Creating a Better Model of Work for the Post-Covid Future
Guest Speaker Steve CadiganIn this episode of WiseTalk, CEO and Executive Leadership Coach Sue Bethanis hosts talent strategist and company culture expert, Steve Cadigan. Steve has been at the forefront of global talent strategy and company culture for the past 30 years. Most famous for scaling LinkedIn from 400 to 4000 in 3.5 years, Steve also led the development of LI’s legendary company culture. Today, as Founder of Cadigan Talent Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based talent strategies advisory firm, Steve helps organizations worldwide develop winning talent solutions. With more than 25 years of leadership and executive experience in global Human Resources, Steve has practiced HR in the US, Canada, and Asia-Pacific within a variety of industries. Through leading worldwide HR efforts for more than 60 M&A transactions at three global organizations since 1998, Steve has cultivated a deep understanding of business cycles, patterns, high growth, and the key elements required to forge an organization’s sustainability. Over the course of his career, the teams, cultures, and organizations he has led and helped build have been recognized as exceptional, “world-class” performers by the Wall Street Journal and Fortune Magazine.
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INTERVIEW SUMMARY AND KEY TAKEAWAYS
Covid has changed the way we operate. Looking deeper at some of the new trends that have appeared during Covid, we are seeing a faster employee turnover, more competition in hiring, people turning towards independent work, and a large shift in company values in terms of culture. With such fast turnover, Steve provides some insights for both employees and employers on how to navigate the new era.
The pandemic has caused a huge shift in employee values leading to individuals wanting more autonomy, freedom, and independence at work. Many employees are leaving roles because these new values are not being met. We are seeing job security move from a place of stagnation to movement. Steve’s advice for employees is to embrace this movement and adaptability. Step into new roles, learn new things, take on the tasks that you don’t feel prepared for because that is the only way to grow in this new climate.
On the other hand, employers are feeling extremely stressed by the rapid turnover. Steve offers multiple ways for companies to retain their talent by stepping away from how we used to operate and restructuring to emphasize employees’ needs. The fact is the shorter tenure trend is not going anywhere. It’s time to look at an employee’s entire career path, even outside of your company, and help them along the way. Learning velocity and the number of new experiences and skills a role offers are extremely valuable to potential employees at this time. Steve recommends that organizations need to stop creating employment packages and bonuses around long-term stability, and instead offer employees the freedom and growth they are looking for.
Within remote and hybrid, we are seeing a lack of connection and lesser ability to network. Steve believes it’s time to be more intentional in our communication and find new refreshing ways to connect. He highlights companies that have found creative ways to foster connection through virtual games, chess tournaments, randomized virtual coffee meetings where people can connect to someone they’ve never met within the organization, and more. It all comes back to adaptability, creativity, and looking for connections outside of where we used to normally find them.
Key takeaways from this talk include:
- Employee rapid turnover rate is a trend that we should not expect to stop anytime soon. It’s time to embrace it, rather than fight it, to recruit sustainably. (27:16)
- Employees value their freedom, independence, and humanization more than ever and will thrive if they focus on learning and applying new skills. (9:27)
- Your network is larger and more valuable than you may realize, you can find connections in the smallest of encounters and unpredictable places. (44:32)
Although there have been many downfalls, we have also seen so many positive changes, new trends, and shifts in ideology around the workplace due to Covid. The momentum is only going to continue. It’s time to approach this new era with adaptability and readiness for change. It’s time to evolve into a better model of working by thinking outside the box and restructuring the workplace as we know it.
FAVORITE QUOTES
“People are leaving faster; nobody believes it’s going to change. It’s not temporary. Everyone I talk to, every business leader in every geography, every industry, that’s the biggest problem, as you’ve already pointed out, and nobody thinks it’s going to change.” (15:18)
“I think that’s the most important element of the new compensation stack if you will, is autonomy, freedom, independence, but also what we call learning velocity, the extent to which the job itself delivers new experiences and new things.” (15:18)
“I think we’re very close to a breaking point where a lot of people are really stressed out because we’re still stuck on ‘I need someone and they need to do this job’. Maybe we need to reorganize how work gets done in different ways and sort of deconstructing jobs so that it’s not – one person is going to do all this.” (25:27)
RESOURCES
Steve Cadigan:
Book: Workquake: Embracing the Aftershocks of COVID-19 to Create a Better Model of Working
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Sue Bethanis 0:00
Welcome, everyone to wise talk. This is Mariposa’s monthly podcast providing perspectives on leadership. Today, I am excited to have my good friend Steve Cadigan. We’ve known each other for a very long time, and I’m so excited you’re here with us today. He’s been at the forefront of global talent strategy and company culture for the past 30 years. He’s most famous for scaling LinkedIn from 400 to 4,000 in 3.5 years. He also has led the development of LinkedIn’s legendary company culture. Today he’s the founder of Cadigan Talent Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based talent strategies advisory firm, and he helps organizations worldwide develop winning talent solutions. With more than 25 years of leadership and executive experience in global human resources, Steve has practiced HR in the US, Canada, and Asia Pacific within a variety of industries. And we’re going to talk about your new book today, which is called WorkQuake: Embracing the Aftershocks of COVID-19 to Create a Better Model of Working. That’s a lot. We’ve got a lot to talk about, don’t we?
Steve Cadigan 0:59
We got three hours? Is it?
Sue Bethanis 1:01
Alright. So I just read your bio, which is very fine. Tell me a little bit more about, tell us really, because I know you, but tell us a little bit more about who you are and why you wrote this book.
