Transform Onstage: A Dive into HR Innovation and Challenges

[00:00:00] Hello listener. On March 12th, Joel and I were in Las Vegas, Nevada for Transform where we got on stage with Carolyn Fry Chief People Officer over at Hungry Root, Jessica Swank, Chief People Officer at Box and Joey Lee Head of Talent Acquisition at Panda. They joined Joel and myself on stage for an unfiltered discussion which spanned several, several topics that were important to them. Enjoy.

[00:00:30] You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast, Chad Soosh and Joel Cheezman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where hers. Complete with breaking news, brass opinion and loads of snot, Bottle Up Boys and Girls. It's time for the Chad and G's podcast.

[00:00:47] Yeah, what's up everybody? It's Carrot Top's favorite podcast, aka the Chad and G's podcast.

[00:00:59] I said my beer. My name is Joel Cheezman. We got a rookie up here. Now you all know what I have to deal with.

[00:01:08] Anyway, I'm your co-host Joel Cheezman. Join us always. The mind to my freak Chad Soosh is in the house. Somebody get him a sippy cup please.

[00:01:19] Sippy cup and we are excited to welcome Carolyn Fry, raise your hand so we honor who you are Chief People Officer at Hungry Root, Jessica Swank, Chief People Officer at Box

[00:01:35] and Joey Lee rounding up the starting for at Panda, also known as Panda Express and Panda Inn. Correct. So there may be a coupon code for all the pandas.

[00:01:49] Check underneath your seat. Check underneath your seat. Everyone's take around this count code underneath your seat possibly. It might not be. I don't know.

[00:01:58] Alright, alright guys. We know your title and where you work. Some of the audience here doesn't know what the company does give us a quick Twitter explanation about what your companies do.

[00:02:10] Okay, I work for Hungry Root or personalized online grocery subscription service. Super cool. You should check it out. There's a coupon code in everyone's bag. I think it's HRT 40.

[00:02:19] Oh, AI driven you fill out an assessment of you and your household preferences. Any allergies, dietary restrictions and then we pre-fill your grocery cart with a meal component. So you have your recipes and groceries for the week.

[00:02:32] It's amazing. Healthy healthy eating forward. So making healthy eating easy is our mission.

[00:02:38] We'll keep trying. Okay, persistence just swaying great to see everybody. So I'm at box which is content cloud. So all the data that you have out there we help you manage it and secure way collaboration is at the heart of what we do very much a SaaS company.

[00:02:56] So a little bit different than Hungry Root, but very similar to joy. A joyly head of 10 acquisition at Panda restaurant group then with kind of for about five weeks now. So it's like five years.

[00:03:10] I'm pretty sure you guys all know about panda with 30,000 employees deep were global now and our focus to be the world leader in people development.

[00:03:21] That's one of the main reasons why I actually joined so super stoked inside to be here.

[00:03:26] Excited until you start this. Here we go. Here we go. Okay, Jessica first one for you. We've been hearing a lot about this whole AI thing. Quick question.

[00:03:36] Bullshit or not.

[00:03:40] For HR for for town acquisition and HR. Bullshit or not?

[00:03:46] Definitely or not. So I would say AI is here it is the wave. It is going to change so much of what we do not only within businesses, but I think especially within our people within our communities everything from how we hire to how we think about learning to how we think about you know assessing and understanding everything from benefits

[00:04:08] and first line how we deal with it. So I think it's going to be a game changer and I could not be more excited. Are you using it? That's the question are we are using it in so many different ways.

[00:04:19] So one so box a little short plug. We have our own box AI that we actually just went out to market. And so all of the data that we have within box, we actually then can go and query.

[00:04:32] So it's safe. It's secure. So we look at it from recruiting so we're using it in our job descriptions. We actually are wearing our middle of our performance management cycle and we're using it actually in writing reviews and we did even training for our managers on how to use it in a safe way.

[00:04:52] Now it's not going to do an end to end, but we can really think about where and how do we best leverage it. So I think end to end we're using it and that we're just at the start.

[00:05:02] Joey, it's got to be different at Panda.

[00:05:05] Oh gosh AI using it. Yes, absolutely. At the Panda AI.

