Search...

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

Tag: podcast

March 9, 2022 | 24 Mins Read

IWD 2022: Break the Bias

March 9, 2022 | 24 Mins Read

IWD 2022: Break the Bias

Share

Octavia Goredema, founder of Twenty Ten Agency, has coached leaders at renowned companies including Google, American Airlines, Tinder, General Motors, Nike, and Dow Jones, and is also the author of the new book PREP, PUSH, PIVOT: Essential Career Strategies for Underrepresented Women. She joins Sarah to discuss the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day – Break the Bias.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Every year, we do a special episode of the podcast around International Women's Day. And we're doing the same today. The theme of this year's International Women's Day is break the bias. I'm excited to be welcome today by Octavia Goredema, who is a career coach, founder of Twenty Ten Agency, where she's coached leaders at renowned companies you're all familiar with, including Google, American Airlines, Nike, General Motors, et cetera. And also author of the new book, Prep, Push, Pivot: Essential Career Strategies for Underrepresented Women. Octavia, thanks for being here with me today.

Octavia Goredema: Oh, thank you, Sarah. I'm happy to be here.

Sarah Nicastro: Before we get into the conversation, tell our listeners a bit about yourself and your journey.

Octavia Goredema: Oh, well, thank you for that warm welcome. And yes, I'm a career coach. I started my company Twenty Ten Agency because I'm really passionate about helping others to do their best work. And as a black woman, as I was starting my career, which began in England before I moved to the United States, I've been in here in Los Angeles I think 16 years now. I just started to see that there were just so many barriers to advancement and I'm really passionate about opening doors and making sure others have the opportunity to do their best work. And actually when I worked, myself with a coach for the very first time that I really had a light bulb moment and made a pivot of my own and trained to become a coach. And the work that I do is working with corporations, such as some of the larger companies that you referenced and also individuals. With companies help them retain talent, with individuals to find strategies to position yourself for promotion or to bounce back from losing a job or navigate a career break.

Octavia Goredema: But I recognize most people don't have the ability to work with a coach, Sarah. I discovered coaching when I was already maybe 15 years into my career. Most of the individuals I worked with, my team and I, we're the first coach they've ever encountered in their career. And so I realized there's a huge gap there. And so I wanted to write a book that would help underrepresented women navigate some of those really important and often challenging moments, especially if you don't have someone that you can work with one on one. And so my book was released here in the United States in the new year, and it'll be released in the United Kingdom on International Women's Day.

Sarah Nicastro: Nice, awesome. I'm glad we're here to have this conversation. I think it's really cool that you focus on helping on both sides. Helping businesses understand some of the ways that they may need to evolve or make changes, improvements, and then also helping to inspire individuals as well. One question I have is you mentioned the barriers when you started your career. How much progress do you feel we've made?

Octavia Goredema: It's not just actually the barriers when starting the career, it's actually as you are growing and developing in your career and the data speaks for itself. The pay gap persists. Before the pandemic, it was predicted it might take a century, Sarah, to close the pay gap. That's beyond my lifetime, your lifetime, my children's lifetime. Women of color continue to be the most underrepresented group in the corporate pipeline, almost regardless of industry sectors, data shows it. I'm really nervous and scared about what the data will show as we look back on what's happening right now. We've already started to see studies that show women are being impacted severely when it comes to unemployment and leaving the work force as a result of everything we've navigated and are still navigating through the pandemic.

Octavia Goredema: It's a really challenging and difficult time. And there's a lot of systemic issues that are contributing to the challenges that women face. As a coach, some of the work that I'm proudest of is the work that I've done during this pandemic in terms of supporting individuals in some of the most unprecedented and challenging times. There's still so much work to be done.

Sarah Nicastro: I think this year's conversation just feels especially important because we've seen the impact that COVID had and how it's amplified for women. I've been fortunate enough, privileged enough to continue working this entire time. I have two small children, but I have help. And I haven't had to sacrifice my career, but I feel so deeply for those that have been in that position. And so I think we're going to talk a little bit later about what are some of the things that companies can do to help get those women back into the workforce when they're ready. I asked you about progress because we've had a number of these conversations, one every year, the podcast has been around for International Women's Day, but also sometimes we feature women in field service, women in tech, women in stem and I have gotten feedback sometimes that if things aren't going to get better if you keep calling it out that way. It shouldn't be women in or it shouldn't be categorized that way.

Sarah Nicastro: And the first time I got that feedback, I really thought long and hard about it because I try to be very careful about just reflecting on my own practices and making sure that I'm not doing something with good intent that is having the opposite impact. But I think the reality is there's still so much work to be done. And I think that until it doesn't need to be called out then we keep calling it out.

Octavia Goredema: Yes, absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: Because I don't know how else we talk about it. I'm glad to be here doing that today. As I mentioned in the intro, the theme of this year's International Women Day is break the bias. And so I wanted to start by talking about what are some of the biases that you feel are playing a major role in still holding women back today?

Octavia Goredema: Well, there's so many. And not every woman's experience in the workplace is the same as anyone else's, but the data just shows when you look at the most senior levels of almost any company in any industry, the representation isn't there. The representation isn't there. When you look at what women are earning, it's not a parity with men when you look at the data. We've had legislation that's been put in place to address these things. And even those things still don't translate. Those things are still there. And then as a coach, I have a unique glimpse into what actually happens in someone's career. What happens after they are hired or as they are promoted and then after they're promoted and even senior leaders. And the things that happen day in and day out, no one else might ever know.

Octavia Goredema: There's a lot of biases or experiences that can be invisible even to somebody else who works alongside you, or is sat in the same meeting as you, always on a Zoom with you. It can be a very personal experience that not only is sometimes difficult to identify, but can be very difficult to talk about. Very difficult. Sometimes you don't even know if you've not been invited to a meeting that you should be, or if you've not been considered for a project or how do you know that in that moment as well. And so this is what makes it even harder. That's why we often then look at the studies and we look, well, how many women are there? And there's two black female CEOs in the fortune 500.

Octavia Goredema: We look at things like that because those are the indicators that we have, but the actual realities of what's happening day in, day out are invisible and nobody sees. And when you are building your career, what I often see as a coach is there comes a point, it's not the same point for everyone, where you hit a ceiling. You might not see that ceiling coming. You might not even realize you've hit it for a while, until you are actually reflecting and you're perhaps looking, or maybe looking at your peers or you're comparing, or you have a conversation and you suddenly realize, oh my goodness, that person earning how much, because it's not always immediately apparent to you.

Octavia Goredema: And this is what makes it even harder. And you mentioned you have children, Sarah, I have children too. And it wasn't until maybe five years into parenthood that I really realize, oh my goodness, a lot of these things are not my fault. I didn't make a mistake in terms of what I think it's just that the systems are not set up to support working mothers in many cases in the way that they should be. And that can be a very difficult thing when you are navigating this because you don't know.

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Octavia Goredema: You don't know.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I've shared a number of my own experiences as someone who wanted to be a mom and have a career, and some of the things that have worked against me, some of the comments that have been made and are still made all the time and you mentioned some of the systemic issues earlier and I think that the reality is there are still very real gender norms and belief systems around that in place that are not only deeply rooted, but multi-layered, that it, to your point, can be really hard to point all of those things out. I mean, I feel like my husband and I have a pretty egalitarian marriage and it still is influenced by all of those things and the expectations and all of that. Now when you think about the theme of this year's International Women's Day breaks the bias. I know there are a lot and they can be hard to sort of identify, are there any that come to mind that you think people need to be particularly aware of or focused on?

Octavia Goredema: That's a really hard question to answer, because there were so many layers to that. And I think I would like people just to, regardless of their own gender and background, but to really perhaps ask that question of themselves and where can they support other women? Where can we, as women support other women? Where can we pay it forward? What are some of the things that we can do that can help support and amplify? Because I very much believe that these conversations continue, need to be had beyond March 8th and beyond Women's History Month, they just need to be ongoing.

Octavia Goredema: And so I think that would be the challenge that I have often. Often, I sometimes go into companies and work across the board, not just with women, not just with men, not just with individuals who are being coached, but with senior leadership as well to really think about how to set up diverse talent and underrepresented talent and want your female employees for success in the long term. In the long term. Because that's what matters, because it's not just about hiring women, it's about advancing women and supporting women throughout our entire careers. Yes, there's a lot to do.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Besides conversations like this, I mean, if you were going into work with an organization and speaking with them on how do we break these biases and stereotypes in a way that allows us to make more progress, what does that look like? I mean, what are some of the things that organization should be doing?

Octavia Goredema: Yeah. I think visibility and advocacy really matters. Be invested, identify opportunities to support women with their professional goals. As a coach, I see the women that are thriving in terms of the women I work directly with are the ones that have sponsors at their organizations. It's not just about providing what's needed for us to do our best work, but being there to support when we make mistakes and to show and nurture and amplify and be a resource. Often, as we progress, there are fewer and fewer role models we may have. And so it's really important that it's not just having someone to look to, but someone who is invested in your success. If you, as a leader and whatever level of leadership you are, always be mindful about who is on your team, or who is in your organization and the visibility of those individuals and those opportunities for those individuals and what you can do to make a difference.

Octavia Goredema: Because those opportunities can change someone's whole career, whether it's a stretch assignment or even a meeting that you are part of, or a conversation or a mentorship, or just understanding what might come next, or what they might be for you, can really change someone's perspective. The mentors that I have had and continue to have, have been transformative for me. And so I think it's having that intent, which can be sometimes hard to measure. It's not something that's always immediately tangible. A lot of organizations are trying to make those culture shifts to have these systems and to nurture pipelines of talent, not lose women as we progress. I think that is very, very important.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. That makes sense. You mentioned earlier that women of color are the most underrepresented group in the corporate pipeline.

Octavia Goredema: Yes.

Sarah Nicastro: What is your view on how that changes?

Octavia Goredema: In my book, I think I quoted a study from Working Mother Media that talked about 46%, only 46% of underrepresented women in their study had attended a meeting with senior executives in the last two years compared to 63% of white men. Advocacy, visibility, mentorship, coaching, professional development, it all matters. A lot of companies are trying really, really hard to diversify their recruiting processes and they're bringing it up. But it's retaining those individuals. That is just so key. That is so key. And that takes time. That takes time.

Octavia Goredema: Being an advocate also involves being a good listener as well, providing space to ask people questions and be responsive to what you hear. And so there are some companies that I've seen reports on who are actually, especially at the start of this year, who are actually making a real stake here and we have time compensation for executives to hitting certain goals and targets long term. This is important to us. And if we succeed, these are the measures by which we will, but it takes time. And so when you as an individual are navigating your career, you can't control all of these environments that are around you. And so the book that I wrote, Prep, Push, Pivot, I really wanted to support women who are navigating this. And also if you are a leader who has underrepresented women on your team, read the book and it gives you a perspective on perhaps some of the questions and challenges that we are considering that might not have been front of mind for you and awareness and understanding, I think is really important.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. When it comes to retaining diverse talent and some of the considerations that are maybe unique to women, what do you feel like is some of the most important things. What are some of the needs that companies need to accommodate or address to be able to retain and develop more women?

Octavia Goredema: I think providing the visibility that I talked about too, and also those stretch assignments and opportunities, they've been countless reports that talk about how, when we are looking at roles, whether that's for promotion or new roles, women tend to look at all of the job description an see where we align. And if we align with 80 or 90% of it, yes, we can do that. Well, in comparison, more often than not, men will just put their names forward regardless.

Octavia Goredema: And I've seen that play out in my own household. I was talking to my husband about an opportunity a female friend of mine was considering that she was a little concerned about some components of the job description. And my husband said to me, "Who reads job descriptions? If I want a job, I just go for it." He said, he said, "If I read the job description, I won't be able to do half the things on there so I don't want to pay attention to those things." And so identifying when you see potential, nurturing that potential and creating conversations and opportunities and exposure to get that pipeline of women to feel supported and amplified and ready and mentored, because that is so key when we are breaking barriers of our own, the next opportunity, even the one that we can't see yet are the ones where we want senior leaders to be identifying, highlighting, nurturing for those things.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Octavia Goredema: That's what's so important. Providing space to grow whether you at the start middle or more senior in your career.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I guess what I'm trying to do in my mind is take some of these points that are important, that there are also fairly broad. Like when we talk about create awareness and advocate, I mean yes, but if I'm listening to this and those things aren't intuitive to me, then what does that look like? And what I'm thinking about is three areas, at least that come to mind. One is company culture in a few ways. Number one, I mean, there are companies for which this is genuinely important and a authentic objective. And then there are companies who have these initiatives simply because they have to. But then I would also say related to company culture is the environment that is created to uncover and acknowledge biases to speak up and speak out to have leaders lead by example, in terms of making the culture, working woman friendly, working mom friendly.

Sarah Nicastro: I don't think that a lot of working moms can succeed in a certain type of ultra rigid culture that is a little bit more outdated. The second thing I think of is programs or systems. Some of the things that we've talked about, starting with awareness, but also mentorships and career development paths. Those are all things that companies should be focused on building out so that it isn't leaders who want to play a role in this aren't trying to create the wheel every time. There's sort of a process and a system to help accomplish these goals.

Sarah Nicastro: And then I think the third is leadership enablement. Because there are leaders for whom this will be a personal goal or commitment, but there are those that it's not. So you mentioned perhaps they're incentivized to play a role in this. The other thing is perhaps they are trained or coached in their own right to be better adept at recognizing their own biases and examining what do their teams look like and what does that mean and things like that. I don't know. Those are kind of the three things that came to mind.

Octavia Goredema: And the strategies vary depending on the size of your organization and the demographics of your people and your goals. Large organizations have employee resource groups and networks, which are great, but then you'll have to think about what is how those organizations, how are they funded? Often the people that are leading those organizations are doing jobs. They're doing their day job and they're also creating some kind of mechanism for other employees, which is so powerful. But how is that recognized? How is that supported in the long term? Are you using that? That's a really fantastic incubator to also listen. Are you asking questions in those scripts that could help you and give you insights that you wouldn't hear otherwise? Are you providing safe spaces for sharing? You might have company meetings or channel meetings where you report out, how are you listening back?

Octavia Goredema: There were lots of different considerations for organization, but if you are making an effort to hire, we want to keep your talent. You want to find opportunities. The pay for your business and your organization will just continue. And so you want to make those investments and provide advocacy and mentoring and supporting, and sponsorship, and also hold space to listen to the people that are already part of your culture and your organization, and hear what they might need to your point, because those voices can be so valuable and not everyone perhaps has the opportunity to share in that way when we are at work. Creating spaces and opportunities to do that.

Sarah Nicastro: That's a good point. I mean, if there's an organization that hasn't made as much effort as they want in this area, start by creating a focus group of your women employees and ask them what they think honestly about the experience and what could be better and that's a good point. We talked a little bit earlier about the fact that women were impacted significantly more than men by COVID when it comes to loss of work and having to leave their career. Do you have any thoughts on how we can best support women's reentry into the workplace?

Octavia Goredema: Yeah. The numbers that came out of some of the initial studies for the first year of the pandemic were just horrifying. And as I mentioned at the start of our conversation, I hope it's not the case, but could have the potential to set women back for decades when you look at the ramifications of what that means in terms of not just loss of earning capacity, but just what it takes to rebuild and restart your career. Setting the women that you are hiring up for success as we've talked about is really important. Listening to what might be needed in terms of maybe flexible schedules or roles and responsibilities in terms of locations. But I think above and beyond that, looking for the long term in terms of how to continue to advance women and that next cycle and that next generation, and continue to pay forward because it's above and beyond just this moment right now. The pay gap, which we talked about at the start of our conversation was already going to take decades and decades to close.

Octavia Goredema: Really look at your compensation practices and make sure that you are equitable in terms of how you compensate your employees is so important. Not all women are caregivers, but for those who are, I do hope that maybe the one silver lining coming out of everything that we have been to and are going through the pandemic, that employers that will be much more aware of what it takes to be a working parent today. Because that has been, and will continue to be a challenge. So that we can keep women in the workforce for as long as possible.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I should have thought to write this down and I didn't, so I don't remember any of the names of the organization to reference, but I have seen some different programs created to help with this effort people that are strategically looking for opportunities to offer really flexible roles and hours.

Octavia Goredema: And reentry into the workforce.

Right. So that if there are women who left that can't just come back, maybe in the manner they did before, what are some alternatives? The other thing that, sorry, I thought was really important was, I don't know if it was an article or a podcast, but it was around looking differently in this situation, but really just in general about gaps on resumes and not using that as something that is negatively perceived. Sorry, what were you going to say?

Octavia Goredema: Yes. I was going to say, yes, I just received an email, I think yesterday there are a lot of companies who have reentry to work programs where they're specifically recruiting from large companies like Wells Fargo to Facebook, to smaller companies too, and really targeting women who have taken a break, maybe not just because of the pandemic, but have taken a break in their career. And yes, to your point about gaps in resumes, I know often as employees we are looking to minimize risk. But I can attest as a working parent, I have done my best work ever since becoming a parent. Women have so much to give and there should not be ... A gap in a resume is a non-negotiable. This is what I say to women that I coach who are concerned about this. I talk about, you can do this role.

Octavia Goredema: Your skills and your acumen remains regardless. But I think the pandemic also perhaps has made that more aware that there is no one perfect way to navigate anyone's career and we have to as a whole support people who've stepped away from the workforce for whatever reason, so that we can get our economies back and so we can continue to thrive. And so, yes, I hope the silver lining will be that there's been a lot of less that have been learned in a very short and very pronounced space of time. And I hope that we can find ways to support women who are looking to reenter and rebuild whether it's now or in the future.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I think the other thing is I've read a number of different articles and studies is looking at this isn't applicable to every single type of role understandably, but I mean, looking at the need to evolve the culture around how we assess value. And this, I think was exacerbated by COVID when we had so many people working remote, it becomes less about, okay, how many hours, minutes, seconds is your butt in a seat at a desk versus what is your contribution toward the objectives. I think that's the way it should be, but I think this situation maybe has helped employers that were kind of hanging on to that need for control to recognize that if you focus on creating an environment in which your talent can thrive, they will most times step up to the challenge.

Sarah Nicastro: I mean, people care and want to do well generally. It goes back to kind of that cultural part as well. You talk in your book about how fear is a very big challenge for women when it comes to their careers. And you mentioned earlier the example of your husband saying, I don't even read job descriptions. I just apply. Whereas sometimes a woman or a particular personality would kind of overanalyze every single characteristic. Why do you think fear is so prevalent and what advice can you share?

Octavia Goredema: I think often there's fear of making a mistake. Fear of dropping a ball, fear of just not delivering. And I see that manifest constantly, and it's not about level of seniority. And so I think it's really, really important to know that building your career's, yes, the most personal and valuable investment you'll ever make, but also know you have to give yourself permission to fail sometimes. That doesn't mean you want to set out to fail. That's how you learn as you go. I think it's so important. I always have a smile when I see you see these very senior executives who get fired and bounce back better.

Octavia Goredema: If you really look at it, you see people make mistakes at very senior level. It's not necessarily a career ender, really keep pushing and keep striving and don't be afraid of making a mistake. Don't feel you have to do everything perfectly. We have to learn and we have to grow and I think it's very important if anyone is mentoring someone else to be really transparent about the mistakes that you have made. What you learned from those, how you navigated those. It's really important thing to do and to give space for that. And also you as an individual trust. But even if you do make a misstep, you'll learn from it and you'll keep moving forward.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I think another area where fear plays such a big role in all of this for everyone is fear of speaking up. I think that when it comes to this idea of breaking the bias, like you said, so much of the cumulative effect of why women are not equal to men in the workplace today is those little things. I mean, it's the daily, I forgot to put you on the meeting invite or gaslighting or all sorts of things. And every day, people see that happen and it's really easy to be fearful that if it's a leader that's doing that, oh, well, I can't say something because they're my superior, or I don't want to start anything, or let me just stay in my lane.

Sarah Nicastro: And the reality is we all play a part in making the progress we want to make. And yes, it can be very uncomfortable to have hard conversations. I can think back on times where I avoided them myself, but you know better, you do better. Right. And I think that's another area where people need to consider stepping outside of their comfort zone and helping keep the progress moving by addressing things like that when they see them.

Octavia Goredema: I agree. And everything you say is valid. It can be very difficult. In that moment, if there is someone more senior than you to use your voice in that way. And I've been in that situation, before I had my coaching company, I was employed. And I remember having to say to the CEO of the company where I worked, "Is there a reason why I wasn't included in that meeting?" I feel I should have been there and I would've liked to have been there. And this is the reason why. And I did end up receiving an apology, but that wasn't the immediate reaction. It came much later. You don't know what the response will be, but ideally your employer wants employees who are there to add value and to solve problems and to help do things better.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Octavia Goredema: And to help do things better. And so if you are using your voice to show where you add value or where things could be different or where things could be better, then you need to observe and then see what happens next.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Okay. All right Octavia. Any final thoughts, words of wisdom. What do you hope that people take away from this discussion?

Octavia Goredema: It's an ethos that underpins everything that I do. And that I open my book Prep, Push, Pivot with, which is knowing your worth matters, especially in the moments where your worth is not being reflected back at you. I think that is really important. And for employers recognize the worth of what women on your team and your future female hires will bring to the table. And it's, of course your worth is represented by what you earn, but it's more than just that. It's what you need to do your best work and what you need to thrive. And as individuals, what are the non-negotiables for us in our career and making sure that we are building careers that align with our goals and our values.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I have a special shirt on today. I don't know if you can see it says carry as you climb.

Octavia Goredema: I love that.

Sarah Nicastro: And it goes back to the point you made earlier, which is, as women, we have an obligation to help one another as well. Yes, all of the white men in senior leader positions need to really reflect on what their teams and organization looks like and how genuine they are about their desire to really progress related to this. But until we are at a point where these conversations become less necessary, we really have to help each other out and support one another, speak up on one another's behalfs, just really advocate for one another, lift each other up, all of those things.

Octavia Goredema: Paying it forward really matters. And it can be also in ways where we're not necessarily using our voice in front of others, but in terms of suggesting opportunities or resources to others. It can be in small ways or it can be in really impactful ways. Paying it forward is so important.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I think there's a real thing particularly because women are still at a disadvantage in the workplace. I think there can be a tendency towards the scarcity mindset and well, if I help her, then I will somehow disadvantage myself and we just have to move beyond that. I mean, we all need to be helping one another and you're never going to be disadvantaged by championing someone else.

Octavia Goredema: Absolutely. Yeah. I couldn't agree more.

Sarah Nicastro: All right. Tell folks where they can find Prep ... Oh goodness. Prep, Push, Pivot. Where can they find the book?

Octavia Goredema: Prep, Push, Pivot is available wherever you love to buy books. You'll be able to find it at your local bookstore or at your favorite online book retailer. And you can also go to my website, octaviagoredemago.com if you need more information.

Sarah Nicastro: Excellent. All right, Octavia, thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate it.

Octavia Goredema: Oh, thank you, Sarah. It's great to be here.

Sarah Nicastro: You can find more by visiting us at futureoffieldserviceref.ifs.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter @TheFutureofFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS, you can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

Stay Connected

Related Content

Defining the Service Leader’s Duty Around the "Silver Tsunami"

The Service Leadership Trifecta

Are We Measuring Today’s Service Success on Yesteryear’s Metrics?

Most Recent

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

A Focus on Efficiency is Only the Tip of the AI Iceberg – Expert Advice for Considering What Comes Next

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

March 2, 2022 | 26 Mins Read

The Future of Manufacturing

March 2, 2022 | 26 Mins Read

The Future of Manufacturing

Share

Sarah welcomes Jake Hall, Founder & Content Creator, The Manufacturing Millennial to discuss the key trend shaping the future of manufacturing, including automation, robotics, what new skills and roles are needed, and how companies will need to work to attract younger talent.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. We are going to be talking a bit today about the future of manufacturing. I'm excited to be joined by Jake Hall, who is the founder and content creator at The Manufacturing Millennial. Jake, welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast.

Jake Hall: Thanks so much for having me, Sarah.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, thanks for being here. Okay, so before we dig in, we have a lot to cover, before we do that, tell our listeners a bit more about yourself.

Jake Hall: Yeah, absolutely. My background has always been in the world of manufacturing and automation. When I was a kid, I loved growing up playing with Legos, the mindset of building and creating. That just got me so excited. Fast forward years, I went to college and got a manufacturing engineering degree and a biomedical engineering degree. Fast forward 10 years later after that, and currently I'm a business development manager for a company called Feyen Zylstra. We're an industrial tech company that helps manufacturers modernize their existing systems and integrate new ones. At the same time, I have a personal brand called The Manufacturing Millennial, where I love to advocate manufacturing. I love to tell companies stories of what products and solutions they're bringing to the market that really solve a lot of problems that manufacturers are facing. And then talk about workforce, talk about skilled trades, and just a lot of great conversations around that.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I love it. We're not dissimilar, Jake, in what we do. It's exciting that our two worlds are colliding here. All right, awesome. There is a lot that I'm excited to pick your brain on. You cover a lot of the trends that are happening from a technology perspective in the manufacturing space. Let's start there, so anything that comes to mind for you. What are some of the most exciting trends that are happening in manufacturing that you think are really changing the game?

Jake Hall: Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about why those trends exist. In manufacturing, manufacturing has always been viewed as an industry that's dark, dirty, and dangerous, right? It's the industry that your grandparents worked at and your parents never encouraged you to go into. Well, what's happening now in the manufacturing space is our industry is turning from a product-based industry to really a digital one. We're innovating a lot of ways that are leveraging new technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, augmented reality, what we classify as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Industry 4.0.

Jake Hall: And some of the really cool stuff that we're seeing is new technology that's being adapted by younger generations, that's being adapted by the millennials and the Gen Zs of the world, where we're taking product innovation that we've used a lot of times in our daily lives and then bringing them to manufacturing. Something as simple as digital work-based instructions, the manufacturing industry, when we're setting up a machine or doing a tool change over or setting up a new job, a lot of times we always had these paper notebooks that we turn to a page and we find, "Oh, page 53, this is my process." Well, instead of doing on that manual three-ring binder, we're using an app do. What's cool about this is by leveraging all these new technologies, we're making manufacturers smarter and more efficient within their daily tasks.

Jake Hall: But more importantly, we're attracting a future workforce in the manufacturing space that is critical right now. By 2028, so within five or six years, they're saying there's going to be somewhere between 2.4 to 2.8 million jobs unfulfilled in the manufacturing industry. A lot of that has to do with what we call The Silver Tsunami. It's the baby boomers that are going to be retiring in the next few years who've been in the industry for decades, who carry all those skills, who carries all that knowledge. There's going to be a massive labor shortage, and we're feeling it right now. I mean, manufacturers, their biggest struggles right now are supply chain issues and then essentially the same thing, the supply of labor. So by leveraging these new technologies, it's really making manufacturing setting because it's making them more efficient and it's making the industry more excitable for people to come and work in.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Way more appealing-

Jake Hall: Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: ... than our parents were maybe making it out to be, or then it was. Okay, if you think about some of the trends you mentioned, robotics, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, those sorts of things, what are some of the biggest ways you see manufacturing operations evolving? And what will that look like in, say, five years from now? I'm curious for you in your role, how widely adopted are some of those cutting-edge technologies and how much do you think that will expand over the next five years?

Jake Hall: Yeah, absolutely. How widely adopted, the answer is simply just not enough. For a long time, automation was viewed as a risk. Because with automation, becomes the skill and the knowledge of knowing what to automate the know-how of how to build systems or how to work with integrators to create those automation solutions. And then the third part is turning that capital investment into, really, an operational expense of how do you keep those investments running after the person who supplied those resources forward to you has left. When you look at the manufacturing industry, somewhere around 95 to 97% of manufacturers are small to medium-sized businesses, SMBs, SMS, there's different abbreviations, but that represents the majority of the manufacturing industry, is small-to medium-sized businesses, under 50 employees.

Jake Hall: Well, with a company that's under 50 employees, a lot of times the owner who's running that company has to worry about a lot more than just the automation of integrating a new robotic system, for example. Let's use a machining company as an example. So, Tim down the road has a machining company where he employs 20 workers. And those 20 workers are running 15 CNC machines on their floor making parts for a tier-three automotive company. Tim has a lot to worry about. He has to worry about scheduling. He has to worry about getting materials and battling the labor shortage, all that stuff. And all the people who currently work for him aren't necessarily engineers or robot programmers or all that stuff, so how can he leverage new technology but at the same time being a low cost entry point for him?

Jake Hall: Robotics is a fantastic example of that. Collaborative robots is this idea of industrial robots that have been around for decades. They first entered the automotive industry 40, 50 years ago, more than that. But collaborative robots are interesting because they've been viewed as not necessarily used as a collaborative space, but because it was very easy for first-time robot user to learn how to program a robot and set it up. Well, what this robot's doing is it's allowing a worker to not stand by a machine anymore and wait for that part to complete. A worker or a CNC person can then program that robot to then take parts in and out of a CNC machine autonomously. So now that one worker can now run four machines instead of just a single one.

Jake Hall: Because what's happening right now is Tom who's down the street, or Tom or Tim, whoever I use as an example, is also competing against Amazon, who just installed their brand new 600,000 square foot facility where they're paying 401(k), four weeks of benefit, flexible hours, all that stuff. He can't pay or be as competitive as one of the largest companies in the world, so how does he stay in business? Well, he leverages automation by reducing the risk of, really, of labor, of keeping talent inside of his area, where if he can't hire 20 machinists, he needs to find some way to stay in business. And he's going to use collaborative robots or automation or machine tending or a work sell, for example, to make his operations more efficient. That's-

Sarah Nicastro: Now... Sorry, go ahead.

Jake Hall: Yeah that's just an example of leveraging automation from a smaller scale.

