What Should You Automate? with James Lawton
With so many different business processes, how do you know which ones are worth your time to automate?
Find James here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameslawton1981/
[Transcribed from video above]
00:07.51
Brad Owens
What's up everybody welcome in again to the transform recruiting podcast I'm your host brad o wins and with me today I've got Mr James lot and James welcome so much I appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you, thank you.
00:21.14
James Lawton
Thank you Brad great to be here.
00:24.70
Brad Owens
So give me and everyone else listening just a little bit of background The conversation's going to go pretty deep here so we want to make sure everyone understands where you're coming from.
00:32.77
James Lawton
Yeah, absolutely so Brad like yourself I've worked in and around the industry for over a decade almost two. In fact I cut my teeth as we say here in the Uk in it contract recruitment just over seventeen years ago ah worked in and around space ever since worked in varying forms of digital tech for the last maybe 12 years or so and for the last six almost seven years I've been specifically selling recruitment crm mats solutions I've worked for a couple of american firms I currently work for a dutch business based out of rotterdam I work from home just outside London in the Uk but I've got a pretty broad reach covering geographically the Uk Island and the us.
01:19.78
Brad Owens
So see everyone didn't know when they tuned in that we have a multinational podcast we are across the globe folks I Love it all right? So you've got an interesting perspective then because you've seen not only with the recruiting side in using pieces of software. But you've also seen what software can do.
01:26.20
James Lawton
Absolutely.
01:38.94
Brad Owens
Ah, not to lead you down any path because I'm really curious to hear where your head's at what do you feel like so facing the recruiting industry right now. What are we facing.
01:46.36
James Lawton
Well I think it's a really strange situation that we're in at the moment. Obviously there's a global war for talent and as you undoubtedly know recruitment is often the canary in the coal mine when it comes to the economy and the strange thing is that at the moment. Multiple countries that the us the Uk Germany others are all technically in recession and yet we still have this war for talent. Everybody is is hiring still which is great. Um I worry that we might get to a place early to mid next year where people stop. Recruiting I hope that's not the case. Um, we've just come of course out of covid and then with the war in Russia and the Uk other pressures such as brexit all have an impact. Um, obviously everyone hopes that the war in Ukraine is going to come to an end sometime soon and I think if that. Does happen then that's going to help everything that's going to help with the energy crisis. It's going to help with with food distribution. Um, but yeah I worry that if it doesn't end soon that is going to impact. Um that this current war for talent that's going to turn the other way I think businesses might stop. Recruiting and and then there could be a real dive and heavy recession. So fingers crossed. That's not going to be the case.
03:09.65
Brad Owens
Yeah, do you think that the um, the current continued interest in talent is due to kind of a a surplus of jobs that was out there or do you feel like they there's something else at play.
03:23.89
James Lawton
I Think there's ah, a whole really complicated mixture of things that have come into it. Um, there's There's this weird dynamic with the money Markets. There's a lot of money at the the higher end that is looking for a place to go and when you look at small businesses. If if you had a small business today and you're recruiting for a couple of roles to grow your business if a hedge fund or a venture capitalist came to you and said could you spend $10000000 a small business probably wouldn't be able to get that money out there. So and then with what's happened with the stock markets recently. There's this really strange dynamic of money that needs to be spent but can't be spent in certain places. Um, and then with um, yeah, it's this weird thing also with the change of the. The change of the job market in terms of where the roles are and this kind of leads in some things that that you were mentioning we we might get onto in terms of where the market is going. Um and so to sort of jump ahead on some of your your potential questions we will see changes as technology impacts more the both the recruitment industry but. But any any businesses how they operate how they how their business processes are carried out as we automate those things more that's going to impact what people's jobs are and so yes, just like the the what were they called the the luggites many many years ago.
04:51.58
Brad Owens
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
04:53.88
James Lawton
Worried that that technology coming in was going to get rid of people's jobs. It wouldn't it won't it will change the kind of jobs. So I think I think we're seeing a bit of that right now already and I think that looking forwards. The changes that we'll see as more and more gets automated that there are going to be new jobs that come up. But yeah, we're definitely seeing that a bit at the moment. There's all these new jobs in tech in particular that just weren't there ten fifteen years ago
05:23.39
Brad Owens
Do you think? So we always hear about skill gap when we're talking about recruiting when you say there are these new jobs that popped up. Um, do you see anyone that's doing a good job addressing this skill gap and I'll qualify that one while you think about it.
05:27.20
James Lawton
Yeah.