[00:05:11] Yeah, we have a virtual Panda that walks around. Nah, but in terms of AI itself, I mean, it's a game changer. And AI has been here forever. You think about series, you think about Alexa, you think about when you jump into your car and it knows your routes every morning at 5 AM.

[00:05:31] It's crazy. In terms of how Panda is currently using it, when I joined Panda about five weeks ago, they did not have a recruiting process. So basically, I leverage AI to generate a recruiting playbook interview guides pretty much recruiting workflow within two weeks.

[00:05:49] So it has expedited our process. I understand, I understand how AI is not going to take over the world. It's just there to support you be your guide. Plus I actually leverage AI at home with my 11 year old daughter. So she comes up to me and she she asked help to help with her math homework. Right?

[00:06:11] So I tell her, hey, you know what? Go on chat GBT put that information in if they can't answer it. Come back to me and 100% of the time.

[00:06:21] It's been crazy. So the way the Panda Express recommendation engine always gets my order. Yeah, always just just right. Always Carolyn. Yes. Oh AI.

[00:06:35] Welcome to the show. I'm super giggly right now. Yeah, well, we're a company built on AI. So yes, AI not bullshit and I'd say I run cuts so wait. Our company built on AI. Explain that first. Okay. Which part?

[00:06:50] The company that's built on AI. Okay. Well our algorithm is well, it incorporates machine learning and something called operations research, which has like hard and soft constraints. A hard constraint would be like, I'm allergic to garlic or I'm allergic to onions.

[00:07:04] Or I don't eat dairy. You know, where a soft constraint is like, I don't like tomatoes. So that's kind of one component that's been implemented and now we're putting in machine learning so that it's pretty predictive.

[00:07:14] So like it's like, hey, Chad and cheese you love these four ginger shots on every four weeks. We're going to pre-fill your grocery cart with that every four weeks. Okay.

[00:07:23] Or whatever your preferences are. Okay, so we're in an outdoor. We're in an outdoor. Ginger shot Chad. I love it. Where's Tim Sackett? Everybody calls him a ginger shot. So that was good right. That was good.

[00:07:35] So talk about the talent acquisition side of the house. How are you using it there? Obviously your business is built on it. So how are you using it there?

[00:07:44] From the beginning, we've used it for job descriptions, job postings. But we've implemented a solution bright hire just to do a plug for them here that is amazing. So helpful.

[00:07:53] Do all of our interview notes and has actually brought a lot of like fairness and equity to the interview process. So that's most specifically it's more around like time efficiency.

[00:08:02] So we have a higher quality interview process and save people time. And they're awesome.

[00:08:09] Curious about AI on the other side of the equation in other words job seekers using AI to mass apply for jobs. Is that a concern for you guys? Are you seeing any evidence of that? More and more stories seem to be coming out about it.

[00:08:24] I mean, I think in general, I don't know if it's AI driven but we're definitely seeing mass supply. You know, we have a I'm looking at someone on my team. We have a payroll position open and the candidates. I mean, we have like 1800 applications and half of them have no HR payroll experience. So I think the mass supply is an issue. I'm not sure if it's AI or other.

[00:08:42] Same box. Yeah, it's the same thing. Yeah, so we're talking before today and the labor shortage is a big story for everyone. And it was really intriguing to know that two of the three of you aren't having a lot of shortage issues.

[00:08:59] So I want you each to talk about that. And if you're not, why aren't you? And if you are what is life like for you and how are you trying to solve that problem? Let's start with Jessica.

[00:09:10] All right. So job shortages. I would say we're not struggling with job shortage on applicant shortage. I think what we are grappling with. I think like many companies is finding the right person for the role.

[00:09:25] And I think what you know, kind of just mentioning for some of our jobs, we get thousands of applicants. So trying to grapple with and surf through them.

[00:09:33] And then you have other jobs, AI jobs where there is a particular shortage of a particular skill set. We also have a global organization. And so depending on where you are or what skill you have, it depends. So it's an and it's a yes and I would say.

[00:09:48] So is there a training aspect of that? So you'd have to back down requirements a little bit so that you can get people in the seats and then start training because obviously somebody in the seats better than nobody in the seat. And their uptime might be a little bit longer, but still you can work on getting there and hopefully keeping them.

[00:10:05] I think it depends on the role. I think some roles you need more harder requirements and yet other jobs absolutely we hire a lot on potential and we hire a lot on our your culture ad.