Sarah Nicastro: Right. Now, the ultimate objective, though, is not for Tom, Tim or Tim, Tom to not hire anyone, right?

Jake Hall: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: That's where the collaborative word comes in, right? You're talking about tools and technologies that can assist the workforce to maximize their utilization, to make their jobs easier, to keep output high, those sorts of things, not the idea of completely replacing the machinists.

Jake Hall: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: Am I understanding that correctly?

Jake Hall: Absolutely. We want people to work with robots, not like robots. Those are two different things, right? If a person is doing this repetitive task over and over again, what value are they bringing? What is their purpose? What are they proud to go home and say they did at work when they go home for dinner that night or they're talking with family? If they're just doing the same thing over and over again, that's working like a robot. But if you can go and you can work with robots to make them do those boring, repetitive, a lot of times unsafe or high physical demanding jobs and have a robot do that instead and you're managing these robots, that's of value.

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Jake Hall: Maybe several decades ago when the manufacturing in the US was struggling competing with a global economy where a company could go and get a product in China for pennies on the dollar compared to what they could get it in the US, yeah, manufacturers needed to reduce their cost as much as possible. But that time is changing where the cheap labor is gone. China, not to go off on other domestic countries, but China's actually integrating more robots than any other country in the world combined because they're taking their cheap labor force and they're making automation solutions because their middle class is growing dramatically. The same thing goes back to us where a lot of these companies are automating just for them to stay in business or for them to grow because they can't find the labor to actually grow their business. So, they're needing to automate to stay competitive.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I don't have any statistics on this, but I have to assume that just if you look at consumption, right, it's grown significantly, which means that scaling to meet demand with manpower versus technology is not sustainable, right? I mean, we can't just scale to meet growing, growing, growing demand. The reason I'm asking some of these questions, Jake, is in a lot of ways I cover... So even the manufacturers within our audience, we're typically talking about the aftermarket aspect and servicing and things like that. But a lot of the concepts are very similar so far in the sense of there's this almost fear among the workforce of automation when in reality there's no desire to replace the frontline workforce. There's a desire to evolve their role to be more value add, right?

Jake Hall: Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: And then the other point you made, which is small company, mid company, large company, what we find is these leaders who are overburdened with putting out fires to the point where something like this, that ultimately is going to help them significantly short term and long term, is just insurmountable because they don't have to think innovation because they're scrambling to do what they need to do in the day.

Jake Hall: Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay, cool. If you had to pick one technology trend in manufacturing that you are most amped to track over the next five years, what would it be?

Jake Hall: The adaption of artificial intelligence within manufacturing. We're seeing it a lot within the warehouse and the logistics industry right now. There's a lot of companies that are out there leveraging artificial intelligence with robotics to do autonomous picking and material handling. I have a really good friend over at FedEx and he's responsible for adapting new technologies into the logistic systems to make them more efficient. Down in Memphis, he worked with the team to integrate robots that are handling literally millions of parcels a day that were once a heavy labor process, from like 3:00 AM to 7:00 AM or some crazy number in the middle of the night that no one wants to work, it's such a boring task, but someone had to do it. Well, they're leveraging artificial intelligence to autonomously find the parcel or the package or the bubble wrap that they're picking, a robot will pick it, separate it, and take these tasks that were once a very strenuous high turnover rate person, because no one wants to do the same thing of this over and over again... For those of you listening, I'm just throwing my hands back and forth like you're in a post office just throwing packages over the place.

Jake Hall: No one wants to do that. There's no value in that. There's no like, "Man, I'm so happy with my life I'm doing this right now." What they want to do is they want to take those tasks and give that to a person who can then say, "Hey, you're going to run four robots now. You're going to make sure they're running. If there's a question that a robot has, we're going to send you a notice and you're going to make a decision for the robot." There's value to that. With every robot that's being integrated, it's a responsibility of a manufacturer to educate their workforce who's there to reskill them with the tools that they need to create value back to the company. And I think that's the biggest thing I always get back from my audience is, "Well, automation's taking jobs or low skilled jobs." In a lot of areas, we're taking low skilled tasks and we're automating them, but it's a responsibility for the manufacturer to then take that person who does have a lot of knowledge of the processes and retool that person to then create value at a much higher, hopefully higher-paid, higher value-added level than they what they were doing before.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Okay. All right, let's shift gears and talk a little bit about the people part then. Okay, so we've talked about some of the trends. It would be cool to get maybe some stories from you, maybe some of the companies you've worked with that might be willing to share some of the advancements that they've made. I mean, it would be interesting to hear some of those applications. I was at an event for DHL a couple of years ago before COVID. It was at their innovation center here in the Americas and they had a picking robot set up and working. I mean, they had a lot of really cool things that they showed. They also did some virtual reality stuff. But that robot definitely stuck with me because they put it through the rigors, if you will, of some different jobs to show the scope of what it was able to do, and it was quite impressive. All right, so let's talk about the impact all of this has on people, okay?

Jake Hall: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Sarah Nicastro: And so, the first thing I want to talk about is how would you comfort an individual who has a career in manufacturing that has heard the first 10, 15 minutes of this conversation and has that immediate automation-is-going-to-take-all-the-jobs mentality?

Jake Hall: Well, automation's not going to take all the jobs because right now there's going to be 2.4 million unfulfilled jobs in manufacturing. Automation's never going to take jobs, it's going to fill the massive gap we have right now in manufacturing. And that's just because the growth of the industry, the growth of demand. When you're going to see a lot of reassuring happening here in America as a result of the pandemic really spiking that stuff, when people can't get their product off of a cargo ship, it really doesn't do great for them when, yeah, they might have saved 20 cents on the dollar by manufacturing it overseas, well, if they're not getting it, what's the point? Your 80 cents on the dollar isn't doing anything for you.

Jake Hall: So you're going to have an increased demand of localized manufacturing, domestic manufacturing here in America and domestic supply chains. So the person who's saying, "Well, automation is just going to take my job," automation is going to take jobs, but what we're going to see is you will then hopefully be moving up within the area to basically be reskilled in an area that's going to create more value. What I'm not saying is it's just one of those things that's just going to happen. In my mindset, you always need to keep learning. You always need to learn new things. If you are living at the status quo for 40 years not learning something new or learning a new skill, for me personally, that's pretty boring. It's your responsibility, I think, just as a human to continue to always learn and reeducate yourself with the changing times. So that would be my whole entire thing.

Jake Hall: And there are so many free ways for people to reskill themselves now than whatever before. In fact, you see a lot of people going back to community colleges right now for their second career in a lot of areas. They might have went to a four-year university and got trained in some... or got an education in some liberal arts degree. They couldn't find a job better than working at a coffee shop for five years, and they have $45,000 in student debt. Well, they need to find an industry that's hiring. Well, manufacturing's hiring at a great rate right now. So they go back in there, they get their apprentice program in robotic programming or welding or plumbing or HVAC, and now they're getting reskilled at the middle of their career, 30 and 40 years old. And now they have the opportunity to have a much more stable career that's going to continue to keep them successful and take care of them for many years to come.

Sarah Nicastro: You mentioned this a little bit, but there is a personal responsibility for people to upskill, reskill themselves, right, just to continue learning, right? Manufacturing or service or automation or not, I think collectively we are past an era of just complacency, right?

Jake Hall: Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: We are past the time of being able to show up to any job for 40 years in a row, punch in and punch out, and never give an increasing amount of value over that span of time. I just don't think that exists anymore. So, there's a personal responsibility there, but there's also a responsibility of the manufacturers themselves to make sure that they're planning on how to reskill and upscale. What I wanted to ask is, what are some of the areas when you think about these education paths and some of the skills that are going to be increasingly valuable in the coming years, what are some of the areas that come to mind would be applicable for people to consider evolving into?

Jake Hall: Yeah. I mean, with every robot that is put in place, you're going to have to have people who can manage those robots, people who can program those robots. With any level of automation, there's going to be people who need to be skilled in understanding what that data is, making decisions off of the information that you're being provided from an interconnected, smart manufacturing floor. But if people aren't in the technical side of things, you don't need to be an engineer to do stuff, if you're good with working with your hands and you're not necessarily the brain type but more the physical type, great, there's a lot of skilled trades out there like welding or plumbing or being a machinist who can just work with their hands or working in the construction industry as that becomes more modernized. It's one of those things where there's always going to be those circumstances, I recognize it, but what I don't want people to say is, "Oh, we're automating, and things are taking my jobs." It's no, you're just choosing not to create a better job for yourself. There's always the outliers, but the outliers do not match by any means the current audience of what is viewed in manufacturing.

Sarah Nicastro: Right. And so, there may be some incumbent employees that feel some emotion around all of this change, but on the flip side of that, as you mentioned at the beginning, this evolution and the way that the process is becoming more technologically advanced and more digital and more data centric creates a whole new appeal for people that are the next generation of-

Jake Hall: Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: ... workers. Let's shift gears and talk a little bit about that side of things. Obviously we've talked about a couple of the key elements. We're coming up against a 2.4 million employee gap, right?

Jake Hall: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Sarah Nicastro: We are coming out of a generation where this industry and other skilled trades were just sort of, "No, that's not the way you want to go. You want to go over here and get a four-year degree and do this path." So how do we bring this all together, right? How do we increase the appeal and appropriately evangelize the modernization of manufacturing? How do we let young folks know about the potential that this industry holds? How do companies find them? What are some of the elements here that you have thoughts on.

Jake Hall: Yeah, oh man, lots to cover in all those questions. Manufacturing is consistently innovating. As I mentioned before, with innovation comes new technology, with new technology comes the adaption of using that technology. The one thing that I can say is millennials and Gen Zs, we grew up with technology. We are not afraid to program things. We're not afraid to leverage technology to get us information or to teach us things. When we want to learn something new, we want to learn how to make a recipe or change the tire in a car or change the oil or how to fix an appliance in our house, we turned to video, we turned to YouTube. We are a new society of self-learning, self-teaching skills. 25, 20 years ago, if we wanted to know how to replace a component in our car, we had to go to AutoZone, pick up a owner's manual, and learn how to do something and find the correct page through the appendices.

Jake Hall: Well, now we just go on YouTube and type in "How to replace component on car," and you're going to get 45 videos. I think it's the exact same way when we look at manufacturing. When we want to change how we're running, we can adapt automation at a much higher comfort level than what we did before. And so that's one of those things that I always encourage with small to medium-sized manufacturers. Well, I don't know how to program a robot. I don't know how to program this. I don't know how to do this. You know who is willing to learn, who is learning to learn how to use new technology? Millennials and Gen Zs. Because we grew up with learning how to do all these different apps and programmings and all this stuff just naturally. For something that's very intimidating and difficult to an older person, it comes very easy to a younger person.

Jake Hall: I was actually talking to my wife earlier, it was either yesterday or today. My four-year-old daughter knows how to operate a TV remote better than what my dad does. So here's a four-year-old, who's relatively young but knows how to work an app or an iPad or a TV remote better than my dad who literally has been around than technology has been existing. That just shows the mindset of how younger generations can think around technology and adaption.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Jake Hall: I go back to manufacturers, what you view as a high risk or area of not understanding is completely different perspective than younger generations. Let's just say you're not in manufacturing, this is just a general person who's listening to this conversation, marketing or social media influence, you might find it very difficult to create posts on LinkedIn or social media, or film a video as a segmented expert talking about a topic. You as an older person might feel intimidated by that, but your college intern or the person you just hired out of college might say, "Oh yeah, I can totally do that. How many videos do you want a week?" And that's just -

Sarah Nicastro: Do you know how many TikTok followers I have?

Jake Hall: Yeah, exactly. But it's just one of those things as leverage your generational skillsets to what they're good at. And this new generation is very comfortable with technology and sharing and expressing more than any other ones. So, if you don't know how to do it, maybe your problem is not hiring or changing the mindset of getting the right people in to leverage those solutions and be innovative.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I agree with everything you've said. There's two challenges I see. One is organizations who have historically hired based on experience that are unsure at best or unwilling at worst, to change that to instead of looking for experience, they're looking for skills or aptitudes or abilities that they can allow to grow in the role that someone's taking. And then the second is on the flip side going back to the challenge we talked about earlier, which is how do we then have these opportunities hold appeal for the young workers that are the ones who could come in and learn on the fly and figure it out and do some of the things that the existing leadership is uncomfortable with?

Jake Hall: Yeah, so your first comment, what was the question of that that you're seeing as an issue?

Sarah Nicastro: Sorry. I'm notorious, Jake, for asking multiple questions at once. The first part is that companies are historically hiring on experience.

Jake Hall: Yes.

Sarah Nicastro: So they're only finding these people if they have five years of experience in X role rather than looking at the kind of generational aptitudes that you're bringing up, which is maybe they come from... I had a friend on the podcast a couple of weeks ago and he said they've started looking for people that worked at Chick-fil-A before because they're very organized, they're very good at customer service. He doesn't care if they have experience, he can bring them in, teach them what they need to know, and send them on their way. But historically, these organizations are just dead set on looking for X years of experience.

Jake Hall: Oh, absolutely. You always see those posts on social media like, "Hey, we need you to have a four-year degree plus five years of experience and a starting salary of $16 an hour." I think it goes back to a whole entire HR thing where there's a massive misconception of what you actually need versus what you're putting down on paper. Manufacturers, I know just with the industry that I am, need to realize that you aren't going to find your golden person to come work for you. You either needed two options. One is you need to take employees working within your company right now and retrain and reskill them with the talent that you need to make that happen, right?

Jake Hall: If you need a person who's sufficient in programming Rockwell Allen-Bradley PLCs, great, take your maintenance tech and start teaching him how to program Rockwell Allen-Bradley PLCs. That's like the first thing. If you are needing skills but you're not investing in your employees for them to get those skills, that's a huge red flag on your own because you're not creating an opportunity to retrain and then retain your employees. Because if another company is saying, "Hey, your experience, you're working in the industry, don't worry if you don't have the skill, we'll come and hire you, we have a training program to make that happen." Well, the person's going to jump ship and go over there because they're saying, "This company's going to invest in my career beyond just what I'm doing now." And that's a huge thing that millennials and Gen Zs look at is, "It's not just what am I doing now, what are you going to do to prepare me for the future?"

Jake Hall: And then going back to the whole entire hiring thing, I think it just goes back to with the 2.4 million unfulfilled jobs that are going to be in manufacturing, you just simply need to hire people and then teach them what they need along the way. Stop always looking for the best person and then just trying to buy them with your money. Because if your culture isn't a hireable culture, you will lose people over time. Because eventually there will be another company that's willing to pay just as much as you are, but also is willing to invest in them beyond just a monetary value.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Jake Hall: All companies need to look at it's not just about how much you pay them, it's about how do you invest in them.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Now, what about how we attract young people to the industry?

Jake Hall: Yeah. Within younger generations, I go to colleges and I advise engineering students when they're graduating and they're looking at jobs and they say, "Hey, who is my boss? And who would I work for? And what did they do five years ago?" Because I always want know, is the person who I'm going to work for, have they been in that position for five years? Because a lot of times, if it's a position and you're working for someone in a department or a category, the person you're working for probably would be the next step in your own promotion. And if that person's been doing that exact same job for 25 years, you're going to get a very quick idea of, am I going to move up in that company or not? Versus if your current manager has only been there for 18 months because he was in your position 18 months ago, and to say, "Hey, maybe they're growing a lot. Or maybe there's a lot of turnover within the company."

Jake Hall: I always like to know within a hiring process is, who is my manager? How long have they been there for? And then what is the opportunity for growth? I think the manufacturers as well need to understand, their interview is their showcase. If they're not showing you how they're investing in you or how they're investing in new technology, they're not being attractive. If you're going in there and you're trying to hire someone and say, "Oh yeah, we've been doing the exact same thing for 20 years," there's no opportunity for that person within that company. They're going to look for somewhere else who say, "Oh yeah, we've added three new automation cells in the past six months and we want you to help learn how to run those." There's opportunity there because they're investing in something new for growth. If you're not adapting new innovation solutions, then you're not going to attract the people to come work for you either.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Now, can you talk a little bit about the role social media can play in bridging this gap, changing the perceptions of what manufacturing is, helping organizations sell the story of why someone would want to come work for their company? I know you're a big proponent of the power of social media. I mean, at least my perception is that it's not something that's broadly utilized by manufacturers. What are your thoughts on the role that could play in helping them find more talent?

Jake Hall: Like we talked about originally, right, manufacturing is an industry that's viewed as a dark, dirty, dangerous, dull environment, the four Ds. Social media is the way to begin to share the innovation that's happening in the manufacturing industry to your future workforce, which is millennials and Gen Zs who leverage social media to get their information. They don't go on websites anymore to look at stuff, they're on social media to learn about new solutions. You as a manufacturer need to begin to create content on social media to attract your future workforce.

Jake Hall: But also, for the workforce that's already in place that's making decisions, right, for a lot of manufacturing companies, engineers who want to learn about a new product don't necessarily call the sales rep anymore to find out information, they'll go on YouTube and they'll learn what that product is. I think YouTube's probably one of the biggest source for design engineers and controls engineers because if they run across an error within a PLC they want to learn, I bet you, they're going to go on YouTube and type in that error sooner than they're going to go to that manufacturer's website and look in their instructions or their reference articles, right?

Jake Hall: So the exact same thing with manufacturers need to leverage social media as just an information platform beyond just this idea of thinking it's just fancy videos. It's an educational source as well. I view social media as an educational source for me to educate the existing workforce but also the future workforce on all the cool technology and innovation that's making manufacturing great.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jake Hall: And that's why social media should be leveraged as well. It's not about just attracting your future workforce, it's about sharing the innovation that you're doing to address the problems that we're facing right now in the industry. And do that in a way that's showing how you're solving a problem and not just how you're selling a product.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. I love it. All right, Jake, is there anything we have not gotten to that we should touch on today?

Jake Hall: No. I would just say the last thing would be is if you are a company, understand that it's your responsibility to invest in your future workforce and invest in the skills and the trades that need to happen. In this case, if you're a manufacturer, what are you doing to invest in your local community colleges or universities or career tech programs to make sure the kids who are graduating are applied with the correct skills that make them hireable. If you're a manufacturer and saying, "Oh, well, the kids graduating from a local college and university don't have the skills that they need to make them hireable and we need to go hire someone else," then that's your own fault and failure because you had the opportunity to impact that program, to say, "You know what? I need you to have these classes and these subjects taught in your college because that's what we need right now in the industry." Right?

Jake Hall: The college, university should be designed around to prepare people for their future career. But if there's a mismatch of people graduating, not being prepared to enter the workforce because they don't have the skills, we're going to fix that. I think the best way is for manufacturers and local companies to invest locally in their educational programs, and not just universities, your two-year colleges and apprentice programs as well, to say, "You know what? We're going to invest in them from a monetary impact but also from an advising and a teaching impact as well." And that's what I would encourage manufacturers and companies to do.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I mean, there's just far more responsibility today than there was 5, 10 years ago to create the talent you need. You can't just sit back and wait for it to come to you. I mean, it's not happening. I like the point you may earlier too, I mean, you mentioned that you go and speak at some of these colleges and schools and universities. That's another really good opportunity. The earlier organizations can plant the seed of the potential in the industry and the innovation in the industry and the career opportunities that exist, the better chance you have of getting someone's attention before they've already chose another path for themselves. So that's really important as well. All right, cool, Jake. Tell our listeners where they can follow The Manufacturing Millennial.

Jake Hall: Yeah. The best place is just to go on LinkedIn and search Jake Hall, or just go on Google and just literally type out "The Manufacturing Millennial." I probably will come up in all the top searches right away. But I'm on all social media platforms. LinkedIn is my main platform, but I'm on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, all social media platforms. And if you have any questions as well, you can email me to directly, and that's Jake@themanufacturingmillennial.com.

Sarah Nicastro: Awesome. All right, Jake, well, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.

Jake Hall: My pleasure. Thanks so much, Sarah.

Sarah Nicastro: You can find more at futureoffieldserviceref.ifs.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter, @TheFutureOfFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

Stay Connected

Related Content

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

Using AI to Unlock Potential While Protecting the Human Experience

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

Most Recent

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

A Focus on Efficiency is Only the Tip of the AI Iceberg – Expert Advice for Considering What Comes Next

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

February 23, 2022 | 25 Mins Read

Meeting the Demands of Modern Leadership with James Mylett, Part 2

February 23, 2022 | 25 Mins Read

Meeting the Demands of Modern Leadership with James Mylett, Part 2

Share

In part two of this two-part deep dive on leadership with James Mylett, SVP, U.S. Digital Buildings at Schneider Electric, Sarah and James talk about additional leadership characteristics that prove impactful today and James shares his words of wisdoms for tenured leaders looking for fresh inspiration as well as new leaders just starting out.

This is part two in a two-part episode with James Mylett, Senior Vice President for U.S. Digital Buildings at Schneider Electric. If you missed part one, you can listen here. 

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Now, I think another reason that you are well respected as a leader is you're very vocal about appreciating your team, but not just your team of leaders the entire team to the frontline, and their role, and their impact on your customers and the business. And to your point the difference they are making every day. I know we were both at the service council conference in the fall of last year. And you made a statement there that make sure we're appreciating these people and vocalizing that. And I know you invest a lot of your time in spending time with the frontline workforce and understanding what their reality looks like day to day. Let's talk about the benefit of doing that a bit.

James Mylett: I think the customer's experience is going to be framed up by the interaction they have with our frontline employee. So when you think about whether it's the person that's helping with the coordination of the work, the follow-up on the billing, the actual work being done on site, the salesperson going out there. Those moments of truth is what frames up the experience, just like when you go to Starbucks. If you've got an employee that's friendly and engaged and all that, but you have a different experience than the alternative. So I think for us, it's important that when we put our front line out in front of the customers that they're in the right state of mind, and they feel genuinely appreciated in what they're doing. And they understand how, what they're doing is helping us.

James Mylett: I was in New York City a couple weeks back and had a chance to meet with the head of security for one of the most iconic buildings in the U.S. let alone in the city. And I was expecting to talk about technology, facial recognition, all this stuff. No, all he wanted to talk about was Geo and how Geo would fix things on a Sunday before anybody even knew they had a problem. He got an alert about it. He was in, he did it remotely. He came in and he just appreciated so much this frontline employees, personal commitment to making a difference for them.

James Mylett: In order for us to sustain that, we have to have a personal commitment to helping to clear a path for people like Geo to get their job done in a way that's meaningful for them so. I haven't forgotten what it was like so it's been a long time. But I've got a long list of stories I could tell that just you shake your head at some of the situations that frontline employees get put in some days. So I haven't forgotten that. I think the comment I made at the conferences we were leaving was relative to the airline industry and we're all flying back, don't forget what those folks are going through as they're trying to help us get home safely. And the interactions that some people are creating for them that makes their lives miserable. It doesn't take them to be kind to somebody so.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. Okay. We have quite a bit more to get through here so, all right. So willingness to take risks.

James Mylett: Yeah. Don't bet the franchise, that's one lesson I learned from a CEO I worked for. And in one of the recent one that came up to me is try to go through two-way doors. So go take a risk, but don't take a risk in a way that's a one-way door where there's no way back. And I'm not a fan of burning the bridge behind me so that there's no path, but the path forward because the impact to the organization is huge. But part of what I've tried to do here in this role is to create more space for my people to take risks. We have a core value called data disrupt that talks a lot about this specific topic. So I'm trying to create experiences with my team to where they know that because of the experience, they know that they have an opportunity to go take those risks.

James Mylett: An example I point to is one of our leaders decided that we wanted to open up a bigger operation in the city of Nashville. And so, I looked at all the potential cities we could be going to and I'm like, "Why Nashville? It doesn't make any sense. We should go someplace else." So I wasn't a supporter at first. I gave them a homework assignment to go get me the data, trust in God everybody else brings me data. So I had them bring me the data and they proved the case out. I still wasn't bought in. And frankly I wasn't bought in, but I gave them the runway to go do it and they crushed it.

James Mylett: They doubled the business, they doubled it again and they were on this unbelievable trajectory of taking market share out there. And had I not been willing to take that move to create space for them, we never would've got the benefit. So I think it's for a leader it's getting more comfortable being uncomfortable and trusting people more and not building out an organization of helicopter parents to where people don't feel like there's an army that's hovering over them all the time to check on what they're doing so.

Sarah Nicastro: Which, I'm mean really is another element of more modern leadership philosophy. You don't have to have your hands in everything. You said you weren't really sold, but you let them do it anyway because they had conviction and you believed in them. I think we talked the first characteristic we talked about as we resilient. And I think to some degree, if you want to build resilience in a team, letting them know it's okay to fail helps them be resilient. If they have this fear of failure, and obviously these folks can fail. But I'm just saying your willingness to let people take chances lets them know that they can make missteps and course correct. And that fuels that sense of resilience instead of having this fear-based culture where then people don't want to try anything new, or if they try and it doesn't go well, they just want to quit. Because they don't understand that that's all part of the game.

James Mylett: Yeah. It's a storytelling happens after the failure that drives the belief system. What happened to that team that didn't do what we expected them to do? How did we as leaders capture that? Did we treat it as a learning opportunity to get better or was it punitive? Whatever we do is going to drive the belief system for the organization, and that's going to determine how people act after the fact so, yeah. Trust comes in two flavors, character and competency. If you're on my team, it's because I trust your character. The competency thing, it just depends on the assignment.

James Mylett: And we're going to continue to evolve skillsets, all of us continue overall our skillset so the competency continues to go up. But yeah, I do. I trust my team. Early in the year, we were struggling with what our sales forecast was going to be. And my sales leader was putting up a number that I was struggling. I wasn't sure we were going to get there. And I was like, "You sure you want to put that number out?" And she said, "I wouldn't be against this team." And it’s just a comment that stuck with me that I haven't forgotten, and I agree with her. I wouldn't bet against this team.

Sarah Nicastro: And how often do you have a leader are saying, you're saying are you sure? And she's saying yeah, no, we should go with this. Usually it's the other way around, they're trying to hedge bets or present a different case, so I think that's great. James, do you have a hard stop?

Sarah Nicastro: The next characteristic, and you mentioned this in your comments trust in God, but everyone else bring me the data, so analytical. But there's a balance here because you just said in that example, you're analytical and you wanted the data. But then when you aren't reconciled with that, you're still willing to bring these other characteristics into play. So trust in your team and the willingness to take risks. What role does being analytical play in all of this though?

James Mylett: I want to make sure that our team is focused on root cause analysis for problem solving. And so, like most organizations when you think about a problem, everybody wants to go to ideation, let's go solve and we spend not enough time defining what the problem is and then doing the root cause analysis and we've got brilliant people. Every organization I work with is popular, brilliant people and you get in a room and God help us if there's a whiteboard, next thing you know you've got all these great ideas up there and then there's a program that gets deployed. And so, my bias is to start at the problem or start with the customer and work backwards from that and put a solution in place that's supported with data. That'll really move the needle because you know that that's the root cause for the problem.

James Mylett: What I've experienced along the way is you get these group things, and next thing you know there's a hammer that gets developed and then leadership takes the organization on a scavenger hunt for nails. Here's a hammer, go find a nail. And our interactions with customers change because it's no longer about helping them solve problems, it's about hey, I've got this hammer and I need nails, do you have one? And it's not a healthy environment. It's tough for, no argument about that. It's a lot of fun doing ideation, the brainstorming, all that.

James Mylett: It takes hard work to really dig in and to get the root cause. And it takes courage to face into the data when it doesn't support what you thought the root cause was, and that happens a lot. And it happens to me a lot when you get into the data. Because I've got my mind made up that we should be moving in this direction but time out, let's go do the data. And the data comes back and it doesn't support. You know what? As the leader, what I wanted us to do, what do you do at that point? Do you rationalize the way the data or do you trust your team? And follow what the data is saying. So that's my bias. The challenge is you don't want to micromanage the data. You don't want to get paralyzed by the data, but it has to have role in the conversation.

Sarah Nicastro: And I mean, in the example you gave about Nashville, it doesn't have to be the be-all and end-all. It's part of the consideration. It's an important piece of the puzzle, but sometimes you might choose to take a risk against the data or sometimes you might choose to wait that differently in your decision than other times. I do like the point though, that you're not just talking about data for data sake, you're talking about this idea of root cause analysis and understanding what you really need to be investing time and energy in. And I think that's the best use and maybe underused fit for data in terms of we're not just talking about measuring output or measuring internal KPIs. We're talking about understanding the root cause of issues and opportunities and using that to guide a path forward.

James Mylett: Yeah. What's the problem you solve is probably one of the best questions you could have in your arsenal tech ask, is people to bring ideas forward. It's a simple question. What's the problem we're trying to solve? It comes back.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Simple question that doesn't get asked enough. So the next characteristic is empathy.

James Mylett: Yep. I believe there's a difference between empathy and sympathy, and it's a line that is a leader you have to be able to walk effectively. As we're dealing with it like we talked about the vaccine issue, as we were navigating through that internally, the government had issued this mandate that, if you want to continue to do business you had to be in compliance. And when you run the math on that, it's a very simple decision. When you look at the amount of business that any organization might be doing with the government against the loss, for some companies it could be crippling. Put them out of business. So from a math standpoint, it gets to be simple on that front. Look at the people impact of it, not as simple.

James Mylett: And for a lot of organization, when you look at the population of people that have been vaccinated, depending on the state you're in whether it's 30% on vaccinated or 40% on vaccinated, apply that to the population of the team you might be leading, that's a big number that you put at risk. So you get into this, but at the end of the day for big companies that are doing a lot of work with the government, the map made sense to go forward with decisions to comply with the mandate.

James Mylett: It doesn't change the fact that there are individuals that have been part of the family that have made a personal decision that we should respect and empathize with and keep that at the forefront of the way that you handle that situation as people decide to exit an organization. And not everybody gets that. You can get in a room, looking at spreadsheets and convince yourself that this is just very simple. Boom, it's done, move. But I think if you lose sight of the impact that the individual might not change your decision because you've got a business to run. But the way that you do that it will communicate to the organization who we are as a company.

