and paying them more to you know slim down their overall footprint as far as employee count but as you alluded to earlier there's still millions of jobs that are that are available that are unfilled today and I think that leads into the tech sector uh just like every other every other industry yeah so so let's pick that up at the point that you made to start with though Ryan Mike when you're looking at your increasing at the increasingly full funnel in terms of prospects and I'm assuming these are prospects for a placement are you seeing the kind of um demand for remote working that Ryan's talking about that that really when you counsel a client these days what's your point what's your uh point on the flexibility around remote working it's it's in every conversation Dave of it it's a hard one with the dmos for sure but but with the hotel companies we have a pretty active uh Hotel search practice boy the the they're starting to really understand what Ryan just mentioned is the flexibility piece is so critically important and a couple years ago they would not have offered that so even today I think for the dmos the hard piece is is juggling the need to be in the destination no matter what role you you play um versus the remote work and I know the CEOs are really trying to balance that so they're stakeholders by the way who are there every day servicing their hotels their restaurants their attractions and then the dmos have all this flexibility with their folks working remotely it's gonna it's become a challenge and I know they're just trying to juggle it and do the best they can but to Ryan's Point ours our our talent funnels for jobs that are fully remote are about 5x uh what the ones are that require a move and I know that sounds dramatic but it's accurate we you know and he as he knows I mean we we can we can fill the funnel with great candidates a lot more quickly if there is ability to have a hybrid slash remote work environment okay um we're gonna we're gonna go ahead please try please yeah it's just uh it's uh I love the fact that that uh your experience is actually going through this today like um my when I joined civil view last October uh you know my CEO Ryan George uh was I won't say he was against remote work but he was he asked me says as you staff this organization have you as you staff your team um you know will you focus on local talent in Tucson or Phoenix so that they're so that they're close or will you open up these opportunities remotely and I and I said well of course I'm I'm gonna have to open them up remotely um and he asked me why uh and I thought it was an interesting question that it was just a why and he wasn't posing it in a way that was against me posting these rules remotely he just wanted um some validation uh because you know who doesn't love to have colleagues in the office that they're rubbing elbows with on a daily basis it's fun right I love being around my team as well um so I told him give me a day so I went I went to the tank and I pulled up a bunch of reports that I had kind of armchair read uh you know McKenzie Abbott research uh what was the other one uh ergotron um and kind of compiled all these figures uh to to give to him and some really interesting statistics came up so what would you guess is the worst the the absolute worst part of somebody's day right when they have to commute to the office what would you what would you say with what their response would be to the worst part of their day would be to that it would be it would I think it would be the commute right and getting can getting ready getting ready for work uh the commute yeah all right for sure mailed it on the head Mike 92 92 this is not like a majority this is an overwhelming majority 92 said they're pre-work routine and their commute to work 92 percent uh and doing this research uh some other kind of you know raw statistics kind of bubbled up to the top working remote morale and general happiness up 62 percent if you have a remote role performance up 16 productivity up 41 these are folks that would usually spend um anywhere between an hour and a half and three hours of their day from their pre-work routine to the time their Footsteps in their front door right an hour of that probably gets you know given right back to the company in the form of extra hours being uh you know worked throughout the day so there's there's in my opinion there's a ton of benefit to embracing remote work uh and empowering folks to uh you know do their best work uh without somebody kind of hovering over their shoulder okay so that's that's one of those opportunities that open UPS the idea that happier people working more diligently when they work I buy that but what about the question of corporate culture guys how do you inculcate corporate culture remotely or I'm going to take it to the next level the question following is how do we how do we create those those um thought exchange groups can we do that remotely those I mean I'm a big proponent I'm I'm fully in on remote working but I am struggling in the last sort of year now to really start to think of the things that we're sort of losing with it that I want to mitigate somehow I'll tell you they give you a great opposite example during covid I thought the democratization of meetings was fabulous that Hollywood Squares model opened itself up to a bunch of voices that were not being heard getting equal AirPlay and boy that that created some great ideas so I see the benefits of the remote part but I'm starting to worry about some of the cross-pollination that goes on between human beings that involves not just visuals and audible but meta communication and all of that stuff that we are really good at as humans so that's the second question the first one is how do you inculcate culture in a remote Workforce well you know I guess what I would say I