Hiring Problems? Is It Recruiting, or Your Culture?
One of my favorite quotes is “the best companies don’t hire, they attract!” Today on the show, Tim Glowa of HRBrain.ai and I talk about what his research has revealed about the issues in company culture today. This show talks a lot about recruiting best practices but there’s only so much we can do if the work environment is terrible. Listen in to learn about some warning signs you should be looking for if you’re having issues hiring.
Download Tim’s research: stateofworktoday.com
Transcript auto generated from content above:
Welcome everybody back to another episode of the transform recruiting podcast as always I'm your host Brad Owens and I got to say recruiting goes much further than just the tactics we use to get candidates interested in our job and how we shuffle them through a hiring process. Recruiting and hiring itself extends into much much more of the business than we probably think about on a day-to-day basis. So I brought on someone today that I want to have talk with you a little bit more about how this percolates throughout the business and how hiring you know might have much more to do with. Maybe some culture issues and maybe there's some other things we're not really paying attention to so I want to introduce you to the fabulous Mr Tim Gloa Tim thanks so much for spending some time with us today. What perfect? Well before we dig in I want to make sure everyone kind of understands.
00:52.99
Tim Glowa
Brad. Thank you so much for having me because I did to be here.
00:59.49
Brad Owens
Where you're coming from in your background. So could you give him the the quick runaround ah on Tim's background
01:05.34
Tim Glowa
Sure so I'm ah a recovering consultant I used to spend ah ah, most of my career working at 1 of the big global hr consulting companies work at Aon Ernst and young I sold a company to Deloitte. I was a partner Grant Thornton and I've started h our brain now to help organizations primarily in the hr space leverage some of the Ai tools to make their lives a little bit easier.
01:32.13
Brad Owens
Perfection that is the gigantic buzzword of the day for sure. A I is everywhere I can't tell you how many times I hear that throughout my day job. Um, well that's awesome. So you um, came with a multitude of experience then. So. When we think about the recruiting world as it is the the tagline for our show currently is the people ideas in tech that are kind of changing the recruiting landscape. So what do you feel like truly is changing the recruiting landscape today.
01:58.70
Tim Glowa
Um, so I think there's there's a few problems or a few challenges and also that presents itself as an opportunity for for companies to do things a little bit differently, but it's really. Um, almost starting before the recruiting part of this equation and and making sure that you get your foundation right? Um, your business right? which will also then help your recruiting and your ability to attract and retain employees. I did a study in January I released it in February. It's free for download if anybody wants it. It's called state of work today if you go to state ofwork today Dot Com you can download ah a copy of this report we surveyed 6000 workers globally. Um, in this study 2000 in the Us 2000 in Canada 2000 in Europe um, and we found a lot of problems. Ah that that many workers are experiencing kind of day-to-day. So for instance for 32% of americans they agree that their manager. Is the single most stressful part of their day right? That's problematic, right? That's really it shouldn't be like that we know there's good managers. We know there's bad managers. Um, but it really indicates that there's you know there's a problem.
03:28.60
Tim Glowa
Within organizations and putting people into managerial positions that maybe they're not getting any training. Maybe they they were a really good deliverer right? They're a good salesperson or or whatever it is um, but now they're leading people and and maybe they shouldn't be right? so. From ah from a recruiting perspective I think that's going to be problematic because you're going to have higher churn with with some of those managers like that. Um, and it's also could hurt you in your ability to attract new candidates because. How organizations treat employees lives forever in the glass door era right? 75% of job seekers in America look at glassdoor good or bad I'm not saying it's good I'm not saying his bad data. But. Your glass door reputation is something that you need to be aware of and manage. Um, and if you have terrible managers causing stress for your employees that's going to show up in glass door.
04:34.37
Brad Owens
Yeah, and I want to pause here on that one because I want to highlight that one for everyone think right now. Um or just go ahead and do this I want to get your reaction audience type in your company and glass store on Google. See what comes up before you actually do that though. How did just thinking about doing that make you feel. That's probably a sign right? That's maybe we should be thinking about this a little bit more not to derail you but I always love that thought experiment for people.
04:58.96
Tim Glowa
Um.