Steve Cadigan 1:15
Okay. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I mean, I’m someone who had a pretty eclectic childhood, I grew up in South Africa for five years, we were kicked out when I was seven, grew up in the US, had to practice speaking American as a child. So adapting at a very early age was something that really shaped me and I think may have been an early signal that I was going to use those in later years. I’ve been in California since I graduated college, except for two years in Singapore, four years in British Columbia. And I found HR when I was like two years out of college and just recruiting and fell in love with it. You and I crossed paths when I decided, probably in my mid-30s, that I wanted to be really great at this and went to grad school and you’re one of my professors and still are a professor for me. Yeah. And then, you know, moved in 6 different companies about five different industries. And really just grew to love the, what I think is the greatest art form that is the art of helping people learn how to do greater things together. And I have a huge passion for sports, not just as a participant, and I’m very, very competitive. My whole family’s competitive. But not just to be an athlete, but to watch how people handle situations in competition, how you handle victory, defeat, how you handle being behind, how you handle crazy coaches versus coaches that don’t say anything. I just that, that joy and love I have for sports has really translated well to just in the organizational setting. Yeah, and so I’ve loved it. And today, I’ve got three teenagers, I remarried four or five years ago, and my wife has two girls. So we have like The Brady Bunch three boys and two girls. But I’ve coached my boys’ sports since they were able to be in competitive sports, soccer, baseball, basketball, they’ve all sort of fallen in love with basketball, which is a joy to me because I did play one year in college, I was not very good. I stayed on the bench, but I love that. And so today, I stopped working for an employer about 10 years ago at LinkedIn after that crazy four your ride, which felt like 20 right, it was probably the best hair color treatment. If you want to go gray just go in a hypergrowth organization right?
Sue Bethanis 3:30
God that was 10 years ago you left. That’s amazing. Okay.
Steve Cadigan 3:35
Isn’t that crazy? So since then, I’ve just been working with a lot of organizations. I mean, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Honestly, when I left LinkedIn, I had no idea other than, I’d like to take a breath and I had a chance for about a year or two just to reconnect with people I really missed. And because we sometimes get so hunkered down, that you cross paths you work with, and you meet people and I sort of reconnected with all these people. And over that year, started to get a sense of what I really wanted to do. And that was definitely heavily weighted towards teaching and coaching. And not professional coaching. But teaching and helping people solve talent problems, whether it’s hyper-growth or whatever. And, so that sort of led me to find my own firm and to do this, I’m not a long term, consultant, I’m more like call myself a flash advisor. I want to go in and shake you up a little bit. And then you say, well, Steve, how do we make that stuff happen? I go, here’s Sue, she’ll come in.
Sue Bethanis 4:33
I like it. Flash advisor. I love it. And so the book I know has been sort of something you’ve been wanting to do for one time. What amazing timing that you when you wrote it, and you had kind of rewrite it a little bit I bet.
Steve Cadigan 4:46
I did. I was 80% done when the pandemic hit and had that moment of, Oh, no, maybe everything I’ve been focused on is going to be worthless if the world is going to be upside down. Right. And then thankfully, I woke up one morning and said to my wife, you know, I actually think my book stands up even more. And a lot of what I’ve been talking about is just accelerated and introduced even more new things. So had to write a new chapter, had to infuse COVID into the book, and in ways that it was still, gosh, it was still unfolding. We were only about six to nine months in when I had to submit it to the publisher. But yeah, I was, you know, very fortunate, I got a big assist from the pandemic for people’s raised awareness of how the future of work is just radically, radically transformed.
Sue Bethanis 5:34
Every day, it seems like something. Okay, so let’s get right to the great migration. Yeah, let’s get to it. Because it’s, we couldn’t have seen this coming, really. But there’s a great migration, what are you seeing, what’s happening?
Steve Cadigan 5:47
I’ll tell you the thoughts that are hitting me this week, here we are about 20 months into the pandemic. And I feel like we’re just hitting a point now, where most business leaders are going, huh, I guess we’re not going back to that anymore. And my whole book, my whole life and yours Sue, is about, you know, its adaptability. It’s building cultures of change. It’s about not building for consistency. It’s building for adapting to inconsistency and unpredictable moments. Most, especially the larger organizations, non tech-driven companies, whether it’s consumer goods or distribution deal with all kinds of industries, and they’re not comfortable with experimentation. And when they don’t have a huge base of software developers, who are all used to experimentation and how they build and develop products that can migrate easy to culture, and these non tech-oriented organizations, they’re like, wow, I guess the new normal is never normal, we’re gonna have to reconsider it. So that’s what I’m seeing now is we’re finally hitting that point. Yeah, it’s just been an absolute brutal period for talent leaders, and business leaders, everything from you know, we knew that we could create value when everyone was together. And we don’t know that we can create value in this new framework. And human nature is: in a crisis revert to what you know, revert to your strength, right? And that’s where we’re seeing this real pullback to, and fear, especially my senior executives. I mean, think about it, if your careers are on the line, and you don’t know that you can produce in this new complex puzzle of hybrid and from home and some in-person stuff, like, what do you do? And how do you approach it? Meanwhile, you know, attrition continues to climb. You and I were talking about this a few months ago, I think we’re gonna see it even escalate, because the early movers are the people that have no kids, and no mortgages and no homes and no major bills, people that have all those are taking their time. They’re seeing what’s out there. Yes. And the markets are on fire. I’ll give a story for you, listeners, I was telling you right before we went on air. I was in Durango last week. I have never been to Colorado before. And I was invited there by local economic forum there, about 400 business leaders. And the business leaders that have workers who can work for them from home, are terrified because their workers are getting phone calls from companies all over the country and beyond, including the business owners are getting phone calls from people for opportunities. And they’ve never played in that, you know, we live in Silicon Valley-ish area where the war for talents just been, of course, all kinds of creativity for years. And if you’ve been working in a space where you haven’t had to do that and think about the Durango businesses that have this beautiful landscape of outdoor activities. Now, they don’t know how to recruit without that in their back pocket. And so I think that all these, call it hospitality, are terrified right now. And we’re seeing all kinds of what I would call irresponsible knee jerk, panic moves, you know, ridiculous signing bonuses, all kinds of things, you know, money, usually money related to try to buy their way out of this problem.
Sue Bethanis 9:05
Right. Right. So and then that’s sort of the gist of it. I definitely wanna talk about it from the employee’s perspective. And I also want to talk about it from the employer’s perspective, but let’s start with the employees. You kind of divide the book into employees and employers, let’s talk to the employees like what’s the main thrust of your idea around what employees should be thinking about?
