Hiring in the Post-Pandemic World

Kris Plachy: Hey, I'm Kris Plachy, host of the Lead Your Team podcast. Running a million dollar business is not easy, and whether you are just getting started with building your team or you've been at this for a while, I'm going to bring you honest, specific and clear practices you can use. Right now today to improve how well you lead your team.

Let's go ahead and get started.

Hello, how are you? Welcome. I'm so happy you're here. I hope your life is good. How? How is your life? Huh? It's been. Such a beautiful summer. I'm just so happy. I feel like. I'm emanating it just to be able to like function in the world in another way. I'm an extrovert if you couldn't tell. You know, I'm a little bit of an energy vampire.

I suck it from y'all. And when I can't be with people it's rough. And I know that's rough on, on millions of us. And and then there's other people, like my daughter loves to be. He just loves to be home and so she's, she's been fine. Anyway welcome. Today I wanna talk to you about something I think is pretty important to talk about and we're gonna talk about hiring, post pandemic hiring.

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Send us a screenshot. Hello at Chris Plaquey or post it on Instagram. Your reviews really do matter. One of the things that I consistently hear from my clients and listeners is they didn't know someone like me existed. They didn't know that the work that I do was like work. So many leaders, people running companies are out there really struggling with the very thing that I know.

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And I would like to thank you for doing so. Okay, so let's talk about hiring post pandemic. So I wanna take you back. I did. I'd had this conversation with my clients in an office hours call this past week, and I just think it was a powerful enough conversation that I wanted to bring in here to this podcast.

I know a year and two, three months ago, March 13th was the day the world stood still, at least it was for me. That was a Friday. It was Friday the 13th. I was supposed to be going to a business conference that was led by Brooke Castillo. She had to cancel it. She had, I don't know, let many hundreds of people coming to Dallas.

People were on the tarmac, people were in the air. You know, it was just one of those mayhem days that, and, and we felt it everywhere. That wasn't just. I'd isolated. That's when the N B A closed, that's when there were girls in the hotel lobby that I was in or the elevator, and they were all there for a basketball tournament, a national competition, and it got canceled.

And anyway, it was just that kind of a day. The world stood still, and then we just sort of went to work. And I remember that was the conversation I had with Brooke that day. I went to her house instead of her having this conference, and we just spent the day together talking about. What this meant and who we wanted to be and how we wanted to take care of our clients and that we were made for this moment.

And so we stepped in and, and in our own different ways. We all did the work and I'm really proud of how I showed up and how my clients showed up for themselves over the past 16 months. I, I don't have any other word for it other than the comp you know, sort of like magic work, hyphenated magic work because it was a hell of a lot of work.

But there was some magic in there because 98% of my clients actually were more successful last year than they were the year before. And there's a reason for that. And so I wanna make sure we don't forget a vital lesson that we learned over the last 16 months and that vital lesson. Is that you can do anything.

The pandemic as far as a business, you know, we're, and, and listen, there are so many implications and ramifications of this pandemic, and I, I would love to address them all. I can't, I'm gonna address the one that's related to you as a business owner, just this finite little space right here. But here's what I know for sure.

That pandemic was the what if year, right? You know how we all have that kind of God? What if the. What if the supply chain breaks? What if the banks close? What if the, what if none of my customers can leave their house. What if I can't prepare my business? What if I have to shut down for six months, 12 weeks, whatever.

What if we had our what if year y'all? We had it, and you rallied. And if you haven't taken a moment to just be proud of yourself, then can you do it right now? Take a minute. I know that you worked your, you know what off, I know that, you know how I know that more than anything is I've decided to do two Hawaii retreats.

I did one in March, and I just planned another one for September. You have to be a client to be invited to these, by the way, but they both sold out. The second one sold out faster than the first one in five days. You know? You know why? Because y'all need a break. You've worked so hard. I get it.

So do I. But listen to me. So now we're post pandemic theoretically in the US anyway, we're getting out of, we're starting to wake up, right? It's like I've said before, like I feel like we're kind of the little munchkins in, in the Wizard of Oz movie. And they're all come out, come. Out wherever you are.

They're starting to come out of their houses. That's kind of how I feel like we are right now. Some people are running and skipping and dancing, and other people are a little leery wait, is there still a wicked witch out here? I'm not sure. But we have other problems now. We have a workforce.

Some people have had, I, I would venture to say millions of people have had epiphanous moments where they're like, yeah, I'm not doing that job anymore. I'm not interested and they're not. They're not coming back to your business. We have other people who are getting paid more money to not work, to stay on unemployment.

Okay. We have other people who have chosen to go back to school, have decided to move. God, if you tried to buy a house lately, it's ridiculous in the us. I wish I could just sell mine, but then I have to go buy one somewhere. We are in transition. So I've had a lot of clients who are really frustrated cuz they can't seem to find good talent.

Nobody's coming to the interviews. The people who do come to the interviews aren't the people they'd hire. The people who they do book interviews with don't show up. And this tends to be the people sort of, and the lower wage rate. So let's call it like under 25 bucks an hour. Hard to find sort of manual, hourly people.

For some people that's the issue. Not everybody's having this problem, just not everybody in the pandemic went belly up. In fact, most people didn't go belly up. Why? When we were faced with a pandemic, we had a choice. We had to make a choice. We're either gonna just decide, okay, that's it. Throwing our hands up in the air, I'm out.