05:05.36
Tim Glowa
Yeah,, that's it's so True. We actually have created an ai powered culture assessment tool that will scrape glassdoor data or any employee feedback employee survey data that you might have and can paint a picture of your corporate culture. Um, it assesses leadership. It. It assesses and determines whether your culture is toxic or high performing. Um, and so many companies when when you look at that data So many companies have leaders that micromanage that change their minds Continuously. Um. You know, provide conflicting and information or or instructions. Um, it really is a little bit of ah, a leadership deficit for you know for many organizations that's coming clear in in a lot of that glass door data. Um, but also looking at the survey again. It's. Becoming clear to many workers that only 38% of Americans Trust the decisions made by their senior leaders. A vast minority have kind of a trust deficit with their senior leaders Now that's different than your manager right? this.
06:11.71
Brad Owens
The vast minority. Wow. Sure.
06:22.37
Tim Glowa
This is intended to get at the you know the senior leaders in a company. Um, but when you look at the glass door data and and you can see thoughts about unethical behaviors or Favoritism or I mean that that stuff comes out when we assess culture of. Using that glass store data.
06:44.36
Brad Owens
Sure. Okay, ah so the potential problems and things that are going to plague hiring. We mentioned kind of that big first step of that foundation. What else is on your list.
06:53.84
Tim Glowa
So I think another another big aspect where we are talking about culture. Um and the importance of culture and I think it's it's worthwhile for everyone to understand what is that? What do we mean when Brad and Tim are talking about culture and it's. First of all, it's kind of the Dna. It's the secret sauce. Um, it's the way organizations. Do things I don't necessarily believe ah you know that there's one size fits all for culture because every organization has a slightly different culture a slightly different way of doing things. And culture iss always evolving right? You probably had a very different culture pre pandemicdemic right? then all of a sudden pandemic hit. Um and that shifted culture probably be more radically than any other shift in in recent memory but it is always evolving right? It's it' it's always evolving. I think the culture that many organizations want is also very different than the culture that employees may encounter day-to-day. Um, just their you know their day-to-day experiences is different than what the the vision that leaders would like to see with their culture.
07:59.66
Brad Owens
Um, me.
08:08.84
Tim Glowa
Back to the the state of work today. 29% of americans described their corporate culture as toxic not just bad but toxic.
08:19.44
Brad Owens
Not just bad but actually actively toxic. Wow.
08:25.16
Tim Glowa
Um, you know. So if if you're you know that's one almost one in 3 right? So if you look at 3 companies almost one out of those will have some sort of toxic culture right? Well what is that? That's that's leadership that doesn't listen. Um, that's leadership that. Micromanages even though they may say that they empower employees. Um, that's leadership that changes their mind and we have to make changes. We have to be flexible. That's you know, but it's it's saying do this do a in the morning and then an hour later you know do z instead. Um, it's it's.
09:02.74
Brad Owens
Martin.
09:03.50
Tim Glowa
it's a problem um it's it's a real problem and it's not just that organizations aren't you know that they're creating this this environment for employees that isn't positive nobody wants to work in a toxic environment. Nobody wants to work in a. Company where their their boss is the single most stressful part of their day. Um, eventually many of those you know it's funny eventually many of those employees may leave or you may capture them right? They may be if you think back to the the Tv series married with children right and l bundy the shoe salesman right.
09:40.97
Tim Glowa
He stuck to that job. He didn't leave right? It was his viewpoint was almost. It's the devil I know right? I'm I would it could be worse even somewhere else right? I want to so you know so he kind of stuck out there but was he do you think he was performing at his best right? was he.
09:57.58
Brad Owens
Likely not.
10:00.80
Tim Glowa
Was he engaging customers and going above and beyond I mean no right? So you may be doing okay, but if you're in this toxic environment. You could be doing better right? If you have a toxic work culture. You may be growing 10 percent a year but you might be able to grow 15 % if you. 20% if you didn't have that that environment.
10:21.81
Brad Owens
Sure so again I mean the audience that I typically have coming on here is thinking Well, where's the recruiting gold. Well think about it this way y'all maybe recruiting is not the issue. Maybe if you try to recruit into like something that might be on fire Why in the world where people come work.
10:38.91
Tim Glowa
He he he he.