James Mylett: I think when you put anything under stress, the characteristics of it come out and you get in these situations, characteristics of organizations rise to the top and become very, very visible. It's a moment of truth and we're fortunate enough to have a very clearly articulated set of core values. And it becomes a touchstone for us, as we start thinking about how to handle any situation, consistent with core values. So when we come out this thing, we're better for it, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

James Mylett: It tests the team, it made the team better. And we didn't lose ourselves along the way, both as an organization and individually as leaders. I've had conversations with leaders that have gotten to that point where I'm listening to what they're talking about and that's not the person that I know, it's not who they're. And it's a reflection point where they've lost themselves and they have to force them.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. All right. A couple more are ambitiousness. So you said there should be a healthy distance between where we are and where we aspire to be.

James Mylett: Yeah. So I'm fan of the Valvano speech, where I was, where I am and where I'm going that's what dynamic. We use the ocean planning process here which is its pretty elaborate process. It's got this thing called an X matrix and a bowler. But the simple version of it is what we do is we do gap closure analysis. So we look at what best in class performance is on any metric. And we look at where we are, where we were and how do I just get 30% better than where I am? I'm not going to get to there, but can I get 30% better than where I am? And if I did, what would that be worth? On any particular metric, whether it's recognition, safety performance, employee turnover, customer set.

James Mylett: How do I get 30% better to whatever the best in class is in the metric layout? What we try to do is set those aspirational targets to where we know we're stretching ourselves enough. And we use a simple color coding, where if I'm on the target that I said at screen, if I'm worse than I was last year, it's red. And if I'm better than I was last year, even if I'm not to the target it's yellow. And a successful scorecard doesn't have any red in it, it has a healthy mixture of yellow and green. That's a hard calibration for teams that they look at that and they want everything green. And the thing we've learned especially this past year is if everything's green, we haven't been aspirational enough.

James Mylett: If you get a dose of yellow and green, we got better at everything. So here's where I was, here's where I am, everything has moved forward, that's a successful year because we continue to evolve the organization in the right direction. But it is, it makes for fun conversations. My belief and my experience has been that most of the leaders that I've worked with are exponentially better than what they give themselves credit for. Most of the teams that I've been involved with are exponentially better than what they give themselves credit for. And when you take the time to reflect back on what you've already done as a team, or as an individual, it's surprising when you think of inventory, progress.

Sarah Nicastro: I think too, there's people for whom this drive, this aspirational drive is just more natural than others. Doesn't mean people that aren't as hungry for it, can't make that progress and be aspirational. But I think it's just, it's more innate in some folks. But I do think there's this element of connection between some of the leadership traits we're talking about today and aspiration because in a more traditional leadership model, again, it celebrates the intelligence, the capabilities, the results of the people at the very top without a lot of credit to those on the teams and on the front line.

Sarah Nicastro: And I think the more that we evolve into this more modern management mentality where we're celebrating the contributions of the team, and we're considering the role of the frontline and we're being more empathetic, I think it creates more ambition. Because to your point, people are connected to that purpose, they're connected to the individual role they play in a big picture of a company that within the culture cares about everyone. And I think that causes people to be more aspirational instead of just more complacent, or more disconnected or disassociated, those values are something you can use to connect people. Like you said earlier, get the buy-in and that creates more aspiration within the team.

James Mylett: Yeah. It's cultural. When I think about culture for me I go back to the Oz Principle stuff and it's all about creating experiences that shift the belief system that get people to act in a different way tomorrow than they're acting today, that delivers the result that we're looking for. It's very simple model. So as the leader, what are the experiences that I'm creating and are they consistent with the belief system that the organization will need to hold in order for us to move in the direction we want to move? On any topic, whether it's diversity and inclusion, customer satisfaction, retention, hyper growth, all those key things that we talk about the model applies for all those. I think being purposeful about the experiences makes a big difference for us.

James Mylett: I get a report out every month, the end of every month on our net satisfaction scores for the whole organization. And my exec assistant goes through and teases out all the nines and tens that we've got, and we've got a recognition portal here that we use. And once a month I see everybody that got a nine and a 10 and I recognize everybody on the team. If nothing else, just to let them know that I see what they're doing, and I appreciate it. And again, back when I was a frontline technician if I was getting a note from the president of the division or senior vice president, it made a difference. And so, if even it's not me if it's just a title, it makes a difference to people. I think we underestimate that sometimes when we get to these positions, just the impact that we have on lifting people up.

Sarah Nicastro: All right. Last question on the traits and then just a couple things to wrap up. So authenticity is the last trait that I have on the list. And what is it that you think makes a leader authentic? You know that feeling you get when you're engaging with someone where they either are, or they aren't. And I think it's something people get a sense for so quickly, and that doesn't mean it can't change, but it's just something that you get a very initial impression from someone when you engage with them that they're either very authentic or, eh. What do you think that is?

James Mylett: I think agenda makes a difference. My agenda is to help teams win and to help people who want to get better, get better. That's simple as that. I think the light went on for me back in 2004 I was in New Orleans leading a bit business and got challenged by the mayor to get involved in the community, so I went and signed up with the school district there to do some stuff. And I got invited to do a leadership conference at Frederick Douglass High School in the inner-city. And one of the things they wanted me to do was to bring my quote that represented who I was. And so, the reflex was be true to yourself. What I didn't know was who that was attributed to so I looked it up in crazy moment, Frederick Douglas so.

Sarah Nicastro: What are the chances?

James Mylett: Serendipity moment for me. And the more I kind of reflected on that, I think that's been my guidepost along the way, and probably even more so since that light went on for me, and I think that sets the stage for the authenticity piece of it. I think the imposter syndrome piece that I talked about earlier. And as I work with some of the resource group, they talk about code switching and that whole piece. I think there's some of those things that you have to navigate through on that path. But I think at its core, it's being comfortable enough with the eye, with who you are, to where you can bring the best version of yourself into any situation.

James Mylett: The key is, are you a part of an organization that is willing to create an environment to where you can do that? And I think as we all talk about the war for talent, as people get experiences with organizations or see game film on organizations that are doing that, that allow them to be their best version of themselves there, and to be their genuine self there, the tolerance level for the environment that they might be in that's not that goes way down. And it's just like I always say that none of us realized how miserable yellow cab ride was until Uber came along, we just kind of went along, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Dealt with it.

James Mylett: Then all of a sudden it changed. Well, I think is organizations evolve. And we're more purposeful about creating these environments and people see it, tolerance level changes. I think progressive organizations, it's going to be a competitive advantage.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. All right. So we've talked through these trades, you talked a little bit about you personally have evolved your belief and your methodologies, and the way you lead. Are there any practices, resources that you would give in terms of how you do that? How do you continue personally to evolve and grow and educate yourself and change as a person and a leader versus just sitting still?

James Mylett: I do a lot of mentoring. That's probably the thing that's top of mind. And I tell the folks I work with that I get more out of it than I think they do. Because I get insight into what's driving them, what's motivating them, what's demotivating them. What is it that we're doing that's making a difference that's resonating? Where are we missing the mark? Where do we think we're moving the needle and we're really not? What's important? And all of those things, that whole inventory that I just rattled off, what I'm experiencing today is different than what I would've experienced 20 years ago or 10 years. I think as a leader, getting that insight, going close to where the front line is puts you in a better position to make decisions about where you go forward. 

Sarah Nicastro: No, I think I shouldn't be surprised by that answer because it's just very representative of you as a person, meaning you're not just picking up a book and all of a sudden it's changing you. Not that I'm saying you haven't read good books, I'm sure you have. But the real change, the real perspective for you is coming from that engagement and those conversations and being hands on and being personally invested. And I think that's actually really cool.

Sarah Nicastro: All right. Two final questions. One is, so what advice would you give a peer who has committed to improving and evolving their own leadership style?

James Mylett: I think for me take taking inventory of where you've been and where you want to get to is a good starting point. When we talk about leadership style, it's having clarity around what you want that to be, and what you want it to represent. Excuse me. Otherwise, it's difficult to understand whether or not you're making progress. I think when we talk about collaboration for example, it's something that's top of mind for all of us as we think about expanding out into the industry and creating new relationships. What are the specific skillsets that I can be developing to be more effective on that front would be part of it.

Sarah Nicastro: Last question is what advice would you give a brand new leader who's just starting out? So looking back on your own journey, what words of wisdom would you share?

James Mylett: I think if I had it to do over again, so let me come at it from that perspective. When I look at the investments I made in my personal development to become the best technician I could be, it's nonstop. I was reading all the time, I was getting on the right assignments, all that stuff. And that opened the door for me to move into sales and then into management. My early stages of management, I didn't make that same investment in me. And I didn't recognize that there was a whole new set of skills that I needed to go develop.

James Mylett: There were attributes that I had built out in the prior roles that put me in a position where I was ready for the first leadership role, but there was a whole different set of skill sets that needed to be built out for this new role that early on I didn't recognize that. So the advice I would give people is to recognize that you've just promoted yourself into a new position, a new journey for yourself personally. Get the inventory of the skillsets that are going to be required in order for you to excel at this new position, and then go put yourself on a learning path to get those acquired built out.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, I think that's good advice. It echoes the point you made earlier when we were talking about having hard conversations and the culture of wanting to hold each other accountable, and things like that. And you said, "We have to understand as a company, have we invested in the skills for our leaders to do this?" And so, it's a very two-pronged thing. I think it's great when someone has the personal recognition and takes the initiative to continue their own journey of self-improvement.

Sarah Nicastro: But on the other end companies have a responsibility to invest in the skills of their leaders as well. And I think sometimes what happens is companies promote to a certain level and then that just stops. And there's a statistic I read not too, too long ago. I think it's like 70% of companies don't invest in leadership training and development because it's just assumed that by the time someone gets to a point of being a leader, they know it all or something. I don't know. But the idea that that being proactive as an organization as well of the continual learning is equally important so I think that - 

James Mylett:... individual contributor positions. There's so many certifications that people have to have to work on certain systems and all that type of stuff. But then we promote people to a manager and we don't think that there needs to be same level of certification, so we just assume. And so, for an individual, one of the things to recognize is your talent is part of what got you to the position you're in. Your success going forward is going to be on whether or not you build out the talent to become these overarching skillsets that you have, but the talent will only take you so far. The place where I see leaders derail most frequently is when they get to a position where they're managing other managers because, and let's take sales for example.

James Mylett: Let's say I'm a top sales person, hit my quota, blow it out of the water every year. Next thing you know, somebody tasks me on a shoulder, you should be a sales manager. Great, got a big title, just got promoted. And I don't invest in being a good sales manager. What I'm doing is I'm helping everybody on my team close deals because I'm unbelievable at it. Next thing you know, the performance of the team goes through the roof because the closer is in there helping to bring in these jobs.

James Mylett: I get tapped on the shoulder again. You're a great manager, now let's have you manage all the sales managers. I'm done because I never built the skill sets that I'm going to need to manage other managers as I go forward. And it's the highest point of derailing in careers is that manager of manager layer and root on that is we don't spend enough time building out the skill sets along the way. And so again, another piece of advice going back, if I could do it over again, is at each one of those turns in my own personal leadership pipeline is calling a timeout, really doing the inventory of okay, now I'm managing other managers. Now I'm managing an enterprise. What am I going to need to go here?

James Mylett: I was managing a region 25 branches at one point and it was a couple 100 million. I did the market analysis and if we got the 10% market share, we would've been a billion dollar business. So I called my coach to come and spend some time with me and he wanted to know what's the topic? I said, "Well, I got a $300 million business, I want to take it to a billion? I think I can get there. I have no idea how to manage a billion dollar business." I don't know what that looks like. And I don't want to be the person who builds something that they can't run. Because I didn't grow as fast as the business grew. At that point, the lights had gone on for me to where I was at least I had to confidence level to where I could take it from X to Y by when, but I had the awareness that, that when job is different than the X job. And so, I need to get the work on building out version 8.0 of me.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I love that. I think just in summary, there's a couple points that I just I want to touch back on. And the first is, you said early on, the pace of change today is incredibly rapid. And so, if leaders aren't evolving you're just, you're making yourself irrelevant. It's really not an option at this point. You need to be investing in yourself and expanding horizons and looking for different sources of inspiration and educating yourself. And like you said, mentoring has been a great source of understanding what's needed today, or do you have your own mentors or a coach or whatever those tools are, just the understanding that it's necessary.

Sarah Nicastro: I think the second thing is keeping the eye on not just the short term but the long term. All too often, I think leaders that have that recognition have great intentions, but then they're so overcome by the day to day demands of the business that they're not strict enough about taking the time to invest in themselves, to make themselves better in the longer term. I think you also mentioned that long term view being important. I think that applies not only to the business, but to the individual in this sense of, you have to figure out a way to create the time, and effort, and space to work on yourself. So that to your point, when you take the business from here to here, you're ready to continue making an impact.

James Mylett: Larry Levin wrote a book called Top Teaming. And in it he talks about how leaders have to find the right balance between the now the new and the next. And they always have working on that. But the thing that's changed is change speed. To be sure just a couple of quick stats with you so. When you think about cars, it took 62 years for cars to get to 50 million users. It took credit cards 28 years to get to 50 million, debit cards 12 years, PayPal five years, and then Pokemon GO got to 50 million users in 19 days.

Sarah Nicastro: Wow.

James Mylett: Think about that change. And when you're working with team members who grew up in a world of Pokemon GO that went in 50 million in 19 days, it's a very different perspective about how fast things should move than folks that grew up when we were talking about whether or not ATMs were safe or debit card or virtual bank. Think about all that change in just how fast it's moving today. It's dramatically different. And so, we have to adjust our leadership style. We have to adjust the environments that we're creating, otherwise we're not going to attract and retain the talent that's going to be needed to win in these new markets.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes. I love it. James, thank you so much. You've been very generous with your time. I appreciate it. I'm so happy to have you on and have you share some of your story with us, so thank you very much for being here.

James Mylett: I appreciate the invite. Always a pleasure.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes. You can learn more by visiting us at futureoffieldserviceref.ifs.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter @TheFutureOfFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening. 

Stay Connected

Related Content

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

Using AI to Unlock Potential While Protecting the Human Experience

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

Most Recent

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

A Focus on Efficiency is Only the Tip of the AI Iceberg – Expert Advice for Considering What Comes Next

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

February 16, 2022 | 30 Mins Read

How Shannon Tymosko is Taking the Skilled Trades by Storm

February 16, 2022 | 30 Mins Read

How Shannon Tymosko is Taking the Skilled Trades by Storm

Share

Sarah sits down with the guest start of our 150th episode, Shannon Tymosko, for a discussion around why and how Shannon decided to pivot at age 29 into a career in the skilled trades as an electrician. Shannon shares her story, discusses what makes the trades appealing but what prohibits greater diversity, and points to what must change to increase interest in trade careers.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. I'm super excited to be celebrating our 150th episode today by welcoming a special guest, Shannon Tymosko. We're going to talk today about how Shannon has taken the skilled trades by storm, as she made a big pivot in her career at age 29. So Shannon, welcome to Future of Field Service podcast.

Shannon Tymosko: Thank you so much for having me. I'm very blessed to always share my story and hope to inspire or change a few minds.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes, I'm so glad you're here. I was inspired by your story myself, and I'm excited to share it with our audience.

Shannon Tymosko: Thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: Now, your official title is Apprentice Electrician, right?

Shannon Tymosko: Yep. That's my official work title. Yep.

Sarah Nicastro: And what is your chapter?

Shannon Tymosko: IBEW Local 105 Hamilton.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. And you are also, as we were just chatting about before we started, you've become quite an advocate for the skilled trades and have done a ton of interviews and public speaking and are doing a lot to really educate and advocate for the opportunities that exist for others, which is really cool.

Shannon Tymosko: I try my best. Originally I went to school for child and youth work and then I found those passion for the skilled trades and somehow I've been able to take those two passions, overlap them and create this advocate position. I don't know if it's a real ... is it a position? But it's just nice to be able to inspire some people and hopefully people can live through my experiences and I can help them start their own journey.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Well, we talk quite a bit on this podcast about how the organizations in the various industries that we reach are looking for ways to attract different people to the industry. And so I think that the advocate position is important because that's what starts to spread awareness of what some of the opportunities are. It starts to break down the maybe some of the misperceptions that exist, those sorts of things. So I think it's a really important role.

Shannon Tymosko: 100%. If you can see it, you can be it. That's what I keep saying. Right? How often do we see celebrities more than we see anything else as children? We see Disney princesses, but do we see skilled trades workers? Do we see ladies as skilled trades workers? And so how do we believe we can do something that unless we even know it exists?

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Yeah. All right. So let's start with 2017, you are 29 and all of a sudden you decided ... well, maybe not all of a sudden, but you decided you were ready for a change. So tell us a little bit about your journey up to that point. So what were you doing before this big change?

Shannon Tymosko: Well, I'm 33 years of age. So this is not my first, second. I think it's more my fourth career at this point. I did do the typical go to school route. And originally I picked accounting first. I didn't like accounting. I spent a year exploring something, and then I transferred to child youth work, which I found to love. And this is where I found my passion for people, my passion for mental health, change, growth, development, these kinds of things. And then I did work in the field for a while as a child youth worker, I worked at a shelter for homeless youth, one of my favorite jobs. It's just not one of those jobs that I like to say allow you to thrive. You just survive. Especially being a single person on a single income in the GTA, or greater Toronto area, I should say.

Shannon Tymosko: And so I was really struggling, slowly going into debt. And so I had to maintain my college job, not one that I picked. It was just default. I worked at a financial institution. I worked there throughout my entire 20s, nine years. And by the end of it, I only worked ... I only made $20 an hour, about a $40,000 salary. It gets super hard to survive.

Shannon Tymosko: And so I'm almost 30 years of age. I realize I have still 30 years of employment in front of me, which is ... and I realized you spend more time at work than you do at home. It's so important to find something that you love. And so I started this new journey. I started looking at ... you just start online, you Google jobs, you Google jobs that maybe fit your job skill that you already have.

Shannon Tymosko: And nothing was standing out. Until my friend, Matthew, he purchased a home. He bought this house. Neither of us have any trade experience, we're both really green is what they call us, know nothing. And the second day he has the keys to this house he wanted to rip out his kitchen, and I thought he was nuts, but we did. We started with the kitchen and moved to two bathrooms, basement, and I realized in that experience, because I tried something new, I really enjoyed this. And I think that's the biggest learning experience I got there is don't be afraid to try new things.

Shannon Tymosko: And even myself with that lesson, fast forward a couple years, and I always talk about, people, try things. Don't be afraid. And so this, the same friend, Matthew, we love to canoe. So we always go down the river in a canoe. For a year, he bought this new kayak. He tried to convince me to be kayak. And I thought I wouldn't like it, because I love the canoe. Why would I possibly want something different?

Shannon Tymosko: Finally, I get into the kayak and now I love the kayak more than I love the canoe. And again, so even myself, somebody who knows, by trying something, it can lead to so much. We often limit ourselves because of beliefs about ourselves. And so get out and explore the world and try things, because you never know, it could lead you to a passion you never knew about.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So my husband and I, we just had our kitchen remodeled last year. And when we were meeting with the contractor, my husband who is in marketing for his profession was like, "Well, I want to do all the electrical." I'm like, "What?" But he wanted to do it. He was really interested in trying to do it. And it was also a way for us to save some money, and so he did it all himself. I mean, he's very detail oriented. So I mean, he did a lot of research. He did a lot of homework. He actually met with a couple electricians to go over his plans so that he didn't mess something up or burn the house down. And you know, it was a big experience for him because he actually started thinking, "Maybe I would enjoy doing something different."

Sarah Nicastro: I mean, he hasn't yet, but it is something where, when you go through that experience doing something that isn't your daily norm and that seed gets planted of, oh, this is really fun. I really like remodeling this house. You took that and ran with it. And you're living proof that anyone could. You're also living proof for organizations that someone can pivot, someone can have aptitudes, interests, the right personality fit to make a change and be successful in a completely different field. So you're doing these home renovations and you're really liking it. And that is what ignited your interest in becoming an electrician. So what happened next?

Shannon Tymosko: So I applied to some free apprenticeship programs. Having that child youth work skill set, I knew there was programs I'm sure out there. So I researched them programs for women to get into the skilled trades and I applied, very grateful to get in. And so it started my journey to actually getting something on my resume so I can hopefully get an actual job. And so this program was very nice to help set women up for success.

Shannon Tymosko: And so then, yeah, in that program I met a couple of gentlemen that were actually IBEW head office positions. So they did the training, they were the president, and they facilitated some of our training for this program, working at heights, lockout- tagout. And so I was grateful because I got the opportunity for them to see my face, to make that impression because I think it's so important. People are looking for good talent. I think we'll talk about it in a little bit, but I think we need to look for more than just talent. I think we need to look for those other characteristics.

Shannon Tymosko: So when I finished this program and I reached out to them, I was very grateful that they saw my drive, my heart, my eagerness, my want to learn and they were willing to take me on. So the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers here in Hamilton, it is a North American wide union, but Hamilton here took me on and so I started my electrical journey. And yeah, I was very blessed to be put on a construction site that was for a hotel. So you can imagine that it was a large hotel. So it went for quite some time, sometimes your projects aren't so long. So I got almost two years out of this project, and started my base of my electrical skills.

Sarah Nicastro: So what do you love most about being an electrician?

Shannon Tymosko: Oh, I don't know if I can say love most because I love so many things about my job. The financial freedom. I talk a lot about the thriving and not just surviving. The financial freedom, and I think when we're little, I don't know about you, but we see more Disney princesses getting married. So I'm thinking in my head I'm going to be married, certainly before I'm 33. Part of that marriage comes another income. And so these are things that you maybe think about. You don't think about, they just, it's just there. Right? And so now I'm 33, I'm still living on a single income and so this financial freedom that I get with working as an electrical apprentice, I make more as an electrical apprentice than I did in any of my previous jobs.

Shannon Tymosko: And I have the benefits, I have pension and on a much deeper level than just a physical or a financial benefit. What I really love about the skilled trades is I think you kind of talked about it, touched on it a little bit with your husbands taking on the electrical project at home. I talk a lot about mental health and how confidence, how is confidence built? Confidence is built by competence. It's by trying something, failing a few times and then being successful. So what did you talk about? You said there was maybe some self-doubt, what did he do? Researched. He figured it out. Maybe there was some trial and error, but I bet he felt great when he turned that light switch on and everything went on, and that is a little bit of confidence.

Shannon Tymosko: And every day I go to work and I look at something, I might doubt myself a little, they're doubting me a little and I'm successful, that feeling that I built that, I built that, I contributed to me, to society, to my physical and mental health is so rewarding. And so this is one of the most rewarding things I can get, along with this independence at home to try new things. So your husband tried the electrical, might not be what he's doing on a daily basis. For me, I've taken on car repairs. I started with oil changes. I've moved on to breaks, spark plugs, saving myself money and also building myself new skills. And so there's just too many things for me to pick one. Why love the skilled trades and electrical and how much it can benefit someone.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So on the flip side, what would you say is the hardest part of the new career?

Shannon Tymosko: It's funny. I think it's that, again, we've touched on that self-doubt. It's every day you need to remind yourself, you can do this. Remember how far you've come already. And so I often sit here, even two years in this journey and I sit here a little bit in awe that you're in construction. You walk on a construction site every day and one of perhaps 100 people. And I have to remind my myself when I'm having those moments of self-doubt, because the job is ... if you're a hard worker and you're eager, the job is not necessarily hard. There might be hard moments of lifting things, but the job itself is not hard. Most people are very capable if you teach them. And so it's that self-doubt, which every day you have to fight a little.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Now, do you think you have more self-doubt than a male Apprentice Electrician, because you know that all eyes are on you?

Shannon Tymosko: I don't know if it's ... I think women are a little bit maybe ... sometimes I am. I'm just going to say I'm in my head more than most of the men. I like to say, I don't like to put us into ... but I'm definitely in my head. And then there is that pressure of you're a woman. Some of them don't think you belong there. They don't say it to you, but I know. And so there most certainly is this pressure to perform.

Shannon Tymosko: I say this as well. It's not only to perform for myself to know that I'm doing a good days work, but with so few women in the skilled trades, I am a representation of every woman on another construction site who's going to follow me, because men are judging me and they're judging women as a whole at the same time. And that is a different ... that's not the same pressure for my fellow male apprenticeship.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Yeah. So I want to read something that I read from an article you were interviewed for, and this is about being a woman in the industry. And so it says, "Actions often speak louder than words. And being a woman in the skilled trades today means I am still a minority, underestimated and a trailblazer for other women to follow. It means I must be strong, self-aware and realistic that I'm still in a man's world. I must be patient and not push change, but be an ambassador and advocate for change. I must be persistent, work hard and show the young women of tomorrow that they too can do whatever they desire."

Sarah Nicastro: "If you see it, then it's easier to believe you can be it. Although my experience is limited to only a short few years, I can say it can be lonely at times being the only woman on a construction site. It's also rewarding knowing you helped build that and had the courage to walk back into work every day where so many other others wouldn't." And so, I mean, first of all, this speaks volumes of your character and fortitude, because it does take a lot of courage. Everyone, you're probably right in saying every human being has some variation of their own self-doubt, but the pressure you're under is magnified because of the fact that there's these longstanding perceptions and these societal norms and this, that, and the other thing.

Shannon Tymosko: And the pressure is not just for ... I think the pressure's for any minority. Oh yeah. Let's be honest, in construction it's not very diverse. So whether you're the woman or you're the person who looks different in any way, there's a different pressure for that person.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. And I think, like you said in this statement, some isolation. Which is hard if ... I mean, you said it's the brotherhood, right. Is IBEW. So that in a name even is ... and so if there's this brotherhood and you're the odd man or woman out, because you're different in some way, it adds an extra layer of challenge of coming to work every day and doing what you need to do and feeling fulfilled. So I commend you.

Sarah Nicastro: What I wanted to ask is, if you think big picks those feelings that you have knowing that you're the minority, knowing that you're in a man's world, feeling that sense of isolation sometimes, how do we move past that? So for a variety of skilled trades that understand they need to hire with more diversity, women and all different types, that's going to be a big challenge. Because some people wouldn't want to take on what you take on every time you walk into a job site. So what do you think in your opinion, from a culture perspective, what are some of the things that need to change so that it isn't quite so daunting for a woman or for any minority to be a part of the brotherhood?

Shannon Tymosko: I think it's just going to take time. I think it's just going to take more women or more equality, everybody, a little bit of diversity. And it's interesting, because over my experience, I've met some incredible women and they've taught me some incredible things. And one of them said to me, she said, "Shannon, I've been in industry with predominantly men my entire life. And whenever they have a meeting, whether I'm in that meeting or not, they call me in," and for whatever reason, just because she changes the energy of the room. And yet you think about that. And I had this, at work one day there was a moment that clarified and validated this. I was working I was up on a ladder installing a light. There's hallways, you can't quite see what's in front of you.

Shannon Tymosko: And I heard someone comment, the supervisor that was on site, he was mad. He was yellow. And I was just grateful I wasn't on the other end. But he turned the corner, saw me, he didn't stop. He was still saying what he needed to say, but his volume dropped in half. What's different than me? And so I think just with more of us, it changes the energy. And how do you do that is the next question. How do you get more women interested into the skill trades? And I think we all know the answer, because we say it all the time. Education is power. Education is free. Education gives people the ability to make choices.

Shannon Tymosko: And so the problem I think with the skilled trades is we don't educate soon enough. And so if the option isn't presented to you before you're maybe 8, 10 years of age, do you ever consider it? Because there's so much, I don't want to say brainwashing, conditioning. There's so much conditioning. We see us as women, we see princesses. The boys see trucks and construction workers. Well, where's our equal balance of women construction workers to say that you can do that too?

Shannon Tymosko: Maybe it needs to be a princess construction worker who goes around the castle and fixes things. I don't know, but we need to start reaching young people at a younger level so that they ... and that goes for men too, to get them interested in the skilled trades so that they know that this is an option. Because people ask me often ask me, why did I pick electrical? And I feel my answer speaks volumes, because I was undereducated. I picked electrical because that's what I saw.

Shannon Tymosko: Growing up, I saw plumbing, electrical, roofers, carpenters. This is very basic. But if I had some education, I would've probably picked in hindsight, something that was a little bit less flooded, something elevator maintenance, a lot of electrical base in that, but it's not as flooded of a trade, and that's because of education. And so young and old, doesn't matter how old, we need to start introducing the idea to younger people so that it can be something they consider.

Sarah Nicastro: I mean, meanwhile, those elevator companies are within our audience, and they're looking for people to take those jobs. I mean, if you ever decide you want to go down that path, you probably still have plenty of opportunity, but you're right. There's gender norms that are still being reinforced, and that is prohibiting, like you said, we see more and actresses than female skilled trade workers. We see becoming a movie star as a more realistic career path than becoming an electrician, as a female. And so they just aren't roles that are shown in the same light. And I think part of that is this perception of ... like my parents didn't go to college, so it was always pushed to me that I had to, because that was the gold standard.

Sarah Nicastro: I don't necessarily think that's the case any anymore. And we need to do a better job of sharing more paths and more choices, and not just even in the education system, defaulting to everyone, there is no right or singular ... it's not a conveyor belt, right? Let's just move them all along and they'll go off and do these five, do want to be a doctor? Whatever. Because there are too many individuals for it to be that standardized in terms of the options.

Shannon Tymosko: And don't get me wrong, actress is a very glamorous position. Would you not to get pretty and dressed up in a dress on a regular basis? Absolutely. But let's be honest, is it a realistic one for most people? And the funny thing is, you know what? I've had my best chance. I've never been asked to be in a magazine in my life until I became a skilled trade worker.