05:41.40
Brad Owens
I really felt like when I was in deep recruiting roles. There would be these new jobs that would pop up these new kind of tech roles and they'd say yep we need someone who knows xyandz and be able to do this and here's the projects they're going to be working on and they would turn down everyone that didn't have it. They weren't really. Realizing that hey look that skill just got created here or two ago there's not going to be anyone that has this kind of skill set. Do you see anyone that is doing a good job of addressing that whether through how they're. Communicating with their clients or how they are creating that that talent pool for that.
06:15.50
James Lawton
Yeah, it's interesting I heard you talk about this before brad it's the the unicorn versus the the hall scenario. Where actually if you took this person on and trained them to do the role that you want them to do at the moment they could actually go on and and do a number of other things. So what? What's interesting is we've all gone through an education system that was set up a hundred plus years ago and it doesn't really position us for the world of work Today. So I left the university twenty years ago and this this was being talked about back then that there should be. Should be a closer relationship between the education system and the the world of business. Um, because coming out of university you're not really geared up properly for life and for getting a job. Um, there are some people out there. Actually there are a number of um as as we would call them. Recruitment firms in the Uk staffing and recruiting firms that are taking university college levers and they are training them up with skills like within the south force ecosystem to use an example they will then um, put those those. Young graduates out on suconment with companies that were recruiting and struggling to find people that already had those skills they they will train them up over a sort of 6 7 8 week boot camp put them out as juniors for what were meant to be senior roles.
07:45.96
James Lawton
And then if they pass that sort of 2 3 months a comment they will then stay on and I think that's exactly the kind of thing that is plugging a gap but it actually shouldn't be up to those private companies to do that. There should be. Even if it's not necessarily a closer relationship between business and and the colleges and universities themselves the colleges and universities should be doing a better job of of gearing graduates up for the for the labor market.
08:12.49
Brad Owens
Yeah I agree I love that kind of approach of hey we're going to train you ourselves. We'll take on that because we know the value that we'll get out of you later is going to be incredibly high I like that approach I think it takes. Someone with a fair amount of capital going back to your what do we do with all those millions of dollars it takes them with a fair amount of capital to do that. But I agree with you I think it would be a good approach to help filling that do you feel like that comes into play with what you said earlier about as we automate more.
08:27.53
James Lawton
Um, yeah.
08:41.91
Brad Owens
Role is going to be kind of changing of what we need from a recruiting firm or what we need from a recruiter or were you envisioning something different.
08:48.99
James Lawton
Yeah, no, that's partly it and I think as as we do progress with technology as we think about where we're going to be in the next ten to twenty years I think there will be a ah huge dynamic shift with how recruitment is done I think as long as. There are people in jobs we will never get rid of recruiters be that internal recruiters or or external staffing firms but it may be that there's a ah shift in terms of of the numbers. Um, one thing so as I mentioned and and again this is almost twenty years ago perhaps it's it's changed a little bit in the market I definitely know that um the way recruiters are seen and perceived in the market has got cleaner over time. Um, there were some really bad practices when I was when I first joined the industry. Um, but it was very much a bums on seats and see who survives and who doesn't throw them out to sea and see if they sink or swim type thing. Um, and I think that as an industry we could be doing a better job at that already setting recruiters up for success rather than just. Training them up giving them ah the internet and a phone and seeing how they do um but I think even more than that it will change because as we collect better cleaner data as we are better at analyzing that data as we are better at.
10:19.44
James Lawton
Addicting and and this comes into the whole Ai piece. Um, but I think we need to be careful there as well because correlation does not mean causation. So just because we're seeing something in the numbers doesn't necessarily mean it's going to predict. It's just giving you a better educated guess. Think as all of these things happen what we'll probably see is actually it's only the really good recruiters that stay on. So only those that are really good with the interpersonal skills and again a couple of reasons for that is because more things will get filled automatically. But also. Think as we do less of the mundane admin and that's that's what I'm passionate about is is actually placing people to do what they're good at so I'm sure you find it. We all find it. There are things that you think ah. This this bit of my job I hate this bit of admin I hate if onlyy I didn't have to do this and when it comes to recruiters. There's all sorts of things that businesses asked them to to log and to record and it's the same in the us as it is over here. Everyone says oh recruiters and salespeople they're so bad at admin. Well they work long hours and they want to do what is effective with their time. So I think as we are able to take them away from doing those mundane clerical tasks. We get them doing what they're good at which is speaking to candidates and speaking to clients but at the same time you also want to hone that.
11:50.60
James Lawton
Always like I forget if it was yourself or someone else talked about um recruiters having hour long interviews with candidates that they were never going to place. So Obviously you want to you don't want them doing that. But if they could be spending more of their time speaking to clients speaking to candidates where they can have value then. You'll you'll see a huge uplift from that.