Steve Cadigan 9:27
Um, I think the psychology of the workforce is really shifted and employees whether you cognitively process and absorb it yourself. We’re moving to a domain where I think we are reconsidering what job security and career security is, from being stationary to movement. That and that’s it’s not comfortable for everyone. But most people are starting to realize, hey, the more I move, the more I get exposed to new ideas, new ways of solving problems, new techniques, new cultures, new leadership styles, the more my network grows, the more new opportunities can find me, the more people I have to phone a friend when I hit a stumbling block or a cliff that I’m not sure I can climb. And it’s happened pretty fast, I would say maybe the last decade where we used to think staying in one place, was valuable. But businesses and jobs, I mean, ask any recruiter: How long is the job description really hold up. And I’ll tell you maybe two months. So what I’m trying to tell employees is, hey, every job changing, your value to yourself, and your vitality, for the future work, is going to really reside in how fast you can learn and apply new things. And that doesn’t mean you need to change jobs necessarily. You know, there are lots of reasons why people are changing jobs beyond what I’ve already said. But I think that the more you can learn and apply new things fast, the more valuable you’re going to become. And you’re not going to have to be in this infinite rat chase of, well, I need to learn that skill, I need to learn that skill, but I may have a shorter shelf life, so but if you can just be confident that, hey, learning new things is going to make me more valuable. So I’m going to seek opportunities in organizations and firms where I’m going to be exposed to new things, new ways of solving problems, and that’s how I’m seeing the shift, to try and make people more comfortable. Because there’s still a stigma with job movement, right?
Sue Bethanis 11:17
Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. Because, executives especially, what do you tell the executive who has moved and, you know, is thinking that that’s a negative. That employers will think of as a negative, I don’t think it’s a negative thing. You’ve had a lot of good experiences, and you’ve been able to move and change and drop in quickly. Right? And get going. Yeah, so talk a little bit about that.
Steve Cadigan 11:39
Yeah. And I think the pace of movement, and the acceptance of movement is rising, right, that more and more people have changed and will change. And I think, you know, we can’t say there’s a right number, or amount of time per organization per industry, just it varies like, hey, if we’re hiring hospital staff, I do not want people changing out because lives are on the line. So I want to hold on to people. For putting someone on the moon, and they could die if we get it wrong, like, and that’s where problems can happen when there’s a lot of turnover. So it’s not true for every industry, but for a lot. What I’ll tell executives is, I mean, let’s take a look at the automobile industry. For example. Right now, the most valuable automobile company is Tesla. Now they’re not selling more cars, they’re not making more profit, but they’re worth more than Honda, Toyota and Ford combined, and their median tenure is 2.3 years. And so they built a new business. They’re under 25 years old as a company, I believe. Well, the new business with people with different perspectives and new ideas, and that workforce has come together with different perspectives. And the investor community has voted, that they’re far more valuable because I believe the perception is they can innovate faster, right? And so, you know, I’m thinking back to my days at LinkedIn, when we’re sitting in the boardroom, and something would hit us that we weren’t ready for a problem. And it felt like every day, there were multiple problems, but that’s another story. So we’d sit there and Jeff waiting to see what the time would say, “Hey, Deep. How did you guys see this at Google?”, “Hey, David, how do we solve this at Yahoo?”, “Hey, Steve, how’d you solve it at Cisco and EA?” and that collective experience and muscle that we build in other organizations was what our value was. And so I think what the current state of a higher fluid world of work is exposing to us right now is I think we may have overvalued again, a big generalization, I think we may have overvalued tenure, in this new world of work, where things are changing so fast. Things weren’t changing fast? Yes, longer-term, understanding our market, understanding our people, building social equity, was valuable. That’s not as valuable today as new ideas, new ways of solving problems, new perspectives, new networks. I’m seeing recruiters now look at candidates based on how rich their network is, and how dense it is, not just to recruit from but also to source for ideas and inspiration. So, you know, again, I don’t think we would do the audience justice if we’re trying to make everyone comfortable that hey, you know, executives, it’s okay. I mean, it is uncomfortable. This is not what we were told, right?
Sue Bethanis 14:13
Yeah, we were told that if they’re there, as somebody pointed out in the chat, is if they’re at a company one or two years, they didn’t last long, like didn’t work out. Um, that’s what it could look like. It could be something different. Okay. So let’s talk about the from an employer’s perspective. It’s kind of crazy. I was talking to someone this morning in Berlin, and they’re a startup, they’re trying to recruit for new product head and when we talked about like, the kind of questions that they asked and how they’re trying to find people that are more startupy. And he says I want more people that are sharp that can take a hit us and essentially be resilient. And because I want to start recruiting the United States for its too expensive, like okay, and in a time with people here, it’s like they can now recruit beyond the Silicon Valley. Find somebody who just got out of Carnegie Mellon and they can, wherever they are does not have to be in the Silicon Valley. So how are these strategies changing, given COVID because as I said, we both agree here that things aren’t going to go back to where they were, there’s going to be remote or hybrid, it’s at least going to be hybrid. So most companies, I think, in Silicon Valley are doing or doing remote only at this point, how do these talent strategies change?
