Ryan Englin: Hire Better People Faster

Jason S. Bradshaw: Every leader has faced that moment standing in the middle of their shop factory floor or team meeting, wondering why is it so hard to find just one person who shows up, does the work, and doesn't quit by week three?

Here's the truth, it's not your industry, it's not the economy, and it's definitely not the kids these days.

It's the system.

And if your hiring system is broken, nothing else in your business will ever feel stable or scalable.

I've seen great leaders doing 12 hour days, burning weekends, carrying the weight of the whole business on their shoulders because they're constantly replacing people who never should have been hired in the first place.

If you are tired of turnover, draining your energy, your time, and your profitability. You, my friend, are in the right place.

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He has helped thousands of blue collar and service-based companies hire better people faster. His work proves that hiring is a marketing activity. Culture is a magnet. And the right system fills your bench long before you're desperate.

In this conversation, you'll learn how to stop the bleeding. Create a consistent flow of quality candidates, and put the right people in the right seats. Without burnout, stress, or gambling on resumes.

And in a few minutes, Ryan is going to reveal the one counterintuitive shift that instantly upgrades the quality of every hire, even if your industry is notorious for turnover.

Hey, Ryan, I'm so thrilled to have you on the show today.

Ryan Englin: Jason. I'm excited to be here.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Fantastic. So let's dive in.

Ryan Englin: On the financial side of the business, we don't quantify this because most people aren't writing a check. Like I'm actually writing a check. It's not coming out of the accounts.

Gallup just did a poll. Just in the US disengagements costs you 8.4% of your revenue. Ripped right off the bottom line. So anybody that wants to take the time to do that math, it's a lot of money. And when it comes to that stress and that frustration, like you said, those 12 hour days, which for some people they're thinking, I wish it was only 12 hour days, because they're constantly turning people over.

Jason S. Bradshaw: I think even as leaders though, we must start turning up differently when we wake up thinking, oh, what am I going to deal with today? I just don't have the right people.

Ryan Englin: I've never met someone... I get this question all the time. Should I fire this person? Should I terminate? I'm sure I let 'em go. I'm done. I've never had someone come back to me after they did that and said, I did it too soon. I should have waited. It's always exactly the opposite. Why didn't I do this 18 months ago? What have I been doing? And it's this fear, this lack of confidence that says if they leave I won't be able to replace them. We need to shift that mindset and say, if they leave, how much more productive would you and your team be? Because often the drain they're causing is way more than the productivity that they're creating.

Let's simplify things just for a little bit, Ryan.

Explain what you do to a 9-year-old using only what you'd find in their backpack or lunchbox.

Ryan Englin: This is gonna get messy. I'm gonna start in the lunchbox.

I would tell them that we fix people problems and the way we do that is let's look at the lunchbox. Things are packed neatly. They're packed in an organized way, and we know what's the main dish, what's the side, what's the snack and dessert, and we know that because we always wait till the end for that dessert.

We do the same thing inside of organizations. We develop processes and systems so that we know where things go, who's responsible for what and when we should reward our best people.

Ryan Englin: I'm gonna cut that as a clip and I'm gonna share that 'cause that was pretty good. Love that question.

Jason S. Bradshaw: So, Ryan, why is hiring harder today than ever before? Or is it perhaps just the story leaders are telling themselves?

Ryan Englin: So yes, it is harder than ever. And yes, it's a story we're telling ourselves.

And for those listening right now, if you are in a decision making role for hiring, I challenge you to look in the mirror and say, what part of the problem am I contributing to? Because you are, I promise you, you are.

So that's the story we tell ourselves. But it is harder. If the pandemic did anything for the job market, what it did was it showed employees that they have options. I can go do final mile delivery and I can make just as much money without a boss breathing over my neck without having to punch a clock. I get to set my terms and if I don't wanna work today, because I don't need the cash, I don't have to, and that's just one example.

Quick example, I was talking to a construction contractor who was hiring laborers, craftsmen, journeymen, and they said, oh no one in my industry can find these people. I go, your competition is not your industry. Your competition is Amazon and Target and Walmart, because you know what? They pay the same amount of money per hour for these guys and gals to go work in a warehouse. In an air conditioned warehouse. Whereas you want them to be out in the field and you're not paying them that much.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, it's important that we always remember that today people are judging us against their best experience, whether as a customer or as an employee, regardless of the industry. We don't turn up and say, oh, because you are a, you're a plumber. It's okay for you to give us a bad experience that do the half job. It's only when we go to the airport we want a really great job. We want that really great experience everywhere.