12:10.98
Brad Owens
Yeah, they should like you said interpersonal skills. They should their job should be building trust and creating relationships because trust relationships that's longevity that reduces ghosting that has them coming back to you and referring other people over and over again. It's just that good kind of repetitive.
12:17.60
James Lawton
Yeah, absolutely.
12:30.20
Brad Owens
Motion that we want to see out of the market. So you mentioned the admin stuff What do you see in your world taking recruiters doing that they shouldn't have to what takes up the most time as far as this admin stuff.
12:44.66
James Lawton
Well so I mean it's different depending on the business. But 1 thing I I do see time and time again which is is really strange to me is how inefficient people are at connecting so just some very simple little hacks without. Naming any specific brands. There's a number of tools out there I use a a tool that integrates with multiple calendars for me and then I'm smart about my meetings where I'll if it's an hour meeting I'll book. It is a 45 minute meeting there's a 15 minute gap you have a number of those gaps you send out links to people that are trying to connect to you. They can put a 15 minute calling you calendar the amount of times I've spoken to recruiters in the past where they'll leave me a voicemail and I'll call them back. You drop them an email they and you end up just playing what we call telephone tennis and what why not just schedule it and make it happen at the time.
13:40.50
Brad Owens
Yeah, yeah, that is surprising to me because when I first started up the first firm I was in I mean we had more recruiting coordinators than recruiters just because it took so much time and effort just to schedule things and to get resumes in shape to send those out to.
13:40.22
James Lawton
But you're both free.
13:50.82
James Lawton
Now now.
13:59.76
Brad Owens
Deal with the replies back from the clients like we had most people doing admin work. They were low-paid. They didn't they weren't involved in as much of the upside potential because they weren't taken on a lot of the risks they were just doing the admin work. But yeah I'm with you and it's surprising to me that that hasn't changed in so many years.
14:18.29
James Lawton
Yeah, absolutely and and that's at the front end and the area within the staffing industry that I focus on particularly at the moment is where you're dealing with high volumes of contingent workers temporary workers.
14:18.40
Brad Owens
That was decades ago.
14:35.24
James Lawton
And it's funny when you look at staffing at recruitment and systems and where the difficulty is where the harder piece is so when you think about recruitment itself and all the the varying flavors of that for me I would say well. But where you make the most money as a recruiter is typically your executive search. It's your very very high end. It's the ultimate in personal relationships. Um and very little actual admin other than doing some some reports and and research there's a fair amount of research. But then as the as the actual recruits. The the recruitment and recruiting job gets easier when you get down to the low-skilled blue collar. So it is literally bums on seats that you're trying to fill that as a job gets simpler but in terms of managing it. It gets far more complex and the reason for that. Because there are so many different variations so you might have dozens of workers on various sites on various pay rates with various overtime charges and bill rates, etc. And that's where the recruitment job itself might be quite simple because you can just ping a message out to. Ah, don't know it might be You've got a requirement for 20 laborers and it's day labor and you ping ah a message out to a load of the people that you're connected with and half of them except and their place tomorrow but then managing that actual placement and all the the time paying Bill. That's where the complexity comes into.
16:07.31
James Lawton
Because there's so much variation and so you often see with staffing agencies even where they even even where they're they've invested in technology in the front end they are often doing things very manually in the mid and and back office So you've got ah this heavy. Um, reliance on copy paste with with different systems with Data. So yeah, that's an area that I think there could be a ah lot of efficiency drive in the future.
16:36.71
Brad Owens
Yeah, are you seeing anyone do a good job of that or are you aware of things that would solve for that.
16:46.64
James Lawton
Yeah, and and again I know we're we're not I'm not selling here so I'm not going to talk specifically about us and I'm I'm not going to talk about any particular um brands or even ecosystems but it's all thinking about the actual business process. So. I'm actually working on a piece of content at the moment with a business that we work closely with and the idea is to try and help educate when people are thinking about large projects when they work for a large staffing firm or organization doesn't doesn't necessarily just need to be an actual staffing firm. Um. It's thinking about your business processes. So think about how you do things today whether it's systems whether it's manual whether it's excel sheets etc so literally plot out step by step What do we do and then think about well how could it be done. And then work out what what is it actually worth you trying to improve and and that's where it all starts from its business processes think about it. It doesn't need to be particularly complex I was talking to someone from gartner yesterday and they were saying that software buyers which is obviously the world that I'm in. Within staffing are more confused than ever and I'm not surprised. There's so much tech out there. There's a lot of good tech out there. How do you know? what to buy well just work from basics of well what are we actually trying to improve and why.