Steve Cadigan 15:18
Alright, so let’s step back and talk about the big trends. People are leaving faster, nobody believes it’s going to change. It’s not temporary. Everyone I talk to, every business leader in every geography, every industry, that’s the biggest problem, as you’ve already pointed out, and nobody thinks is going to change. So I think what we have to do is say, Okay, if that is true, what is our mission here? Our mission is to create value, we’ve believed that full-time employees are the pathway to sustainable competitive advantage. And I would argue that what we’re seeing in the valley, and maybe it is a trend setter that will hit other parts of the world, a lot of great people are leaving full-time employment, and going to a more Fiverr, Upwork independent model, because of the premium they place on autonomy and independence. And this would suggest to me, and I do think the stigma of being an IC, and a temp has come way down, and almost on par with being an employee. The problem in the US, obviously, is the awful healthcare system that we have. That’s another story for another episode. But so when I’m talking to organizations, they’re saying, “Well, what do we do? Like I can’t find people, they’re not staying as long?,” I’m saying, “Well, why are people leaving?” I think people are leaving because they’re concerned that they’re not growing and building their vitality for tomorrow, if you can feed that, with not just bringing professors in, but how you design work, that’s giving new challenges, new experiences, and making them more likely to be able to leave, I think you stand a greater chance of keeping people. I think that’s the most important element of the new compensation stack, if you will, is autonomy, freedom, independence, but also what we call learning velocity, the extent to which the job itself delivers new experiences and new things. And you ask anyone, you know, I asked the business leaders in Durango this last week, “When have you, business leader, been most energized? When you’ve been doing the same thing five years, or when you took on something new, and it was scary? And maybe you weren’t prepared?” And they said definitely something new. I said, Okay, well, you’re tapping into energy right now. This is what’s going on in Silicon Valley. Like, when I look at LinkedIn, we built a $26 billion company that was sold in 15 years to Microsoft, right? For 26 something billion dollars, the median tenure the whole time I was there, nine months. So what’s going on? Well, all the senior leaders, when you’re doubling the size of your population, every year, they’re recruiting and their lieutenants are stepping into their jobs, doing something on paper they’re not qualified to do, being inspired. Unlocking energy now is something like, whoa, I’m stepping into this bigger job, and I’m going to be more valuable tomorrow because I’m doing new stuff. And the company’s not doing a belly flop, thank goodness, but my boss is not gone. They’re busy, but they’re available to do mentoring. Right. And that was just, that’s just interesting to me. And I think, you know, back to this, I think a lot of people are migrating into independent contractor roles. Who says you can only get your value created with a full-time employee? Who says that? And what’s driving that is all the business, the CFO models were headcount, right? No. So we got a lot of inertia.
Sue Bethanis 18:31
Right well, and then your slogan in your book is “come to my company, so I can help you leave it.” I mean, that’s, that’s a risky thing. And you sort of alluded to it. How do you help people think, how do you help people get there?
Steve Cadigan 18:52
Okay. So, you know, one of the things my publisher, my PR team was saying, hey, you gotta have some provocative points in the book, I’m like, Okay, well, I’m gonna push it a little bit here and say, “Come to my company, so I can help you leave it.” And where I’m getting with that is, you know, something that was one of the reasons why I wrote this book, which was, I’ve been just increasingly disappointed with these fake conversations that we have between employer and employees, Hey, stay here a long time. And I promise to keep you employed a long time. We both know we’re not going to follow through on that commitment. But let’s have that be the foundation of how we work together.
Sue Bethanis 19:25
It’s for your vesting like, that alone is the issue.
Steve Cadigan 19:29
That’s right. And nobody believes it, but we still go ahead and do that. So well, you know, what I say is maybe a more honest conversation is caring about someone more than just when they work for you, the entirety of their career, not just when they’re employed by you and say, let me do what Chipotle does. We know this is not your destination. We know we’re a transition employer. We know you have other aspirations, but let’s optimize you to get you where you want to go while you’re here. And we hope in doing that, you’re going to bring more of your really talented friends here, we hope you’re going to say positive things on the internet and chirp goodness about us, you’re going to eat here, we’re a BTC. So we want this relationship to be good. But we know it’s not going to be forever. And that’s okay. And we’re going to just double down on all kinds of tuition reimbursement education for you, and you only have to be here for like a week full time, and then boom, we’ll do it, or at some very, very minimal number of hours. And I’m starting to see, Sue, many other larger enterprises start to come to terms with, yeah, we’re not the perfect destination for everyone. Forever. And that’s okay. We’re part of someone’s journey.
Sue Bethanis 20:37
Yeah. I agree with what you’re saying, but I think you’re gonna get some pushback. But I have one more question. And that is, it costs a lot of money to hire an executive, and let’s call executives even managers, managers, directors, okay, it costs a lot of money to recruit them. Whether they’re hiring a search firm or just the time that their own recruiters are spending. And so a lot of people don’t want to be letting people just go because it costs a lot of money to get new people in. So talk a little bit about how we can shift the way we look at getting people in. And so it doesn’t cost so much, because it costs a lot of money.
Steve Cadigan 21:07
Right. I mean, there are infinite ways of being creative there. If we’re stuck with ‘I need someone’ versus ‘I need this work done.’ And maybe there are creative fractional ways of our workup, again, some of the business models we have or how we forecast that we plan business blocks the creativity there, I know, you know, several people who started companies trying to get, you know, women who’ve had kids who don’t want to go back full time to be able to work and it just doesn’t work, because a lot of businesses just aren’t built to sustain that model. But you know, just take a look at how many organizations if we take a look at right now Facebook, Slack, LinkedIn, Airbnb, Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, the median tenure in those companies is right around two years. And they’re doing pretty good, right? And so some of that could be skewed if you’re hiring really fast that your median tenure is going to come down. Or if you’ve done a bunch of acquisitions, and you restarted the clock on how you measure in the length of employment. But I think yes, there is cost, but I think the cost is worse if you’re building expecting people to stay a long time, and then you have all these single points to fit someone, Oh, my gosh, you know, I think we’re going to have to build organizations, in a way and I don’t have all the answers here. But we know no one disagrees that people are going to leave faster. So is it you know, maybe we can organize work differently? Or maybe we can set up business differently so that we build to expect people will leave?
Sue Bethanis 22:38
Yes, I think that we get surprised. You should have a pulse on how they’re feeling. So then you will know that they’re ready to go because they are ready to go. Let’s talk about this. I want to know about culture and communication here in a second. But I want to open the lineup for anyone who wants to ask Steve a question. Hey, Michael.