Sarah Nicastro: And now you're famous. I mean, who knew that was the path?

Shannon Tymosko: There's so many different avenues you can go down. And I think one of the biggest things we need to tackle is misperception as well. I think let's take a look and compare my child youth work job with my electrical job. And a lot of people don't go the skilled trades route because of things it's too dirty.

Shannon Tymosko: As a child youth worker, I wiped bums, not my own kids bums, stranger's bums. Noisy? Sure. But I get earplugs as electrical worker. As a child youth worker, I do not get to say, "Child, please stop screaming," as I put in my ear plugs. And then the not strong enough thing. I was lifting kids out of wheelchairs to place them in whichever position they might be. Why can't I do that as a skilled trades worker? And so if it's perception, if you've ever thought maybe I could be a caretaker and take care of somebody, it's quite the possibility that you have the same skillset to be a skilled trade worker.

Sarah Nicastro: I guess. And to your point, the earning potential is far higher. I mean, yeah. It's a really good point. And you mentioned-

Shannon Tymosko: On a plus side, I don't have to get dressed up every day, every work. I know that the glamorous thing sounds nice, but now I don't have to do that at all. And so I get an extra 30 minutes of sleep every day.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes. That's a plus. Okay. I wanted to share this point that you made, and you were talking about your nephew. And you were saying that even though you have made this career transition and you are working in construction as an electrician, he still defaults to asking the men around him, "Can you fix this?" Or so just going back to this idea that, for us to really make a change, I think in increasing diversity in the trades and in any traditionally male dominated career we really have to think about the representation at a very, very young age.

Shannon Tymosko: And we might just have to flood the network ... not flood the network, but they're flooded with other things of boys in construction positions. One is not enough, even in a real situation. One is not enough. It needs to be maybe flooded and there needs to be an excess amount of women representation in the skilled trades for people to start to get that change.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I've done a series on the platform before called Women in Field Service. And we would feature women in different roles across the industries that we cover. And one time I was talking to someone, and they gave me what they felt was constructive criticism, that how do you expect things to be equal if you keep pointing it out as women in?

Sarah Nicastro: And I thought a lot about it because I always try to be cognizant of what messages I'm sending and, or reinforcing. And I try to always be willing to learn. But where I landed is I would love to get to a point where it doesn't have to be pointed out, but we're not there yet. And to your point, we won't get there by being quiet about it. I think we have to keep talking about it and talking about the importance of it until it no longer needs that label because the work has been done so that it isn't just women in field service, it's just person and field service, but we're a long ways away from that being the norm.

Shannon Tymosko: It's interesting you say that, because as a person who's active on social media, I often get lots of comments, and sometimes some of the words ... I think the word that people have used is, why is this such a novelty, women being in the skilled trades? And I want to go to my phone right now and Google the definition of novelty, because I don't remember it 100%, but I think it landed on until it's a norm, until it's a norm and you see it on a regular basis, it is a novelty. And so we have to again, make it so normal that people don't look into the crowd and see the difference.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, no, I think it's really important. And I think the work you're doing in telling your story and sharing your story is really helpful, especially because you pivoted, and hopefully people will come up and girls will choose this as their career from the get go and share their story as well.

Sarah Nicastro: So what else do you think ... is there any other tricks to helping the next generation see the potential that exists in the skilled trades? So we talked a lot about representation and how important that is. Is there anything else we need to be thinking out in terms of planning more seeds among kids, regardless of boy, girl, any gender and background, but just understanding that this is a viable career path and something that they could consider?

Shannon Tymosko: 100%. I talked on it earlier about actually trying something. We can put the representation there all we want, but unless we present the opportunity to try, they'll never know if they like it. So we need to, I think definitely reintroduce if your school has removed those programs of skilled trades, things like basic skills, like budgeting, these kinds of things are so important and they're not taught at the basic level. So if there was a class where you ... not say forced, you're forced to take math. So yes, if you were forced to take a construction class where you learned the basics for home care, I don't see anything wrong with that.

Shannon Tymosko: And I talked about it earlier today, how do we make change? And I don't know about you, but over my lifetime the common presence that I got as a girl were things pajamas, lotion, perfume. Thank you. And it slowly collects because it slowly collects and then it expires, what do boys get? Boys get hammers and maybe they'll get fun little tool sets. They probably don't think they're all that interesting at 10, but they turn 17. And they're like, "Oh man, I just got a car. And that tool set I got when I was 10," and they can revisit their present.

Shannon Tymosko: My lotion has far expired at this point. So get some tools into the hands of young people. If you have a project at home, drag your kids out to experience it, like you're changing your tires over. In Canada, we're doing the summer winter thing on a regular basis [crosstalk 00:32:20] home, get your kids involved, get their hands on the tool. You don't know if they'll it until they've tried it, and it's so important to give them that opportunity to try.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. That's a really good point. Okay. So let's think as if you are giving advice to ... doesn't need to be construction, any company that is in an industry that has traditionally been seen as male dominated, or has traditionally been male dominated that is looking to attract a younger, more diverse pool of candidates. What are some of the things that they need to be thinking about in terms of having a message that would resonate with someone you at 29 before you made this transition?

Shannon Tymosko: It's interesting, because I feel I'm a little biased on this because I've just recently gone through some of the hiring process. I normally leave it out of my journey because it just adds to it, but I did a little bit of machining in the midst of all of this. So I've applied for two different trades positions over the years. And the thing, the struggle I came across most was there's just not many entry level first year positions or even second year because people want the third, fourth, fifth year. And I totally get that.

Shannon Tymosko: I worked business. As a small business, you don't want to train someone to know what a pen is if they don't know yet. And that's the thing about the skilled trades, is you're learning new things day, you're learning ... there's so much material and everything's got three names plus a nickname. It's very overwhelming for that new hire, and new employers don't want to take them on.

Shannon Tymosko: So for me I'm like, is there a demand and skilled trades for ... and workers? Because I get so many people messaging me saying, "How do I get a job?" Employers, they have to understand it's going to cost money to take on the next generation and what you're going to lose if you don't do it, employers, and this is what you need to listen to is I'm not so concerned everybody about the lack of workers. I'm concerned about the potential loss of knowledge that you're about to lose.

Shannon Tymosko: Electrical goes from ... and I don't even know it. I'm so inexperienced, but I know there's knob and tube, there's aluminum, and then there's the new smart devices and all these different things. How much has technology changed in the last 50 years alone that those senior guys are going to take with them and you haven't passed down that knowledge to your new hires? Because I get it, it costs money, but that's the part of the apprenticeship process. They don't go to university and college, you pay the minimum wage, but you have to train them. There's a cost associated with that. And employers need to start taking that on.

Shannon Tymosko: To me, it's a little bit of both sides. There's people interested. I'm interested, there are people interested. I promise you. You just need to be open to new people.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, no, I think that's a really good point. And we've talked about that a bit, that the organizations who have historically hired on experience as the primary characteristic, it's becoming harder and harder to find yet there are really good candidates that have interests, aptitudes, abilities that could be developed into experience pretty quickly if we just shift the way we look at hiring and what type of training and development programs exist.

Sarah Nicastro: That being said, I think one of the things that stood out to me about your story is you have this hunger to learn, right? You're really big on not just showing up and doing your best, but being open to the learning process. And so do you think that's something that is innate or do you think that's something that someone can nurture and develop?

Sarah Nicastro: Because I think if we think about a future where, let's say more of those entry level programs exist where whether you're fresh out of school or whether you've been in a certain career and you want to make a change the way you did, you don't have any experience, but you have some skills or abilities or interests that you think would be applicable. If you go into those programs though, I mean, you have to have this strong willingness to learn. And to in a lot of ways, be humble and to show up every day and be ready to take it all in and try different things and learn as you go and fall down and get back up. Do you feel like everyone has that or could develop that or do you think it's just something that is innate in certain people?

Shannon Tymosko: It's very interesting. That's the age old question of nature versus nurture. And it's like, as a child and youth worker, it's one of the questions that are presented to us on a regular basis. Is this something that they're born with or did it in some way, this was created? And I've had the recent opportunity to watch my cousin raise two children. And she's a teacher, she's a fabulous mother. The first one comes out, genius reading books. So I'm thinking the next one, he's going to be the exact same. Well, didn't you nature just take over? This one's a runner. Doesn't want to talk yet. Nope. He just wants ... he is such an explorer climbing on tables. And so she's done the exact same thing. And so it's a little bit of both.

Shannon Tymosko: I think we could definitely mold and train and guide people in the right direction, but maybe we need to think about when we're little, we have such a hunger for learning. We're out exploring the world. We want to know what the bugs are, because it's all so new to us. When do we lose this hunger for learning? Maybe they're not presenting interesting enough topics in high school or elementary school to keep that flame alive. And so it's again, I think you are definitely born with a certain amount of things you can not control. I talk a lot. I try to control that for years. Can't. But I definitely think you can guide, mold and encourage and mentor someone in the right direction with the right intentions.

Sarah Nicastro: For sure. Okay. So another thing that I really liked about you when I was researching your profile is you speak out openly about mental health, which is something that I not only respect, but also try and do myself. So two questions related to this. The first is, how has your pivot into the skilled trades either helped or hindered your mental health?

Shannon Tymosko: Great question. One of the things, again, I touched on it earlier, but I didn't dive into it that one of the things I love about the skilled trades is how it's given me physical and mental health, that's very quickly brushed over, but there's so much more to that. As a person, myself who struggles, whether it's some depression, a little bit of probably anxiety at times, I've gone through my fair share of professionals. That's what's pushed me to be a child youth worker. So I wanted to understand more about myself.

Shannon Tymosko: And so I've gone to a doctor, my doctor, if you have a good doctor, the doctor, before he prescribes you on some medication should ask you if you exercise. And my answer up to that point was no, because I sit behind a desk for 40 hours. And so what am I doing for my mental health? If just a little bit of exercise can change the way I feel. And so being in construction, you don't get to sit. It's not a sitting job, and I'm not one to go to the gym ever. You have to pay me to work out.

Shannon Tymosko: And so this job I'm being paid to take care of my own mental health in a way. And the physical aspect, just that part, it keeps you younger. It keeps you active, keeps you moving. Especially most of us have been trapped at home during COVID. So to have that ability to go out and do something, there's some days you don't want to, trust me. Sure. But then by the end of the day, you're grateful that ... it's like when you go to the gym and you're happy that you made it there. I know some people can relate to that.

Sarah Nicastro: That's what you hear anyway.

Shannon Tymosko: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: The other part of this though that I'm curious about, is mental health a conversation you've normalized at all at work, since you've gotten into the skilled trades?

Shannon Tymosko: It's not something that's talked ever, I think as a whole. It's not you're ever going to be like, "This week's safety talk is on mental health and respect," and that it's not really something that regularly comes up in a group setting, but it's shocking as a woman in the skilled trades, I think men they just feel their defenses come down a little bit. So I'm the first one to get to see your new baby picture, and this is ... that's a moment that they're being vulnerable. They're being a little bit more sensitive than they would before.

Shannon Tymosko: And so in individual one on one settings I think I've been able to create some conversations about it. They start to open up a little bit. If I talk a little bit about my mental health, sometimes they might share a little bit about themselves and it just gives me that little bit of a bond. And again, that word, normalizes it, I guess. And I think it's too much to take it on as as a whole, but if you can get to ... you can change the mindset, encourage someone that it's okay to be themself. You might be able to shift the energy.

Shannon Tymosko: And with more women just entering the skilled trades, that's going to shift naturally because once the numbers are in our favor and there's a two on one, one day and there's two females and one male, you have no choice but to deal with our conversations of choice. And so it will just hopefully make change a little bit easier with more women.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, well, it's great that you're on the front lines doing the hard work for all of us.

Shannon Tymosko: So kind of you.

Sarah Nicastro: Is there anything else, Shannon, that we haven't talked about that you think is an important part of your story or your message for others, looking at the skilled trades or in the skilled trades?

Shannon Tymosko: Just thank you for listening. I think the fact, if you're here, that means you're open to change. It means you're open to listening, and that's the first step is just starting that conversation and being open to it. So if you're listening today, thank you very much. And hopefully there's something that maybe resonated with you or something that just encourage you. Some of my most blessed things are when I get messages from women themselves, or sometimes parents, but their kids came home from a presentation that day. And they're like, "I don't know what you said to my daughter that day, but she can't stop talking about it." And those are the ones that just bless my heart.

Sarah Nicastro: That's awesome.

Shannon Tymosko: Thank you for anybody who's, yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: Did I read that you have a kids' book?

Shannon Tymosko: As I've talked about, trying to reach out you younger generation, it's motivated me to make a kids' book. So I've got what they call the manuscript done.

Sarah Nicastro: You're working on one.

Shannon Tymosko: I'm working on it.

Sarah Nicastro: I love that.

Shannon Tymosko: To again, try to read that younger generation, and I think there's so much potential there. And so how can I make change? Hopefully with a little book.

Sarah Nicastro: That's awesome. Well, we'll definitely stay tuned for that. I think it's a wonderful idea. And the speaking that you're doing, not only here and in different articles, but certainly going to schools and sharing your experience, I mean, you're doing really important work in making the progress that you want to see made. And I'm sure there's days where it feels that progress is significant. And there's probably other days where you're like, "Is it ever going to be equal or is it just always going to be me feeling isolated?"

Sarah Nicastro: But you're doing the work every day to change that, and I think it's awesome. And I also think your story is a really helpful one for organizations that are trying to break the mold on who they hire, how they hire, to really hear someone's firsthand perspective and be able to think about what made you want to change? What was important to you? What do you like about what you're doing? What are some of the challenges? I mean, that's how they can start to think differently and make progress in their organizations as well.

Shannon Tymosko: Awesome. Well thank you for having me, and I really hope that I can be that influence and make some change. And sometimes it means you have to stir and create a little dirty laundry. You need to create conversations, but with that conversation, hopefully also comes some really great, amazing things for everybody.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you spending some time with me today, Shannon.

Shannon Tymosko: Thank you so much for having me, Sarah. I really appreciate being here with you and your guests.

Sarah Nicastro: Thanks. You can find more by visiting us at futureoffieldserviceref.ifs.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter @thefutureofFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at IFS.com. As always, thank you for listening.

Stay Connected

Related Content

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

Using AI to Unlock Potential While Protecting the Human Experience

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

Most Recent

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

A Focus on Efficiency is Only the Tip of the AI Iceberg – Expert Advice for Considering What Comes Next

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

February 8, 2022 | 30 Mins Read

Meeting the Demands of Modern Leadership with James Mylett, Part 1

February 8, 2022 | 30 Mins Read

Meeting the Demands of Modern Leadership with James Mylett, Part 1

Share

In part one of this two-part deep dive on leadership with James Mylett, SVP, U.S. Digital Buildings at Schneider Electric, Sarah and James discuss his career trajectory and begin discussing some of the traits that modern leadership demands – and how some of these have required a willingness to expand and evolve both thinking and actions.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, we are going to be talking about meeting the demands of modern leadership. I think we can all agree that the way we work, the circumstances in which we're working, all of the demands are far different on leaders today than they were five, 10 years ago. And there's a lot of evolution that needs to take place to continue to be effective. Very excited to welcome to today's podcast, James Mylett who is the Senior Vice President for U.S. Digital Buildings at Schneider Electric. James, welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast.

James Mylett: Thanks. Appreciate the invite. It's great to see you again.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. James and I first met when I interviewed him for a cover story when I was with Field Technologies. How many years ago do you think that was?

James Mylett: It was probably 2003. No, maybe it was 2010. It was a long time-

Sarah Nicastro: 2010. It's a long time ago, a long time ago. And I have stayed in touch with James over the years and watched his evolution as a leader. And James, I don't want to put you on the spot or make you uncomfortable, but you're somebody that I have a lot of respect for. And when I have talked with people that with you and for you, they have resoundingly positive things to say. That tells me you're doing something right. And so, I'm excited to talk with you today about your perspective on leadership and what it takes, and how it's evolved, and how you as a leader keep pace with what your team needs. So before we dig into that, tell our listeners a bit more about yourself, your current role, anything you want to share about your leadership journey.

James Mylett: Sure. I think the path is a little bit untraditional, maybe the right way to set it up. But I went straight into the workforce out of high school. I grew up in New York. I was born in Brooklyn. I was surrounded by a family of police officers, growing up my dad was a cop. I've got six brothers, no sisters, five of the brothers went onto the job as it's called. But I think that environment, if I listen to what my dad said that that profession was a service profession. And when he went through the academy, there was actually a sign in the academy that reminded the NYPD, that it at your service. And I think as I reflect back on his life, it was very much about service, and I think he instilled that in all of his sons. And so, it's been an industry that I've gravitated towards, and I get a lot of joy from being a part of it.

James Mylett: As I mentioned, I went straight to work out of high school, moved to Texas when I was set 17, graduated early. And went to work for an organization called MD Anderson Cancer Center, it's one of the premier cancer hospitals globally. And was fortunate to get hired by a guy named Andy, who was at the end of his career. But Andy made me promise to go and enroll in an associate's degree program as a condition of employment. So he put me on this journey of continuous development, and I actually had a chance to track his son down about two years ago. Because Andy was one of these leaders who was very tough. And I had to imagine he was the same way at home, and I'm not sure his son ever saw that side of Andy and I was able to share that with him, so was a special conversation we had.

James Mylett: But fast forward, I was a chiller technician for a number of years. I got into sales from there, went into leadership and I was working for Carrier in Dallas. And similar interaction or inflection point for me there was guy named Pat Goodfellow that came down from corporate and he announced this new employee development program. And he said something to me I've never forgotten. He said that, and this is in the 90s. He said that "Your parents grew up in an era where if they showed up for work every day, worked really hard, were loyal to the company, they could count on lifelong employment." And he said, "That deal doesn't exist anymore. Nobody talks about it out loud, but if you are working for a great organization, you can count on lifelong employability if you take advantage of the learning opportunities that they put in front of you." And he was putting a learning opportunity in front of us for tuition reimbursement and other benefits.

James Mylett: So literally, that night I went and I tracked down an online bachelor's degree program, got signed up and went on a path. Years later, I finished my MBA and I woke up one day and I was leading a 1.5 billion organization with about 4,000 service technicians. So it's funny, I talked to leaders today about this notion of imposter syndrome. And I've had a couple of those inflection points for myself over the years where you wake up say, how did this happen? But today I'm privileged to lead buildings business at Schneider Electric. It's a very vibrant, energetic, purpose driven culture here. And it's helping me continue to build out a better version of myself.

Sarah Nicastro: That's awesome. I don't think you just woke up one day and found yourself doing that, there's a lot of steps to getting there. And I know this isn't the topic of our discussion today, but one of the things that's interesting about what you're saying is the testament for the whole discussion that's happening right now about the opportunity that exists in the trades. So you sort of started out right out of high school and you didn't necessarily start with the degree, those came over time with some of the opportunities that were presented to you. But I think we've had a lot of discussion recently on this podcast about the talent gap, and the great resignation, and the need to evolve how we recruit and hire.

Sarah Nicastro: And I think for both individuals and companies thinking about what are those trajectories? What do they look like? When you take someone that has started as a technician and now is in the position you're in and just consider how that relates to the type of career paths, and education opportunities and sources to look for talent. It's really cool that you've had such a satisfying journey and it continues. And I think that's why I'm excited to have you here today talking about leadership is in the time I've known you, you've never been someone to just achieve a certain level of success, kick your feet up and consider it done. You embrace the fact that situations change people, change needs, change and you as a leader have to continue to adapt.

Sarah Nicastro: Again, I've mentioned the fact that we had Karin Hamel on the podcast late last year, she's on your team. We've had other folks that I've had conversations with and there's a difference, there's an authenticity in how they speak of you. It isn't just a kind of passing. "Oh yeah, yeah. James is great." It's a very genuine, very genuine emotion. And so, you and I connected and I said, so listen, if people feel this way about you and you're doing something right. What do you think it is that defines good leadership in today's modern era?

Sarah Nicastro: And so, we talked about some of those things. And today we're going to go through some of the traits that you identified that you think not only what makes you a good leader, but also what other leaders should be thinking of about. How are they honing these skills, how are they showing up for their teams in these ways? That sort of thing. The first is resilience. So let's talk about resilience a bit.

James Mylett: Yeah. In today's environment, it's hard to survive if you don't have that. And it's not just us and we've been working from home for a long time, all of us. And one of the things one of my leaders reminded me as somebody's kid came into the view or a dog jumps in its, we have to remember that we've invaded their space. They didn't just invade ours. And so, there's a resiliency at home that a lot of our families are dealing with as well as we adjust to this we're in. But I think our organizations get their cue from the leadership.

James Mylett: I can remember, I was working for a CEO at one point and we were going through a major change and he pulled me into his office. It's like going to the principal's office, what did I do is what's going through my head. And he made a comment to me. He said "We got 150,000 people in the organization and it's probably five people that I can think of that the organization takes their cue from, you're one of them. So where's your head at?" And he was checking because he recognized that if I wasn't on board, he would have a harder time getting the organization on board.

James Mylett: I had to remind one of our field technicians a few weeks back that, and this is somebody that's further along in their career, that you're now the person that you used to look up to. And so, think about that. You're the person that you used to look up to. And what is it about that person when you looked up that drew you to them and if you had to inject some improvement in that, what would it have been? Because that's your opportunity today.

James Mylett: So as we start thinking about the 2.0 or the 4.0 or the 8.0 version of ourselves, what's that journey look like and how do we individually get continuously better? I think in this environment, if we show up tomorrow defeated because, and fill in the blank, on any of the challenges that pop up in this usual, unusual that we all deal with every day, whether it's supply chain issues or people get... Our school district just closed down because they can't get teachers and they can't get substitutes.

James Mylett: And one of my leaders tell me that it feels like he's living in a real-world version of Jumanji, where every time you get through the tunnel that light that you saw at the end wasn't the end, it was the entrance to the next tunnel. So personally we have to check ourselves and make sure that we're filling our own buckets up to where our resilience levels are high. Because our organization's going to get our cue from us.

James Mylett: When I think about attributes, leadership attributes, mindset is one of the biggest things that's going to make a difference on whether or not you win or lose. And if you enter the battle with mindset that you're going to lose you're right. And if you enter it with a mindset you're going to win, you're a lot more likely to accomplish that. And so, as we've navigated through the pandemic, this has been top of mind for all of us. So simple things.

James Mylett: We had a leader at the beginning of the pandemic that works directly for me that as we were trying to figure out what we're going to do he said, "Hey, time out. Why don't we just get everybody to take the next five days and every day call a customer. And don't talk to them about business, just check in on them and see how they're doing personally." Okay. And so, it just helped us get focused on one, the right things, reaching out customers first, put the business stuff aside for a little bit, reinforced the human interaction that has just been isolated from all of us, and then give us a sense of purpose so that we could move forward as a team. So I think those little things make a difference. And Justin Lavoy was the leader and the organization took their cue from him that there's the path forward, and that's important. Make sense?

Sarah Nicastro: It does. And I think it's a really good point to... I like the point you made about reminding that field technician that he is in a position that he used to look up to. So looking for the opportunity to show people the part they can play in that resilience. I did want to ask, obviously everyone has hard days. And so, when you are having a hard day, but you know that you need to come in with the mindset of bringing that resilience, personal resilience to be able to bring that to work. Is there anything you do or any tips or tricks you have for bringing yourself back into a positive space to be able to do what needs to get done?

James Mylett: Yeah. I'm better today at stepping away for a little, even if it's for an hour, just to exhale from situations. And I've got an Apple watch and it could check your blood pressure and tell when you need to breathe. And I was actually on a conference call a couple of months back and I was getting agitated about a situation and my watch went off and said, you need to breathe, take a breath. But I think that's important to decompress there. When I think about areas where I need to improve still the work life balance thing has always been a challenge for me, because I genuinely love what I do. And I love in the game and helping teams win and all that. So I stay on a lot more than I should.

James Mylett: But what I've learned to do is to not cascade that down to my team. For example, Saturday mornings, I get up early, watch some of the Premier League soccer games, Manchester United is my team. And I'll catch up on email as I'm doing that. But what I realize is whether it's because of my title or whatever else when I send an email out, everybody has to drop what they're doing in response. I've gotten in a habit now of just going to offline and then early Monday morning I'll turn it back on. I'm not perfect at it. I'll still drop one out every Sunday, every once in a while but things like that help.

James Mylett: But no, I think just having the willingness to step away and take a moment makes difference. The other thing I always try to do is stay focused on the long game. So when trying to make big change in an organization, it never happens in a big step. Very, very rarely happens in a big step. It's small incremental steps over a long period of time that make the biggest lasting sustainable change. So the five wax at the tree every day analogy, eventually it's going to fall down over time. So I try to stay focused on that as well.

James Mylett: The piece that keeps me energized, it's the little reflection points that happened three years after that... I was in a meeting with a lady that worked for me and we got through with, it was a big meeting, another organization. And we all split up and she came back into my office and she said, "I don't know how you put up with this stuff." It was one of those conversations because it was one of those meetings. And so, we had a brief conversation around it. Then the mail came and I got this letter from a technician that used to work for me that had gone back to school. And this is like five years later. Then it was an invitation to his graduation in El Paso. And I walked across the building to Kathleen and showed her this and said, "This is why." It's the little staff like this that keep your eye on the long game. And it gives you the resilience to step through those tough days so.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I think there's two things I just thought of when you shared that story. One is patience is a big part of resilience and then two is perspective. So if your view is too short term, it's a lot easier to get frustrated than burnout. If you can look at the long game, it helps you understanding that you can't win them all but you win enough that it adds up to a lot of progress so.

James Mylett: That's something that I don't think that individuals give themselves enough credit for. And I think as a coach it's part of our role, it's just to point out. Call time out, just help people understand how far we've come on a particular objective. So yeah, we didn't get all the way to here but look at where we started. And my bend is towards aspirational targets. These folks that we were in this room, I'm in here the month after I started and the role that I'm in and we're meeting with the team about our digitally enabled services and where we were at that point in time. And we got the data up on the screen and it was a shock for everybody how low it was at that point in time, it was low single digits.

James Mylett: And this was having service agreements that are truly digital first. That's the interaction customer, all that so. We talked about where should we be? And the team said, "Well, two years from now, we should be twice where we are. That's a big step from where we are." And I said, "Yeah, I think we'll hit that." Me I'm not that smart, I'd probably set a crazy target like 50, and we all know we'll never get to 50 we'll probably only get the 40. And so, sure enough the team got there. And this last year we finished up right at 50, and it's a good calibration point for the team as they step back and look at what they got accomplished compared to what they thought was possible.

James Mylett: When they accomplish something and have a plan and passion around it. There's a movie called Facing the Giants that there's a clip in it called, if you can go out to You Tube type of Facing the Giants and Death Crawl. And it's this clip where this coach is trying to get this football player to this crab walk or whatever you call it, where you're on your toes and your fingertips and you're trying to go up the field. And he says, he wants to do it with one of the other players on his back. And he says, "Well, I can go to the 50 without him. I can probably go to the 30 with him." And the coach says, "I don't want you thinking about where you're going." And he put a blindfold on him. Said, "I don't want you limiting yourself by what you see."

James Mylett: And he's given him the aggressive coaching all the way. And he winds up in the end zone because he didn't have the limitations of what he thought he was capable of doing. The coach saw something in him that he didn't recognize in himself. And it goes back to this notion about the influence that you have. And that was his comment to the player when he got to the end zone, is that you don't realize the influence you have on all those other players. And if you don't think we're going to win, they won't think we're going to win. And so, what comes out of our mouth is so critical in terms of setting the tone for the organization.

Sarah Nicastro: Absolutely. Okay. All right. The next trait is integrity. One of the things you said to me when we spoke about this is that, the video has to match the audio. So integrity is really how you build trust with your team. So talk to me a little bit about integrity. 

James Mylett: Yeah. As we talk with leaders about development, we tend to reflect back on our successes but you get growth out of failures as well. And failure, shouldn't be fatal, the area where it has a potential to be fatal is an integrity. So it's one of these third rails said, if you get it wrong, there's no good news in that at all. And it comes in a lot of different flavors, but at the core of it, it's how you carry yourself. Are you authentic? Are you trustworthy? Are you someone that people can count on? Are you transparent? Which that's actually a word here at Schneider that's at the forefront, we think about our core values it's right up front.

James Mylett: I love the fact that we put up on the table, because it sets the tone, even in interactions that there's a transparency to the conversations that have. But one of the leaders on my team, when I stepped into this role, we were talking about this topic and he made the comment that your intent comes into the room before you do. And it's a good calibration point on that front. I've had to clean up some really out there situations where you just sit back and what were people thinking? You try to get inside the head of somebody that made that decision, that was just clearly off the rails.

James Mylett: I interviewed a guy for a job years ago that was with a big school district. He was wanting to come to work for the company with at the time, and his team that was underneath him at the school district. There was two characters on the team that did something that was blatantly illegal. It was no question about it, but it happened on his watch. And so, the question that one of the panel interviews asked is how you reconcile that because this guy had the TV crews following them around to interview him. 

James Mylett: And he talked about the relationship that he had with these two individuals and how, when one of them had gotten sick, he used to go to their house and drop off food to make sure they were okay. And which speaks to the quality of this person we were looking to hire. But he said, "The thing that's been the toughest thing for me to choke down is that no matter how tall the firewalls are that you put up, it's difficult to overcome the malice that might be in an individual's heart."