18:07.47
Brad Owens
Yeah, and you mentioned a good point. What's worth improving like there's a lot of things that you could do. But yeah is that really worth the roi on what you're going to put into that to figure it out.
18:11.15
James Lawton
Yeah.
18:16.47
James Lawton
Exactly well this funly enough that leads into the hardest thing about my job at the moment. So years ago I worked for what we'd refer to as an off-the-shelf solution and out of from my almost twenty year career in in staffing and sales. Was probably the easiest job I ever did it was a good product. It did what it said it did and as much as I would try to be consultative and understand the client's um problems and and how we could fix them when it came to actually demoing the software. We just well. This is what it does and this is what it doesn't do and and that was it. Um. Thinking about where I can help people today. It's it's difficult because many people with many businesses. Want the the best the latest the greatest they want to fully automate but you've got to think about why we're doing it and how much. Not not just what the spend is going to be but how much time you need to put into it. How much resource you need to put into it and is that worth what you're trying to achieve with the the end result because actually unfortunately for many people and many businesses it. It may well still be that actually you should just be doing that manually today. Still.
19:26.19
Brad Owens
Yeah, because there's not a lot of there's not a lot of data that's clean to your point because firms for the longest time have just kind of handed over here's what you need to do here's how we would suggest doing it go.
19:35.62
James Lawton
Yep.
19:44.40
Brad Owens
We've given you all the tools that we think you might need. But I mean everyone's turning to their spreadsheets just because it's easier just because that's where they can keep control of all their data and keep it out of other recruiters that they might be competing with hands and because everything occurs out there. You don't have the clean data to know what would be worth your while. So.
19:48.66
James Lawton
Yeah.
20:04.10
Brad Owens
1 of the biggest things that I'm seen and I know you're dealing with the same thing is how do you actually get all this data back in a place where you can just run it through the same system we will start with Ai or automation or anything just run it through the same system. That's one of the largest things that I continually have a conversation with leaders about.
20:16.23
James Lawton
Yeah.
20:23.28
Brad Owens
An interesting conversation that I had here recently? Ah, we were going through like you were talking about like layout your business processes understand what's happening and then you can have an idea of what to really focus on. But we were. We took that conversation a step further and we said let's first focus on where all the data for all these things are coming from so we laid out this big map of all the different data sources and they went they were in I t they said wow. I've never realized how many places this has to go and what we're drawing from and how much copy paste is happening like I know like that's why we went through the process and I think if anyone would sit back and really look at that they go oh man, we got to fix this. So.
20:54.66
James Lawton
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:04.30
James Lawton
Well so so you say that's the place to start and and yes, absolutely I'd say the step before that though is and and what's the author's names sinek Simon Sinek start with why? Why are we trying to do this so yes, start with why? Why are we trying to do this. What is the end goal that we want to achieve.
21:13.99
Brad Owens
Oh yeah, yeah yeah.
21:22.29
James Lawton
Then once you know that then go well where are we today. What's what we actually doing today because yes, it's surprising like I've got exactly the same thing going on with a prospective client that I'm talking to at moment. We've been talking for a year and they had come out with an ah rfi. Um, almost a year ago and then they've they've realized actually it was more of a wish list and when they started investigating a bit further. They realize we don't actually know what's going across ah and this is an organization that spans multiple countries and multiple legal entities. So it's not surprising. But they realize we don't actually know how our people are using our systems and to their great surprise excel sheets still outside of it and so that has set that has set the whole project back a bit which is fine but that's partly why this piece of content that I'm trying to write at the moment about um.
22:04.34
Brad Owens
Always.
22:16.54
James Lawton
Yeah, and understanding where you are today before you try and go somewhere new because if you don't even understand where you are today. You might end up doing something's better by chance. But actually there might be a load of stuff that isn't worth fixing and then a load of stuff that you should be fixing. It didn't even realize.
22:32.80
Brad Owens
Yeah, the amount of times that I for these organizations will sit beside recruiters and watch them work and realize that the person I was sat with yesterday did a completely different way. It's it's amazing to me. But I mean it shouldn't be surprising. It's not something that we focused on for so long. This has been a.
22:42.80
James Lawton
Now.
22:51.10
Brad Owens
Smile and dial industry for the longest time and just now there there is more of an ability to take advantage of tools that will that'll start making this a lot easier and making the integration easier.
23:00.28
James Lawton
And and I think there's I think there should ah I think there should and always will be room for personality with these types of roles recruiters are obviously generally quite outgoing people and I don't think you want to try and box everybody into doing everything exactly the same way. Um, but but.