would jump on piggyback a little bit Ryan was saying Gallup also we followed the Gallup uh studies and this year this well-being number one most important issue to the to the worker and so David if you think about it if if they're happy in their work environment and their well-being is either just feel good about their life listen people want to live their best life and have a job that fits in with that I mean let's be honest and so if what we've described they have that boy developing a good culture is actually a little easier because they're not grinding it out to get to the office and worrying about what they have to wear and gosh what am I gonna have for lunch and you know all these things they're all are all stressors but but here are a couple things that we do you know I've got a whole remote Workforce and and our clients do as well is that first you can you can structure um you can structure your team meetings differently your entire staff meeting differently and you make sure that maybe once a quarter you know I I make sure that our vertical teams are seeing each other face to face possibly at industry events there's just they love that because as they're there they're learning we're seeing customers and by the way they're all getting together and so that's a great time to brainstorm so we we are are very intentional about how we travel and where we travel and so that is much for our clients it's also for us as well and so where I can know I can put Senior team together and mid-level team and so that people are really feeding off of that and then as a full unit try to get together you know more than just perhaps once a year but then lastly listen the end of the day the culture's got to be authentic and it has to stand for something that's meaningful to the people who work there and and that's more than just getting face to face is it something they believe in is there something that's more that comes with that brand and with the leadership of that organization that they can buy into and I know Ryan will speak to that because I know a simple view has that and we have found that it's it's the purpose you know and you can do that you can do that this way VIA Zoom as well as you can face to face but you've got to sprinkle in the face-to-face whenever you can yeah couldn't agree more uh agree with everything you said Mike um you know I would put the charge on leadership to uh distill that culture down right I think it all starts with passion and I think it all starts with uh a want to better uh whatever industry you're in or take over whatever industry you are in uh and and really move the needle and change the world right I I think I think as long as you are able to surround yourself with passionate people uh you're going to be successful right and as long as uh you know leadership does take that feedback to heart you know send out quarterly uh surveys to you know what can we do better right and take that uh feedback to heart and make it actionable and and show results uh or show output from those uh surveys to the employee base they're going to believe in their leadership they're going to work hard for that leadership right uh and I also couldn't agree more that you have to get people together in a room uh face to face in person at least four times a year in my opinion we do quarterly uh Retreats for the product org uh at simpleview uh it's probably my four favorite times of the year when I get to make when I get to see everybody from my organization in the same room at the same place doing something fun decompressing uh trying not to talk about work too much uh disconnecting uh enjoying each other's company um and then you know hit that hard getting back to work again so Ryan I'm going to take you back when I when we actually first thought about this podcast it actually came on the heels of a question I had asked you which was really that very direct question how do you how do you do corporate culture remotely and you were Arden about one thing and I think it's really important to underline it you said it's really up to the managers so you have a you know you have a series of managers who actually have a series of managers and so on but you really do find that in the online space it comes down to an incredible level of Engagement involvement at a management employee relationship with direct reports right well not just direct reports but indirect reports right I I um have weekly one-on-ones with every one of my direct reports I have bi-weekly um one-on-ones with anybody that wants to put a skip level on my calendar doesn't matter if they're in my org doesn't matter if they're outside my work right I always make myself accessible and available and um I truly do believe that is it's the onus of the management to uh you know breed that culture you know excuse me I work uh I operate a little bit differently and I hope that my flavor uh rubs off um to some of my colleagues and peers but you know I allow my team to set their own goals right we we operate in an okay our environment we have uh object objectives and key results that we all March toward starts with the company okr distills down to a departmental okr to a team okr to an individual okr and my team gets to set their own okrs now do they have a conversation with their manager to ensure that those okrs are ambitious enough uh maybe too ambitious we need to rate them back a little bit we always have those people maybe reaching a little too high of course right that's just the conversation that needs to happen between uh you know two colleagues uh a report and their manager but as long as as long as we're in agreement that what you're marching toward what you're trying to accomplish is uh pertinent poignant and ambitious I don't need to micromanage you I don't want to micro manage you I want to be as hands off as possible and