[00:10:17] So can you bring other aspects to the role? And then how do we make sure if there are, you know, inevitable gaps or knowledge that you need to learn. Then we work with you to make sure that you're both up.

[00:10:31] Joey. Yeah for us in terms of sure you have a shortage, we don't have a way too many applicants, but they're not qualified applicants. And what we did is we actually start doubling down on our employee value proposition, you know, really promoting the benefits.

[00:10:48] We also looked at our pay rate. So we're not the midpoint, we're above midpoint out there. We also tapped into different diversity organizations looking at veterans, women back to work, all these different avenues. We actually went, we actually are going international as well. So looking at international talent. So casting a wider net for us is going to truly help us get more qualified candidates. And then our recruiters are actually using the AI components to parse through all the resumes because we do get a lot of volume.

[00:11:18] Carolyn, you had an interesting perspective in that Poland is a focus for you. Obviously the Ukraine issue.

[00:11:26] That was mine. Wrong person. Oh, is that Jessica? Jessica. That's okay. I can talk about our lack of time. You're not the only one that's sleep deprived. Sorry. Jesse, you were talking about the Poland Ukraine talent pool.

[00:11:40] Yeah, well, I was just saying how you know, so we have a very large engineering site in Poland. And so actually, you know, you think about immigration issues. It's not only here in the US, but it's also globally. And so where we think about diversity here in the US, it looks different around the world.

[00:11:58] So we're having to really think about where are the talent markets? Where do we make sure that we need to do it, you know, kind of from an immigration following regulations. Cause again, every country has their own regulations. And yet how do we also think about diversity and diverse pools a little bit differently.

[00:12:14] Good segue diversity equity and inclusion. How are you guys dealing with those challenges? Have you figured out your beer yet? Yeah.

[00:12:24] Yeah. Okay. I think I'm good. Start with Joey diversity equity inclusion at Panda. So, um, I think we're not so I've been in previous organization where Dean and I was at top of the house.

[00:12:37] I think with Panda, it's all about belonging inclusive. They're starting to roll out. Dean, I training.

[00:12:43] So in terms of our focus is going to be belonging inclusive. So we've seen in the media, there's a lot of retraction of DEI initiatives.

[00:12:56] Is that something that you were seeing not just for yourself, but also from your industry?

[00:13:02] So I'm going to be very respectful in this conversation because I think it's a very nuanced conversation. I think it is a movement and I think companies where we've seen them retract, it is because they jumped on the fad of it was the end thing to do and they, you know, did things for the bling and the press.

[00:13:20] And I think that companies where a sense of inclusion, a sense of diversity, a sense of belonging was important. I think that many companies, including box, have just doubled down on that.

[00:13:32] Now again, we're thinking about it more from a global aspect as well. We are, as I mentioned earlier, as we have global organization, what does that look like globally?

[00:13:41] One of our values is bring your blame self to work. And so I think that sense of belonging, inclusion, it is integrated into the fabric of everything that we do.

[00:13:51] So our commitment to diversity, inclusion, belonging has been steadfast and will remain. We don't get it all perfect, right?

[00:14:00] We have our challenges as well, but I think for a lot of organizations not to minimize the challenges that we're seeing from some updated regulations and some very prominent figures out there unfortunately who are having a loud voice.

[00:14:16] I think we all need to come and say no, that actually is not what we're experiencing. And how do we double down and really advocate for I think the goodness that diversity and belonging is not only for every one of us, but for the bottom line of the business.

[00:14:31] Carolyn?

[00:14:33] I mean, I agree with it's a nuanced conversation. I mean the way I think about is like progress is not linear. So I don't know that I just got as a fad but obviously was a big topic and continues to be over the last couple of years.

[00:14:45] But I would still argue we've made a lot of progress. I think we tried a lot like we the collective people company community tried a lot of things after in particular after George George Floyd's murder. And I think we learned a lot.

[00:14:57] I agree with Jessica being my personal point of view is what I learned I had a pretty large D.I.B. team at my last company was that actually we need just to embed it and all the work we do in our people strategy and that's just a far more effective and impactful approach.

[00:15:10] So I guess I disagree that it's not important or we've like lost progress. I think we have, I just think that this the tactic and approach is different.