Ryan Englin: They do not put themselves in the shoes of the candidate and see the experience that they're creating in the recruiting process and how disruptive it is to that candidate's personal life. I don't know the stats on this exactly, I think [00:09:00] it changes a lot, but I heard that somewhere just in the US, 92% of people cannot skip a paycheck and still put food on the table. 92%. So if somebody's down on their luck, maybe they just got laid off. Maybe it was so toxic, they just had to quit and they need a job. They don't have time to wait for you for 10 days to get back to them when they apply. They don't have the luxury of waiting two weeks for that next interview. They need a job now. And if you do not move quickly for them, you're gonna lose them. 86% of candidates drop out of the recruiting process because it takes too long. And then what do we do? We say, oh, no one wants to work. I'm like how long are they sit in the pipeline? 11 days. Sounds like no one wants to hire. No one wants to work. And we don't take a second to say what are they going through? What's the experience we can create for them? Because what does that say to the [00:10:00] candidate? You don't care. You're not interested in what I need. Is this a company I even wanna work for if they can't call me back? And then I love this part we get mad at them because when we do call them back in 11 days, they don't answer and they never call us back. And we're like, look, everybody's ghosting. I'm like it took you 11 days to call back someone who said, Hey, I'm interested in the job. Who ghosted, who first?

Not that we're playing fair, but what we've done as employers is we've taught an entire generation of people that we just don't care about them in the recruiting process. We don't care about their needs. We don't care about their situation. All we care about is managing our pipeline on the limited staff that HR typically has, and we'll get to it when we get to it.

Jason S. Bradshaw: What a refreshing way to look at it, where it's not that people are ghosting us, it's that we ghosted them first. We get what we sow. We absolutely do.

Ryan Englin: If you think about recruiting, it's about getting the right message. I have this job. I need someone to fill. In front of the right people that are qualified at the right time. When they're ready to make a jump. Leap to something else. That's Marketing 101. Right message. Right people. Right Time. Marketing 101.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Many years ago I was a chief customer and marketing officer for Volkswagen Group here in Australia, and one of the things that we launched was a website called I Am Volkswagen. And it was not a, I am a Volkswagen owner. It was, I am Volkswagen, as in, are you the right fit to work for Volkswagen, either in our head office or in our dealerships?

Ryan Englin: Yeah.

Jason S. Bradshaw: It was phenomenal.

So if you can just briefly walk us through the Core Fit Hiring System that you've created, and what are the key steps that transform chaos into consistency?

Ryan Englin: Yeah, I think the thing that we have to remember is that if recruiting is a marketing activity, we need to move from a mindset of finding people to attracting them. And if we are not an attractive employer for a whole bunch of variety of reasons... it really depends on the industry and the people you're looking to recruit. If you're not attractive to them you're not gonna attract them. I tell people, if you aren't attracting the right people to your business, not attractive to the right people. And that's one of those hard truths. So when we look at the Core Fit Hiring System, we're looking at how do you attract people?

Once you've attracted them, now you need to qualify them. And we turn the interview process. We've flipped it upside down a little bit in that I'm less interested in what you have to [00:16:00] say and more interested in how you behave. Because I can teach you how to do the job. I cannot teach you how to behave in a way that is gonna make you feel like you belong here. I can't teach you to get out of bed on time. I can't teach you to have a owner's mindset. I can't teach those things. But I can teach you to use our computer systems or our tools or scripts to do the sales process. I can teach all of that. So in interviewing, we look for a behavioral match way before we look for someone that can be competent in the skills.

Once we've done that, then we have to engage them. We have to keep them engaged long term. I've heard this a lot from relationship coaches. You have to date your spouse. You have to keep the spark alive. You have to do these things. Well, that's part of the human condition. Last time I checked, we're hiring humans. Now, I'm not saying date your employees. I'm gonna be very clear. It's a whole, bunch of legal issues, but you have to engage them. You have to get them excited. You have to remind them why they wanted to join your team. And then once you've done that, I want you to assess everything that's going on. Is your system working? Is your system not working? Are you getting the results you expect?

Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah I think it's also important to acknowledge it's not HR's job. to fix the retention problem. It's HR's job to help support the leaders in the business, fix the retention problem.

