Bob Corlett, President of The Staffing Advisors generously shared his thoughts with me on leadership, vision, priorities and how everyone The Staffing Advisors grew through 2 recessions.
You can listen in streaming mode at this link as Bob shares wisdom, tips and perspectives that would benefit all businesses, regardless of size.
The Staffing Advisors was formed 7 years ago during the previous recession. It is a retained search firm on the foundation of innovation, dedication to his customer’s success, a proprietary search process that results in customer testimonials on his website. He now incorporates a comprehensive social media strategy to continue to expand his search business during THIS recession.
Everyone is talking about the economy and our healthcare right now, but having been through a few recessions, what characteristics do you see in this recession that points to possible glimmers of hope for our economy?
What is interesting, looking at what people are doing for the fall, 80% of what we are doing is replacing someone who was in a job, not necessarily new positions. Only 20% of our openings are new jobs. People are thinking a lot harder about how they are going to replace someone. The companies use this as an opportunity to evaluate the position and expectations at this point. They're thinking: "We need someone who can deal with this "new" challenge. The good thing about this recession for employers is you really can trade-up and seek a better-talented employee.
Job seekers are looking for longevity and quality companies, a place where they can come in and make an impact.
What can other small businesses learn from your success in this tough economy?
I can tell you only what we have done and the kind of lessons that we have learned after having been through several recessions in the staffing business. When I opened my doors in the last recession, I knew something another recession would happen, again.
I looked at who got punished in the last downturn and it was the staffing people.
They were perceived as money-hungry and less interested in customer service.
The larger companies had to lay off 40% of their staff and that was an easier recession then. Meanwhile the smaller firms were thriving and being more innovative in their approach and tactics.
Customer service is the distinguishing factor in the staffing world. It is vital.
What WERE you thinking starting staffing firm during a recession?
I was a bit of a misfit toy in the business. I wanted to drive out some of the inefficiencies in the industry. I wanted to align our interests exactly with our clients. There's no more tug-o-war. I wanted to align our interests with our customer’s interests. Starting my own firm was the logical decision.
I love this term, reasonable aspiration or hoped-for goal. It’s a term from my friend Erika Andersen in her book Being Strategic. What was your reasonable aspiration or hoped-for goal when you started your business back then?
It wasn't a very ambitious goal. I wanted to make a living doing a part of search work that I loved to do doing. And not doing the part I perceived that didn't bring much value to the client.My skills are solving client staffing challenges. I did not like the cold-calling and had to monetize the part that I most enjoyed. I do believe I have achieved this goal.
The thing I look back on and marvel at is...it's pretty neat to build a company around a different organizing principle.
Our repeat business is excellent.
We are thriving in a recession – receive many unasked for testimonials, we have a great amount of repeat business.There is a culture inside the company that manages behavior norms enabling more of a self-run organization. I don't really have to manage very much.
Kinda astonishing to be in this position during the worst recession since 1981.
When did you notice that your corporate culture reinforced the right behaviors and experiences with your customers?
The culture thing was interesting and we are completely virtual.
There is a lot of trust that is baked into the process. We get together as a team and share war stories: discussing issues and resolutions. We have a relentless sharing of best practices. We have been doing this for years. What is interesting is when they had a best practice and shared this, and it was agreed upon as a best practice, if someone was not practicing this, they would have a deep discussion about why they weren’t doing what was approved. The team would “up each other’s game.”
It is like a friendly competition between the project managers and they became self-referencing and sharing the level of play. It was a culture of continuous sharing and betterment.
We are still finding things every single month that we can do better. It is astonishing that after so many years, we are still improving processes and policies.
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What did you do that allows you to accomplish this?
We are very tolerant of mistakes. We love the first mistake. But, only the first mistake.
We're so comfortable with failure, but when you are experimenting you are going to fail.
It is a great learning tool for testing new and other ideas. At every meeting, there is someone who walks away with something new to experiment with – we are like a team of mad scientists.
Failure is totally fine. It is important to try new things. New ideas are rewarded and embraced.
The culture that was really important to us was that everyone is supportive of one another, but also that you are accountable for your own results. We have key performance indicators for everyone. It is a reference point for self-improvement.
The metrics give people the incentive to better ways to do things.
I know your key performance indicators are confidential, but can you give us a broad overview of what they are?
We set out as a brand, to be the SouthWest Airlines of staffing. They set their customer expectations up front to be the low cost airlines, no frills. We look at the metrics for us: we look to things we do, asking if that improves the customer experience measurably, but more significantly, does that speed up or make the hiring process more predictable. Everything we are driving for is trying to get a search done in about 4 weeks. Most searches take about 5 weeks which is stretching the outer limits of slow.