[00:15:20] We saw a lot of companies throw money at the problem. They did that in hiring CDOs chief diversity officers and then gave them no resources whatsoever.

[00:15:32] So from my standpoint, there are the outcomes did not were not there. So is this is it going to be a rebirth in a more outcomes focused area? Joey?

[00:15:45] Yeah.

[00:16:16] Right now I think it's that someone has to take ownership on it. And is that one team approach everyone has to be part of it. Yeah, so good question. Are you guys seeing resources more resources on the D.I.S. out of the house? Or is it pretty much stayed plateaued or cut?

[00:16:32] Yeah, we've actually recently added now it's one person but everyone person. But I also totally rate has to be embedded in the business.

[00:16:41] Yeah.

[00:16:42] I think where where I saw peers and companies they put one person and they said now they're going to solve D.I. for us in our organization.

[00:16:51] If there's everybody set up to fail, I think it has to be embedded. It is embedded into our culture. It's embedded into our hiring or development or offboarding.

[00:17:00] It has to also be a business problem and I think you have to have business leaders who are also held accountable. So I think again it has to be a holistic approach.

[00:17:10] And again, we're going to see ups and downs but I think the trend is Carolyn saying I agree. I actually think the fact that the conversation that here we are still talking about it is positive.

[00:17:23] The only thing I'd add is I love you Joey but I disagree with your statement which is sort of like I was a little bit. I love Joey.

[00:17:29] Yeah, I love you. I love Panda express.

[00:17:33] And I support you. My daughter loves it. No, it's sort of like asking like who owns culture? Like that question. I don't know just like makes me really mad.

[00:17:42] You will all own culture. I think to justice point it is in the ethos. I think somebody has to own it on it though right.

[00:17:47] It has to be under somebody for it to be for there to be accountability.

[00:17:51] I mean then maybe it's sort of like the CEO and executive team but I don't think that it would be the equivalent of saying like the chief people officer owns culture.

[00:17:58] It's like no, we enable culture. We're a big culture driver but you know we don't own culture. Culture is like a collection of a lot of different decisions at you know and data points and strategies across lots of different things is not just kind of from the people function.

[00:18:13] I want to want to jump on the culture thing there for a second and employment branding obviously is a big topic and you are all very different from a brand perspective.

[00:18:24] granola ask food service high tech you know fast food and and just convert your you have a really quirky CEO that I think plays into the employment brand as well.

[00:18:37] Just curious we can start with Carolyn how does employment how do you guys approach employment brand. It sounds like it's holistic at your company not transcends into recruiting.

[00:18:49] How do you put that message out what's been most effective talk about that.

[00:18:53] Okay, what's cool to work for consumer brand and hopefully you all try it or have tried it is that we think about the consumer brand and the employer brand like pretty closely linked.

[00:19:03] But it also is I mean the way we're in sort of a grateful place hungry is performing really well. We have a very cool product. We have a very cool mission and story to tell.

[00:19:12] And our results are amazing and we've been profitable for a couple of years in the core business just kicks ass so I feel like our employer brand.

[00:19:20] It sells itself because especially sort of in this marketplace where there's so many companies restructuring not profitable startups not making it.

[00:19:28] You know we've been able to tell that story really well and that's going to why we don't have a talent shortage you know we've been really lucky.

[00:19:34] Joey employment brand Joey still mad yeah I'm no I'm.

[00:19:40] Joey another beer.

[00:19:43] In terms of our brand it's so our our seal it's a husband and wife.

[00:19:51] They really believe in people putting people first throughout COVID they have not laid off anybody.

[00:19:58] So they actually move individuals throughout the organizations operators move them to different parts within different departments.

[00:20:07] They have a huge stake in developing people consistently. They're tough I mean we call her the Tiger mom and our RCO actually goes to the store if there's trash on the floor he will pick it up.

[00:20:20] So he actually leads by example and everyone does that so everyone truly follows that same suit.

[00:20:27] Aaron Levy how do you control that guy and how does how does he impact employment if at all anybody who knows Aaron knows there's no controlling I joke it's it's nudging him maybe in other directions and giving them very candid feedback.

[00:20:41] I do think though you know working for a founder CEO but also a co founder.