Michael 22:57
Hey, Steve. So a lot of my clients are dealing with, you know, this quarter, they don’t really necessarily use the old term VUCA you know, volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, but they’re stressed out they’re having a lot of uncertainty. And all this churn. You know, as you’ve been speaking most of today, about kind of, Hey, you know, churn isn’t a bad word necessarily. But let’s call them the remainders, the survivors. And so they asked me, Michael, I’m losing great people, you know, every story and maybe, you know, Mazel Tov, congratulations, it’s okay. But I’m still here. And I’m trying to keep my people still here, right? There’s absenteeism. There’s also a thing called presenteeism when you’re present, but you’re not really present. And so people are really stressed out. So, you know, if somebody is kind of, for whatever reason, in a model that you might suggest as an older model, you know, what have you seen? Or what do you think about that challenge?
Steve Cadigan 23:55
Yeah, here’s how I think about this. Because everyone’s feeling that and it’s almost, I was talking to a CEO yesterday, it’s like, you know, it’s almost like it’s not cool to stay longer now. It’s, it’s starting to move, like some of the people that are talking to you like, there’s something wrong with me that I’m still here?
Michael 24:11
I call it left at the dock. Left at the dock, that ship has sailed with all your friends, and you’re still standing there.
Steve Cadigan 24:18
Right? So here, here’s a couple of interesting conversations I’ve had in the last few weeks: someone calls and they go through the whole cycle of everything that we just talked about, can’t hire people, people leaving faster, and then I go, “Hey, how’s your business done during COVID?”, “Oh, really? Well, sales are up increased market share.” I go “Hmm, isn’t that interesting.” So your ability to adapt is as measured by increased market share, increase revenue, maybe the measures of a healthy organization need to shift maybe we shouldn’t be feeling so dour because our turnovers up maybe we should be celebrating people leaving going on to bigger, better things. I don’t know. But that’s four companies I talked to, and the last month, everyone that’s how the conversation went. That’s where it started. And then the second was, oh, How’s business? So really good. Okay, so why do you seem all bummed out?
Michael 25:11
You know, yeah just to give you what somebody might say, well I’m bummed out because those four people had a very important job. Yeah, now the people that aren’t leaving are going to have to do all that work or, or get a priority, you know, whatever. We’re gonna have to sort all that work now.
Steve Cadigan 25:27
Right, right. And then we get to, there’s a friend of mine, Shahar Rez has got a company called Stoke talent and Stoke talent has built a platform to help you manage your contingent workforce. Because I’ve worked in big companies, and there are lots of people that no one knew who’s paying them or how they got here. But you’ve got this big, dark, invisible workforce, I think we need to look for other solutions than just a full-time employee. There’s a ton of talent that can be applied in different ways. And I know the intellectual property lawyers are like, “No, we, you know, we can’t have all these people around” and, you know, company secrets and all that. But what’s the cost of having that rec open for a long time? What’s the cost of the culture? What’s the cost, as you say, to the morale, it’s a hit, you know when we’ve got all these people who could come in and offer, maybe a different way of doing it. And I think we’re very close to a breaking point where a lot of people are really stressed out because we’re still stuck on I need someone and they need to do this job. Maybe we need to reorganize how work gets done in different ways and sort of deconstructing jobs so that it’s not – one person is going to do all this. And we’re not, it’s going to take us six months to find someone else. And then after six months of training, when we hire them, they’re going to you know, look for another so we’re going to have to be more creative here. I think.
Michael 26:53
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, stress reduction is cooperate with the inevitable.
Steve Cadigan 26:59
Right, right. Cool. Well said. Well said, Michael.
Sue Bethanis 27:02
Thanks, Michael. Anyone else have a question or comment?
Unknown Speaker 27:06
Do you have any kind of specific ideas for what companies need to do what they need to change in their talent management strategies to adapt to this new world?
Steve Cadigan 27:16
Well, at a high level, I think, you know, when I speak to executives, you know, people are leaving faster, do you think it’s going to change? No. Okay, so why is every one of your benefits driven by length of tenure? What if we changed all these costs, the investment that we’re making, that is driven by long tenure? What if we shift those to development? What if we shift to a closer relationship with universities or schools where we can access pools of talent that can be sort of an incubator for people understanding our business challenges and helping solve it? How we solved our recruiting challenges at LinkedIn when we went through the fastest growth years, and this was sort of ironic like our biggest company problem was our also our biggest product it was recruiting. We couldn’t hire fast enough and we realize we are not going to win in the open market for talent cause we’re getting outbid, out perked up, benefited by all these sexy brands in the Mountain View area. So what can we do? We said, we’re gonna have to grow talent instead of buy talent. And we were at scale at that time, like 1000 1500 people, but we went from no interns to 50 to 100 to 250. So almost all the incremental technical hiring that we did was out of schools. A much easier place, by the way, to recruit from if your business can afford to do the internships and grow the talent, right. So that’s one strategy that I’ve seen. I’ve also seen people start to do things like, one organization I was working with recently. Well, let’s just take Canva, you heard what Canva did. Canva said, Okay, we’re growing like gangbusters. And what we’re hearing from our talent is that they want freedom, independence, and autonomy, almost as much as in the new compensation stack is very high for them. So we’re gonna let our teams decide how and where and when they work. That’s something we’re gonna essentially do, we’re going to decentralize the decision-making for that, which is super powerful. Here’s another interesting bit of data. So I don’t subscribe to a lot of new services, but I’m starting to subscribe to more, and one of the ones they sort of have a love-hate relationship: Business Insider. This insider published an article yesterday or the day before: the cannabis industry now has in the United States closing in on half a million workers and in the last nine months, they’ve seen an explosion of recruiting. Now think about this. This is a, you know, I guess call it a rebellious business model in some respects because it’s still illegal and cannabis sales still illegal and most of the states in the United States. Banks are still not allowing for you know, transactions to go through, has to be all cash and people are flocking there. What’s going on? I think people are seeing this rebellious business leader you know, community, is more open to being creative with employment circumstances. And so they listed several people’s, it’s an interesting article, listed several people from retail, say, “I’m making a little bit less, but I’m winning in the end, because I like the freedom of my time and autonomy. And I feel a lot more relaxed.” So it’s just interesting.