10:40.82
Brad Owens
We're trying to help you think about? maybe there's some deeper underlying issues here that you may want to think about as an organization before you start thinking about your actual recruiting itself. So I appreciate you coming on and doing this so we talked about too. We talked about the foundation. We talked about that culture. What are some of the other things that pop up for you is potentially playing into this.
10:58.65
Tim Glowa
So so I think another big one here is the importance of diversity and inclusion. Um, in you know in people's lives now. This has gotten um. A little bit of a bad rap lately. It's become a dirty word. So is esg that was a headline and in in the wall street journal a few weeks back? Um, but it is really important to workers. Um, not just people who might be minorities or lgbtq or or whatever. Not just to women. It's it's it's important to a lot of workers in the same state of work today study. Um, you know 42% of americans believe that their company effectively implements diversity equity and inclusion policies in their workplace. Ah, 42% as well. Also believe that their internal communications are inclusive right? that leaves a lot of room for improvement. Um I think most importantly, as it relates to to recruitment though getting this right really does impact. A candidate's decision to continue in the process or to accept the interview. Ah 51% in in the United States believe that an organization's commitment to diversity equity and inclusion impacts their decision to accept a job or not.
12:28.39
Tim Glowa
Um, numbers are higher in Europe and higher in Canada almost 3 hree-quarters 72% of canadians if if you have some operations in Canada 72% of canadians and 76% of europeans feel. That their organization or the organization's commitment to diversity impacts their decision to accept that job or not so those are almost kind of the table stakes things that we have to get right? as as part of this um, as part of this process and.
13:00.32
Tim Glowa
A lot of organizations aren't getting those table stakes right? and it's not just big companies. It's little companies as well. Um, right now when I've analyzed. Ah so so another tool that h our brain has is a de and I diversity equity and inclusion. Unconscious bias detection solution so you can look at any piece of written content and assess it across 22 different dimensions of diversity equity and inclusion and it will identify if there's any biases in that I've looked at the global fortune 100 companies I took 5 of their last jobs job postings and ran them through this 25% of companies have at least 1 strong bias in them and the most common biases in those job descriptions and these are big companies. Global fortune 1000 um, the most common. Ah bias is gender related the next one is age so if you have language in your job description that is talking about being young and energetic and full. You know that's really a bias that is. Going to Target and ah younger workers as opposed to some of us who may have gray hair. Um, you may use unconsciously ah masculine coded language. For instance, if you're hiring a salesperson right? The the job description may read.
14:33.92
Tim Glowa
Um, you know aggressively meet sales targets right? Well, that's that's very masculine coded language. Um, which may alienate a ah you know potential female candidate gender and age are the 2 biggest offenders you know most common offenders I should say. As it relates to job descriptions but a quarter of all job descriptions have some sort of some sort of bias in them.
14:59.20
Brad Owens
So there you go, you're missing out on a larger recruiting pool of candidates check out your job descriptions. Maybe your job descriptions aren't exactly attracting the type of people that you would truly want in a diverse candidate pool.
15:13.15
Tim Glowa
You know it's even something as simple last week when I looked on Linkedin I typed in the word salesman how many brad jobs. Do you think appeared in Linkedin with the term salesman.
15:21.20
Brad Owens
A.
15:31.70
Brad Owens
And all of Linkedin millions. Oh service. Okay.
15:32.95
Tim Glowa
In it. No, there was 77 right? So there's only 77 right? ah looked at those 77 jobs and if they've been on if they've been live for more than a week. So it's not something that just went up right? It was not something that just was thrown up. You know minutes ago I only looked at the ones that were open and accepting positions for longer than a week of those 77 how many do you think had 0 applicants.
16:06.71
Brad Owens
Shh juding by your stuff 75% of them hey. So.
16:08.90
Tim Glowa
74 of the 77 jobs. So almost all of them had 0 applicants through Linkedin now I know there's other ways to apply and and all that. But if you've got salesman in your title. Of the job that you're looking for. Um, you're not going to attract a lot of women candidates. You're also not going to attract a lot of male candidates either because that's not necessarily the environment that many people might want to work in. It doesn't seem as inclusive as it could be.
16:46.42
Brad Owens
Um, very interesting. Yeah I I Love words matter people like words matter.