[00:20:49] CFO right I joke that they're the brothers because they've known each other since middle school and they lead by example right you talked about that sense of they don't do anything that you know they don't ask others to do.

[00:21:05] And so that sense of we talk a lot about culture ads the values have been seven years and going strong.

[00:21:12] The values the culture it's not just something that is you know talked about one and done it is literally embedded into every single thing that we do even our performance management we do the what so delivering on the objectives but the how we are four leader mindsets business team self and community you have to meet a minimum threshold of both of those

[00:21:34] to be able to be successful so again it's not just talk it is what do you do I have a five and a half year old it is all about you know kids learn what they live I think people within organizations you have to culture is about what we live day in and day out it's those

[00:21:52] micro moments it's the stories that are so important that I think actually really cultivate an incredible culture.

[00:21:59] So we recently saw it's like a story that continues the surface where Klarna got rid of 700 customer service individuals and they replaced it with AI right seems to be in some cases going toward we're looking toward the future how does that actually impact

[00:22:18] culture D.E.I the entire I mean this is something we've got to think about holistically when we start using these different technology so whoever wants to go first.

[00:22:30] She will not is it hard to recruit when everyone thinks you're going to lay everybody off in the near future.

[00:22:36] That was like ten ten questions and one I'm good at those okay to the Klarna day I do I don't think you're asking the question but I I do agree that AI as I mentioned I lead customer care

[00:22:47] to will take away customer care jobs in our particular situation we work with the BPO so we work at the huge team in Mexico that aren't our employees so they probably will be the most impacted and I think in some ways it actually

[00:22:58] enhances culture for us I hate to say it because our customer care agents will focus on like very high level tickets.

[00:23:05] So we'll implement it sort of just for the basic hey my box wasn't delivered or hey there's this damage product pretty basic stuff to answer get customer credits respond kindly but much more

[00:23:15] difficult things about got something I allergic to or I had a food safety issue so they'll just be spending time on like just I guess like higher level human judgment.

[00:23:25] Maybe someone else can go and I'll think about the other questions that were thrown at me.

[00:23:29] Well I'll take on the actual the lay off so we've had a lot of internal debate especially with during challenging times you know do we do something big and cut deeper to then reinvest in the areas of growth

[00:23:44] and we have made a conscious decision not to now there's always going to be or changes in some micro movements however in general we have actually decided not to as an organization even though the trend is there and I think you see a lot of companies doing that because this the safety the psychological well being we think it's really important in that that fear based culture I ultimately don't think while you might get an improvement in short term results I don't think it's actually good.

[00:24:13] For a healthy long term culture yeah productivity goes down dramatically not to mention retention right because they're automatically looking for the next gig is they think they're not going to have theirs for for long what do you think it impacts the team that are still there as well right nobody feels good so I think again the tail of it again you can focus on the short term results but it's a long tail really think carefully sorry Joey.

[00:24:38] We don't do a layoffs so I don't foresee Panda doing type of layoffs I think one of the biggest challenges that once we they move people throughout the different organizations right but they're not skilled they they may have certain

[00:24:52] other companies are in abilities to do certain things for example you take us a general manager you move them into recruiting they've never recruited before they've done interviews so how do we up level how do we you know get them provide tools and

[00:25:06] resource to get to where they need to truly go and that's the challenge right and that's why I feel like AI is going to truly help because when we when you think about it we ask recruiter how much percentage their time do they spend on the admin side they would say 60 70%

[00:25:21] so you take some of those AI components give them at least 70% their time to spend time with customers spend time with hiring managers spend time to consult that's where we truly need to get them to

[00:25:32] okay I have a couple of thoughts well on the layoffs I mean I think we're all people leaders or in the people space I mean it's really important to be very thoughtful around impact on DEIB

[00:25:39] so we did a small restructure in January not for cost reasons and we transparently got a lot of heat from the company of wow a lot of women were impacted

[00:25:47] but we had to be very very transparent around like the analysis we did and were a majority female company and so as a result there you know more females than males impacted

[00:25:56] I was going to say something else about culture but I just lost my train I thought oh I think what you said about jobs I would guarantee if you asked anyone at hunger they would not be fearing their job going away

[00:26:05] and the reason is because like we believe in very lean scrappy teams so as I mentioned we're about 400 million of revenue just to give some context that people team is five people