James Mylett: And so, I think when I think about integrity as an organization, the antibodies for that malice is the culture that you build. And the purposeful intent on culture. We have one of our pillars is embrace different in inside of that in the language. It has a comment in there that we call out bias where we see it. So you think about that, you're on a job site and you see something, what do you do? Do you step up, do you speak up or do you just look the other way and keep going. Our core value says you're calling it out. And so it's that type of culture build that creates the antibodies against the wrong behavior on the integrity front.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. It can be so, so hard to call those things out too. If you always think about it as something, conceptually it all makes sense. Call it out when you see it. But I found myself in a position just a week or two ago, I was in a large meeting where someone said something that just didn't sit right. And then it's, I don't know. It puts a lot of pressure sometimes on an individual to be the one to speak up if to your point, the culture doesn't promote doing that. Because how will they respond or then, I don't know. It's, yeah. It's-

James Mylett: Now back to the intent comment that I made. I think for me, there's typically smaller things that lead up to the big thing happening. And it's our inability to address the smaller things that creates an environment that allows the big things to happen, typically is the case. And if we're willing to step in and address the small things then we can prevent some of that. And as a leader, the feedback I give my team is that when you're in that situation, so let's say I'm in the situation, I'm a leader and there's somebody else. It's a peer of mine that makes a comment. And I know that I should give them feedback, but I'm not going to give them feedback because it's really uncomfortable for me to do that. So now it's no longer about what's best for that person, it's about me and my feeling here and my level of uncomfortableness.

James Mylett: When you step into these leadership positions it's no longer about you, it's about everybody on the team. The comment I share with people is when you make that decision as a leader, it's really one of the most selfish decisions you could make as a leader because you're doing it for your own reasons, not for what's best for the person or for the team, and it's tough. I've had some really difficult conversations with that when I walk away from them, I just ex. It's like this big exhale that I'm so glad I got through that. But typically not always, but typically when you deliver it the right way and your intent is genuine, the reception is pretty positive and appreciative.

Sarah Nicastro: I think it's also when you talk about intent, if there's a lot of these things that come up particularly when you talk about diversity, equity and inclusion. So there's a lot of things that come up that they're often referred to as microaggressions, where the person that may say or do something that you feel you need to point out doesn't have malicious intent, but just is not aware of how that statement could be perceived or that sort of thing. And so, it's one of those things where certainly someone who has ill intent, that's easier to address in the sense of it's more glaring, it's... Some of those other things I think is where it gets tough, but you're right. You have not think about it in terms of your own personal comfort zone, but think about it in terms of the intended outcome and the benefit of helping someone who isn't intending that impact to see what they're saying or doing.

James Mylett: There's a skillset build there too though. So I think there's a change management model I subscribe to that one of the pieces in it is skill sets, but there's a failure point each one of the pillars. So if the skill sets aren't there, the anxiety level goes up. What we're talking about is a situation where I see it, my anxiety level goes through the roof. And typically it's because I don't have the skills to have that conversation effectively or I don't have the confidence to do it. So we make a lot of investment in those specific skill sets to have those difficult conversations. So things like softening statements, "Hey Sarah, would you mind if I gave you some feedback." Some skillsets on how to deliver feedback in a way that is more likely to be captured and acted on makes a big difference in terms of how you approach it, but yeah.

James Mylett: I was in a meeting probably six months ago and somebody had one of these YETI coolers and it had something on it that just was in the context of everything else that's going on, it didn't read right. Five years ago, it wouldn't even have made a difference. But today it's, people's the visibility, the perspective is different. So there was another leader in the room that this individual worked for and I was waiting to see how it played out, and it didn't.

James Mylett: And so, I had a conversation, coaching session with the leader afterwards about, I just replayed the game film. And it was a aha moment for the leader and to that person's credit, they immediately went and had the conversation and it just wasn't, there was a blind spot is probably the best way to put it. That blind spot was made visible. Everything took care of itself. And that's the power of the feedback, but it's the skill sets are important. And I think we underestimate that, especially at the frontline that our frontline leaders have been equipped to have those conversations and way. And if we can't point to the investments we've made in their development, then we shouldn't assume that the skillsets are there.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. That's a really good point. Okay. The next trait is curiosity and open-mindedness.

James Mylett: So which one first? I think that the curious piece of it, I... There was an article that was written on my father that referred to him as a searcher. And I think that got some of that genealogy inside of me that I... If I have any career regrets at all, it's just this family pull to be on the job, so it was something I didn't pursue. But those genes around problem solving and detective work and all that, which is just part of who I am. So when I bump into situations, I have tendency to want to unpack them. I'm very data driven, so I get into analytics and root cause analysis and all that.

James Mylett: But today's environment is probably the richest environment for somebody that's wired like me, so it's because it's so rich with opportunities for transformation. And the speed of transformation is so different today than it's ever been and stop. And so, what I try to do as a leader is immerse my myself in situations that allow that opportunity for me to get engaged. So right before we got on this call, I was on a call with a small team. We have an agile project that we're working through to help our customers sort through how to gauge what the health is of their building. So are there's simplistic things that we can do to help our customers address the whole healthy building situation.

James Mylett: I asked some questions in the last session that they followed up on, and I'm learning as I'm going through this of what can be done so that helps. I think the other thing for me is just surrounding myself with people who are going to be bent on going on those explorations. So I've got a young leader on my team that is leading our efforts into federal space and he's opening up new doors for us to go explore into, but I think it's important. I had a conversation with this person, I won't name them. But it was one of the original people who wrote the checks to fund Google years ago. So I was consulting work for him.

James Mylett: And we were talking about change and one of the people in the room was talking about the buildings industry and he made the comment that, there's a lot of gray hair in that industry, which meant it's going to be the difficult to drive change. And this person's reflex comment was "It's not the gray hair that concerns me, it's gray brains." And I asked him, "What do you mean by that?" It's old antiquated ways of thinking that aren't relevant today. They were relevant 10 years ago, 15 years ago, but they're not relevant today. And, and when I think about the pace of change here and how quickly things move, if you're not willing to take the steps to stay relevant, you can quickly go past your expiration date, even with some of the things that...

James Mylett: I used to subscribe to leadership models that I wouldn't dream of applying today, I just... And the people that I work around and colleagues in the industry that disagree with me on this topic. There's things in the Jack Welch playbook that were just part of who I was as a leader that I don't do those anymore. There's pieces of it that I still subscribe to. But top grading is an example for me personally, that's not what I'm about. I think there's a seat at the table for everybody, if they have the right attributes and the right fit factors for the organization. You put a post up on LinkedIn yesterday with your t-shirt said "Doing my best."

James Mylett: And I think there's a quote. It says something to the effect of "Comparison is the thief of all joy." And so, that's new learning for me. I was going through a book called Chop Wood Carry Water. Somebody recommended to me. And I picked up on that in the book. And it just really resonated because so much of these old models were all about these comparisons, and it's for me, when I think about continuous improvement it's the 2.0, 3.0, 4. version of me, my team, my organization, compared to where we were. And when I think about comparisons, I think I'm better served to compare us to where we were and where we're going, where we aspire to get to, and compare us to our ability to meet our customer's expectations than I am against the market so.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I really like that James, because I think that your works that, the title of this podcast is about modern leadership. And so, I think that it's just a really important point to know that you have to be open to recognizing that beliefs you held year ago or five years ago, or 10 years ago, you're allowed to change your mind. You're allowed to consume new information and change your opinions, and adopt different models, and think differently. In fact, not only are you allowed to, but I think it makes you better.

Sarah Nicastro: I think that I interview a lot of people on this podcast and there's the companies that are struggling it's because the people at the top are very set in more of well, this is how we've always done it, this is worked for so long, this is what we know, this is who we are. Very rigid mentality. And it's not really conducive to innovation, and innovation is key to success in the landscape that we're in. So I think that that willingness to evolve, not just with your team or as a team, or to meet customer needs or as a business, but as an individual to reflect on and reconcile when your beliefs change or when your perspective on what works or what doesn't changes. I think that makes you better. I think that's a really good thing.

James Mylett: One of the models I subscribe to is from the partners and leadership is Oz Principle. And it basically says that your beliefs, like when we talk about beliefs. Your beliefs are really driven from the experiences that you have. So this curiosity mode gets me in a position where I'm getting different experiences today than, or before. Even on, so we'll go back to the diversity front. When George Floyd was killed, there was this moment I think for our country where all of a sudden it was more painful for us to stay the same than it was for us to start changing. And that's another belief I have is until the pain is staying the same gets greater than the pain of changing people have a tendency not to change. That moment in time created this pain point for us.

James Mylett: My reflex was to reach out to this resource group that we have here, that I was the executive sponsor of and check in and see how people were doing. And I learned so much in... I don't get surprised that often. I got surprised at how little I knew in, especially in this area because it's something I've been passionate about for a long time. And have prided myself in being engaged and active and all the rest of it. But what happened in the aftermath of his killing things came up on the table that weren't on the table before. And so, when you get that direct experience of being on the camera with somebody and hearing the emotion in their voice as they talk about the experiences that they're having, in a modern day suburb, affluent neighborhood that just floors you.

James Mylett: And so, my belief system evolved because of that. And you [inaudible 00:37:42] argue about whether or not it should have evolved earlier and all that, but it evolved at that point in time. I think had I not been willing to reflex into that conversation, I wouldn't have gotten that in the moment experience and I wouldn't have moved this fast as I did. So I think that's... If I've got coaching for people, you have to continuously find a way to put yourself out there and get close... I mean there's Six Sigma stuff that says, if you want to solve the problem you got get within 12 feet of where it's happening, this gamble walk type stuff. But I think that applies to the leadership too. You got to be willing to put yourself out there where you can see at the front line, what's really going on.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. That post you mentioned on LinkedIn with my t-shirt, "Doing my best." I got that as a reminder to myself because there's a lot of the things you said earlier on, resonate. I am super passionate about what I do, but that makes it really hard to have good balance. And I have young kids and there's just... So sometimes I have to remind myself, like I'm doing my best and that's going to look different every day, whatever. Someone commented and said, "Tell that to the KPIs." And I laughed because it was funny, but at the same time there's a balance there too. Like we were not machines, we're human beings.

Sarah Nicastro: I think the more that as leaders and company culture wise, we can just understand that recognizing that our best looks different every day. And recognizing that we can't compare our best to someone else's best, we're comparing our best to our best yesterday and our best of the day before that ultimately will improve the KPIs. I firmly believe that if we can just treat people as humans and I think that is really a root of those leadership philosophies.

Sarah Nicastro: Everything used to be very, very productivity driven, results at all costs, individualistic and that has evolved a lot and I think it's for the best. It's changing the thinking of people though that no one's saying, I'm doing my best every day so today I don't care about the KPIs. It's you can do both. You can get results and do so. Not at the expense of people, but in giving them the freedom to bring their talent to the team and to work the way that they need to work so, yeah.

James Mylett: I think so I'll make another comment that there will be a lot of people who disagree with this. But I think you can be unbelievably driven as an organization while also being kind. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think there's this approach that we take to where you're hard on the role piece of it, but you're soft on the individual piece of it. And the whole vaccine thing that's going on and the mandates from the government, and how those things are shifted is as we've navigated through that.

James Mylett: The thing we were all clear about as a leadership team is that in our core values, it talks about embracing different viewpoints. And there's a lot of different viewpoints on this topic, but it's viewpoints from people who are all part of our family. We're going to make business decisions that are the right thing to do to move the business forward. But as we do that, there's no reason why we can't be gracious and kind, and such and such as we navigate through that. And it's a moving target and what the expectations are. So the flexibility has been key as well, but yeah. I think that's changed.

James Mylett: And Sarah, I think part of what's changing it is people buy in for their reasons, not ours. So as we think about attracting the workforce, who? When we say workforce, what part of the workforce we looking to attract? And what are their reasons for buying in and does the culture that you're purposefully building match up to what they're wanting to buy into? And so, we talk about having an organization that's focused, that's purposeful, that's driven, that's going to achieve great things while is also being benevolent and kind, and gracious. That's a great combination to have, and it's a value proposition that absolutely resonates with the emerging workforce.

James Mylett: And we talk about sense of purpose. I love the fact that we are as an organization are so focused on sustainability, and helping customers solve those problems. Because there's a higher purpose to that in terms of the planet. We can do, make a dent in carbon emissions through the work that we do. So for our people, when they look to come to work here, they see a path of having meaningful purpose in the work that they do.

James Mylett: I think part of my job is to connect the dots and remind them how, what they just did had that impact. Your willingness to get out there and work in the hospitals and this kind of an environment. Think about the impact that that's having in terms of helping the doctors to save lives, by making sure that the environment is clean, it's safe, it's filtrated, all those things. And when you're in the middle of it, you lose sight of that.

Stay tuned for part two of this discussion!

Stay Connected

Related Content

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

Using AI to Unlock Potential While Protecting the Human Experience

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

Most Recent

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

A Focus on Efficiency is Only the Tip of the AI Iceberg – Expert Advice for Considering What Comes Next

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

February 2, 2022 | 25 Mins Read

Some Days the Dragon Wins: Perseverance in Challenging Times

February 2, 2022 | 25 Mins Read

Some Days the Dragon Wins: Perseverance in Challenging Times

Share

Sarah welcomes Max James, an Air Force Academy graduate, pilot shot down twice in Vietnam, who became a Fortune 500 entrepreneur and original founder and CEO of billion-dollar American Kiosk Management. Max shares some lessons learned about resilience that he’s recently shared in his book “The Harder I Fall, The Higher I Bounce.”

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, we are going to be talking about perseverance in challenging times, and I'm excited to have with us today Max James. Max is an Air Force Academy graduate pilot. He was shot down twice in Vietnam and has quite a journey he's going to share with us. He later became the founder and CEO of American Kiosk Management, a multi-billion dollar global presence in North America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and has had quite the journey. He recently published a book called The Harder I Fall, The Higher I Bounce. So, Max, welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. Thanks for being here.

Max James: Thank you very much.

Sarah Nicastro: So that was a brief introduction. Before we get into some of the content we have planned today, tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself.

Max James: Okay. Well, it's a long journey, one full of a lot of luck, both bad and good, I might add. But, yeah, my dad was a sharecropper back in West Tennessee, and I grew up following two gray mules in the fields. Finally, my dad said, "I don't think you like the farm, why don't you get a job in town," which I did. Then I was the administrative assistant to a congressman when I was 17 years old in Washington. From there, I went to the Air Force Academy for four years, graduating in 1964, so that gives away my age, I suppose, and went to the pilot training. My class was either lucky or unlucky depending on your perception. But we graduated, went to pilot training, and went to war. I flew with the best mission you could possibly have in any war of any type, and that was to Air Rescue. Our job was to rescue fighter pilots when they were shot down in North Vietnam or Laos.

Max James: Came back and was a combat instructor pilot, left the Air Force, and went to Stanford, picked up an MBA, left there and went to work for the world's richest man, which was... For an old Southern boy, that was tall cotton, working and traveling the world with him, principally in real estate but also in movies investments. From there, I got that entrepreneurial itch, and I left the Bay Area, San Francisco, Bay Area, moved up to Sacramento to be hopefully a bigger fish in a smaller pond, and it worked out well. I then ran a couple of companies that I started up, resigned from those, sold them, and became one of the executive vice presidents of Days Inns of America when we were the sixth largest lodging chain in the world. My responsibility was to build, own, and operate hotels in California and Nevada.

Max James: That's I did for years, and the entrepreneurial bug got me again, and I left on a series of wildly failing and wildly successful entrepreneur ventures, ending up principally, as Fortune called me, the king of kiosk, opening about 1200 locations in those areas, those countries that you mentioned. We built that company up to a billion, 800 million in about 14 years. So I ended up selling the company with another that I was a distributor of, to Nestle, and Jack Canfield convinced me that since I'd been telling these wild stories all my life and people saying, "You ought to write a book, you ought to write a book"... So I did, and it took me a little longer than I thought it would take me, but it was enjoyable to look back down memory row and try to share the principles in each of the stories that either led to failure or led to success.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Max James: That's it.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. That's great. That's a really good synopsis of what I'm sure has been quite a wild ride. So good. Thank you. All right. So having had a chance to look through the book, there's a couple of themes that stand out to me in your content that I want to discuss on today's podcast that I think will be relevant to our audience. So that first is around perseverance, right? That has been a top of mind term, certainly, for the past two years, right, and something that I think our audience, both from a personal perspective as leaders and then from an organizational perspective, are thinking about what it takes and how to persevere. So can you share some of your thoughts on perseverance, both personally and then from the business perspective, so as an individual and as a business?

Max James: Yeah, sure. As an individual, I think the mother of perseverance is survival. You just have to have grit. You've got to get up. When you get knocked down five times, get up six, I think, is the old expression. So it was survival in many cases. Failures often were very painful. It's not fun to have a business fail that you're involved in or running or own. So it's getting over that painful emotion, a set of emotions, really, and the result. I've never had to file bankruptcy, but I've come close a few times. I've relied on friends sometimes to bail me out, certainly. I've relied on contacts, business contacts, mentors to help me get through. In fact, an accountant, a classmate of mine from Stanford once, we went into talk to a bankruptcy attorney because I thought it was time for me to file bankruptcy. The accountant said, "No, no, I don't think so, Max. I don't think that's going to be necessary, but I'll take it to the attorney." So the attorney went through it, and he said, "Okay, here's what I'm going to need. I need $5,000 deposit up front." I reply with, "If I had $5,000, I wouldn't be here."

Max James: So, we did not file bankruptcy, but here's the story my accountant told me that I've never forgotten. He said, "Max, just get out on your hands and knees, picture yourself, and put a peanut on the floor in front of you and just push that peanut across the floor, trying to get to the other side, and every once in a while, just turn around and look behind you and see the success that you've made and then go down and push that peanut some more." Sure enough, I got bruised knees and a bloody nose from pushing across the carpet, but it worked, and so that stuck with me forever. Perseverance on a personal level, you just have to keep trying. You have to have a long-term goal, I think, Sarah, one that you want to strive for, and you're going to have ups and downs, but the long-term goal is important. But getting there requires short-term goals, day to day, moment to moment, pushing the peanut across the floor.

Max James: So perseverance for me on a personal level is survival. On a business level, it's those short-term goals to get through day by day by day by day and then the long-term goal, knowing where it is exactly that you want to go. You have to have a plan B and a plan C. You have to be adaptable to the circumstances that you deal with on a day to day, year to year basis. There was never been a major battle won in war that went as planned, not a single one, and that comes from military history classes. So the battle's going to change, and you have to be ready. Sometimes, it's plan B, and I don't subscribe to the saying that says, "There is no plan B if this doesn't work." I don't believe that. I think you have to be adaptable.

Sarah Nicastro: Always have a contingency plan, right?

Max James: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: But don't move on to it too soon, right? I mean, I guess that's the balance, right? You need to always have that, but you can't give up quickly or easily. I think that's the name of the game. So, in your book, you talk about a cartoon that says, "Some days, the dragon wins," okay?

Max James: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: So tell me what that means to you and how that relates to perseverance.

Max James: Yeah. I wish I had a copy of it. I could show you right now. But it shows the knight, and the helmet is all beat up and the chest plates and the armor on his arms, and the big long sphere that he uses to joust with is broken, but he's on his feet, and he's walking away, and the horse that he rode on is still upright, and the cartoon says, "Someday, the dragon wins." Okay, that's true. There are going to be tons of days, whether it's a contract or a sale or a distributorship or whatever, that's not going to work. It's going to fail, and it hurts like the devil when you lose those, particularly if you've been working on it for a long time.

Max James: A plan B or adaptability says, "So now what do we do?" Well, we've talked about this before, and here's the way. We're going to need to try again for the same goal, or we're going to have to shift our goal a little bit and move from this product line to that product line and use the same business principles that we've always used. But, some days, the dragon wins, and you just have to get up. As the old saying goes, you get bucked off the horse, like I did many times when I was a kid, my dad would insist that I get back up on that horse.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. I like that saying because I think that it applies to a lot of different areas of business, of life, right?

Max James: Sure.

Sarah Nicastro: I think that, in the challenging times we've had over the past two years, sometimes... The dragon can be different things, I guess, is the point, right? The dragon can be your mood or your mental health. The dragon can be, like you said, a big deal you're losing. The dragon can be an initiative that you're trying to get off the ground that fails. It can be a lot of different things, but you have to remember that the dragon will win some days. They're not going to win every day, right? I guess that's what you have to use as the motivation to get up and try again the next day.

Max James: So you take your hits, lick your wounds, live to fight another day, and some days you just have to pay the piper.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the next area I want to talk about, Max, is leadership. You say in your book that being a good leader of others begins with being able to lead yourself through hard times. So tell us a little bit more what you mean by that, and maybe share an example if you can.

Max James: Sure, you bet. Here would be a good example, and then we'll spin off with that. I was a pilot flying rescue helicopters, and I had trained hard. I had studied hard. I had practiced flying that helicopter under stressful situations. So I was preparing to lead the crew that I had on that chopper. The pilot gets shot down in Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the crew and you and the helicopter are going in to see if you can rescue and bring that guy home to his family and to a full life hopefully. When it comes time to make the decision to fly into the ground fire, whether it be SAMs, MiGs, or other ground fire, you've got a crew, and you're going to make the decision as to whether to risk not only the plane but a crew of four to save one.

Max James: So here is a situation where you learn to lead yourself. It's going to be my decision. I can't just always take a vote of the board or take a vote. Sometimes, you just have to charge forward. There's a block saying that speaks to an overly abundant ego, and it says, "I may be wrong, but I doubt it." Sometimes, you just have to rely on yourself, and if you haven't been in stressful situations where you had to make a decision, where you had to lead, then you're never going to be able to lead others. You've got to be able. So I say you have to have the skill, you have to hone the skill, you have to practice the skill, you have to implement the skill when the time comes.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. It's interesting when you think about how this translates to leadership today, right? The name of your book is The Harder I Fall, The Higher I Bounce. Right? So you're talking about you can't achieve success without failure, and so what you're talking about here, being a good leader starts with leading yourself, I think one of the areas that maybe is evolving or has evolved is leaders being comfortable with leading by example, even when that means failing, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Because if you think about if you can achieve success without failure and you need to normalize that and eliminate that fear of failing, which will ultimately prohibit creativity, innovation, all of those things, I think one of the best ways for a leader to really institute that belief in their team is to be willing to be vulnerable enough to show themselves failing, which means setting the ego aside, the leader ego aside, and being okay with knowing that, yes, you have to listen to yourself, you have to follow your gut, you have to rely on your intuition and your leadership abilities, but when that doesn't go well, that's okay, too, right? I mean, that's something that you and your team both can learn from and use as an opportunity to normalize the fact that failure is a part of success. Does that make sense?

Max James: Sure. It absolutely does. A friend of mine years and years ago wrote a book called The Joy of Failure, and his whole point was that you learn so much from failing that you should take the positive from failure. Losing when you have a large team, even a company, behind you will certainly show your vulnerability. It's how you respond to that failure with your team. We often talk about servant leadership, where your job is to support the team and to draw on the team.

Max James: So if you're practicing that as a leader in a philanthropic effort or a large business or a small business as an entrepreneur, if your team knows that you're supporting them and you fail, you fail as a team, and they will get it. They will understand what happened and what the principles were that didn't work or that did work. So, yeah, I would agree with that. Absolutely. The fear of failure is overwrought. There's too much emphasis on absolutely just being afraid to fail. It's going to hurt. It may cost you a lot. It may change your entire career or your life, but life will go on. Business will go on, and you will bounce back if you have the right attitude.

Sarah Nicastro: What I'm thinking about in real time as you say that is the correlation then between eliminating that mentality of failure as bad and how that correlates to perseverance, right? If you think about it in terms of the team and the message is failure's not an option, okay, then when it inevitably happens, the emotion tied to that can be so strong that then the willingness to get up and bounce back the next day is hindered, right? So, in a way, I think that the more you normalize failure and create the understanding within your team, organization, business, what have you, that it is a part of success, a path to success, the better sense of perseverance your employees will have because they're not tied to that emotion of failure being such a negative thing, which for some people...

Sarah Nicastro: I mean, yes, some people have the fortitude where they can fail and get up the next day and try again no matter what, but others, that sense of failure being bad could contribute to less individual perseverance because it makes them not want to try again. Do you know what I mean? So the more you normalize this idea of failure not being a bad thing, the greater your ability to increase the sense of perseverance and triumph in your team because they don't perceive it as such a big negative thing, if that makes sense.

Max James: Yeah. A leader should always let his people know that he will be there to pick them up, that if they fail in an assignment, in a project that they were given, that the leader will be there to support and to pick them up in the event that this particular effort wasn't successful. One of the things we always told our people is there will be other opportunities in your life and some of them won't be here. It may not be here because you don't like it. It may not be here because you don't have the skills to accomplish all of the things that we need. But if you ever find another opportunity that is better for you than this one, we will cheer you on. We will support you. We will do all we can to help you with that.

Max James: So I'm going to give you one other example. I had a foundation for kids that are terminally ill and chronically ill, and we talked about this failure business, and they have fallen, right? They're very ill, not their fault that they have fallen, but they're very ill, and several of them, a large percentage, weren't going to make it, and they were aware of it. But here's what we told them. I took a tennis ball, and I dropped the tennis ball, and it only comes back about, what, halfway? But if you throw the tennis ball down, it bounces much higher. These kids that were five to 16, 17 years old, they got that illustration, that they had fallen hard but they could bounce back higher if they were like that tennis ball and were resilient and willing to bounce. So I think that's true of failure. You don't have to fear failure. Be willing to accept failure, learn from it, and go onto the next project or business or entrepreneurial effort.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Do you think that that perception of failure is... What do you think the state of that is in business today? Do you think the perception of failure is different than it was earlier in your career? Do you think it's evolved?

Max James: I think there's far less fear today than was my experience early on in my career. Getting fired, to me, was back then a very frightening thing. I'm not talking about the time in the military. I'm talking about the time when I got out of Stanford and started businesses. In fact, listen, I've been fired three times, okay, three times, not always my fault, okay? The business changed, the tax changed, the company got purchased for another. But the point is I never feared it. You just gird your loins and say, "I got to get through this, and here are the things I'm going to do." Opportunity knocks. No, opportunity rarely knocks at your door. You have to go out and find opportunity. When you find it, you got to grab it by the neck and shake it and beat it up until opportunity is yours, okay? So you always have to be prepared. Opportunity doesn't knock. You may have to go find it.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Okay. So-

Max James: But the fear today... There's so many opportunities and it's so much easier to find them because we have this thing called the Internet and social media and the ability to stay in contact with past friends and business associates, the ability to find good mentors to help you through these things. No, I think that the fear of failure should be far less today. Fall hard, bounce high. The next book may be fail fast, fall forward. I kind of like that. Fail fast, fall forward.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. I like it. Okay. So one of the things that I found interesting about you, and I'm not sure why, it's probably something to reflect on, is you say that meditation is one of your, if not the, top business tools. So how did you discover that? How do you practice it, and what value do you feel it brings to you in your business life?

Max James: Very good. How I found it, for me, I was at a seminar, and the gentleman that was teaching the seminar said, "Before we got started, I want to show you something and have you experience it." So it was transcendental meditation, and we hummed for a while, and he explained in his mind what the benefits were. So I went ahead with the seminar, and afterwards, at home, I would do as he had suggested, take up to maybe 10, 15, 20 minutes sometime and just try not to think. Here's what happened to me. I'd sit in a chair most of the time, I don't do it laying down, and I would take a notebook, and I would lay it down beside the chair. When I finished the meditation, all of these thoughts had come into my subconscious and risen into the conscious mind, and I would write them down. I used to, for fun, entertain people in the Air Force at the officers' club, and I'd do the same thing. I'd wake up in the mornings and immediately write down all the cute little ideas for the next show at the officers' club.

Max James: So I discovered that, one, it reduced stress enormously just to stop worrying for 15 or 20 minutes or trying to figure everything out. Just take a real break, not a break where you sit and say, "Okay, I'm going to think about this for a while." No, no, no. Stop and don't think. That's what helped me, and it helped me through many personal situations in life so far, and it certainly helped me in business. So I continue to do it. By the way, I must have, I don't know, 30, 40 books on meditation. So it's something that I've felt strongly enough about. I've taught it in my companies. I've tried to get my friends to do it from time to time, and I still do it. To relieve stress is the principle reason.

Max James: I could give you examples, and there's a good example in the book where I had missed an airplane and it was an important meeting and I got there and it was a mess and I had a headache so bad I couldn't stand it. They took me back to the hotel before we had dinner, and I did meditation for about 15 to 20 minutes. The headache went away, and we had a successful dinner meeting. So I believe in it, yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: So I have a few questions, okay?

Max James: Okay.

Sarah Nicastro: So at the conference when this was first introduced you, what was your initial reaction?

Max James: "Oh, you got to be kidding. What is this? This is a bunch of... I'm not going to do this." But I had previously known the speaker, and I knew how bright he was. I knew his background. I knew his education, and it was transcendental... TM back then was popular. You could buy the book. So I thought, "Well, if it's good enough for him, I'm going to try it," and I liked it.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. And do you typically practice in the morning, or do you wait until you just feel that you need that stress relief? What is your routine around it?

Max James: Yeah. I would say both of those. For me, practicing it in the morning after I'm dressed and have had breakfast or whatever and just sit down before I really hit it. Then, secondly, if I'm feeling distress of whatever, the breathing is just... It's just so good. It's like taking a hot shower, okay? It's just a total relief. Then when I stop meditation, I feel like I have more energy. So it works for me.

Sarah Nicastro: No, I think it's really cool. Like I said, it was unexpected, something unexpected I read, and it's something I know I need to try. So I need to make a commitment to do that. I do-

Max James: I hope you will.

