Live From SHRM Annual with Dan Hunter, Workzinga

In this very special episode, live from the #SHRM22 expo floor in New Orleans, Bill Banham is joined by Dan Hunter, CEO and founder at Workzinga, a job search and hiring platform emphasizing company culture fit. Dan is a lifelong entrepreneur with a passion for developing and mentoring leaders.

Listen as Bill and Dan Discuss: 

• Why is Workzinga exhibiting at SHRM and how does the SHRM Annual Conference and Expo fit with the Workzinga brand?
• What has been the response from attendees to Workzinga so far? Do they get the concept of 'culture fit'?
• Dan's top SHRM presentations/conversations at the conference so far
• Predictions for the future of recruitment  - based on what Dan has seen and heard at the conference
• Other events he and Workzinga will be at in 2022

Transcript

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Speaker 1 0:01

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Speaker 2 0:23

Hey , this is bill Banham live from the Sherm annual conference in expo 2022 . It's fantastic to be back at Sherm after for me several years, actually. Uh , obviously the pandemic , uh, took it out for a couple of years there. Um , but the last time I attended was gosh , back in 2018 , I think in DC and I am joined by the awesome , fantastic Dan hunter founder , and over at zinger , regular listeners , the HR chats . Now we're the attendees attendees, hundreds of sessions over 500 exhibitors. This is, this is the place to be be here or be a rectangle. So they say, Dan, great to have you on the show .

Speaker 3 1:10

Great to be back on the show. I appreciate it . Thank you much.

Speaker 2 1:12

So , uh, let , let's start by talking a bit about why you guys are here. Yeah . Why , why did you choose Sherm as a place to exhibit?

Speaker 3 1:18

Well, I think if you're going , if you're gonna be in the HR space, there is no better partner than charm . Uh , the access to membership their advocacy on the , on , on the part of human resource of professionals, they understand the environment and they just know what it takes to be successful. They know who their audience is. They play to it very well. They're great to vendors like us and they know that, you know , partnerships like this are what allow companies to succeed. And so they foster relationships with us and HR professionals. So it's the place to be .

Speaker 2 1:45

Awesome. And , um, how's, how's the response been so

Speaker 3 1:48

Far tremendous. Um, a few of us have lost our voices from all the conversations we've been having , but that's a good , that's a good thing . Um , we are engaging with just a tremendous number of people . Um , we're hearing a lot of the same stories over and over about the challenges that companies are facing. Um, they're fi finding problems with sourcing candidates or finding problems with retaining talent mm-hmm <affirmative> um , and then when they do retain the talent, the challenges you have with attrition down the line. So , um, it's been a great response that we've had so far. Uh , yesterday was the opening today was the longest today of the three day expo. Um, and we just had person after person, after person engaging with this at , at all areas of the booth, having all kinds of conversations around what their specific needs are. Great questions about the product and ultimately, how can they get involved?

Speaker 2 2:34

Do they get it? Do they get the concept of culture fit or is it something that needs a bit of explanation ?

Speaker 3 2:38

That's a , that's a great question . And I think at a high level , everybody understands they need to , for culture , the problem is no one answers the question . That's the challenge . Everybody says , hire for culture , hire for , hire for it's the right thing to do the right thing . No , what's next . No one the next , so the question is how , and that's what we tell people. This is how so introducing it by saying, you know, culture's a problem hiring for culture's an issue. How do you do that ? Everybody's on board . When you say , how do you do it ? That's when you gets , because people say , these are the things I'm doing , but I don't feel like it's enough and are works .

Speaker 2 3:18

And what are the , what are the common problems that you're hearing from, from potential customers of

Speaker 3 3:22

The future? Yeah. So one of the problems is they're , um, having a hard time finding talent right now, everybody is . And so they're making a lot of very quick hiring decisions. Um, a lot of times they're still running short on staff and you know, they see something like this as something that they may not be a good fit for them right now. But then when I talk to them about, if you are only hiring half the number of people you really need don't you wanna make sure it's the right half. Yeah . Aren't the numbers that you're hiring most important right now that they're going to last. So when you position it like that, suddenly it's not, it's no longer a numbers game. It's a quality game because hiring today and having it turnover tomorrow is worse than not hiring today at all . So when you present it like that, people begin to really understand. It doesn't matter how many people I'm hiring and how frequently I'm hiring . What matters is that they're making good quality hires, no matter what the industry is saying , no matter what the hiring patterns and the trends are today , you still gotta make good quality hires , whether I'm hiring one or hiring 10 .

Speaker 2 4:24

And what's your response to folk who said , well , we like, we like to have different types of folk working our organization to our , our philosophy and our outlook. Yeah . Um , they initially , when they start talking to you think , well , actually you guys are about trying to find the same sorts of people. Um , or is there a conversation there to be had with , with , with prospects, with people on the floor here to , to explain to them , well, actually we , we , we help you make sure that you can be as , as engaging and as , as open to as many different people as possible. Yeah . Under the umbrella of what that culture should look

Speaker 3 4:57

Like . Yeah . That is a great question. And it's one which a lot of people have , have presented, you know, it is , you know, am I hiring for the same culture, but what if I want a different culture? Yeah . And my response is our , our process is built on a , on a two sided assessment. One, the company takes one that the candidate takes. If you wanna hire for a certain type of culture, you've gotta display it already . You can't simply say, I want all new hires to be like this. If you're not exhibiting it already, why? Because they're not going to stay. They're going to see that you hired them with a different of circumstances than what they thought they were entering into . So if you take the assessment today and it's not what you want it to be change , that's where it starts. You can't simply say, I wanna bring in new people, change starts at the top. And if your company culture today is not what you want, change it, take the assessment, show what it is , and then hire from that . You can't go the other way . It won't stick .