[00:26:13] and so you know like you want the right balance of not so resource constrained that you can't you know do your best work but you also want to be able to prioritize the best you know the most important things

[00:26:24] and everyone is tied to the impact they can have so actually post a small restructure we did we've seen like engagement survey scores go up people are just happier because they're actually more connected to the results

[00:26:37] and they're not worried about their job all right Joe I'm not going to let you off this easily you can just say we don't do layoffs without some pushback and he did and your industry more than most is it I wouldn't say risk but more impacted by AI and automation than most

[00:26:55] you see robots flipping burgers you see robots you know cooking food you see drive-thrues that are AI voice servers you see you know my local McDonald's it's a kiosk I haven't talked to you know cashier or I don't know how long

[00:27:11] so you know fast how so help me understand in that environment where all your competition is automating that you guys won't or what's your secret sauce that you don't have to no we actually started some automation so we being in QSR the turnover there's about 70% that's 70% is labor intensive very hands on so we have robotics in terms of chopping vegetables flipping the walk the walk is going to be a lot of work

[00:27:40] the walk is heavy you know you do it eight ten hours a day is super challenging we're going to we're going to double down on the customer service aspect right you know providing the customer service aspect we're trying to open 90 stores next year we're opening 180 stores how many 180 stores wow

[00:27:59] which will employ how many people a lot for you good for you so let's let's go ahead and pivot into innovation three people on stage who get pitched a lot by vendors many vendors in this room but I'm going to call is a week I'm just curious yeah how many calls a week do you get from a vendor Carolyn probably between like 50 to 75

[00:28:26] 70 calls emails to do 100 emails for sure it'd be a lot more in the same range wow yeah so if vendors are listening that's what you're competing with 100 calls a week from your competition so go ahead innovation let's go let's go high level indeed in LinkedIn pretty much own the market for the most part they get a lot of cash out of all the vendors that are out there

[00:28:51] they don't seem to be innovating much they rename stuff they put a different label different lipstick on the pig and then they charge you more what would you like to see out of vendors whether it's them or even beyond those 75 plus that you get per week that actually means something to you

[00:29:10] okay I don't know why I'm going for this is not a pain point for us the only thing in the recruiting I think it's your specifically talking about the recruiting space so probably my more my fills experience and like high turnover environments we push the envelope on innovation

[00:29:23] so I don't actually know that I have an answer but I'd like to see more like experience based I mean you're right like they haven't pushed the envelope at all I think candidates are still sort of using the same approaches yeah but probably like more I don't know something creative experience based interviewing

[00:29:37] questions do you use your database your candidate database of candidates you've already paid for that have already possibly gone through interviews and those types of things do you use those as the first source of candidates to go through or do you just automatically post a job going to programmatic what what do you do first

[00:29:56] we post the job okay and then we filter applications your greenhouse so you don't go back to a lot of us you know referrals are a big source of higher for us about 50% of our hires are referrals so prioritize those

[00:30:08] and we do do sourcing for kind of harder to fill like more technical data engineer roles or kind of deproels yeah one of the things we've done so this past year we've spent a lot of time looking at our end to end tech stack

[00:30:22] and also then where the incumbents are what our renewal dates are for each of those platforms where the kind of the up starts are many of those in this room

[00:30:34] and then we start having those conversations around where and how do we want to innovate where the companies where we want to make the bet

[00:30:41] but also there's a cost to change and I would also say there's a fatigue of employees to having yet another system yet another app

[00:30:50] where do I go to for this where do I go to for that so I think the more companies that can integrate and have it be simple

[00:30:58] and make sure that it's talking and connecting with other you know vendors and or other platforms that is also it's the push in the pull of always wanting innovation

[00:31:10] but innovation within companies where we're already using are automatically going to have a good time.

[00:31:15] Will you even consider a solution that isn't integrated into your primary platforms?

[00:31:21] Very few. Yes, if it is if it is a spot solution that there's no other opportunity but in general I would say a number of the vendors where there's ongoing innovation within the platform

[00:31:37] and then you'll see in what we're seeing a lot now is every vendor is trying to go broader

[00:31:42] and so every you know it's not only the new companies but it's the vendors pitching on oh but we can do this today but we're going to go you know do X tomorrow

[00:31:50] and understanding how all these pieces fit together is one of I think are as an industry and as people in communities

[00:31:58] the the bigger one of the biggest opportunities we have going forward.