Sue Bethanis 30:23
You know and freedom at work itself, too. Yeah, they get to do more. I think that there’s a lot about creativity around what kind of work do they get to do? That’s a part of the timing of it as well.
Steve Cadigan 30:36
That’s right. And, here’s the thing, getting back to the point we talked about earlier, which is, I think what people really want is to be more valuable tomorrow. And before the pandemic, one of the companies that I was so curious about was one of the scooter industries company in Santa Monica, Bird, it was just a fascination for me that they were exploding. They had no recruiting problem, and they should have a recruiting problem because it’s a new industry. There’s no business plan for profitability in the next five years. There’s no leader on that team that could say we know everything about the scooter industry because it’s only about four years old. And they were turning down more applicants than they could handle. Like what’s going on? And the answer is the same as why the cannabis industry I think is an appeal. If I can build a new business and show that I can grow something new that sets me up for a future with more options. In a world where disruption and change is happening fast. If I can go to cannabis and can make this work out of nothing or a scooter industry, which is the future of the transportation industry. You know, here’s the business where their plans, I’m sure most scooter businesses in 10 years, we’re not gonna be selling scooters, there’s no way and no one who goes there thinking so yeah, everyone’s gonna be riding scooters forever. No, they know, it’s a company of reinvention. And they want to be on that reinvention place, right. And so to the extent that you’re a business and you have those places where you have pockets of newness that are growing, that I think is going to be the light that moths are going to want to fly towards that. I would be talking about trying to draw people in and say hey, we’re doing stuff no one else is doing you know, and that’s gonna make you more valuable for tomorrow. And this gets to the last point that I want to make sure I land, Sue, in the conversation which is as a recruiter who’s been recruiting for 35 years, we used to recruit on our journey, ‘come here because we are this we are going there we are. It’s our journey.’ That’s the message. And I think it’s pivoting to: ‘I need to know your journey. Where are you going? What do you want to do? How can I get you there?’ And I talked about in the book, right, at LinkedIn we would say in that first interview “When you leave where do you want to be?” and they’re like “what, you’re firing you haven’t even started yet?” like and it was changing the conversation from us ourselves to you. And if we’re not having that conversation now you’re really really missing out. And that’s what I think the pandemic has served the opportunity of a lifetime of we have to know each other more during the pandemic, because stuff is impeding us at home, it’s going to block us being effective at work and so that’s a good thing that’s happened I think. And if we don’t lose that. This is where you know. to get to some of these sort of ideas that I have around deeper personal connection with people, understanding what their journey is, doing your best to deliver on, if you can’t and say okay, we’re not the best place for you someone else might be able to deliver that. Because if you hire them and you know their journey is different, you’re really renting them for a short period of time and then they’re going going to leave.
Sue Bethanis 33:30
Lori do you have a follow up? thank you yeah, thanks alright. So I want to shift, we started talking about a little bit of shift to more cultures learning capacity, so we’ve been foreshadowing it this whole time. Something Michael said that was really interesting around the remainders, the people that are still there. What are the people that are there doing in terms of staying close to their employees? To understanding where their journey is, understanding what’s going on for them, understanding what they’re upset about, what they’re good about? All, everything. I think that the pandemic has required it. It has put us in a place where we have to know more about that anyway, because people could be sick. I mean, there’s this more health involvement, just that alone. So how, what are your thoughts on how people can stay close, especially like let’s just assume in these remote and hybrid?
Steve Cadigan 34:22
Yeah, this is a big one. So I mean, I feel like wellness has gone to the top of the talent agenda and it wasn’t there before and you know, people working in different circumstances. I don’t know about the folks who are listening in, but when I would start a new job the first thing I wanted to know quickly was: Am I good with my new boss or not? Like I want to know do I feel they trust me? Can I trust them? And I don’t know that the pathway to achieve that is as easy so far, because we don’t know how to do it. And we don’t have those informal moments or those collisions in the hallway, right, a break room at lunch that we had. So my advice is while we try to navigate this is, is to be more purposeful and intentional around those informal moments. Now, the challenge is, I’m so done with zoom at the end of it, like I don’t want another informal zoom, like I’m so over it, right? Let’s just each go on a hike in our own places where we’re living, and let’s just put something in our ear and just have a conversation, let’s say, it’s being in a different physical space. I’m seeing people experiment with that, I’m seeing people experiment with sort of spin wheel lottery connecting to people that they’ve never met in a company, they have to have a virtual lunch or coffee or something like that. I’m seeing people do a multiplayer online games, department to department and having chat in there. I’ve seen chess tournaments, where people in product and engineering meet for the first time, they’ve been in the company three years together, and like, oh, what do you guys working on down there? While they’re, you know, having a playing a game. So I think organizations are going to have to create that space for that to happen to you know, I don’t know what the right amount of is. But I feel like we are in a very dangerous point right now where we’re not creating downtime, off time, informal time, that it’s going to continue to show that the rise in anxiety and depression is not going to change. Yeah.
Sue Bethanis 36:25
And also, if people don’t get close, they’re not going to be as committed and there’s even more reason they’re going to leave, not for the right reasons. Because like the new people that I’ve been told by , I’ve read and also people that I have been working with, it’s like, they’re hiring a lot of people now that have never seen each other because they’ve hired people in COVID. It’s like, well, how do I get connected and stay close, when I’ve never even met them before. And, and so if people don’t get feel committed, then they it’s easier for them to go. So one of the things that one of our other coaches got from one of her clients was instead of doing one-on-ones, he does half-and-halfs. And what that means is, I love this. He says, half the meeting he has with his directs are about how they’re doing, half the meetings, it’s a 30 minute meeting. 15 minutes, is just how you’re doing? what are you up to? how’s your family? and the other 15 minutes is operations. Isn’t that awesome? I’m like, okay, we gotta write about that. We got to. It’s just because and he’s thought to do it because it’s what’s needed, right? And it’s that kind of thing that stickiness will keep people.