Sarah Nicastro: I do believe in it and think it will help. I have some of my own practices that I certainly benefit from. Mine is I work out every morning, right? So that's my time to get in the zone or whatever. But it is still different from that sense of quiet and peace and breathing and all of that. I don't know that we've talked about meditation specifically on this podcast before, but we certainly have talked about, for someone who is responsible for being creative, innovating, those sorts of things, the idea of figuring out what works for you in terms of creating white space. I think, like you said, at the end of that 15 or 20 minutes, you have all of these fresh thoughts and ideas, and it's because you literally took a break. It's not because you were thinking about it harder, right, or running faster on the hamster wheel.

Max James: That's right.

Sarah Nicastro: It's because you stepped off of it. I suppose that doesn't need to look the same for everyone, but I do think that that practice of preserving time to have that white space is incredibly important for people who are responsible for a lot of creative ideas, problem-solving, innovation, transformation. I find myself I come up with my best ideas when I walk away. So it could be in the shower. It can be on a walk. It's when I finally allow myself to take a breather that whatever the solution is or... That's when it comes to you. It's not when you're trying so hard to force it out, right?

Max James: No. In simple terms, it's blocking all the junk that goes into your head all the time. A lot of times, people have trouble sleeping. Why? Because they can't turn it off. Well, it's the same thing during the day in stress and whatnot. There are a lot of people who say they meditate while they're in an activity like tennis. Some of the pros meditate. Well, what they're really doing is they're learning to focus, to focus on one thing and getting the other stuff out of the way. "Oh, what's the score?" It doesn't matter what the score is. Just do the best you can right now. So I find it terribly beneficial and have for a long time.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. Interesting.

Max James: Try it. You'll like it.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. I will. All right. So the last thing I wanted to talk about, Max, is... And I think I saw this on your LinkedIn. So I'm going to read some text here, and then we'll talk about it, okay? You had a post and it says, "When your business doesn't appear to be accomplishing your goals, it's tempting to feel you need outside help in finding the magical solution. More often than not, however, what you really need to do first is go back and examine whether or not you have missed or ignored the basic business fundamentals. As Harvey Mackay says, maybe you just need to go back and walk the manufacturing floor, i.e., look really hard for the flaws, the flies in the ointment. Strong fundamentals and foundations lead to healthy businesses that can bounce high and withstand difficult circumstances." So the reason this stood out to me-

Max James: Oh, that's a mouthful, isn't it? Wow.

Sarah Nicastro: The reason this stood out to me is because a lot of the conversations we have on this podcast relate to some element of evolving a business, digital transformation, leveraging technology in a new or different way, introducing a new value proposition, et cetera, et cetera, right, so a lot of things to do with evolution, innovation, change. I think that this point that you're making here is where a lot of companies fail, and I don't mean failure in the good way. I mean, failure in the debilitating way, right? Because they try to race ahead when, in reality, there are some underlying foundational things that need to be addressed to set the stage for whatever success they're trying to achieve. So tell us a little bit more, your thoughts around this idea of before you look for some magic bullet, go back through and look for those flies in the ointment. Are there certain things that, in your experience, you feel like are common, or what would you want listeners to think about when they hear me read that quote?

Max James: The first thing that comes to my mind is have I been diligent in choosing the people that work for me or with me? There's a thing in the book, and I highlight it everywhere. Hire for character, train for skill. Did I really look hard at this person's background or their personality, their honesty, moral interpretative... Did I really look for that? That's, I think, one of the things Harvey says about get out of your office and go out to the field and see what you have. I oftentimes was amazed and angry with myself that we had allowed people with poor character to join the organization in a meaningful position. So that would be the first.

Max James: The second one is have you really expressed, first to yourself and then to the people that you are associated with, what your goal is? Do I really know what it is that I'm hoping we're going to accomplish? Are we just trying to make a bunch of money? Are we trying to provide good jobs for people? Are we donating enough money to our favorite charities? Does everybody agree with that? Back to the basics of being a good leader. There are a million books written on leadership, and there are thousands of books written about character, starting with the bestselling book of all time. It's the Bible, okay? So where in there are you?

Max James: Dr. Robert Schuller, who was a spiritual mentor of mine before he passed and still is, by the way, I read something that he has written every single day, Schuller said, "Are you suffering a brownout or a blackout? Are you sure it's a blackout? Are you sure there's not something you're doing wrong that you can fix and really this is just a brown out, not a blackout?" So get out of your office, go out there, and really look hard at whether or not you are using the tools that you know are true, that you have practiced, and that you have skill levels in to build this. Look inside first before you go shouting fire in the theater. Are you sure? So I think that's the point I was trying to make there, is that you may be really screwing things up yourself and everybody else is trying to fix it or throwing up their hands because you don't understand the real problem. So make sure that you are doing what you know, you absolutely know, are the right things to do for leadership and for progress.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. We had a podcast late last year with... Slowing Down to Speed Up, I think, was the title of it, and it was with-

Max James: Great point.

Sarah Nicastro: ... Eduardo Bonefont from BD. That was a little bit more specific to the idea of innovation via technology, right? But what he found was while the natural tendency today is to race to, "Okay, what's next, what do we add, what do we change, what's the next layer of innovation," he found that when he spent time... Exactly what you're saying. When he spent time with the frontline workforce, when it came to technology specifically, they had a lot of issues with some of the foundational systems that were in place, and so this mentality of, "Well, let's add to that and let's build, build, build," they would've been doing that on a faulty foundation, which was causing a lot of frustration among their workforce.

Sarah Nicastro: So they decided to take a pause year, pause meaning they obviously were conducting business but pause from technology investment, and take the budget that they would've invested in whatever was next or new on their roadmap, to put that into fixing these foundational issues and improving the engagement and satisfaction of their frontline workforce. It's something that, retelling it, sounds simple, sounds smart, right, but it works against the grain of a lot of business mentality, which is race, race, race, what's next, what's next? So it was such a good story to share, and it makes me think of this point that you made with your LinkedIn post and this idea of the failure often isn't in some massive misstep so much as a lot of little cracks that are adding up to frustration or misalignment or a lot of other things. So I think it's a really good point.

Max James: There are two cliches that come to mind. One is, if you remember all the old Aesop's Tales, the tortoise won the race over the hare, and so there are times when speed isn't going to... Secondly, perfection is the enemy of excellence. You can be beating up on your people to do this, that, and the other thing when the profits are pretty good, things are going well, the future looks bright. So put the whip down and feed them some ice cream.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Max James: Yeah. We sometimes let our own personal idiosyncrasies get in the way of an organization's idiosyncrasies.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. All right, Max. Any final thoughts, words of wisdom, advice that you would like to share?

Max James: A couple. The old Air Force motto is, "Fly, fight, win." It doesn't say fly and win. It says you have to fight. So whether you're an entrepreneur or whether you're an intrapreneur inside a large company, you're going to have to double up your fist and fight for what you want. Prepare as well as you can that what you are fighting for is worth it and the way you are fighting is with character and integrity. So hire for character, train for skills, bet on bright, but cut your losses early and move on. Don't be afraid of failing. If you've done your best, that is success, and failure's never final. This was good, Sarah. I have enjoyed it very much. Thank you for inviting me.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Thank you, Max. Let folks know where they can find the book.

Max James: Amazon, The Harder I Fall, The Higher I Bounce, or put in my name and it'll come up. I told many people I'm prouder of the endorsements which you'll find on the page than I actually am of the book, and so you'll find the former Air Force Chief of Staff, the Vice Chairman of General Motors. Some people that I have high respect for have been overly flattering. So go to Amazon, The Harder I Fall, The Higher I Bounce.

Sarah Nicastro: Awesome. Thank you, Max. I appreciate it.

Max James: Thank you, ma'am. Thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: You can find more by visiting us at futureoffieldserviceref.ifs.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter, @TheFutureOfFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thanks for listening.

Stay Connected

Related Content

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

Using AI to Unlock Potential While Protecting the Human Experience

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

Most Recent

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

A Focus on Efficiency is Only the Tip of the AI Iceberg – Expert Advice for Considering What Comes Next

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

January 26, 2022 | 30 Mins Read

Real Talk on Combating the Talent Gap

January 26, 2022 | 30 Mins Read

Real Talk on Combating the Talent Gap

Share

In a special episode recorded on site in Palm Springs, California, Sarah talks with Roy Dockery, VP of Customer Care at Swisslog Healthcare about an issue that is top of mind: how to recruit, hire, and retain good talent in 2022. In line with the brand of his own personal podcast, Roy shares his “savage truth,” explaining his stance that the issue is less of a talent gap and more a resistance to doing the work to find (and keep) the right employees.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro, coming to you from Palm Springs, California. So those of you that regularly watch or listen to the podcast would know that typically I am in my home office. Today we are filming on-site at Field Service Palm Springs. And I'm thrilled to be joined by my friend, Roy Dockery, who is the Vice President of Customer Care at Swisslog Healthcare. Thanks for being here, Roy.

Roy Dockery: Thank you. Good to be back at an in-person event here in Palm Springs when it's not Coachella.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes, true.

Roy Dockery: Like November.

Sarah Nicastro: Is this your first in-person event post-COVID?

Roy Dockery: It's not. I was at the TSIA event a couple of weeks ago in Las Vegas. So that would've been my first conference, but I've been well back into traveling since May.

Sarah Nicastro: Do you know what's funny, today's podcast, the one that actually published today is Kevin Bowers from TSIA.

Roy Dockery: Okay, yes.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So, all right, cool. So we're here, we're back in Palm Springs. Happy to be back at the Field Service event. Roy and I were catching up yesterday, reflecting on the first podcast you were on, which was episode two. I think this week we hit 137. So it's been a while, but we're going to talk about the same topic today. And we're going to do that because I think we were maybe a little ahead of the game when we talked about the topic the first time, which is recruiting, hiring, retention. So when you were on the podcast the first time, we were talking about this talent gap, which has only exacerbated as a challenge being talked about here. So you and I both observed over the last couple days, everyone is part of every session, right?

Roy Dockery: Yeah. The Great Resignation.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes, the great resignation, yes. So we started talking about this a while ago and I realize it is a growing challenge for folks, but I like your take a lot and have a lot of respect for it because you think people need to take a little bit more responsibility for the problem. And so I want to talk about that again today, because I think that the conversation warrants a revisit because people are really struggling with this right now. And I think some of the thoughts you have around how and why people should look at their role in solving the problem a little bit deeper is good. So give us your take on this.

Roy Dockery: Yeah. So one, you have the great resignation that's around people leaving and jobs and purpose. There's all these assumptions. No one really knows why people are leaving jobs. Some people are taking pay cuts, some people are taking promotions. There's remote work being factored into it, flexibility, work-life balance. But when we look at it from a field service perspective, like we're here now, probably a couple of years after we originally had these conversations, we also talked about it in magazine interviews. And so you fast forward, I've been talking about recruitment at these events for five years. So before the great resignation, before the pandemic, I was trying to raise the awareness and make the clarion call that this going to be a problem.

Roy Dockery: We can't keep hiring people the same way because on top of people resigning to go into different fields, we had an aging workforce in field service, and they're retiring. And a lot of them now are retiring early or just taking advantage of benefits. There were health concerns with entering facilities and travel. And so the same problem is there, it just got exacerbated. So just like here at the conference, everyone's talking about digital transformation, everybody wanted video assistance tools. All of those things got accelerated and implemented during the pandemic because they became a necessity.

Roy Dockery: So I think you and I were talking about it, what now, 135 episodes ago, because we didn't want to have to be reactive. So right, we were trying to be proactive in saying we can't keep each other's technicians. And it's still happening now. I'm experiencing attrition right now, it's not significant. Our attrition rate is still less than 10%, but I'm losing people to other field service organizations. And you're overpaying for that talent. So I have an employee work for me for six or seven months and then can go get a job just because they have field service on their resumes.

Roy Dockery: So now people can jump from company to company and we're seeing that. And it's like, no one took the initiative to be able to develop a workforce. And I was talking to somebody last night at a dinner about that farming, we've been hunters for so long. And when you say take responsibility, we have to take responsibility for the fact that we got lazy in our recruitment. We got lazy in our development. We just were comfortable getting people who had industry knowledge, and not having to go through the basics. So when it comes from a training perspective, when we look historically 30 years ago at field service, when we were pulling people out of apprenticeships and out of electricians and mechanics and different union shops and taking them through all the building blocks, the foundational aspects of our business, our technology, our software, a lot of us got lazy.

Roy Dockery: We don't want to do hand tools, we don't want to teach people about multimeters and reading diagrams, even though that training takes like two days. It's not a three-month long process. And so for me, being someone that's ex-military, seeing people who are 17 and 18 years old be able to be trained in anything, as long as you give everyone the same essential training, you give everyone the same building blocks. And so my team and in our organization were like, we can do the same thing. We've effectively done the same thing because we hire people right out the military that don't have industry experience, which is consistent across field service, but you have less people who join the military, you have less people who are getting out of the military and you just have more competition now because everyone figured out that equation, everybody figured out that hack. So it's like, let me go hire military people. So even that's becoming ridiculously competitive.

Roy Dockery: So switching to and taking responsibility for the fact that if you can't bring somebody in that has the skills that your organization needs, that has the behavior that meets your culture, if you can't bring those people in and train them, that's not a talent gap problem, that's a training problem. That's a training and development issue. And that's what I think a lot of companies are wrestling with right now because it's not like there aren't people who have skills and probably the right behavior. They don't have the experience that you've been taking for granted and substituting that for an effective training program. So that's my approach and it's just we have to own it.

Roy Dockery: With all the generations and people don't stay, everything gets blamed on us millennials, oh, millennials don't stay at jobs. But it doesn't seem like Gen Xers are staying at jobs either, or that baby boomers are staying at jobs. So people just have transition, but you have to be able to develop and we've got to get back into farming and developing talent. And the cool thing about field service, like at my company, I was a field service technician, I'm the Vice President of Customer Care, but we have people from field service in every aspect of our business. They're customer success managers, they're product managers, they're software engineers, they're in our development team and our engineering department.

Roy Dockery: So it's not only a good place to farm talent for the field, it's a good place to farm talent for the organization. We have people in sales that come from field service. And installation and things like that. So if we make more of an investment in bringing those people in and be willing to develop them and let them move through the organization, that can help with the retention as well because you might not retain them in a role, but then the ultimate goal is to retain that talent within the company as well.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So the reality is hiring based on experience, which is what a lot of the people at this conference are still trying to do, and they're very frustrated good that it's not working, the experience is becoming extinct and, or far too expensive, right?

Roy Dockery: Yes.

Sarah Nicastro: So that is the reality that hopefully a couple years later people are now ready to hear. So let's talk about some of the antidotes to that. So if we can all accept that, that is fact and hopefully people are coming around to the idea that you can't just keep looking for people that have five years, 10 years of experience, you need to start thinking differently. There's a couple areas we need to think about. So one of the things that we've talked about is the branding problem or the PR problem that this industry has, in the sense that younger people just don't know that there are viable and fulfilling career opportunities at companies like Swisslog. They're just not known. So what are your thoughts on that part of the solution? How do you as a company, as a leader and us as an entire industry make progress in creating better awareness around field service as a career?

Roy Dockery: Yeah, right. I think to go back to what we said before, the first thing is you have to accept that you have a problem. And because of the fact that we haven't been leveraging what's available that once you accept that, then you have to be okay, what am I doing wrong now? Because you've got to admit you're doing something wrong. Hiring just for experience is wrong, it's ineffective and it has a lifespan that we are running into right now is ending. So that's the first thing. It was like, okay, so then what areas am I not looking at?

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So let's assume that we have an understanding among people we're speaking to that the idea of hiring based on experience is no longer an option. So one of the things we need to think about then is how we create more awareness about the career opportunities that exist in field service, right?

Roy Dockery: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: So you're talking about really a lot of different industries, a lot of different types of companies and types of work, but all things that fly under the radar of, when you ask a kid what they want to be, when they up, they say a doctor or a nurse or a teacher, they don't say like a field technician because it's just not something that is widely known as an option. So what are your thoughts on how we, as organizations, as an industry collectively, how do we overcome that problem?

Roy Dockery: Yeah. And I think one, we have to look at it collectively as an industry, right? Like computer science programmers, like artificial intelligence. All of those things are industries. So there's outreach within that industry, there's the progression of this is what you do in high school, this is what you do in college or in technical school. We've been taken for granted, the value of people we already had within the workforce that I think field service is never really, and even now, with the podcast and we've never really marketed and publicized ourself as an industry.

Roy Dockery: So I think one thing is even with IFS and what you do on the podcast, it's like, okay, how do we reach back and say, how do we do outreach to high schools to let people know you can graduate from high school, go to a two-year technical school and then get a 50 plus thousand dollars a year job, how do you go to the technical schools and say, if you have people graduating with EET or associates degrees and information technology, let's move it forward because it's hard for us. One thing for field service, a lot of us, it's not like we have an office where we're hiring 50 people, I have 150 technicians spread across like 40 states in an entire continent.

Roy Dockery: So individually, I think it's a lot harder for us to do that outreach, but then collectively, when you look at the number of field service technicians in any given city, not necessarily in a given company, because we're talking about HVAC, retail, hospitality, restaurants, they're everywhere. But like you said, no one knows that. And I remember talking to my daughter's middle school principal and I asked him, I said, because he also had some relationships with the high school. And I said, if I asked the class of high school students right now who wants to make over $50,000 a year and travel 75% of the time, how many of them you think would say yes? And he was like, like 75% of them. And I was like, that's what field service is, but nobody knows what it is.

Roy Dockery: So right. One, we need an outreach arm. Let Sarah be the face of outreach to schools and in that space. Because I think we need to collectively foster that reality, because we all struggle from it. But even if you've got 8,000 technicians or 2,000 technicians, they're spread all over the country. So I think having that intentionality as an industry to come together to say, we need to reach into education, we need to work with workforce development, we need to work with vocational rehab through the VA and just say, these jobs are options, you don't need a bunch of experience, you need an aptitude, you need the right behavior, you need a skillset that's trainable, and then we can get you into the field.

Roy Dockery: So I think we've got to make it public, we've got to make it known as an industry, not just as employers. So we're going to have to collaborate a little bit instead of hiring all of each other's employees because in the next five years, all of those people are going to be gone, five to 10 years. So I think there's collaboration required in that to market that, like I said, in workforce development, in the education sector and in secondary and vocational education. So I think that'll be important. And then on top of that, we just have to commit. You've got to commit to doing it different, you need a different net, you got to cast in different water. You can't keep doing it the way that you have been. That might get you people for the next year or two. But like you said those people that are coming more are expensive. And then those people are just going to get hired by somebody else who will pay them more money. So we've got to learn to farm talent, and then we've got to know that that talent may come to us, but when they want to move to another city, they may go work for you. So it's like, we can't take that selfish approach because what we're all finding right now is that when somebody wants to work from home or needs a job that's maybe in the city versus regionally, when a lot of our people, my employees leave, it's like, okay, I love field service, but I don't really want to travel outside the city.

Roy Dockery: So then you go work for an ATM company. They're 40,000 ATMs within two hours versus 20 hospitals within a four-hour radius. So people are switching in between those companies to make those personal life choices and not like, we just have to be accepting of that. But if we're all working to increase the size of the pool by farming talent, instead of just hunting it, then I think we all collectively benefit. Right now we're just robbing Peter to pay Paul, as one of my managers loves to say.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So there's the PR issue. And then there's a couple other things I want to talk about. One is, we talked about the military, and that's kind of like, if people accept they can't get someone with five years’ experience, the default then is to go try and get them from the military. That's kind of become the new go-to, right?

Roy Dockery: Yep.

Sarah Nicastro: So that doesn't mean it's a bad source, it just means that can't be your only source. So what other sources are you exploring or finding success with when it comes to looking outside of now that as a new area of opportunity?

Roy Dockery: Yeah. And like you said, with the military, I'm ex-military, almost all my entire management team, we're actually all ex-Navy, but one thing we're noticing as well, it's becoming more competitive. So people coming out of the military with three or four years of experience now, they can demand or they can get $70,000 salary in like a non-metro area, because, like you said, that's the go-to now. So that's the new thing. But then also now you have no experience and expense. So now I have someone with no experience, that's actually more expensive as a candidate. So the main thing we've been successful with is really just changing how we're trying to recruit and what we're looking for.

Roy Dockery: So when you change your job postings, when you remove experience and specific industry knowledge, I'm not trying to hire a healthcare field service engineer, I'm not trying to hire a field service engineer at all because I know the industry has poor PR. We just had a meeting a couple of weeks ago at our HR department, and I said, find me people who worked at Chick-fil-A, I want customer service people. If you got Chick-fil-A and you've got a technical background, my managers have walked into Best Buys, to Geek Squads that are in their territories where we have job openings. But the main thing was, it's one thing to go and try to advocate or build relationships with, if we're doing stuff with handshake and building relationships with technical schools. But if when somebody from that technical school goes apply, but my job requirement and my job description still says two to three years of experience or an associate's degree or a bachelor's degree preferred, people are going to eliminate themselves. And so I think one of the problems we have is that even from hiring managers, supervisors and managers aren't really looking for people with experience, but our net is eliminating people who don't have it either through the screening process with recruitment in HR or because people don't apply to begin with.

Roy Dockery: So one thing that we found in getting more diversity and just different types of candidates, it's removing some of the obstacles that were actually just in our job posting. So remove experience, take the industry specific stuff out of it and just advocate for people. It's like a one ad for people, like not a technician. 

Sarah Nicastro: So what's some of the terminology, if you don't use field service, you don't use technician, you don't use healthcare, what does it say?

Roy Dockery: So we're recruiting for field service technicians. But when we put in experience, we want people with customer service experience, we want people who have a technical aptitude, so you don't have that technical experience. And so we've really just dumbed down those requirements so that we have more people to apply because once you can look at a resume and then get a feeling for a candidate, the issue was, my team wanted to hire different people, but they weren't applying, so it's like, I can't hire you if you don't apply. And we do it on a revolving basis, if we get a candidate that happened to apply and we look at their resume and be like, okay, they applied, even though from our job posting, it doesn't look like they were qualified.

Roy Dockery: So what we started doing is like, who have we hired lately that's like a nontraditional employee that's doing really well? And then so we continue to go and revise. And so that's, we hired somebody recently that was an employee at Chick-fil-A, recent tech school graduate, she's doing phenomenal. So let's put more weight on customer service, let's get people with more of a customer service background. So it's an ongoing kind of evolution. But the first thing we did was remove education requirements, because the vast majority of our employees do not have associates or bachelor degrees. They just don't. Most of them have military experience. We reduced the amount of military experience that we required or that we had as preferred, and then we started focusing more on customer service because we trust our technical training program.

Roy Dockery: We think we can get people up to speed technically. So we really want the right behavior, we want the right skillsets. People who are trainable, people who come up to speed quickly and mostly can interact with customers. We're in healthcare, it's a high stress environment. I used to tell people that I trained when I was in the field, this job is 90% communication and 10% fixing. So those are the skills we started looking for. And that's the same thing when you recruit. And anytime I consult with or speak to companies that are dealing with recruitment issues, that's the first thing I tell them, look at who your top performers are and tell me if they match your job description. And nine times out of 10, they do not.

Roy Dockery: Your best software engineer doesn't have a software degree, your best field service technician doesn't have an EET degree, he's the guy from Home Depot. I was talking to one guy, it was like, it was the CEO's son. And we thought we were going to hate him because he was a high school graduate, but he's our best applications engineer now. And he had no experience whatsoever, he would've never gotten that job if he wasn't related, if it wasn't nepotism, but he was good at it.

Sarah Nicastro: So I mean the point that brings up though is then you have to be willing to take some risks, right?

Roy Dockery: Yes.

Sarah Nicastro: Because it’s calculated, but in that example, he got the job because he was somebody's, whatever. But the point is you might need to try some different things to see what works, but you're better off doing that than just not trying anything.

Roy Dockery: Yeah, because you have no choice. You have to do something different. And it's like you said, it's a calculated risk. If you're hiring people who are heavier on customer service, then that means your management team has to be more intentional about training on technical. But at the same time, when we hire people who are very technical, we terminate more people for behavioral issues than we do for technical competency.

Sarah Nicastro: We were at the table yesterday, Marcela from Eppendorf said the same thing, I hire on soft skills, I can train anything else. So if you think about that, you can get good soft skills from a lot of different places. So to your point, if you invest in being able to train on the technical stuff, it opens up a lot of opportunities. Training, that's another podcast. We're not talking about that today. But there are a couple more things I want to get to.

Sarah Nicastro: One is, so we talk about making the application process more appealing so that, or I guess eliminating barriers so that you can get more people to apply and not field themselves out based on some words that are in there. But what about the job itself? Because this is the other thing you and I have talked about a bit in the past is the idea that people looking for jobs today want different things than people looking for jobs five, 10, 15, 20 years ago did. And a lot of field service organizations haven't necessarily changed the structure of their, not just, compensation probably is the most regularly changed thing. But looking at, how are we describing the role, what parts of it are we emphasizing or what changes could we make as a business that we might not have thought we needed to make, but we are capable of doing to offer more flexibility or something that is appealing to people that we want to bring into the company today?

Roy Dockery: Yeah. And I think it has to do with the type of, one, the kind of services that we can dynamically offer as an organization. So field service has high demand, travels. Sometimes you got to be flexible, you're on-call. That's an eliminating factor for some people, especially people have to deal with childcare and things of that nature, having to run a call at two o'clock in the morning with no notice and you have a four-year old, that's just not a job that you can take. So one of the things that we've even looked at evolving over time is, we will interview somebody and then we'll have multiple openings and then we can make a suggestion, okay, maybe you take this role that is a resident for this particular hospital, and so that's all you have to do. You cover that site and you have on-call, but it's once every four weeks. And so you create that flexibility. And a lot of it has to do with how forthright and open the candidates are right about what their needs are, which I think is improving now.

Roy Dockery: A lot of people didn't feel like they could stress what they needed and the flexibility had. They thought, think it would put their job at risk. And so I think one, that's one thing you have to encourage people to be open, I don't want you to take a job that you then can't physically do as well.

Sarah Nicastro: I think it's another change from COVID too though. Because work from home became more common, flexibility became a more in-demand criteria. And I think it is something for field service companies to think about because each business is different. So there's no prescriptive answer, but we had a consultant on the podcast, not so long ago, Lauren Winans with Next Level. And one of the things she brought up is, if we know flexibility is and is going to continue to be very, very important, then again, it's another area to break out of, well we just can't. It's just field service we just can't and actually sit down and look at like, okay, operationally, are there ways we could, can we do some sort of rotating schedule so that it does become possible to provide that in some way or is there some halfway point?

Sarah Nicastro: Maybe it's not flexibility to this degree, but you could have an extra day off every two weeks. You know what I mean? Whatever it is to meet in the middle, if we know that that is such an important factor for people. There's recruiting in terms of getting fish to bite, to get in the door. But then there's recruiting in the sense of am I offering an employee value proposition that is appealing. And that means you need to understand what your target audience wants and needs. And that might be then a second phase of having to really examine where you're at and if you need to make some changes. Just because they're telling you they want flexibility doesn't mean that you just kick them out the door and... If you're going to hear that every time somebody walks in for an interview, then you have to start thinking as a company, what do we do with this data?

Roy Dockery: Yeah. And it becomes limiting from that standpoint as well, because there's a pool. In field service, I'm never surprised when somebody leaves. It's a difficult job, who wants to be on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When I interview people, I'm like, we're crazy, we're a unique breed of people, but-

Sarah Nicastro: You're going to love it till you hate it.

Roy Dockery: Yeah, you're going to love it till you hate it. And it's a certain dynamic of people, but I think that's why organizations also have to be intentional about not just training people but developing them. 

Sarah Nicastro: That was the last point I wanted to talk about, which is, you have to figure out how to get more people interested in the career opportunities, you have to make sure that you are creating an employee value proposition that is appealing to the people you're trying to hire today, not the people that work for you now.

Sarah Nicastro: You have to come to grips with the fact that there are realities you have to contend with, you can't just offer the same thing you've always offered and expect people to be interested in it. And while there are constrictions on how much a given industry can recreate that value proposition, I think people, again, it's another area where people are kind of lazy, they just default to, nope, we've hired on experience, we'll do that. Nope, this is what it is. You take it or leave it. And that just has to change. But the last area I want to talk about is this idea of retention. And I like the point you made at the beginning about maybe field service is sort of the entry level where we can bring people in without experience, without education requirements, train them on the technical parts, as long as they have the soft skills and the aptitude to learn and then farm them up for the rest of the business.

Sarah Nicastro: So you kind of keep that continual flow. You have the talent you need when you need it, but you know going in, it's not going to stay there for 10, 15, 20, 30 years like it has in the past. So talk about that part.

Roy Dockery: So I had dinner last week with an employee that was retiring after 30 years. I'm like, so why do you see people coming in and going? But people define success in different ways. So success was to have a job that would let me retire with the pension and I can take care of my family. That's a very traditional kind of concept, but people want challenges, they want to do different things, they want to have transitions. I've had technically five jobs in the last 11 years, but I've worked at the same company. So I'm not someone who wants to keep doing the same thing constantly, but luckily I've been able to find additional challenges at work.

Roy Dockery: So I think when we bring them in, we've hired people from the warehouse to work in technical support. Within an organization, we have to be focused on what skills do we have within the organization. And then when we have those foundational skills and behavior, if you understand my customer base, if you understand my product, if you understand our processes and our workflow and our installations, where else can you be beneficial? So we have people that go from the field to be project engineers and then become full-fledged project managers. We have people become estimators, and then go from estimating to doing applications and design and go from that to being design analysts.

Roy Dockery: So you can bring them in and they get a feel of the company, but we can get value out of them, we can get revenue out of them. But when I tell my team, if we can retain somebody in the field for two or three years, I'm happy about that. I just think the type of people that worked in the field for 30 years, I just think there's less of them, regardless of like, some people will come in and they'll be happy. That's what they'll do. Other people are going to want challenges. They're more into software than they are into hardware.