[00:32:02] Do you feel in some cases that's like vaporware? Oh, we're going to do that. Are we're going to do that?

[00:32:07] And assessing what is vaporware and what is actually like oh no that's coming I promise you that's coming from the roadmap.

[00:32:13] Is it on the roadmap? Can we actually deliver on it? Can we count on you to deliver on this? It's a tricky one which also comes down to a lot of really digging into

[00:32:24] do you have the relationships do you know that you've product officer or are you actually really understanding what the technology is and what it could be?

[00:32:32] Sales people have a tendency of over promising. I don't know if you guys have heard that.

[00:32:36] I mean sales people. Sales people. Product people not so much. If you can talk to product people generally you can get them

[00:32:42] and they sales people for over promise. What do you think about that? Yeah, so we're building our tech stack right now.

[00:32:48] I love Jennifer's point in terms of it has to integrate right. I think the two job boards out there is indeed in LinkedIn

[00:32:56] and if you use LinkedIn the last three or four months it's changed indeed same thing. In order for your jobs out there you have to sponsor them.

[00:33:04] If not it's going to be buried. So I would love to see another vendor compete with them come out of the woodworks and go back to how indeed LinkedIn started.

[00:33:15] I mean where they were just homegrown.

[00:33:19] I mean there's tons of vendors here we're coming out reach I want to call it remote bridge which is one company I saw when I come in and experience based interviewing and like pushing the envelope and again I mentioned it's not a huge problem for Hungryroot but if I was back and kind of a high turnover like harder to fill roll check them out but it's like very cool like you enter

[00:33:36] in your land and you know imagine you can go and create a hiring fair for your frontline employees or for like for engineers who are really bought in it might be like a new and different way like way to interact with an interview.

[00:33:50] So that's kind of what I was talking about earlier with experience based like wanting LinkedIn and the technology to really push the envelope. It's scary to try something new like that but I think those breakthroughs are how we'll be able to address the broader talent shortage.

[00:34:02] So talent acquisition wasn't really an issue. What about the talent management and that whole funnel to be able to focus on productivity and then also retention.

[00:34:12] So are you seeing are you seeing advancements and innovation in that?

[00:34:17] Yes, I would say that area feels much more innovative. I think because like performance is yes I will say there is there is innovation moved to like simplicity to real time kind of ongoing feedback.

[00:34:29] Sorry my brain is not working. It's the beer will blame the beer it's fine. It's fine remote work.

[00:34:36] Who I find and I don't know I mean Joey's answer might be interesting but I'm sure like corporate work, corporate work solutions to help you manage a global work workforce.

[00:34:47] I think a lot of companies are struggling with do we go hybrid remote are you back in the office how do you guys approach that question internally?

[00:34:55] And how does it impact recruiting start with Joey let's start with Joey because I want to hear this you've got corporate jobs and then obviously you've got jobs where they can't be remote.

[00:35:03] Yeah, so we're required to come in the office twice a week which is which is good my first week there is funny. I was in the office I was in back to back virtual calls.

[00:35:15] So I was like I did not leave the office one bit so I went back to my leadership team. I was like I'm going to move all my meetings on the days I work currently work home.

[00:35:23] So I believe in that in person but if you're bogged down doing virtual meetings all day is pointless there's no reason for that.

[00:35:30] There should be a mixture I believe that I like the people people the business interaction face-to-face with different executives.

[00:35:39] I can enjoy that the brainstorming element the team building but I do like the flexibility there will work from home.

[00:35:45] I mean if I got to take my daughter pick up my kids from school that's the beauty of it and you know you just work your hours.

[00:35:52] Now is that a department by department scenario or do you have like a corporate it's for the whole company for the entire company okay.

[00:35:58] But you guys Jess.

[00:36:01] Yes so we we have kind of all types so we have some you know roles that are in office roles.

[00:36:09] We have some roles you know a lot of sales some of the customer roles that are remote by role and then we have a lot of people who are either remote by choice.

[00:36:19] The vast majority about 60% of our boxers are employees are kind of a mix of where they come into the office and we want that because again I'm a big believer of it there is something different about when you can be in the office when you can have that you know face-to-face in person connection.