16:49.46
Tim Glowa
Words matter language is important and we all make mistakes right? I you know I use the term Guys. You know how? how are you guys doing right? but we we need to. Be as inclusive I think as we can and and really check ourselves on those unconscious biases. These are not intent not at all suggesting that these are blatant you know blatant offenses. It's unconscious, right? We are just using language that. May alienate a certain part of ah of our target audience if we think of you know we think of a lot of the functions in Hr We really need to leverage a lot of the the thinking. Um that happens every day in marketing.
17:24.36
Brad Owens
Depth.
17:39.33
Tim Glowa
We need to figure out how we can write copy and and and job descriptions which is really basically an advertisement um in a way that we can attract. Ah the best candidates right? Just like advertising copy does and just like direct mail copy does right. Um, we we need to think like a marketer and use some of that data. Um, you know not be stuck in. You know the the last century like many in hr. Not everyone of course, but many in Hr many hr leaders are afraid of using data whereas it's common in marketing right? You can. Forecast ah, you know lifetime customer value in in marketing. You can forecast the probability that a customer is going to sign up. We don't use a lot of those same analytics and in the hr space I think we can learn a lot hr leaders can really learn a lot by partnering. Across the silo with their their marketing colleagues and see what they're doing and see how we can apply this to the entire employee lifecycle the the attraction the retention the rewarding the engaging in some cases the offboarding of of talent and how we can. Use data to make smarter decisions in that entire process.
18:55.35
Brad Owens
Love that I love it all right? So you and I can certainly talk for an hour or two or fiv hour about all of the different problems that people could have but you've been in this space a while you've been seeing transformations you've been helping people through these. Um.
19:01.21
Tim Glowa
Um.
19:09.76
Brad Owens
What do you feel like if someone's listening in there all of a sudden like ah crap you're right I may want to start thinking about some other things. Um, where's that low hanging fruit that you typically see companies able to knock out and start making Headway towards these solving some of these issues.
19:25.52
Tim Glowa
So I think the easiest way to look at this? Um, you know, really is to bring data into the equation. Um, do a quick employee survey spend 5 minutes um if if you're ah you know if if you've got ah somebody in your marketing group who can help with a survey put together a survey an engagement survey a culture survey you some openended questions put that data into chat Gpt and and. Get some insights as to what's going on with your workforce I'm a huge believer in data right? because that that brings light into the picture it sheds light on problems and then you can start to make decisions and adjustments in in a more thoughtful way. Another great one to do is is to really look at onboarding ah surveys why does somebody join your company right? A simple survey two 3 minutes right for every new hire send them a question even an open-ended question. Why did you join our company. Right? Just have them respond back compare that to your offboarding surveys right? if I joined because of reasons Xy and z and I'm canadian so I apologize for the zed there. Um x y and z but I'm leaving because of reasons x and b and c.
20:57.73
Tim Glowa
Right? Then we're probably messing up X Whatever that is right I join for you know to learn about a new process or a new technology right? That was my expectation. Um, but I'm not seeing that right? then we're we're having a breakdown in either the communication or the delivery or.
20:59.41
Brad Owens
A.
21:15.68
Tim Glowa
Or in some cases we could have a you know breakdown just in that whole recruiting process If we're telling people you know raising their expectations about about being able to do something and not delivering on that.. That's why 60% of of workers feel of job switchers feel. Um, that their expectations were Met. Why is that so Low. What are we? What are we over promising? Ah, but then under delivering right? and we need to have that data in order to make that you know those sorts of informed decisions. So.
21:50.85
Tim Glowa
I'm a huge believer in in in in short surveys they don't have to be long gone are the days where the survey should take 30 minutes but you really should be looking at brief surveys a couple minutes 2 3 minutes long ask 1 open ended question. Um. Even do the net promoter surveys right? Just just track those over time every quarter and and use that data ask them ask the follow up question. Ask why you feel that not just the net promoter score but ask why they they answered in that way and you'll get far. Greater insights into your workplace that you can then start to develop some strategies ah to address some shortcomings There is no silver bullet right? There's no 1 thing that you can do that will solve all problems because we don't know as a former consultant. We don't know what your problems are and your problems at company x. Are going to be very different than companies. Ed yeah.
22:49.50
Brad Owens
I like your idea of gather the data. Ah, if those listening might need some different ideas Google employee pulse surveys that used to be kind of the big term of.
22:56.14
Tim Glowa
So.