Steve Cadigan 37:41
Yeah, we have an opportunity. That’s right Sue, we have an opportunity, that I hope we take advantage of, shame on us if we don’t given everything that’s changed, to rebuild better and I think that’s one of the ones where we can leverage the increased greater awareness that someone’s personal circumstances are meaningful. And I also think in the background, pre pandemic, you know, this whole tech obsessed you know, I don’t need to see anyone I don’t need to ask my neighbors for butter, sugar, because I can just have it delivered. And because I’m not asking them, I’m not knocking on their door, opening it up seeing they’re not feeling well saying, oh, and or they’re missing a lightbulb like Hey, can you change my light? Like, I have an elderly neighbor, and every time I go over there, there’s something she’d like me to do. Can you put this up on the shelf? Can you change that lightbulb, whatever. And I almost sometimes go over even if I don’t have something to do, because I need something. And but this is where I think organizations can deliver community because I think a lot of us are missing that and maybe that may be one of those things that can hold on to someone a little bit longer. in there. There’s been tons of studies around why does some great employers high performing employees never leave when they have opportunities to get more money? Well it’s because of the relationship equity. They know all the players, all the players know them. And I’ve seen over the course of my career many people leave and then they come back a year, wasn’t as great as I thought. And now they’re back with purpose and that’s why I love the boomerang people because they’re here and they’ve got a reason to be here and they know they tasted it and so I think you know again it gets back to what we’re talking about earlier, Sue, which is we’re going to have to experiment and see and hopefully leverage you know these opportunities like the half and a half, I mean you got to blow that up, that’s got to be like a blog right there. It’s such a great one.
Sue Bethanis 39:28
I have to give credit to Donna, because her client, they came up with it. But yeah, I but it’s just an example of we have to have ways to stay close. I mean, I just think that it’s not about necessarily even, it’s not just about being connected, it’s about being close, those are different. And I think that we need to understand where people are coming from, we need to understand their circumstance, because it’s changing every day. Really it could be and I really do think that creates loyalty. And so we can juxtaposes, we can say: yes, we want to, we want to bring people in so they can leave eventually, and be okay with that. But for the time that they’re there, that we want loyalty, both ways, as much as we can. So, thanks for talking about that. A couple more things. What do we got here? We got time. Um, so you talked about learning capacity, and how important that is for employees to feel like they’re learning something, they’re doing interesting work. What can employers do to ensure that there that are highlighting agility that they’re teaching that, especially in hybrid or remote? It’s not just about having a training class? So what what can we can we do to help people learn in a different way?
Steve Cadigan 40:52
Well, I think we, we’ve danced around this. And some other conversations we’ve had today, which is appreciate the energy that gets unlocked when people are taking on new things and look to design work to unlock some of that energy. And it’s easy to say, hey, I want to help you realize your career ambitions, it but it’s harder when you ask them, “What is your ambition?” like I’m not really sure, you know, I have more choice, I have more ways that I could make a living today than ever before, because I can see more. And that’s not netting comfort, it’s netting more anxiety because I have more reasons to think I might have made the wrong choice. You know, and so I think having more conversations, having more, you know, those half-and-half, I mean more discussions with people, and sharing the learnings. And I think some of that connective tissue that we talked about earlier, can happen with, you know, you helping people build relationships inside and outside the organization. Many organizations are so insular in their thinking, like, we’re gonna have a mentoring program only with pairing people inside them. You know, why don’t your employees have people outside the company. That’s just like succession planning, like the best succession plans aren’t the ones where only people in the company are on the list. It’s when people outside the company are on the list, because, as we said earlier, new people new ideas, new ways of solving problems.
Sue Bethanis 42:13
Well at least if you’re going to do succession planning, like somebody from this part of the organization can succeed, somebody from another part of the organization doesn’t have to be in that same, you know, silo?
Steve Cadigan 42:22
That’s right. I think all of us, if we take a look at our career arcs, we’ll find fondness for people that took a risk on us that we probably, on paper, weren’t ready to do something or qualified, and we did great. And that that belief that someone had in us, are we doing that? Are we paying that forward? You know, are we looking at that, because most people won’t, and here’s why. It’s not a cut on anyone. The more that, you know, if you don’t have experience, you’re risk to me, if you’re risk to me, that means you’re putting my weekends, you’re putting my evenings at risk, because maybe stuff won’t get done, you maybe putting my job at risk, because I’m taking a risk on you. And at scale, that becomes pretty scary, right? Just like when I was at Cisco, and all the GE HR people invaded and said, we’re gonna measure your success as leader by how well you move people around. We’re not done. They started moving. They started rigging the performance management systems, so people that weren’t good could look like they were good, and then passing the sort of mediocre talent around the organization and making it look like hey, I’m moving good talent around. And so I mean, I get it, it’s human nature. If you ask a salesperson, give me your best person. They’re like, why? That’s like, my, that’s my bonus. Why wouldn’t give you my bonus, you know, and in the company? Well, we got to think bigger than that, like, Yeah, really? No, because you’re gonna fire me if I don’t make my number and that person, she’s crushing it. You know, why would I do that? So, you know the truth. The truth is, both perspectives are fair. And we have to try to find, you know, what, if you say, I got to get my best salesperson up, I’m not going to want to do that. Unless I know, I’m getting someone as good or better in return, right? Until that flywheel starts moving, and trust is there. You’re not going to realize it. That’s why it’s hard. It’s hard.
Sue Bethanis 44:08
Mm hmm. Let’s talk about networking and connecting. So this is a different kind of connecting. Because I think that given that we don’t like have the watercooler like we’re finding like, you know, we used to walk around companies and go from one person to another and find new people without even trying, right. What do we need to do now in terms of networking, and we’re not in and about in coffee houses or in the companies?