knock down any roadblocks that may be an impediment to you achieving those goals that that you set and that we both signed off on so that is really kind of my methodology and approach to um you know keeping keeping people and teams happy and firing on all cylinders Jupiter super place to transition here um when it comes to the concept of of synergistic work though four meetings a year we're making baselines and stuff here but what are some of the other things we need to to pay attention to as we make the ship that's to say we gain some things through the covid crisis that we learned about working remotely we certainly have bigger more empowered teams for the broader diversity of places and thoughts what else what else do we need to remember now as we're working in these hybrids and environments and Mike I'm sort of me wonders if there's going to evolve the home team and the away team in businesses the group that's constantly at the core of a place that's in place how does that play out what do we need to what do we need to look for yeah that well that last part again you have a lot of dmos likely listening um and this is a struggle for them and and so when they think about the hybrid they're saying hey we want you in the office maybe three days a week pick the three days well you can imagine Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday most popular so I tell them I said that's okay you know people want to work remotely on Friday and Monday oh well you can you can do a lot of your team face-to-face team work on that Tuesday Wednesday Thursday a lot of your stakeholder work on those days but back to the to the all remote piece again you've got to create the virtual water cooler and know that all of your smaller teams we've got some groups that work in two or three person teams we have others that'll they'll be six or seven I and Ryan made the point I have a session every other week with with the with the non-leadership so with different PODS of the organization that just get to spend an hour with me and talk about whatever they want to talk about so it's just on kind of unfettered access let's let's talk about and there's no question out of bounds we're going to engage I'm going to listen we're going to have a little fun but I'm basically going to empower you to bring things to me that you you know they're gonna we can remove some obstacles and they love that because it's authentic it allows them a real voice to be heard they've got a seat at the table especially the the Z and the Millennials love that kind of environment they want they have to have that and if you want to talk about retention that's critical issue number one is to engage with them listen to them and and I mean really listen and then Empower them to go on I love Ryan I love your goal setting thoughts um that's the key to remote work and um you've got to set the right goals and then let people do their job and uh and that's that's it and so but again I can't stress enough David this this is a tough issue for our DMO friends uh because again they're stakeholders they're going to be a point where they're going to be they're going to say enough of the remote working for the dmos um like why can't they all be here I'm grinding and out running my thousand room Hotel every day I'd like them to be in their office a little more often and so that's going to be a tough Balancing Act I think so Mike you're bringing in a very interesting perspective and and a variable that I will add to the mix then which is there are businesses you know we think of Frontline businesses automatically as having staff who are in place but there are businesses that are you know massive companies that have data divisions and research divisions but also have quasi Frontline divisions in terms of Engagement and working with councils and things like that it really plays out based on a new model that addresses those realities there's no one a place will have a remote Workforce and they will have a Frontline Workforce and they'll have a quasi Frontline Workforce but that does all have to play out still doesn't it we have to think about it differently at all levels from front line to c-suite and it's and it's about flexibility and gig and that's going to take our greater industry a little longer you know those who have to operate the the venues if you will that that's hard work I get it but you're going to get better Talent retain better Talent if you say Hey you can only work four hours a day that works for me what time uh you know and you see the commercials Amazon has been doing this for years and they're they're they're attracting people because they're offering opportunities that fit with their lives and our greater industry travel tourism Hospitality events we have to do the same thing or we're gonna we're gonna continue to lose the battle for talent at all levels and so fresh thinking like with Ryan has is going to be really important I think at all levels and in all sectors for sure so as we deal with this big shift going forward I ask um you know half jokingly are we moving fast enough are we adapting fast enough I know we're adapting as fast as we can I know we're moving quickly there's still a huge rebound flux from this that we don't understand I I see what a couple more years before we reach a cue point where we understand what a gig word or remote worker embedded worker Frontline worker really means and especially if we go at all of that with a sense of equality quality across those things not parody necessarily but we're in flux for a while what do you think Ryan well I think you run the risk of damaging culture if you force it right so I think it needs to I think it needs to happen naturally uh but it does have to happen right again I I I don't see a world uh in the near future where your accounting person needs to be in an office