Roy Dockery: So as they start working, they start leaning towards one part of the technology than other, then find them a role in that space instead of constantly robbing from other companies. And then you said there's a risk, there's a risk, I can take you from the field and put you in a more technical role and you won't get it. But you face the same risk when you take an external employee and bring them in. They may not meet your culture, they may not understand your customer base, they may not understand your products. So it's a risk, but we've just got to be, yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: And when it comes to the overall puzzle of what we're talking about here, maybe the fact that people aren't as willing to stay still in these roles is that actually something companies can use to their advantage. I think that part of that though is again, thinking ahead and making sure that you accept the reality for what it is and then work backwards on how to communicate with the employees about it. I'm not saying people only leave because they don't know the growth potential, but I'm saying companies today know growth potential is very important for new employees. So if you're not communicating from the beginning what that growth potential is for them at your company, don't expect they're just going to figure it out or know it or they're going to stick around and wait for you to communicate it.

Sarah Nicastro: If there's some way to provide some of that information up front on, here's what your potential is as a field service technician, but then beyond that, here's a bunch of different paths you could take within Swisslog and here's the different timelines that you could start exploring, whatever. I've seen people charted out very specifically or I've seen people just be a little bit more high level, but I think the point is you need to understand that these people from the beginning are going to want more. So how do you use that to your advantage instead of letting them just get picked off by other people?

Roy Dockery: Yeah. What's funny for me, so starting in the field and then moving up through the company and becoming a VP, I've been a Vice President now for over six years. So I started noticing... And when you say communicating that, I think sometimes we do a good job of communicating that during the interview and like, oh, the Vice President was in the field and the person who's interviewing you was in the field, but then that's it. So we don't keep communicating that. So I started noticing a couple of years ago, there were people who worked within our organization that never knew I was in the field, they thought I came into the company as a vice president. I'm like, no, I came in as a technician.

Roy Dockery: So even reiterating that story and keeping that narrative where... We were talking to the HR department, I'm like, I need to celebrate more when somebody leaves my organization and goes into design and applications or into estimating, because I don't want to make it seem like, they took from me, we're retaining, and even our HR department, did they joke, they were like, they have a ratio for me, it's called the internal development ratio. So it's not attrition for my team because half of my attrition is internal.

Roy Dockery: So they leave and go to other departments and we advocate for them, we recommend them. And we also try to do individual development plans, which I think is, right, you've got targets and you've got objectives that you've got to measure, which is how we've done performance management forever. And I love the fact that our company said, okay, we're going to do that. But then we're also going to have individual development plans for everyone, so where do you want to go, what is your short-term goal, what do you want to do in the next one or two years, where do you want to be in two to five years? 

Sarah Nicastro: And if you think about, that process serves multiple purposes. Because you're able then to understand what people like, where they see themselves, what their goals are and that helps you map them into different functions of the business. But at the same time, I think when it comes to retention, it also makes them realize that Swisslog as a company is invested in their long-term potential, not just their short-term ability to help the company meet metrics.

Roy Dockery: Yeah, and do the job, right? Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: So in terms of engagement and satisfaction, it's not just smart because you get an idea of what you could present to them as their next step, but you're investing in the relationship with them and creating more loyalty. So that's kind of like the secondary benefit. You know what I mean?

Roy Dockery: Yeah. Because you don't want them just focused on the job. I know this job is rob Peter pay Paul, I know somebody else will pay you 10, $20,000 more than me to travel internationally until you get to go to Brazil. From a job perspective, it's very competitive. There's a lot of different places you can go work. And my management team was talking with HR, they were like, we don't try to sell people on the job, we try to sell people at Swisslog. Everyone in my leadership team comes from the field. Everyone, every manager, every director, they all came from the field. So it's like, we're examples of what we're trying to represent and just building it in that way.

Sarah Nicastro: That is a story you should be telling.

Roy Dockery: Yeah. And that's what we do. And we had that discussion with HR and I'm like, so that's why sometimes somebody's more expensive and we just pass on them. And it's not because they want to come here for a job that pays more money, no, we want to give people an opportunity to build a career. And I tell my employees all at time, I hold you responsible for developing your employees, even if it's developing them out of this company. So if we're developing people and helping them reach their individual potential and we don't have a position, then I'll give you a referral to go work somewhere else, because you're interested in the person and their career. So if they really want to go and they've been doing project management and we had one opening, but it's filled now and we may not have another one for a year or two then fine, I'll give you a referral to go work somewhere as a project manager, I'll let you shadow some of our project managers, so you have experience so you can intelligently speak to it during an interview.

Roy Dockery: I've got supervisors right now that I know are interviewing for management roles. I encourage my managers to go for director roles. And even my directors, I want them to be a Vice President, but I have three directors and there's one me. So two of you might need to go be Vice President somewhere else, or when they take my job, I'll go somewhere else. But I think that's the thing and you're right, there's more that you can sell in that story. But I do think organizations, because then that changes how the entire organization looks at field service.

Roy Dockery: So can you pull from sales, can you pull from engineering project management? What's an entry level position in engineering that you can transition to field service technician to? So if you build out that map of, and we kind of know, so we'll say, hey, one of our people went into engineering through this role or one of our people went into project management through this role, so we can kind of map it out. But as organizations to come together from a leadership perspective and say, okay, if we had success, and almost every company does, there's someone from field service in every department, but map that out for people and make it plain. And then that can probably help more with retention. And again, maybe not retention specifically in field service, but keeping that talent within your organization so that you don't lose the history and the experience and whatever passion they already have for what they're doing.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. So in summary, let's say we had this conversation a few years ago, here we are having it again and hopefully people are ready to listen this time, what would be your closing words of wisdom for people that are now ready to hear what you're saying?

Roy Dockery: Take responsibility, it's our fault. We have to own it. I'm not one to defend HR, we all have our struggles with recruitment, but we incentivize the behavior we reward. If you keep getting candidates and are not the kind of candidates you want, but you keep hiring them, then human resources and recruiting is doing their job. So we have to own it. If we see the price of a new employee going up, if we see attrition from new employees that have been here for a year or two taking other jobs, then we've got to own that and understand what we need to do to better retain our talent and also to give people more opportunities to grow within the organization. But we just have to own it and we should be proactive. And we all have to react right now because we don't have a choice, but we also have to think past the immediate problem.

Roy Dockery: So like I said, we've got to start worrying about how do we do outreach to high schools that are doing alternative paths and people not going to universities for four years. How do we work with workforce development agencies at the state level, at the federal level, how do we bring back apprenticeships and really be able to offer an entry level position where we can trust. There's limiting things for field service, like credit cards. A lot of us got rid of company cards, a lot of us require people to rent vehicles. Most of that stuff you can't do under 21. So they're even fundamental roadblocks, and obstacles that we have that we could eliminate or that we could create some mitigations for that really allow us to develop the next generation of talent that we'll need for field service. But we have to own it and take responsibility and take action.

Sarah Nicastro: Roy, thank you for being you here with me. I appreciate it.

Roy Dockery: Thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: You can find more by visiting us at futureoffieldserviceref.ifs.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn, as well as Twitter at The Future of FS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

Stay Connected

Related Content

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

Using AI to Unlock Potential While Protecting the Human Experience

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

Most Recent

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

A Focus on Efficiency is Only the Tip of the AI Iceberg – Expert Advice for Considering What Comes Next

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

January 19, 2022 | 22 Mins Read

Bell and Howell’s Winning Formula for Digital

January 19, 2022 | 22 Mins Read

Bell and Howell’s Winning Formula for Digital

Share

Dr. Haroon Abbu, Vice President of Digital, Data, and Analytics at Bell and Howell and co-author of the 2021 book Trust: The Winning Formula for Digital Leaders, a Practical Guide for Digital Transformation talks with Sarah about the differences between digitally mature and digitally developing organizations.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro. Today, we're going to be talking about all things digital, data, and analytics. I'm excited to be joined today by Dr. Haroon Abbu, who is the Vice President of Digital, Data and Analytics at Bell and Howell, as well as co-author of the 2021 book, Trust: The Winning Formula for Digital Leaders, A Practical Guide for Digital Transformation. Haroon, welcome to the Future of Field Service podcast.

Haroon Abbu: Thank you. And great to be here, Sarah.

Sarah Nicastro: Yes. I'm excited to have you. Alright. So before we dig into some of the points we want to be sure to cover today, tell our listeners just a little bit more about yourself, your background, your role at Bell and Howell, that sort of thing.

Haroon Abbu: Glad to. My name is Haroon Abbu. I'm the Vice President of Digital, Data and Analytics at Bell and Howell, which is headquartered in Triangle Park in North Carolina. I've been with Bell and Howell for the last 12 years. If you don't know, Bell and Howell is a technology enabled services company with over 850 service engineers. Bell and Howell services industrial equipment from mail automation to robotics with a large install base in North America spanning multiple OEMs. The company also delivers comprehensive solution for retail click-and-collect grocery, pharmacy automation, and production mail industries. Currently I'm focusing on transforming the company through analytics and digital technologies, such as IOT, machine learning, artificial intelligence and field service automation. My team is building digital service offerings, such as remote monitoring by connecting both Legacy and new equipment through log file sensors, et cetera, and processing them in real-time in order to provide prescriptive insights and recommendation to our field service technicians.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay, excellent. So can you talk to me a little bit, Haroon, about what drew you to the field of digital transformation?

Haroon Abbu: Yeah, it's a great question. My undergraduate degree is in industrial engineering. I was always fascinated with operational improvements and efficiency gains, which my, which drove my choice of major. Then I did my MBA and M.S. in Engineering Management with intention of working in a managerial role in manufacturing. Right after my graduation, at that time, I worked in a company that was transitioning from print production to audio cassette manufacturing, and then to the manufacturing of compact discs and DVDs. So in that company, I saw firsthand how a company can be disrupted by rapid changes in technology and can eventually go under if it cannot keep up with the speed of innovation.

Haroon Abbu: When I started at Bell and Howell, I quickly witnessed the same challenge, which is transitioning from a Legacy Mail equipment manufacturing company, into state-of-the-art technology enabled services company, as well as a solution provider for cutting edge technologies in click-and-collect business. While working at Bell and Howell, I also pursued my Ph.D. on digital transformation, where I studied, how physical companies digitally transform themselves. I strongly believe that digital transformation, when done right, can add tremendous value to an organization in number of ways.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. No, it's a really exciting field. I actually recently wrote an article. I've had a few people in the last couple months ask me, "Do you think we should still be using the term digital transformation?" Right? And-

Haroon Abbu: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Sarah Nicastro: ... So I sort of reflected on that in the article because I do get where they're coming from and there's a couple different points that have been made. One is some people perceive that they have already transformed in the instance of the initial migration to a digital ecosystem.

Haroon Abbu: Right.

Sarah Nicastro: And then, is transformation the appropriate word if we're really talking about something that's more of an ongoing continual effort? What are your thoughts on that?

Haroon Abbu: Definitely. It's not digital transformation because it's table stakes. All companies need to go through digital transformation. We nowadays effort to has just digital. It's companies, how companies can innovate their business models using digital technologies-

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: ... Because digital actually magnifies the traditional metrics. In the olden days, if you're getting one X return on something, once we have the backbone under digital systems, then the impact is multifold because-

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: ... The investment is already made, then it's basically scaling up from there.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So it's basically how companies can use digital in their strategy.

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Haroon Abbu: There is no business strategy in digital strategy because digital is the strategy.

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Haroon Abbu: Because if they don't have digital, then it's very difficult to manage your business going forward.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So what I said was, "You could call it the digital journey. You could call it the digital..." What was the other term I used? Something like that. The problem is-

Haroon Abbu: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: ... People hate all of those words. Do you know what I mean? There's always someone that says, "Oh, I'm sick of journey" or "I'm sick of transformation" or whatever. And at the end of the day, it really isn't so much what we call it, but a common understanding within the business that digital is an imperative part of the business and the strategy. Right? And I kind of laid it out into a continuum just based on the stories that I've heard and helped tell over a number of years of how companies tend to progress through that.

Haroon Abbu: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: I think honestly the definition and that common understanding can be a challenge in and of itself for businesses. What are some of the other ways you see companies struggling to really succeed with digital?

Haroon Abbu: Yeah. So digital, the classic definition that I use is it's the process of using digital technologies to create or modify business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet the changing business and market requirements, right? So it's basically a fundamental change in the organization's mindset, systems, data, and tools, all that need to be together, needed to reposition the entire company and company's business model. So we, when I say we, I basically, it's the research teams that I work with at innovation departments of two prestigious universities. One is Business Analytics Initiative of North Carolina State University, which is headquartered here, which is located in Raleigh. And Innovation Department at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. So we first studied the phenomenon of digital transformation through an extensive survey that we designed called Patterns of Digitization survey. So this survey examined every aspect of digital and how it is implemented.

Haroon Abbu: We looked at over 500 companies, their business strategies, how they allocate resources, their design practices, et cetera. In addition to that technology angle, we also analyzed the people side of things, what we call soft skills-

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: ... How their leaders communicate, how they build trust in their teams, et cetera. And what we realized, or what we saw was that companies fall into two distinct groups. One is digitally developing companies. The other one is digitally mature. Far majority of those 500 companies where digitally developing versus digitally mature companies. The companies that focus mainly on technology rather than cultural and mindset aspects of digital are really struggling to implement it.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. That makes sense. Absolutely. And there's so many layers to this where you realize that it's also about incorporating new skill sets, right? So the role that you've taken on and in Bell and Howell is a really good example of dedicating more resource, energy, and effort to this practice. Right? And, sometimes I think companies struggle to figure out how they need to digitally advance without recognizing some of the new and different skill sets that are necessary within the organization to really go as far as they need to. Does that make sense?

Haroon Abbu: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Haroon Abbu: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: While also to your point, making sure that the incumbent people are understanding the evolution and bought into where the company is going and the introduction of different tools or different ways of measurement or different practices of making business decisions. All of the things that come from, not just the introduction of the digital tools, but as reflected in your title, the result of that is the data you didn't have access to before. And, the way that you can analyze the business in ways that you couldn't do prior. Right? So there's the idea of digital tools is really the beginning of this journey, not the finish line. Right?

Haroon Abbu: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Haroon Abbu: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: So if you look at a company that you consider digitally mature, who has done a really good job at this-

Haroon Abbu: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Sarah Nicastro: ... Versus someone earlier on in the process maybe a bit of a laggard or someone that still has quite a bit of work to do to digitally transform, what would you say would be the key differences that would sort of surface between those businesses?

Haroon Abbu: Yes. So we statistically validated these results. So the major driver for the differences between digitally mature and digitally developing companies is the differences in human dimensions of digital leaders, right? Digital mature organizations are managed differently. Their leaders align the human and financial resources with a strategy. They create an innovative culture, even within a Legacy environment like Bell and Howell, you create a collaborative environment, innovative environment, kind of entrepreneurial culture, promote open and transparent communication that enduring human traits of these leaders far outweigh the proficiency in the technology evolving field of information technology. Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: The knowledge of the technology is important. But it's also how you exhibit, how you promote the, that culture.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: How do you make digital part of your strategic priorities? It's the ability to engender trust of their employees. It's more about people than it's about digital technology.

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Haroon Abbu: So it actually requires organizational changes to the customer centric that's backed by leaders.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So that's pretty much what we found is that the leaders, they trust their teams. They put leadership in place. They hire the right skill sets. They build credibility. They tell stories of when they're successful or their failure, so that employees are properly aligned to the theme of digital.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay. Now, would you say that there are some, I guess, common trends in terms of as a company moves from digitally developing to digitally mature, if you look at the people part, right?

Haroon Abbu: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Sarah Nicastro: So, I understand what you're saying. The impact of leadership and how leadership views this transformation and understands its role in acting as a motivator and acting as a connector but not needing to act as a doer of all things. Right? And, really trusting the team. Would you say there's any commonalities, though, in the new skills or new roles that you see companies bringing in to help support and build this out?

Haroon Abbu: Yes. So, the key thing is when you hire new people, trying to have them understand the value about the data. So it's basically starting out with what is that you're trying to do with the digital.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: It's not a buzzword anymore.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So what is your business goal? What is that your company try trying to do with digital transformation or digital tools? For example, take Bell and Howell. We were transforming a company from a manufacturing based mail production based company that was in rapid decline 10 years ago, five years ago, and create new business models. We were transforming ourselves into a technology enabled people powered service organization. And in order to do that, in order to service other OEMs in the robotic space and in other adjacent markets that we never handled before we needed new business models, including remote monitoring.

Haroon Abbu: And, we are able to connect because our existing Break-Fix model no longer works when we are servicing retail, one of the largest retailer with 5,000 stores.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: We had to do more with remote monitoring. So how do we do remote monitoring? We had to obviously put the digital backbone with IOT machine learning algorithms where analytics data is the underpinning.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So we had to do that. And now, at this point at, we are remotely monitoring 98% of our service calls on this new click-and-collect, the retail focus product. And in order to do that, we need to win over our technicians. We need to start small and show them that, hey, there is value here.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: You're able to resolve an issue in 10 minutes. And the remote monitoring platform, the digital backbone we put together is going to tell you what the issue is.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: And then there is that contextual information. So you're able to fix a problem in 10 minutes, rather than having to roll the trucks and resolve, or take it for, three hours or four hours. We just cannot scale that model. Right?

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Haroon Abbu: So they see that as sucks. So when they see that, okay, now I see the value of data. These guys are really modeling it, algorithm, using algorithms to minimize the attention needed to these machines.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So when those machines are calling home, meaning our home office, creating a service call, alerting them, and then if they cannot fix it in the same field service management system, dispatching a technician based on geolocation, based on skill sets, et cetera.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: That's really a win. So they see that. And when they see that as successful, then the culture slowly starts to change.

Sarah Nicastro: Sure.

Haroon Abbu: So that, okay, there is innovation happening. There is value in data that I see, and then they are on your side. Right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So yeah, technology played a key role, but do they need to know how we solve this using algorithms, machine learning, artificial intelligence? No, they don't need to know that.

Sarah Nicastro: No. Right.

Haroon Abbu: Yeah. They don't need to know the technology details. But just focusing on technology details is not going to win them over.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So right from the top management, we need to make this strategically intentional-

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: ... Analytics and digital is strategically intentional. It's not because everybody else is doing.

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Haroon Abbu: No it's part of our strategy. We need to make sure this happens. And then we talk about it. We talk more about it. We share the success stories.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: And then the whole organization becomes part of it.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Haroon Abbu: We are not there quite yet, but I think we are making progress.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: Same thing, we implemented KPIs, field service performance metrics. This is how we measure our success. This is how our OEMs measure our success.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: That's defined throughout the company. And we measure it in real time using the digital platform that we put together.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So we see how those then cause improvements in our operational efficiencies, et cetera.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So that's, it takes, it's a journey, as you said. It takes time.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: But digital for me is a lot more than technology. Technology is important. You need the right people to get to understand the technology.

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Haroon Abbu: But it's bringing that, bringing people on board.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: It's changing their mindset.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: It's very critical for our success.

Sarah Nicastro: I think it's also, I agree a hundred percent, but I also think there's this kind of stumbling block. And so I mentioned that continuum, right?

Haroon Abbu: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: And there seems to be this stumbling block where, like you said, digital today is table stakes, right? So we're not talking about, should we and all of that stuff, right? It's a given.

Haroon Abbu: Right.

Sarah Nicastro: But I think you have some leaders who understand it's important and advocate for it. But where they get stuck is all of a sudden they have this wealth of data that they don't know what to do with. Right? So then it becomes, they've gotten a certain ways to the end game, right, which is really being able to not have digital tools for the sake of digital tools, but have digital tools for the sake of extracting the relevant insights and stories from the data to make better decisions or to solve more issues remotely or to create a new customer value proposition. Right?

Haroon Abbu: Yep. Yep.

Sarah Nicastro: And so from the analytics and the storytelling perspective, what is the best advice you have there for making sure that you are not just going down this path because you know you need to, but going down this path with the right outcomes in mind?

Haroon Abbu: Yeah, exactly. It's starting with the right outcome.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: What is the business objective, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: What is the business objective? What are the business questions you're trying to answer with data and what digital tools you need to do that?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: For example, in Bell and Howell case, if our goal is to provide or invent or innovate new business models to grow our service business because we are no longer servicing our own equipment, we are servicing 50 plus other OEM equipment. So we needed a new business model, which is remote monitoring, remote collaboration tools, et cetera. So, that's our business model. We needed to innovate the business model from traditional Break-Fix to more on the predictive, prescriptive side, right? So, that was our business model innovation. So in order to do that, what did we need? We needed a digital backbone, right?

Haroon Abbu: Which takes these machine log information in real-time from these machines. And then we put together IOT based platform that built a model on, okay, if this and this, the error logs happen, this is your likely action. Basically, intelligent with algorithms and then connect that to our field service management system.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So, that service call gets created. And then it's visualized service call can be closed. It can visualize using Tableau platform, et cetera, et cetera. So, that was our business need. And that's how we solved using digital tools.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: The second thing is we needed to improve our operational efficiency, which is one of the main starting block in any continuum. For example, that you're talking about focus on your operational efficiencies. In order to do that, we need to come up with some KPIs. We are out of this organization, but we did not really have a commonly communicated, commonly defined performance metrics.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: And so we defined that based on some of the best practices. And then we developed a method to measure those metrics in real time for each OEM. And also for every technician, what's his tech utilization? What his first time fixed rate? What is his call, close rate? All that kind of stuff, so we can provide a scorecard with the idea that if we improve that we'll obviously achieve some operational efficiencies and then we'll also be able to present that to our OEMs. So they can also see how we are improving towards the whole.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Haroon Abbu: So yeah. So all in all it comes down to, what's your main objective?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: Which is tied to a strategy.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah.

Haroon Abbu: You have to tie that to the strategy and then go get the data. You may not have all the data. Or whatever data we think we have been collecting may be useless.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: Right? So define the problem and then see if you have data. If you don't have data, put systems in place where we can collect the data and then improve, refine the data, so that will ultimately lead us to operational improvement or in the case of remote monitoring, et cetera, new business models.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: That should be some of the analytics driven path towards digital. But analytics driven path for improvement are new business models using digital technologies and tools.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. Alright. So speaking of data, in the book, you did this research and so you had this analysis of digital based on the statistics that you found.

Haroon Abbu: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: But you also incorporated interviews. So tell me a little bit about the importance and the value you found in talking directly with other digital leaders to put the content for the book together.

Haroon Abbu: Yeah. So as you said, we had compelling statistics based on the studies that we have done. But we wanted to go and talk to successful digital leaders.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So we interviewed 15 digital leaders in the U.S., as well as, in Germany. We know they're successful based on their track record. These are proven companies with proven successes in digital transformation. So they included CEOs and Chief Data Officers, business unit leaders from automobiles, medical equipment, IT services, and lot of different fields. So, these interviews showed us that the strength of their leadership based on what they told us comes as much from their personal character, as it does from their competencies to deploy digital technologies. So most of these leaders actually model human dimensions to build trust in their organization.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: Most of the Chief Data Officers, what we have found is the average tenure is two to three years. So they need to make sure, and CDO roles are pretty much recent, so they're basically have to work together with a lot of other Cs, a lot of other business here leaders, we call them their boundary spans boundary, spanning capabilities.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So they need to be able to work with multiple departments and multiple people. So they need to have growth mindset. They need to have storytelling capabilities, et cetera. And after talking to these 15 digital leaders, we methodically, using content analysis, actually developed a scale to measure human dimensions of digital leaders.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So there are 15 human dimensions that came out of these studies as well as interviews. And actually there is a self-assessment tool on our website patternsofdigitization.com, where digital leaders can actually go and take that survey. And it actually shows them how they are doing on various dimensions like storytelling or ethical use of AI or growth mindset or humility, integrity, et cetera.

Haroon Abbu: It shows them where they are lacking so that they can measure themselves or they can have their team measure them. So that's part of our research, continuing research. They're also, we are also in the process of developing some tools that will help them improve their skills that are in deficit.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: Sometimes these are, these seem to be trivial, but they're not really trivial. It matters a lot when you are implementing a major company wide initiative. How do you really make sure that they're successful? And as you know, most of the times technology, yeah. Implementation of technology is one thing.

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Haroon Abbu: Even field service management system, for example. But it's after that, what happens? How is it internalized by the people, by the employees in the organization?

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. What would you say, Haroon, has been the hardest? Personally, Larry Blue, the CEO of Bell and Howell has been on the podcast before as well. And I think the company has a really cool story of how you really reshape the identity of the business. It is a really compelling story. That being said, I'm sure it wasn't easy. So, looking back on that journey, what would you say was the hardest part of digitally transforming the Legacy Bell and Howell business?

Haroon Abbu: Yeah. Again, I've been here for 12 years. The hardest part is getting people on board. Right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: That's the hardest part because in a company that has a history dating back to, I guess, 1906, there have been several iterations. There are a lot of employees here with long, long tenure. So they've seen everything, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: The thing is, why is this different? The same as anything else, so we have to show the value in what we are doing. That's more important. Plus, the support and direction from leaders like Larry Blue makes a big difference. Right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So one of the thing that we have learned is, as I said, when we are successful in making a change to the business model, remote monitoring is a perfect example, people automatically buy in. So next time they ask, okay, can we get this?

Haroon Abbu: So that becomes part of the culture. The other thing is, when we work with multiple machines, even our engineering department, they would write a machine log like a log file in for a machine, before until we started this initiative, they would just write it, thinking that nobody's going to look at it.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: Now they understand that analytics actually is taking that piece of error log that they're writing on the machine to drive remote monitoring, to drive when to dispatch a technician. After a couple of years now, engineers are fully on board with that.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: When they design a new system, like the one we recently did, it's a grocery pickup machine. When they did it, it's completely designed for serviceability with machine logs, knowing that, analyst actually worked very well together on that initiative so that we can, they will write a machine log, et cetera, and even machine log, et cetera, write it in a way that we can use it for predictive and prescriptive maintenance.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So that took time. It didn't happen overnight.

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Haroon Abbu: So as people see how you're successful or how analytics can be used in multiple ways to help the company, to help the service organization, to eventually help technicians and employees, that will make it different. So, we had some obstacles, but I think we are at a point where we have slowly started to change the mindset and we are seeing some of their successes.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool. And I think, in your role and you mentioned the role of the Chief Data Officer, the idea of someone who's harmonizing things is very important, right? Because one of the biggest barriers to success we see with digital transformation is it, companies attempting to do it in a very siloed way right? Which is kind of the opposite of what needs to be. Right? And so, I think that's an important point as well is to really think about not just how imperative it is to overall strategy, but how important it is to have that consistency and that collaborative view on how it can happen.

Haroon Abbu: Yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. Last question for today, Haroon. If you were to summarize, some key takeaways for folks listening on this digital journey, what would you leave folks with?

Haroon Abbu: Yeah, I would say that people are the key to digital transformation. Yes, bring in the right technologies. But you know, if you embrace Cloud, you can actually scale up or scale down technology elasticity of the Cloud gives you that opportunity to adopt these new technologies as you, as business conditions change.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: And secondly, start small and get some early success and always try to build trust in the organization that way the benefits of digital can be felt across the organization. Lastly, as far as the industry is concerned, I know your audience is field service organizations. My take is that the data landscape, it's probably not as mature or as some other industries. So there is a lot more potential to innovate faster beyond remote monitoring. There's a lot more opportunity to use AI and ML. So, for example, most of the field people who are in the field service organization, Field Service USA conference that you and I attended, we mostly the operations side.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So I strongly believe that there should be more analytics representation, so analytics folks don't just work in isolation.

Sarah Nicastro: Right.

Haroon Abbu: They need to hear the real-time problems.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: They need to hear it from the people who are running these service operations, right?

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Haroon Abbu: So it's always good idea to have that kind of balance so analytics can become main ingredient of success for field service organizations.

Sarah Nicastro: Mm-hmm (affirmative). For sure. Yeah. That makes sense. And, and I agree and I appreciate you coming and sharing your insights. I think it's a huge topic. There's probably a lot of different areas we could dig into in terms of the storytelling and all of that stuff. But, I like the point that it's just as much about people as it is about technology. I think it's a really important point. So thank you for coming on and sharing and, Haroon, if folks want to check out the book Trust, where can they find that?

Haroon Abbu: The website is patternssofdigitization.com.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay.

Haroon Abbu: There's a link to the book from that website. Also, there's more research in that website and also self- assessment tool where you can measure the human dimensions of digital leaders.

Sarah Nicastro: Excellent. Okay. So patternssofdigitization.com is where you can find the book. Haroon, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.

Haroon Abbu: Thank you, Sarah, for doing this and your thought leadership in this space. Thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: Thank you. You can find more by visiting us at futureoffieldserviceref.ifs.com. You can also find us on LinkedIn as well as Twitter @TheFutureOfFS. The Future of Field Service podcast is published in partnership with IFS. You can learn more at ifs.com. As always, thank you for listening.

Stay Connected

Related Content

A Focus on Efficiency is Only the Tip of the AI Iceberg – Expert Advice for Considering What Comes Next

Bridging the Innovation Gap: From Ambition to Execution in Modern Business

How ACCO Engineered Systems Aims to Lead the Charge in Service Innovation

Most Recent

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

A Focus on Efficiency is Only the Tip of the AI Iceberg – Expert Advice for Considering What Comes Next

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

January 12, 2022 | 29 Mins Read

Sharing Strategies to Close the Skills Gap

January 12, 2022 | 29 Mins Read

Sharing Strategies to Close the Skills Gap

Share

Sarah facilitates a discussion with Cedrick Rochet, BU Operations Manager at Intel Corporation; Newland McKelvey, Core Delivery Director at Fujitsu; Krish Venkataraman, Head of Global Operations, Transformation & Customer Success Asia Pacific, India & Japan at Hewlett Packard Enterprise; and Kshitiz Agarwal, and independent consultant about the unique and creative approaches their organizations are taking to improve recruiting, hiring, onboarding, engagement, and retention.