Steve Cadigan 44:32
Yeah. Let me share how I got the job at LinkedIn, which is a story I think I tell in the book. I was going to a kid’s birthday party. My kids are in daycare. One of his friends at the school of the daycare was having a birthday party. And it was that what’s called Gilroy gardens. It’s a kid’s Disneyland. And as a dad, you’re thinking Oh great. Kids with sugar, screaming on the top of their lungs all afternoon, cannot wait for that moment. So I sort of reluctantly took my son to this thing. And over the course of the walking around the park, I met another dad who was there and he was applying for a job at LinkedIn. I offered to help him close his, you know, his offer with them and tried to negotiate more for him. He was grateful and came back to me a few months later and says, “Hey, we got this job. Are you interested in applying?” I’m like, “No, I’m good. I’m fine.” Electronic or he’s like, “No, man, you’re really the kind of person we want to have here” and like, okay, I reluctantly did it. a kid’s birthday party was a networking opportunity of a lifetime that opened the door. I mean, what are the odds that was happening? And so I think we have to rethink what networking really is. And some people think, Oh, I’ve got to go to those, you know, industry association meetings or you know, a night with strangers, which is so uncomfortable. But even as an extrovert, I don’t like those kinds of things. Yeah, but so I would think we all know people so what I would say is you’ve got a stale, huge stale network that you’ve not been nurturing. Reach out to those people just talk to them. How’s it going? That you haven’t you’ve got we all know tons of people we haven’t talked to in a while that something could be crossing your radar. And because you’re calling them then we Oh, hey, I was just thinking of you because you reached out to me so good. I’ll tell you a funny story. I started doing tik tok about a year ago. And I’ve got I think of like, 120,000 followers now and closing in on a million likes on my content. And half-and-half might turn into a tick tock one of these days, but I’m on Tick Tock. And within two weeks of me being on Tick tock, a colleague that I used to work with at LinkedIn reaches out to me, a LinkedIn colleague reaches out to me and says, “Hey, I saw you on tik tok. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this. Can you come in and do a seminar for my team?” I was like, really? Tick Tock is returning, you know, and they It was a paid you know, engagement. I was like, wow, from a tick tock. So, you know, there are places where, you know, again, back to this sort of passive, you have many passive people that we all know and I like to frame networking as helping people that you know, and asking for help from people that you know, start there. It’s not about adding people, strangers No, no, you’re those people will come like the other place, Sue, where I have like, a ridiculous network if I really wrote people’s names down, and I haven’t leveraged it that much is coaching in Menlo Park. Are you kidding me? I’ve coached the CFO, Twitter’s son. I’ve coached the guy that does all the digital photography for Apple and baseball. I mean, all these people they just like, or go watch your kids play sports and ask the person next to them. “Hey, who are you? What do you do?” Like what? It’s ridiculous.
Sue Bethanis 47:36
It’s like the grocery store.
Steve Cadigan 47:40
Yeah, it is. So there, there are places where it’s not forced. And I know it doesn’t feel easy, but we all know a ton of people. Now’s the time if things are a little bit slow, or you’re wanting to you know, think about your network is just activate the one that’s been dormant.
Sue Bethanis 47:56
Right, right. Yeah. And I think we need to get out I mean, like, safe to go out as long as you’re outside, you know, we don’t have to do these indoor big, you know, event things, it’s just go in the park or go to coffee outside. I mean, there’s a lot of things we can do. And we can also travel I mean, I’d said to one of my clients and you know, a couple months ago, it’s like remote does not mean we’re not traveling, you can still get on a plane, it’s still it’s pretty safe to get on a plane. You know, once you get there you got to be careful, especially where you go. But I think that we can’t just you know, stay in in too insular, we can come out a little bit. So that’s good. Any final words, my friend, thank you so much. This has been another good conversation.
Steve Cadigan 48:39
Yeah. Thanks for having me, Sue. I guess I’ll just restate something I said earlier, we have the greatest opportunity of a lifetime to rebuild the future working in a better way. Shame on us, we go back to our old ways. We have to. We’re compelled to, we have to do it. And it doesn’t mean you have to change everything. But experiment a little bit. And I think here’s the great thing about what we’re going through. And you know, this is a change zen master Sue, which is, the longer we haven’t been doing what we used to do, the less likely we’re going to go back to that. And we’re still in that new place. Right? And so the memory of how we used to do that is already changing. I have, there’s a friend of mine, she’s in a small medical practice here. Maybe they have 20 people. She went back to the office a few months ago, she had Steve, we hired a couple new people, but the culture is totally different now, it’s totally different. I go “What do you mean?” I was totally drawn in now. I’m like, now she’s got me like, “What do you mean?” And she goes,” Well, we’re all kind of the same, but everything’s different.” I go You mean the people that left, they’re not the same people who came back?” She goes, “Well, yeah, okay.” And I mean, this is these are medical professionals, obviously highly trained, very, very thoughtful people. And she’s like, “yeah, it’s not really what I want. I like that what it was,” and I go, “Well, what is it about the new one?” she’s like, “I’m not sure. It’s just it’s not what it was.” like okay, well that to me just means you need to build new patterns. But Isn’t that fascinating that even in a small 20 person we’re most 80% of the people are the same, culture is really really different.
Sue Bethanis 50:12
Right. Right. And well I think that because we’re really different too. That kind of kicked our ass what just happened.
Steve Cadigan 50:20
Yeah, and this is back to what we said in the beginning. We’re just hitting now at 18-20 months in of recognition “Okay, we’re not going to go back to that, but the grounds not firm. Business leaders, and it’s fair, we’re all “well let’s wait for things to calm down.” They’re not calming down.
Sue Bethanis 50:37
Let’s wait for the delta to go away. No, not gonna. I mean, we gotta like we have to stop waiting. We have to do it. Got to do it. So everybody, go to SteveCadigan.com. His Instagram is @stevecadigan. Book is WorkQuake: Embracing the Aftershocks of COVID-19 to Create a Better Model of Working you know, obviously find that on Amazon. All right, Steve. Again, just you know your my bud, thank you so much for being with me today and for and for being with us.
Steve Cadigan 51:11
Yeah. Thanks, Sue. Thanks for having me everybody.