or your um you know of course there probably needs to be a couple of I.T people in the office to make sure that the local network stays up but do you need your whole it team in the office no you just don't so it will happen and and I think um I think it would behoove all Industries not just the DMO industry because there's tons of Ministries that struggle with this I think it would behoo them to start thinking forward about this and how they're going to approach it as an individual entity right because one shoe doesn't fit all in in this world and everybody's going to have to come up with a unique solution that that retains the great culture that you bill with your company or entity or organization or whatever but allows your team the people that you count on and the people that count on you the flexibility to um as Mike said right live their best life right avoid that 90 plus percent I think it was 92 percent I've got the shooter 92 percent of everybody's worst part of their day and their pre-worker team and their committed so yeah David I I have to interject this it's interesting our last two HR leaders that we've placed in the last three months were both remote and if I would have suggested that to our clients pre-covered we would have been fired before we were hired and I'm not being overly dramatic they would have said have you watched what kind of a search firm Are you have you lost your mind you know we will so to Ryan's Point HR leaders that are going to work remote who would have thought and yeah of course you know that's that's good thinking and it's going to work it's going to be a terrific solution for these two clients but if things have changed and that's it and they continue to change so we we opened up with a statement that uh pricewaterhouse air miles and plenty of fish are all shedding office space do you ever see a day when the big Banks or corporations actually have embedded living space in their towers and it's a perk like we're gonna have to rethink a lot of things right uh my wife's company for example uh the the company she was with formerly um as soon as covet hit they closed down a two floor uh 168 person uh office uh which saved the company around 960 000 a year which they could directly invest in their employees uh they decided to go all in on remote day one uh as soon as the pandemic hit and it was nothing but a success uh for them uh does that need to be everybody's plan of course not right uh Mike do you see any do you see any other companies doing anything Innovative in the attraction space with with the shift yeah well you and I talked uh I think in 2020 when we chatted about this office space issue David and you know how I feel about it it's it's not good news for our dmos I mean a a healthy vibrant inner city uh with workers every day in and out is is good for our tourism economy for sure um and good for real estate and good for economic development period so so I worry about that but yeah I mean listen every company uh in every sector of our industry is really thinking long and hard about this it again goes back to what we've already talked about the ones who are operating in facilities are are really struggling to understand how do some get this benefit of remote and hybrid While others every single day have to be there and again what I will say is think differently about your Frontline team too and the ones who have to be on property this they can have flexibility they can have gig they can have all of these similar perks they're just going to work a little differently and it's okay and I I think another thing just to piggyback off that a little bit is um you know the co-working space is uh always an option right young people want to be around other young people so it doesn't have to be a complete sacrifice of those um you know properties in downtown areas they could be easily converted into co-working spaces where people from multiple companies could come together uh and be around people in like Industries or unlike Industries right uh but just folks that that um are now empowered to work remotely uh still want to be around you know folks there on age so always an option to you know for companies to Pro you know provide like a stipend to you know 300 bucks a month to go get your own co-working space or something like that so there's there's options everywhere Supreme all right well listen guys I totally thank you both for being here it's always exciting and Illuminating talk to either of you uh in closing quick thoughts what are the values and benefits driving the future the future of talent the future War whoever wants to go first take it Mike yeah you know for me it is it's the authenticity of the culture and and that that can happen virtually and live and it's and as Ryan has pointed out it's up to the leader uh to decide on how they want to leave lead and show up and engage and listen and empower the team and so let's not get hung up on where how we do it but the leader you know has to lead and has to create that authentic culture that connects with all generations or those four or five generations we have in the workforce especially those Z's and Millennials expect that and they're going to choose their employer based on it right honestly I would have said the exact same thing uh you know let's let's make sure that our leaders are thinking uh about the mental health and um you know long-term goals of their team uh surround themselves with passionate people that embrace the culture and the goals of the company and it's a recipe for Success right you you will you will not fail uh if you surround yourself with the right people have the right leaders in place and uh find the correct way to drive your team uh towards success well guys thanks that was great have a great day

2023-01-13 22:22

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