Speaker 2 5:55

And from the conversations that you , you guys are having are the HR people on board , but maybe it's the leaders that are scared of the change. Is that generally ,

Speaker 3 6:04

You know , that's a , that's a , that's a great question because we do hear a lot of people saying I like this, but yeah . And a lot of the , the , the buts that we hear are about , um, just institutional change , being a challenge. And the fact that it's , we've always done this , we've always done that . Um , I just had a conversation with someone today . She was incredibly enthusiastic about product , but her company uses a different solution for culture fit . And she feels like it's gonna be very hard to overcome that . And I said , and asked , what can I , what can I do for you? How can I help you make that case? Because if you firmly believe it, and you're the frontline recruiting expert in your , in your company, how can I arm you? And she said, well, tell me how you're different . And I said, okay , I'll tell you how we're different. What product are you using? And we'll , and I'll show you the differences. Um, is it a price issue? Is it, is it something about reliability? Is it the fact that you've used a product that's been around for many years, there are ways that we can position this to help companies overcome that. So then when they do elevate this decision to the hiring or to their, to their decision makers, that maybe they're better armed. Um , but that is a very common, common thing that we're hearing , uh, the degree to which it's true or not. It's hard to say, you know, some people feel like , um, higher people in higher positions won't listen to them , so they don't try. But if you don't try how, you know, that's the challenge. Exactly . You know, it's hard to know for sure. What's, you know, where that actually lies and how much of it is true and how much isn't, but it's , what's in their mind and that's the conversation I have help you . I'll help you find the right argument so that you can go back and make your case.

Speaker 2 7:40

Now then when I, when I rocked up here today at your booth , uh, which by the way is beautiful.

Speaker 3 7:44

Oh ,

Speaker 2 7:44

Thank you . I love it. Um , you guys were super busy, you all having conversations, you were conversation with someone . Um , so I'm guessing you spent a lot of time here at the booth, but when you haven't been here , then managed to get sessions .

Speaker 3 7:57

I mean , they've got some great sessions, they've got terrific sessions on strategies for talent , um, talent management. Yep . They've got some terrific sessions on , uh, DEI that have been great. We've sent various people to , uh, to go see some of those particular ones. Um, I've spent my time , um, really engaging with people. Um, I was originally looking at taking some of these , um, sessions for myself, but the more I talk with people, the more I felt like I wanna be here. Yeah . I wanna talk and talk about our story and listen to what other people's challenges are. Um , but we , some of the classes have been great. And so we've had several people going though. And so they're gonna bring terrific feedback back to the team

Speaker 2 8:32

And , uh, the fund doesn't stop here. Of course. No ,

Speaker 3 8:35

Because you ,

Speaker 2 8:35

You guys are off to Vegas in

Speaker 3 8:37

September. Yeah . We're off to the races . So , um, we have HR tech in September and I'll be speaking at that . Yeah . Um , so we're very much looking forward to that experience. We know it's a slightly different audience from the audience . Um , so I'm interested in seeing what story they're looking for . Um , what , what do they respond best to, is it the tactical kind of hands on , this is what a person faces in the recruiting seat, or is it more of a strategic conversation about how best to position your company to deal with attrition and turnover and the tremendous impact on productivity that attrition has? Um, so I'm really looking forward to meeting some people there and hearing what works best for that particular audience .

Speaker 2 9:16

So I know it's , I know it's only June and that's happening in September. Yeah . But do you have an idea yet about your session , your title description ?

Speaker 3 9:22

Uh , yeah , basically the , the concept , um, is gonna be the intersection between science and recruiting . Um , and because that's really where we live , it is the application of industrial organizational psychology to recruiting and how it can be used. How can you use science and data and ones and zeros essentially to improve the recruiting process for everybody, not just companies, but the candidates too .

Speaker 2 9:46

There we go. Audience. Um , I dunno if that was an exclusive for the HR Gazette, but I'll , I'll take it. Uh , Dan , before we do wrap up for today , how can our listeners and of you as learn more about you and , and more about

Speaker 3 9:57

Onega ? Absolutely. Um , and I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you again today . Um , I always appreciate the opportunity to talk with your listeners. Feel free to reach out to me directly, Dan Doga Doga com you can also go toga.com . Learn more about the company there . Lots of great links, terrific content there to learn more about the product and how it can help other

Speaker 2 10:16

Businesses. Amazing. Well, that just leaves me to say for today, Dan, for this very special edition, where we've got the video on, where we're sitting on the expo floor . Thank you very much for being

Speaker 3 10:24

My guest . Thank you. I appreciate it .

Speaker 1 10:28

Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR chat podcast. There are hundreds of conversations with business experts available for free on the AHR Gazette website, apple, Spotify, and all the main platforms. And remember to like subscribe and follow us on social media.