And some people did, and that's fine. Or other people said, no, no, I'm gonna make this. I'm gonna figure it out. And they did. And that's fine too. You have to make the same decision. So if you are sitting there right now and you're telling yourself it's really hard to hire people right now, it's really hard to find good people right now.

I can't, nobody's showing up. It's really right. Like I can hear you because I hear it from my clients. I want to invite you to notice, first of all, that that way of thinking will not generate quality candidates. You are in scarcity. You are in fear, which makes you feel helpless and desperate. I want you to be asking different questions.

So the workforce has changed the needs of the work of the people you used to hire have changed because here's what I know to be true. There are really talented, ethical, honest, good people who want to work. You just have to attract them. But your story that there's no good people and the only people who show up are flakes.

Yeah. Guess who you're getting and you'll keep getting it. So the first thing is you have to make a decision. If you rally during the covid, then I know you can rally during this. Don't play at that low vibration. Don't fall into the trap of believing that you are a victim of a bad labor market. Be careful that's very insidious and you guys can all agree with each other and kvetch about it, and then before you know it, we're making it be true.

Most people wanna do good work in the world. Most people, not all. Stay away from those people. Let's focus on the other ones, right? I have some clients who have the opposite perspective. I cannot, I get so many good quality candidates. I don't know how to turn 'em all away. I'm never short on finding great people.

Why? What's the difference? The, the market? No. The type of job they're hiring for. No. The state they live in? No. No.

It's your decision now, how you hired people 16 months ago probably needs to change. What you do to attract people that you wanna have in your business probably needs to change. How you post jobs, what you call jobs, what you pay people, how you interview, how you incentivize people, how you focus on driving referrals for people, how you bonus people.

Do you have a retention strategy? This challenge right now is forcing you to look at your own processes. This isn't about the labor market. This is about is your place of employment a place people wanna come? Is your place of employment interesting and more fun and more opportunity than sitting on their couch?

Have you just become kind of the place where people can say they applied for a job and then they submit it for their, their weekly unemployment check. You have to up your game here. My gorgeous mama. That's the invite. This isn't about waiting for unemployment checks to run out or for some other system to be different.

This is you deciding do I have. An appealing, exciting, interesting, worth it place to work for the people I wanna hire, and this is why I do all the work I do with my clients. What is your vision? What are your values? What do you expect of people? What do you want this culture to be? A lot of us have a passive culture.

Culture is created all the time. Most of us are completely oblivious to the culture we have created. Maybe it's time for some reevaluation. But playing victim to a circumstance is a no. Do not fall in that trap because you already rallied through the toughest part. You kept this business alive during the pandemic.

Do not fall victim to this story. That there's no good talent. There is lots of talent. Plenty. I was talking to a business owner the other day, she is opening up another location and I was like, oh, I'll go take a look at it on over the weekend. And she said, oh, we're not open yet on the weekend. We don't have anybody to to run it.

It's really hard to find people right now. And I said, oh my gosh, I have two 16 year old kids who would love to work. They're trying to find a job, they can't get a job. And her reply was so interesting, and I understand her reply, but I still found it interesting. She said, oh, but they're just looking for summer work, right?

I'm like, yeah, but they're strong and they're smart, and they're lovely friendly people, and your store's closed. You're not making money, and you could, I, so that, that kind of thinking is shutting down potential for her. Do you see that? You've gotta watch yourself here. You slip into these belief systems and then you check, you don't invest in opportunity.

Be careful just because kids are summer workers, right? Listen, I can only imagine what it's like to manage a bunch of high school students. So I have a lot of sensitivity to that, but I also like to make money. And if that was the way that I could get it, maybe that's the way I do it right now. What are you willing to do?

You've gotta up your game. This is on you. This is not on the government, this is not on the pandemic, this is not on whatever. This is you doing the work, making your work environment the one that everybody wants to go work for. How do you do that? How do you get more competitive as an employer? You have to know your employee niche.

You have to know the kind of person you wanna work there. You have to know what your vision and your values are. You have to have a really great job description. You have to have. Think through your compensation. How you paid people before may not be how you pay people now. These are very important things to think about, and this is all work I do in how a C E O with my clients.

And so if you're not in how a C E O and you are ready to be, this is a good month to do it. If you join right now, I'm also gonna give you the empathic c e o course, which is such a labor of love. I love this course because it's so validating. If you are an empath, trying to navigate the pandemic and post pandemic world has been a rip roaring blast.

So I have some tools and support for you in that course, but mostly we'll work together every week live. Let's do this. Come on. Either way, whether you start with me or not, listen, you've got a little work to do. Don't blame the circumstance. Step up. Get some new eyes on your business. Create a new plan.

You're in control here. Hire from abundance, not scarcity. It's a game changer. Okay, thank you. If you're ready to join how to ceo, you can go to how to ceo register.com, and you can either register right away or you can book an appointment with Amy, who is our amazing client engagement director, and she will answer all of your questions.

And don't forget to write that review and we'll get you an awesome How to CEO Journal. Have a wonderful day. One more thing before you go. In a world of digital courses and online content, I like to work with my clients live because I know that when you have someone you can work with, ask questions of and meet with, you're so much more likely to get the success that you want.

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