We hear this buzz word about beginning an employer of choice, and if you're an employer of choice, that will attract people to you.

Ryan Englin: I wanna start how we define employer of choice.

Jason S. Bradshaw: What do you think has [00:21:00] caused that shift though?

And I'll tell you, we've been doing this a long time, and it's right around the six month mark when companies are working with us that I usually get a phone call that says I'll do whatever I gotta do. Just tell me what to do. Because they fought it. They fought it, and I've shown them it's not gonna work. It's not gonna work. It's not gonna work. Here's what you need to do. And if they had just listened to me six months ago, they would have that superstar employee right now, super trained up, but they passed on a bunch of people that fit, would've belonged in their company, would've been the right culture fit, they passed on them because they didn't have the skills.

Ryan Englin: Yeah. I think one of the things that we forget is that when people are applying for jobs, they're using job boards. And if you look at Indeed, for example, their tagline is helping people find jobs, not helping employers find quality people. They're not about the employer, just newsflash. If you're giving money to Indeed, they're just taking money from you. They're not on your side. They're on the side of the job seeker. And what these job boards have done is made it very easy for someone to go check check, check, apply all. And so I can apply for 20 jobs in five minutes because my resume's already in the system. I don't even know who you are. I've done no research. And so one of the things you can do is slow the process down. I wanna be very clear when I say this, 'cause what people hear is take longer. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I want you to put some resistance [00:24:00] into the process. Make it a little bit harder for them to apply. One of the ways we do that is we ask screening questions, and be very clear in your screen screening questions. Don't just ask, are you authorized to work? Do you have a driver's license? Are you 18? No. Ask the hard questions before they even apply, and you'll eliminate about 70% of the garbage applications just by doing that.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, I like that. I think most often we're used to screening questions as a compliance tool as opposed to, are you going to be the right fit? If you're not prepared to answer this question, like you're probably not gonna be the right fit for the company.

Ryan Englin: Who posted those screening questions? The compliance team.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah.

Ryan Englin: It makes sense. I don't fault them for that.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah,

Ryan Englin: I love the HR people and for the purpose that they're there. This isn't their world.

Ryan Englin: Yeah, there's a point where we're hiring higher quality people. It's taking a little longer, but when they get there, they're excited to be there.

And there's this inflection point where it goes from everybody feeling like everything's on fire all the time, to this little bit of peace and calm because we're fully staffed, and everybody that's here wants to be here. And for some owners it's scary because they're like, wait a minute, I know how to fix stuff. Like I want something to break that I can fix it.

And when it happens, all of a sudden the confidence level goes up. And these people say, you know what? If I did have to hold someone to a high standard for performance and they did get mad at me, I got a team here that's gonna help me replace that person. Maybe, if I do go to that person, they're gonna be like, I had no idea. I wanna stay. I'll do whatever it takes. It's a pretty big psychological shift that happens.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Yeah, yeah, I can see that.

Ryan Englin: If you have someone above you that you have to go to them and say, Hey, we gotta do something different, and you want the support, I encourage you to start speaking that person's language. So let's say that you report directly to the owner and that you're just not getting through and you don't feel like you have the support. Think about the language that is impactful to the owner. Things like return on investment. Things like less customer service issues. Things like, there's going to be this increased productivity, increased profitability. These are the things that are important to owners. They think about the financial return on investment they get in this business that they're taking a risk on. And that applies whether you're a small company or you're working for a hundred thousand employee company. They speak the [00:28:00] language of finance and it's really important to be able to speak that language to 'em.

So don't go to them and just say, Hey, I wanna do something different. Here's why I wanna do something different because 8.4% of our revenue is being ripped right off the bottom line because we have a disengaged workforce. Because we can't keep people. We can't keep people because we've never got clear on our core and we're not making hiring decisions around our core. And now you're gonna have a different conversation with that than you would've before.

Jason S. Bradshaw: Makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. Ryan, thank you so much.

One of the most powerful insights that I think you shared today was that hiring isn't a people problem. It's a system problem, and when you fix the system, everything else gets easier.

Today we learned how to stop the hiring chaos by building stability first. Attracting better people with clearer expectations and stronger culture signals, and how to create a proactive recruiting engine that fills your bench long before you're desperate.

It might be the episode that changes everything for them. And make sure you check out Ryan's book and the Core Fit Hiring System. The links are in the show notes.

Remember, when you transform the experience, you transform your business and the world around you.

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