[00:36:37] What we're grappling with and still kind of working through is what does that exactly look like how do you to joys point you know we don't want to say hey come into the office and then sit on Zoom calls the entire time.

[00:36:48] That is not you know in anybody's best interest so what we've been really trying to think about so Tuesdays and Thursdays are today are what we call our IRL days.

[00:36:57] But we try and then really say during those days don't have your Zoom calls you know if you're going to have a one-on-one make sure it's a one-on-one with somebody who's there clear some area calendar to have time to go and have the you know conversations in you know the coffee bar and a lunch room what not.

[00:37:14] So I think it's we have to be more intentional I think it is actually harder in some ways to have you know kind of this messy middle but I actually think the flexibility this whole like work life integration which I think is incredibly important is something that as we think about this next generation of workplaces.

[00:37:34] We also put a lot of care into our workplaces that they exemplify our culture that we really create that community that sense of again that belonging so when you come into the office it actually is a place that you ideally want to be able to come.

[00:37:49] Being international do you guys work with any EOR companies employment the employment of record platforms where you can go through them and they make it so much easier to actually hire remote people or even people on site do use any of those types of organizations at all.

[00:38:05] We have tried one with mixed success okay and so we are not going to at this point continue down that path because again I think it sounds really good in theory.

[00:38:15] Yeah.

[00:38:16] Haven't quite worked out the wrinkles in my opinion so was that what was what was not successful about that did you have problems retaining getting people in the door what was what was and feel free to name names.

[00:38:28] I like being provocative I like also being respectful so I think what did not work so our use case actually was during some M&A work that we did where we had employees that were part of an acquisition and company.

[00:38:45] We had a lot of different countries where we were not legally set up to employ them and so we used a vendor and again it was just the promises that were made and then when we were delivered on in terms of the complexity in terms of you know they made some serious mistakes along the way.

[00:39:02] And so again we kind of had to deal with them cleaning up their mess even though what they told us they could deliver and what they delivered there was a pretty big gap.

[00:39:10] So it's not a panacea.

[00:39:12] Okay all the other this conversation makes you want to poke my eyeballs out we were talking at a group of CPO last night about remote hybrid so I think Congress here to prove first of all I don't care where people work so we're totally remote first.

[00:39:26] I do care about sort of meaningful interactions and meaningful connections and I think the coolest part about our company is well everyone else is just like you know messing around with like are we in the office or not in the office what are the mandates all this stuff.

[00:39:37] You know we've just been crushing it culturally and also business results so I think we're a good use case to prove that like you can do it the other comment I make and sort of why it's a personal sort of like issue for me is like we lost so many within caregivers in the workforce.

[00:39:53] And you know I'm a mom of two kids in an executive position and like I'm able to do it all because I work from home.

[00:39:59] Work from home is not necessarily my happy place it's not like I need to be at you know moments like this or go to New York or you know be with the team or with our CPO community but I just think the data supports that like this is having a tough impact on females in the workforce so on a personal level.

[00:40:13] It stinks but we from a competitive advantage are just are just going for it so in our employer brand we're like we're remote first and we're attracting amazing talent because of it because it's actually so unique so we like that every other company is back to the office or many are.

[00:40:26] I think we're out of time and the bar is open real quickly give the audience a URL or LinkedIn handle to where they can all connect with you starting with Carolyn.

[00:40:35] Like personally connects with me it's up to you or not you want to put yourself out there that's hungry room dot com.

[00:40:42] Just LinkedIn I'm not social media so LinkedIn is the only way to catch me Joey same way LinkedIn you can find me on LinkedIn let's hear it for the panel everybody give it up.

[00:40:56] Cheers everybody Chad that is another one in the can we out.

[00:41:04] Wow look at you you made it through an entire episode of the chat and chase podcast or maybe you cheated and fast forwarded to the end either way there's no doubt you wish you had that time back valuable time you could have used by a nutritious meal and talk about enjoy a poor of your favorite whiskey or just watch big booty latinas and bug fights on tick-tack.

[00:41:31] Now you hung out with these two chuckleheads instead now go take a shower and wash off all the guilt but save some soap because you'll be back.

[00:41:43] Like an awful train wreck you can't look away and like Chad's favorite western you can quit the meter we out.