23:08.97
Brad Owens
Yes.
23:21.60
James Lawton
Trying to make things easier for everybody in terms of yes, accessing the data. What's important to them. Um, how how do they do their job and actually how can we prevent them having to click so many buttons to record things when there's so many different ways of. Automatically capturing that data today.
23:41.12
Brad Owens
So I want to dig into this perspective client that you've got because this could be an interesting process for others that are listening so you mentioned Simon Sinek let's start with why let's figure out why we're doing these things. Let's get all these processes together in.
23:54.17
James Lawton
Yeah.
24:00.50
Brad Owens
When we're thinking about these large businesses that span across the world that could be quite a long and arduous process. What have you throughout this conversation and probably others that you've had what have you uncovered have been some of the big stumbling blocks for organizations that are going Through. Just getting to that process of let's start mapping everything out and figuring out where everything is.
24:21.77
James Lawton
I would say it's the visibility piece. So I think if so so with this one particular case that I'm talking about the biggest surprise was the fact that people were not working within the current system because they have an enterprise piece of software in place. It's.
24:35.20
Brad Owens
Who.
24:40.66
James Lawton
Old it's it's they've they've had it in place for a long time. Um, but there really isn't a reason why they should have still been working Out. Spreadsheets is just because some of those teams and and workers are so remote and weren't so connected with head office maybe or some central resource. They just turned back the clock slightly by by going back to working for some with some excel sheets because to them. It seemed simpler but the problem is then that you've got siloed data and and it's it's harder for the business to to manage and to have visibility over that.
25:17.39
Brad Owens
So given that issue I'm going to hand you an unlimited budget unlimited people resources. How would you start changing that What would you do to change this for our industry. What would you create.
25:31.50
James Lawton
Well, if if I knew that if I had an idea of 1 thing I could create I think I'd be. You wouldn't need to give me the unlimited resources I think I'd make myself a rich man I don't know is the answer but the the future vision I have. Is of people being able to use their time efficiently and spending their time on doing what they're good at and what they enjoy so much of my time is spent prospecting and trying to find the right events to go to the right people to connect with the right. All I want to do is find people that have problems I can solve because if I can spend my time doing that I'll make money and I can feed my family they will make money because they'll be more efficient but it's about connecting the right pieces the right people with each other and so if I.
26:09.77
Brad Owens
Ah.
26:24.70
James Lawton
I Don't know what the solution would be. It's it's it's an ever advancing state to greater efficiency to connect people with the right people to do what they're good at that's that's what I'd want to achieve.
26:37.75
Brad Owens
Yeah I'm with you I agree I think that's one of the bigger things that the industry at large could focus on and and be doing a better job of enabling their sellers and their recruiters to be able to do because they did. They just haven't had that at their fingertips before.
26:50.56
James Lawton
Yeah, and and I feel I feel like we're always slightly a step behind other industries. Um with with the staffing industry. So with we're slight luggites if that was even the right term that I used earlier. Um.
26:56.55
Brad Owens
How so.
27:07.19
James Lawton
When you look at how other businesses run when you look at how when you look at how we act day- to-day in our everyday lives but banking shopping checking trains or or travel how long is it goingnna take me to thrive so you do it a woman on your phone and it's. Immediate information in your fingertips and we we don't have that today in the staffing world but I do feel like we're we're making great advances.
27:34.60
Brad Owens
Yeah I think we'll get there. Yeah and it's coming fast I'm seeing people focusing on that now I mean it's crazy. The people that he gets talked to when you're in this industry and there's a lot of people that are starting to realize hey we need to pay attention. Well.
27:40.84
James Lawton
Yeah.
27:49.50
Brad Owens
James I want to respect your time and I really appreciate you taking this time to have this conversation because this is enlightening and I know a lot of people that are listening are suffering from the exact same things. So it's going to be 1 nice that they know they're not alone but 2 there's other people that can help them work through these issues. So I appreciate it.
27:52.41
James Lawton
Great connect will be brad.
28:07.10
Brad Owens
Ah, where would you like people to find you if they have other questions.
28:11.10
James Lawton
Ah, yeah, um, you've got my Linkedin Linkedin is probably the best place to connect.
28:13.41
Brad Owens
Okay, perfect. Well then I'll share that in the show notes for everyone James thank you so much again. I appreciate you being part of this and everyone you can find more episodes just like this at transform recruiting dot com if you've got an idea for what we need to focus on next time or if you'd like to have a deep conversation with us. You can email me at hello at Bradowwins.com. Thanks so much again for taking the time out if you want some more. It's transform acruiting dot com. Thanks so much James appreciate it.