We want it done in thirty days. We looked at
the performance records to see how long the search took from front to back. We looked at how many times did we have to course-correct along the way where we didn’t have the right profile. At the end of a search, either the client will come back or refer us to someone else, but the metric we count is either repeat or referral business without us asking for it. We never want to have to ask. We want the client to feel as though they did that on their own accord. Key performance indicators for us are speed, efficiency and predictability of a search, and at the end of it, did the client take the next volunteer steps mentioned above.
One of the ways you reached your goals is your proprietary recruiting process. Can you share with us how you did that in such a tough industry?
I was really blessed working for others in the industry.
I got schooled in delivering great service and it can not be an accidental thing that each person in the company invents. You have to have a process, check points, predictable procedures/behaviors.
In this business, some job seekers are over eager. They may make some decisions that may not be the wisest. On the customer side it is kind of predictable that the CEO views the job differently than the CFO. If someone is not included in the hiring process, then it is predictable that they will feel left out and behave badly. There are just things that happen that are entirely predictable in the search process. We looked at this and asked what we can do to engineer them out of the process.
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If we can deal with the really predictable issues, we will spend a lot less time apologizing and wasting time and effort on things that didn’t need to happen.
We need to harvest the value and cut the cost of the search and be more productive and efficient. How can shave out the wasted time? Build a different process? It is not rocket science. Just look at those things that irritate others. It is a results-based hiring process.
What are you reasonable aspirations for one year from now? What will we celebrate?
The thing we are actively doing right now is “de-Bobing” the company.
There is too much “me” in the middle of the process, where I do something with each and every client, each and every search. If we are going to scale, I basically have to take the things I do and transfer them to the project managers. Everything the project managers do, transfer that to the people who work for them.
We call it enterprise sales.
We are a simply flat fee and small companies can afford to use us on a continual basis. The involvement becomes more personal with key account customer service and the customer sees the project manager more. As we build the culture, the employees take over more of the process, as I am not involved with each client, and we can’t go there until the service is impeccable until it is perfect, no matter who is delivering it.
We have made a lot of strides in the last 18 months.
We must hit the service metrics first, not the financial metrics.
Your commitment to the service and customer is inspiring. Why? What made you do the opposite of what most businesses do, making the customer happy?
When you have a financial choice to bring in a dollar and make someone unhappy later, or not bring in the dollar, even though you have to make payroll on Monday, is a difficult decision.
We know that bad news travels fast! We hired people who have an innate desire to serve others.
This is what made me a misfit toy in some of the companies that I worked for. I was told I was an idiot and needed to pay attention to the financial metrics. I would say no, I will not make someone made to make a financial metric number. I won’t leave someone feeling jipped or that we were at odds with their best interest. We were never at odds with our customer’s interests.
What is different about the hiring process in this recession as compared to last? Clearly you take a different but proper approach, but in general, do you see any changes?
There is a complete shift in the recruiting world because of the Internet. What has happened now, the cost of getting at highly qualified people is so easy now. LinkedIn is a great resource for finding high achievers.
The value in the search firm is figuring out what do you want them to solve today? What competencies do they need? The message that you put out is much more important than how you reach people. You used to have to cold- call and now you can use the ease of social media.
A great search firm always had a great pitch and social media allows you to deliver that so easily.
What are three ways small and medium size business can do to help themselves as their industry become commoditized?
The drive to commoditization is just a fact of life. What is interesting, so many buyers are so disappointed. People are irritated by the level of service they receive or not or forcing us to use "self-service". I think small businesses have a tremendous opportunity to understand service now more than their customers do. Customers don’t care about the process; they merely want a predictable experience of getting what they wanted. I think small companies are able to be more nimble and solve the issues.
Service is KING! A guarantee is a sure way to make sure no one walks away disappointed.
Healthcare and small business: What role do healthcare benefits play in your recruiting role and talent?
Every small business feels as though they are at a disadvantage if they can’t provide the benefits similar to a company like GE. Benefits do matter, but they are really a cost issue. It is a trade off. Small businesses really underestimate how meaningful work is an attractor. What really pulls people in is the meaningful work and making an impact. If you offer that, you really can be below market in salary and benefits. People want to make a difference where they work.
What has been your biggest surprise with Twitter and when and how did you embrace Twitterville?
I started with e-newsletters and that is still the biggest touch point with my clients as not everyone is on Twitter. What is amazing is Twitter's world wide network, the thought leadership and how fast it is (so much faster than the news).
Why should companies call you to help with their staffing needs?
If you have a high-stakes hire and you want to be sure you have the right person, be sure they are coming to you for the right reasons, and coming to you for the right money, expectations, and they will be around for years to come, give me a call. I will solve your problem in one month!
Follow Bob Corlett here:
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Thank you for sharing your nice article. Keep up the good work.
Posted by: Rådgivende ingeniør | November 03, 2009 at 12:21 AM