22:59.71
Brad Owens
Um, hey just really quick. Easy pulse Surveys Once a week kind of thing and you'll start gathering some of this data so check and start using it. Yeah.
23:06.42
Tim Glowa
There's there's also templates with Surveymonkey ah, you know that you can use. Um you know I think the other the other 2 other things that organizations should really think of is they should really look at their talent acquisition funnel and and pipeline. Right? How many I was I remember working with 1 client in the in the past and they were manufacturer in the us and they had ah doing a lot stuff with styrofoam. Um you know and and and food containers and things like that and they would hire 50 people. But after two weeks only 1 or 2 would still be there right? So a lot wouldn't even show up for the first day right? So you hire someone? You're going to okay start on Monday and 10 of those would not even show up because it was it was really kind of you know it was.
23:45.68
Brad Owens
Ouch.
24:00.54
Tim Glowa
Not ideal working conditions right? it was it was hot. There were smells. You're dealing with chemicals. Um, you know it was not necessarily ventilated all that well they weren't paying really well they increased the salary by maybe a quarter. Or they find that if a chicken factory were to come to the same town where the factory was they would lose all a whole bunch of their workers right? because they pay $4 an hour more so really kind of get that you know understand those metrics right? understand your your pipeline and. You know, maybe that's what you have to do. But if you need 10 workers right? That means you need to get 250 new hires right? Just understand you know, really really understand those metrics. Um, and then I think the second. Big thing that organizations need to think about is is what what are your demographics of your current workforce right? The average age of an american worker today is 42 right? Just the straight average in some places. Um, the average age of a work is much older. So nurses. For instance, the average age of an Rn today is 50 so if you're a hospital right? or bus drivers or also have typically older workers. Um libraries typically have.
25:21.49
Tim Glowa
Workers over 50 and also electrical utilities. A lot of the linemen. The people fixing things are often over the age of 50 does um ah calling those folks old but I am saying that they are 1 step closer to that glide path into retirement right? And if. You thought there was a challenge a couple years ago with a great resignation. We as a society are going to be facing that in the next couple years as a lot of these workers start to exit and what can you do to retain them. Only 10% of organizations in America today have a mature worker retention strategy in place. So your recruiting challenges can get a lot worse in the coming years if we're not able to kind of hold onto some of those. Critical people today now they may not want to do the same job. Maybe they want to leave a legacy. Maybe they want to work part-time right? before they leave. Maybe they want to mentor. You know the next generation of workers. There's lots of different ways that organizations can get smart about that. But you really have to know your numbers. Right? You have to know the average age of your workers. Um, and if that is going to create just you know I don't like to say a tsunami but a big wave of exits in the coming years. You need to know about that now and start to plan for it.
26:52.70
Brad Owens
Yep I like it. Those are some fantastic takeaways I don't want to overload people I think like just a couple is ah a good start for everyone else but I want them to be able to find more when they want them so give everyone a little piece of. Of Tim on the internet where can they go to find you.
27:11.60
Tim Glowa
So on Twitter I'm at Tim Glowa GLOW a and also my company is HRBrainDotAI.
27:23.32
Brad Owens
That's quite the coveted Url. That's fantastic. All right I will can you shout out the link again to the state of work that you did.
27:30.96
Tim Glowa
You bet so go to state of work today dot Com there's also a link from from a main website hrbrain.ai under the thought leadership tab just sign up, grab a copy of the report and you'll have it in your mailbox within seconds.
27:47.27
Brad Owens
Perfect I'll make sure that that link is in the show notes for everybody but Tim thank you so much for giving us a little bit of insight and to maybe thinking a little bit deeper outside of our recruiting processes to see that there may be some underlying problems as well. Really really appreciate that.
27:52.71
Tim Glowa
Um, it.
28:04.30
Brad Owens
Everyone if you enjoyed this episode. There are many many more like it at transformrecruing.com if you have any suggestions for what we may want to discuss in a future episode or know someone that may be interested and you want to hear what they have to say shoot me an email. It's hello at bradowins.com
28:18.73
Tim Glowa
I.
28:21.18
Brad Owens
Happy to to talk to you about what we could potentially do in the future. But Tim thank you so much again, really really appreciate it all right? Everyone we'll see on the next one.
28:28.55
Tim Glowa
Brett thank you so much for having me.