Sarah Nicastro: Thank you, James. Hello, everyone. Happy to be here with you all today with a wonderful panel. We're going to have a discussion on this panel about the skills gap, the labor shortage, the talent gap, you hear it referred to in many of these ways. And talking about some of the actions companies can take, both on the people side and on the technology side, to address this challenge. So, as James said, my name is Sarah Nicastro, I am a part of IFS and I actually run a thought leadership resource called Future of Field Service. So I interview folks regularly about their business transformation journeys and am thrilled to be here with four great guests today. So I'm going to ask you all to introduce yourselves briefly. Cedrick, do you mind going first?

Cedrick: Yeah, sure, Sarah. So hello, everyone. My name is Cedrick, I'm currently working at Intel Corporation, so it's a processor company. And specifically in the branch of Intel called Internet of Things Group for Autonomous Driving Cars. So all the latest fancy stuff there. And so a little bit about me, so I have basically 10 years in engineering in the last 10 years, much more on the business side where currently I am running the operations of the business units.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay.

Cedrick Rochet: So that's it.

Sarah Nicastro: Thanks for being here. Newland?

Newland McKelvey: Hello. Hello everyone, my name's Newland McKelvey. I'm core delivery director of Fujitsu, so responsible for day-to-day delivery of the managed services that are provided to a big, major public sector body. And actually prior to that, was responsible for the setup of trader support service, which is the customs intermediary supporting organizations dealing with the sort of outcomes of Brexit need for those things to be handled in a new way. And I've been with the company a few years, actually, James, we've just been speaking, we were talking last week and I realized I joined Fujitsu before James was born. So one of those quirks of life, but yeah, so glad to be here.

Sarah Nicastro: Excellent. Krish?

Krish Venkataraman: Hello everyone. My name is Krish Venkataraman. I'm part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which you know needs no introduction, those in the IT industry. And I'm looking after the Asia Pacific and Japan customer operations, global operations, and the customer experience. Part of that, that's my area of focus. I'm based in Singapore, like what Newland said, maybe I joined this company before James was born as well. So that was back in 1988, so it's a long time. Thank you, very happy to be here. I look forward to a great session. Thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: Thank you. All right. Kshitiz?

Kshitiz Agarwal: Thanks Sarah. So hello everyone. My name is Kshitiz Agarwal and I'm currently working as a self-employed consultant where I'm helping small businesses with their clean energy transition. I'm a former site service director with Mitsubishi Power. And one part of my role is to develop the teams for these energy transition and prepare our training strategy. So I'm really looking forward to learning from all of you and sharing some insight. Thank you.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay, great. All right, so as James said in the introduction, this recording is going to live on for eternity, so we're going to make sure we make it a good talk. So I want to start off just by everyone weighing in a bit on how is the labor shortage or skills gap impacting each of your businesses. Okay, so let's just kind of level set with what is this issue meaning to you in your organization. So we can just go around again, if that's okay? Cedrick, if you could start?

Cedrick Rochet: So yeah, so currently labor shortage is quite an interesting topic at Intel because every world area has actually different dynamics. So for what, Intel being based in the West Coast, we have tremendous talent pressure on the West Coast of the US. And also in quite specific spots where you have other IT or technology companies, such as Ireland or Munich area or Singapore also, I mean, quite a few spots, Malaysia, for example, where we have competitors that are present also because we build the ecosystem around as we grow, there are also factories around ours over time. And so essentially right now, it is a little bit of a challenge for skills, specifically experienced individuals. And at every levels, from the engineer that is starting until the senior vice president that are being taken from one competitor to the other. So it's touching us at every level.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. All right. And Newland, what about you?

Newland McKelvey: Again, with Fujitsu, and sort of echoing Cedrick, it's a global issue for a company like ourselves as well, where we've got global delivery centers as well as regional centers. And the experience and skills shortage is impacting across the board. And that can be in deep technical specialism or even in more generic skills, like experienced project managers in development or service setup and transitions, equally down to simple things like, or more simple things, like actually even standing up a support center now. There's just such a huge demand across the base and a lot of competition out there. And it's getting the right people in, but equally retaining and actually encouraging people from years ago instead of going to IT, I find ourselves doing other things that we'll probably talk about later.

Sarah Nicastro: Sure. Yep. Okay, Krish?

Krish Venkataraman: Yep. This is great question. And good input also from Cedrick and Newland. The way I look at it is also I used to wonder at times on the one side, we will take any countries' numbers. They'll say there is X number of people unemployed, at the same time, there are Y number of openings, roles that are there that they can't find the people. So be it in any industry, be it in manufacturing, technology, customer service industries, anywhere, the gap more I see that as the fit between what we need and what we have. And whether the people are building to see themselves as a different person. For example, there's a one quote I wanted to share with the team. It was predicted in 2012, hey, you're going to have two sets of jobs, the jobs that somebody will tell the computer what to do, and then the jobs that the computer will tell them what to do.

Krish Venkataraman: Okay. So these two divides, however, we all know in our whole day, different times, we act in different roles. There is one task I do what my computer tells me to do, and 10 minutes later, I'm doing a task that I tell the computer what to do. So it's not always this one side or the other. Now but the challenge here is how do we accept that? How do we internalize that? And how do we help the people recognize that and play that correctly? That's where I generally see some gaps as well, because I may have good set of candidates, good set of pool of people, but they are not having that right skill set and right training to do the right thing. So how do we bridge that gap is definitely a thing we'll be talking further, but that's how I see as the gap.

Sarah Nicastro: Okay. All right. And Kshitiz?

Kshitiz Agarwal: So basically, I'm from energy industry. So I had a little bit different perspective and different set of a challenge. So right now, because the energy industry is going through the massive transition. So it is a kind of an imbalance between the skilled workforce, as well as adaptation to the required or new skills due to digitalization. And this is happening, from my experience, this is happening because of two reason. One is specifically because of aging workforce. And secondly, it's because they are not enough new or young people coming into the industry, especially to the blue collar job that had created massive gap between the industry. So as Krish said, it's the right matching the skills as well as matching what is available in the market is right. But at the same time, I think the perception of the industry or perception of the job taken toward the market or toward globally basically, is also important in this, play a key role in the skill gap.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So I'm looking, as we're talking, I'm looking at my long list of questions and realizing there's no way we're going to get through all of them. There's a lot to dig into related to this topic and it's one of my favorite topics to discuss. So instead I'm going to try and make sure we get to four questions at least. And then if we have time, we'll come back to some of the others. So the first thing that I think is interesting is really having a conversation around what we're calling this issue. So you hear it referred to as the labor shortage, the talent gap, the skills gap, the experience gap. And those are all really different things. And so I think one of the first questions we have to ask ourselves, for each of our individual businesses, is what is this problem to us? Which of those is it?

Sarah Nicastro: So what I mean by that is, I think historically... Now we're on a panel with people from different industries, different geographies, so we have to kind of look at things from a high level. But I think historically, most organizations, for most roles, are accustomed to hiring based on experience. And so I think one of the biggest issues with this topic is that I don't know that I believe we have a skills gap or a talent gap. I think there are people with skills and there are people with talents, they just may not have the experience that we, as organizations, are accustomed to be able to hire based on. And so I did a presentation on this topic a few weeks ago and it was around controlling the controllables. Because the labor shortage, the actual statistics around how many people are available to hire in any given location, isn't something you can necessarily control, but your perspective on this as an experience gap versus a talent gap versus a skills gap, those are things you can control.

Sarah Nicastro: And I think the first thing we need to do is take a look at our historical recruiting and hiring practices and ask ourselves: Do we need to adjust to today? So if we're always looking for people with X number of years experience, is there a way to achieve the same outcome by looking for different criteria in the folks that we're looking to hire? So the first thing I wanted to talk about is just your thoughts on that and any you've made within the business, or have thought about making within the business, to sort of shift from looking for experience, to looking for the skills, traits, characteristics, abilities you need, and finding ways to provide some of that experience. So that's the first point. Does anyone want to volunteer to go first?

Kshitiz Agarwal: So yeah, I can start. First of all, the thing is we cannot generalize the skill experience and the talent. It depends on the geographies, it depends on the industry. In some industry, it is required to have more experience than other, because it might be life in that situation. So we cannot generalize that. But I think from the industry where I am right now, traditionally and currently as well, the priority is always given to experience than young members. But because of this gap that we are facing between the aging and the young people right now, companies have started looking at the different perspective. One of the perspectives is as simple as looking at the talent or new workforce from the global perspective, rather than geography location. That is the one way they're tackling it. Another way they're tackling it is engaging to the indirect recruitment process, which is more they get engaged with the new graduates right from the time in their university, and then recruit them and train them.

Kshitiz Agarwal: Apart from that, from my experience, there's... We all heard about the apprenticeship program, especially in Germany. Those programs actually, over the period in history, they prove themselves very, very effective way, especially in mechanical industry or electrical industry. And I believe more and more organization right now are coming up with these program, apprenticeship program and the graduate programs, to bridge that gap so that they can train the people or train the new employee right from the base foundation level to the place where they need them to be at to bridge this gap.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah, that's a really good point. And I certainly was not suggesting we just put people that are not capable of a certain job in role. It was exactly what you're saying. How do we become more creative about ways to sort of farm talent instead of just looking for it ready-made. So things like what you're saying are exactly my point, which is it really comes down to, as organizations, we may need to do more work than we've done historically because we just don't have a wealth of people to bring into the business that have 5, 10 years’ experience. So we have to look at how do we give them the training, the experience, the time they need to be capable, but take some more responsibility for doing that. Yeah, go ahead Newland.

Newland McKelvey: Yeah. So I was going to actually just going to build on what's has been said, because I think, in terms of apprentice programs, grad programs, et cetera, those have all proved, across many industries, including IT, whatever, really, really beneficial. But one thing that we've been doing over the last few years, and not just ourselves but I've seen it elsewhere, is when we look to recruit or appoint new roles, we don't just look within, I'll call it, the professional communities for want of better description, but actually look even internally outside that. For instance, so when you're bringing somebody, and I've seen examples where someone from a finance background has become a manager of a development team over time. And the reason for that is that the good thing is that they know the company, they maybe got a few years to understand, if you like, the mechanics of the organization. So they don't have that as a learning curve.

Newland McKelvey: Then supporting those people from sort of those diverse non-technical backgrounds, who have good management skills, to actually become managers in an area where we desperately need someone come along and really help build teams, et cetera. Where they've got the skills, it's just bringing the technical level up as well to support that. And I think that's helped us several times in the past where we've had gaps.

Sarah Nicastro: And a lot of the conversations that I've had on this topic, Newland, kind of echo that approach, which is if you find the right, whatever you want to call them, core skills, soft skills, you can provide the technical knowledge needed in many cases to compliment that. So that kind of opens up doors for you to look in different industries, different areas, things like that. Also, I recorded a podcast on this topic at an event I was at last week and one of the things, I think Cedrick you said, this isn't a challenge for just entry level workforce, it's a challenge all the way up. But one of the points that came up in that conversation is that a lot of younger workers, they don't come into a role and plan to stay there for 20 years. They want progression. So if you can kind of restructure the way you look at your recruiting and hiring practices and figure out how to map them up within the business, it gives them the progression and growth that they want, but also helps you when comes to filling roles above just the entry level.

Sarah Nicastro: So Cedrick, what have you seen in terms of ways that that Intel has adapted here?

Cedrick Rochet: So Intel is a very interesting company. Before being at Intel, I was working at Emerson Electric, which was a very industrial company. And now being at Intel, I see a very culture shift, mostly, maybe because Intel is West Coast based where also ecosystem and the startups is over there. But actually as much as an industrial company, you have people that were staying 5, 10 years on a job, when I was a younger professional, I was seeing that. Nowadays, when I am at Intel, actually, you see, well, the person is expected to stay maybe three, maximum five years on the role before moving up. Now what's happening is that also, I have to be honest, Intel has a huge competitive advantage is that we have a huge skills and talent pool within our employees. I mean, we are a rich company.

Cedrick Rochet: And to give you an idea, the quality department of Intel is about a thousand people, 800 of them have PhDs. So just when we speak about talent pool, that's what we need. To have people with PhD and MBAs, standard. You cross them everywhere almost. So when you take these people, you can almost have them going from one job to the other with too much problematic. Now that said, you still have to retain these talents. And it's not because you have great foundations, as I was saying, but you need also to close the talent or the gap that is a problem that you have to solve on that moment. And compared to other companies, at Intel, we have an internal volunteering program. So how does it work?

Cedrick Rochet: And also this is also coming from the West Coast, it's basically you have for over five years, you accumulate vacation days and at some point you go on sabbatical. Meaning that for five weeks, in a batch, you go out and when you come back, you still have a job. Now what's happening is during these five weeks, somebody needs to take care of the job. And so we create what we call GIGS where somebody that has nothing to do or is interested maybe in this role, can apply so as a temporary gap filler, if you want, and test the job itself. And maybe as a person moves on to the next job, basically somebody is kind of seeing what's going on in that role and has to be experienced. I mean, five week is not tremendous experience, he's not going to break anything really. But still you get a look and feel about what it means or are you feeling ready for taking on this job, maybe in another organization.

Cedrick Rochet: I mean, Intel, we have the, the advantage of the size. So we have a huge internal job market that address many, many people. And so in order to fill these gaps of talents gaps that we might have, this is one of the way, by doing this so-called GIGS, temporary work that is outside of your standard job that can help on filling that gap. Something that I've never seen in any other companies that I've been into before Intel.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. And you bring up really good points, Cedrick, which is you mentioned the approach at Intel is far different than that of Emerson. And so I think you have that a lot with companies that are more on the modern, innovative type of culture versus something that has more legacy. And I think that's where these type of conversations become very important, because that doesn't mean that someone with a completely different culture can just mimic what Intel is doing. But I think this is an area where companies need to look at what others are doing and maybe just have some thoughts. So it doesn't need to be a blueprint for how they go back and do it, but just some different, new, fresh ideas to bring in and to try some different things.

Sarah Nicastro: Because I think we can all agree that this problem demands more creativity than perhaps we've leveraged before. So Krish, I want to come to you and ask certainly if you have any insight on kind of where you're finding new candidates, that's fine. But the other part of sort of the recruiting side is for new places to find folks and maybe changing the criteria upon which you use to hire a bit, but also making sure that you are speaking the language of the people you're trying to hire and making sure that the roles are appealing to the candidates that you are addressing today. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about any changes that have been made or any work that's been done to make sure that as you're recruiting, you're offering an appealing opportunity for people that you're looking to bring into the business.

Krish Venkataraman: Great. Thanks Sarah. So let me start off answering that in a couple of parts. First one, the way we look at things is, as you know, Hewlett Packard Enterprise operates in 190 countries. So there's no one size fits all for us. The challenges are different in different geographies. So what we are doing as a starting point is see a need to rebrand the way we sell a role to the candidates. What appeals in different geographies, we need to be cognizant of. For example, in some geographies, the people want to know how am I contributing to the vision of the company, how am I part of the success story, how am I part of the community contribution that we are making. So that's very important for them. We also want to take the value properly. It's not just a job, it's not just a role.

Krish Venkataraman: We take the total value proposition of being part of Hewlett Packard Enterprise in different dimensions. So it's beyond just compensation and benefits. Looking at the career advancement, work environment, culture of the organization, and also the ability for an individual to shape the way they want to take their career development, personal development, forward in any direction they want. So that culture of the organization promotes that very well. People could walk across and do a shadow assignment in another part of the organization, no barrier. People could ask for a stretch assignment. Somebody could be maybe in finance, but they want to go and do a stretch assignment in marketing, vice versa, or some other areas, even in geographic stretch assignment. So all those facilities are there for the people to take advantage of that. And it also helps them to shape, determine, take control of their own career path and career direction.

Krish Venkataraman: And nobody's telling them what to do, but the options are there. So that's the real important cultural shift and the framework that we have in place to support that. Now in terms of how we look for also candidates or also, we need a good diverse set of candidates. So we we talk about the diversity equity and inclusion. So we want to make sure that that is practiced at all levels of the company. And actually, it's also part of my key focus area. Every year I measured on how many of those mix I am managing and continuously nurturing those mix of different things. It's not just the gender diversity, cultural diversity, and various other forms that we do want differentiate between how people want to express themselves or how they want to identify themselves, but how they can be part of the team and complement each other.

Krish Venkataraman: And we have a thing called Employee Resource Group, which is an internal community that's really, really supported right from the CEO level, to grow this further. At the same time, we also shifted our focus a little bit, we're using automation, for example. Quite often, this, what you call, unconscious biased comes in in the way we are writing something, on the way we are expressing something. So using a lot of automation to identify them very early, filter them out. For example, the way a job description is written should be very, very neutral, location neutral and agenda neutral, all sorts of neutrality being brought in consciously into that. Even the employee value proposition, all the external internal communication, there is a lot of effort and focus also drives that. And people feel that, hey, I'm part of this organization that do not differentiate this and values diversity. So we see this definitely helping both.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So you brought up a couple really good points. And I did a podcast a while back with the woman who runs talent globally at Tetra Pak. And it was all about the move to outcomes-based recruiting and hiring. So I think it's a great episode for anyone to go and look up, but it's this idea of, well, there's more to it than just job descriptions. But what you just said about job descriptions, there's this idea of are we putting words or things in here that are going to have people leave themselves out that may be a really good fit? So are we limiting ourselves? How do we kind of get to the root of what is the outcome of this role and leave it with strictly things related to that so that you get a good broad pool of diverse candidates to apply?

Sarah Nicastro: The other thing is this idea of, and this probably sounds obvious, but you would be shocked how many companies aren't doing it, which is when is the last time you updated or revisited your employee value proposition. Do you know what is important to candidates that are coming into the workforce right now? It's not just about money, it's not just about collecting a paycheck. They want to feel heard, they will want to be empowered, they want to feel they're making a difference, they want to feel a part of something bigger than themselves, they want opportunities for career development, they want flexibility. So starting to look at are we providing those things and are we articulating that we're providing those things. Because what matters to candidates today is different than it was 5, 10 years ago.

Sarah Nicastro: So this kind of segues us into the next topic I want to talk about, which is retention. So Cedrick, if you can kind of start off and just share. This is kind of a natural segue because you bring people in with sort of this value proposition. And then it becomes a game of making sure that they are engaged, empowered, that they're having a fulfilling employee experience so that they want to stay. So what's your take, Cedrick, on retention?

Cedrick Rochet: So retention is quite, I mean, it's quite a vast topic. And over the years, essentially, to keep employees, companies are, I mean, at least at Intel, we are trying many different areas and trying to tailor, actually, to where even to the person is in his life cycle. From the young engineer that comes into Intel, that wants to revolutionize a world, that has plenty of energy and coding and things like this that wants to do this, to the younger adult that, I mean, later adult that wants to start a family. And so we have programs such as parental leaves, where basically I want to take care of my kids, they are bored and so on and so, but without the fear of losing your job at the same time. Then for later, when you are more experienced, then basically it might be going into an expert track or into a leadership track.

Cedrick Rochet:  So you have, for example at Intel, for that, your salary... I mean, many times, and if I go back to my Emerson Electric experience, many times if you want grow, it was just go up the ladder, more people you manage, the bigger you are, da, da, da, da, da, da. At Intel, actually, there's a difference between a leadership track, which is exactly it's the traditional, the more people you manage, the better, da, da, da, da, da, da, and you get the salary increase. But there is also the engineering track, so basically you become a specialist from the young engineer to a principal engineer to a fellow who is on standards committee that is influence standards directions at the national level. And the great thing is actually the same thing as a leadership. It doesn't have the same name, but essentially you have the same grade, we call that grade internally, but you can be a senior vice president and just be a simple engineer, but because you are basically helping on steering committees for international standards, you are at the same level or considered at the same level of grade as maybe a senior vice president.

Cedrick Rochet: So by creating these two possibilities for more experienced people to grow into what they aspire, basically you get much more retention and you adapt to basically the different stages that a person might be. And of course, I mean, and you have plenty of internal trainings, that is quite standard in every company. You have another thing that actually, and a little bit provocative, that we are doing also at Intel that I've never seen before, is what we call returnship. So basically when a person left the job because they want to raise their kids and come back 10 or 15 years later saying, well, now my kids are grown up, they don't need me anymore, so I would like to go back to the workforce. Well, you still need the period of adaptation and we call that returnship where we allow people that have been potentially 10 or 15 years out of the workforce to get started again. And this is something that I've not seen in many other companies that have been to.

Sarah Nicastro: I love that idea, Cedrick, especially because when you look at the impact that COVID had on women in the workforce, and I mean just how we need to look for ways to help and to build bridges for them back in and all of those things. I'm conscious that we are going to run out of time and James is going to get mad at me because we haven't gotten to questions. Newland, so here's what we're going to do. James is going to bear with us for just a moment. Newland, if you can answer the same question about retention and then for Krish and for Kshitiz, I have one other question and then we'll get to the audience questions. So Newland, what are your thoughts on retention?

Newland McKelvey: So for people coming into the company new, we've set a strategy that retention starts from onboarding, and that onboarding starts right at the first interview, your first of the recruiting engagements, and continues throughout. So by the time somebody lands in the company, they've already experienced both interface with their management, they'll have a body, they'll have had different events, and that's the external recruitment. Equally, going back to Cedrick's analogy of moving people about internally, we do have sort of something similar, it's called career pathways. If someone's keen then wants to move into a role from that, moving role internally can be quite a step change. And again, it's a similar principles, because you don't want someone coming into a team and finding it's the wrong role.

Newland McKelvey: So the first thing is, is what Cedrick's outlined, equally as well is then making sure that onboarding process and induction and everything else really works for people. And then the final thing is also the concept of career, which Krish and others have outlined, it is broader than the vertical. It's very much a you're looking for cone-shaped people where they've got a number of areas of expertise and more general knowledge, but rewarding that as well and recognizing that, so it's not just a vertical hierarchical pay and reward, but actually rewarding and what they bring and the outcomes that we talked about earlier, trying on build that.

Sarah Nicastro: And this is where the complexity comes in. Because you can understand what's important to your talent pool that you're looking to hire, and you can tell them that you're doing all of those things, but if they come in and that is not the reality, then you have no chance of keeping them. So you have to be marrying the work on the recruiting side with really making sure that you're evolving the employee experience and offering people a rewarding place to be so that they do want to stay. Okay, all right, we're going to try and do this in two minutes. You guys each get one minute and I want to ask... Krish, we'll start with you and then we'll move right over. I want to ask what role has technology played in alleviating, assist, helping with this challenge?

Krish Venkataraman: Okay. So in terms of technology, the basic thing, for example, let me give an example of automation. When we use automation to redesign the workflow and the operating model becomes so elegant makes the flow much more agile, collaborative, and also nonhierarchical, and it empowers the people at the right point to make the right decision so that there is no need to go back and forth. So clearly the technology has played such a big role here and it can be leveraged for many other areas in a similar way. And we find that to match that... So what does that mean is we need education people with different set of background, with a different set of knowledge and skills, to take the full advantage of that. One of the challenge we always find is even though the technology is there, the people are not really ready to go on and take full advantage of that. So if we have that cultural shift and the technology enablement with the right people at the right the skillset, I think we can the best out of that.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. Okay. And Kshitiz, your thoughts on technology?

Kshitiz Agarwal: So technology is playing a wider role right now, especially in mitigating this skill gap, what we're talking since the beginning. So for example, I was involved in developing a training program using AR and VR, augmented reality and virtual reality, to train the people on the health and safety side while working on the site. And similarly, there's also in energy industry specifically, there's an increased use of robotics, whether it's a remote control or autonomous robotics to do those job which are not required a human interaction. And not only it bridges the gap, but it also makes a safe working environment, which is more important at this moment. And from the point of view of the retention, again, technology is again making a huge difference as Krish rightly said. It bridges the gap, that hierarchical gap between the different people. And it enables different people from one role to easily shift from one role to another role and one job to another role, which they consider as a progression in their career path. So, yeah.

Sarah Nicastro: Yeah. So I always look at technology on the tactical side, the strategic side. So tactically, what are the ways we can leverage technology to help alleviate areas of this challenge? So is our current workforce optimized and fully utilized. So when you look at scheduling and things of that nature, are we appropriately using the people we do have? And then automation, are there aspects of work that are not value-add that we can automate to allow more capacity for our workforce to do really important things? I think a lot about knowledge capture and knowledge management. You have such a volume of expertise leaving the workforce, are you capturing that knowledge so it can continue to be leveraged? And then the point got brought up about augmented reality and different training tools to get people able faster to get into the workforce and to be impactful.

Sarah Nicastro: On the strategic side, Krish, I completely agree and it's obviously a completely different conversation. But the idea of what new roles need to exist? What reskilling and upskilling do we need to do to make sure that we're leveraging technology strategically as a part of our value proposition? Okay, so James, come on in and yell at me for going over. And I'm sorry, but it's such a good conversation, we should have allotted more time.

James: Yeah, no, don't worry. I'm not one to get mad. I'm not going to shout anyone. Let you guys do your thing. That was great. Yeah, I'm just conscious of our next speaker who's probably waiting in the little pre-check and worried that I'm not there. So we've got time for one question I think. We'll give hard stop after five minutes, just so I don't panic her. So question here from Christine: There are any recommendations as to the split you should have between retained employees versus outsourced contractors resourced to deliver digital innovation?

Cedrick Rochet: I will take this one if I may, because this is, actually, I think I would say it's a hot topic, not in every areas of the company, but in this. And most of the time what we are doing is that we are looking at whatever we are doing is the position a long-term. And what we mean by long-term is three years. So will be there jobs to be done for the next three years for a person to come on board. If yes, we open a job. If not, then we look at a contractor, contingency worker. And some areas of Intel, we have very few contingency workers. In others, which is much more customer project based with very short time turnarounds, then basically we use much more because we cannot predict really what is the next skills set the customers will ask us to support them.

Cedrick Rochet: And so it's very much becomes very customer oriented adaptation. But it doesn't mean that at a strategic level, we see... I mean, contingency workers or outsource workers cost a lot more. So there is also other times, strategic reviews internally to try to find the right balance. To be honest, we haven't found it yet. We look for it, but all the time trying to balance between the business objectives on one side, but also having a much more stable head count or strategic gaps that we might need. And it's always a balance between the two. And for that one, yeah, we try to do our best, but sometimes it's not that easy with business and our expenses.

James: Anyone have anything they want to add there just quickly?

Newland McKelvey: The one thing I would add is that odd enough to sort of let the lens that Cedrick applied slightly different in our type of organization, where we're actually looking at whether it's an area where we're growing, expanding, versus one where if we have a gap, but reality it's a legacy area. And if it's wherever we're growing and expanding, we want to bring in very specialist skills to help recruit, retain, and actually develop our own internal workforce. But the ultimate aim will be that. Whereas if it's legacy, we'll focus more on moving some of those people on and using contractor, external staff to sort of supplement. So we've got that sort of moving wheel of people internally as well. Krish, I'll let you speak.

Krish Venkataraman: Thank you. Quickly, one area we look at it, James, is transformation. Organizational transformation. Organizations go through continuous transformation. It's not always that the organization may have the right skills, knowledge internally to do the transformation. They need that external help to do the transformation, and then the internal core organization can continue to move onto the new platform and operate, but the need to shift them to move that. That's where I think the external sourcing would be very helpful.

James: Brilliant. Thank you guys. I would love to let everyone else chat for another few minutes, but I'm afraid we have to call it day there. All I'd say is when we overrun a bit like this, it's always suggestive of a great conversation. So thanks so much guys. I'm sure you'll all stay in contact and likewise. Sorry to anyone who didn't get their question answered. If you are going to the agenda tab, you can find each of us speakers there. You can message them directly. Or you can put them in the event feed, or just email them to me and I'll pass them on, you'll definitely get your questions answered. So for now, just go ahead and exit this stream. We're back in 10 minutes for our final session of the day, with Rainy from Nokia. I'll see you all then. And thanks to our panelists.

Sarah Nicastro: Thank you everyone.

Stay Connected

Related Content

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

Using AI to Unlock Potential While Protecting the Human Experience

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

Most Recent

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

A Focus on Efficiency is Only the Tip of the AI Iceberg – Expert Advice for Considering What Comes Next

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service

January 5, 2022 | 10 Mins Read

2021 Highlights and 2022 Headlines

January 5, 2022 | 10 Mins Read

2021 Highlights and 2022 Headlines

Share

Sarah starts the New Year off with her recap of the highlights of 2021 and a look ahead at the topics she’s excited to dig into in 2022.

Sarah Nicastro: Welcome to the Future of Field Service Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Nicastro.

Happy New Year! When this episode airs, it will be the first week of 2022. As you can tell by the bits of North Pole behind me, I'm recording this at the end of December. So, we're going to do an episode today just talking a bit about the highlights of 2021 and some of my thoughts around the headlines I'd like to see in 2022.

So, I'm often asked for predictions and I'm not a fan of predictions for a couple reasons. One is none of us can predict what's coming. I think COVID has been a case study in that, right? We never really know what's coming. The second is I think when you look at the topics that we cover here at Future of Field Service, we're really talking about a continuation of a lot of themes, a maturation of trends that is coming together and culminating to really bring immense opportunity to the industry.

So when I'm asked for predictions, I always feel this pressure to come up with something new or unexpected, when in reality I think a lot of the headlines that we'll see in 2022 are growth and progression on trends that we've been talking about for a bit.

So, those are the things we're going to dive into today. So, highlights of 2021. The first I would say is we survived. I don't know that any of us expected to still be in the situation we're in right now with the pandemic, but we're here and we're plugging along and we are getting things done. We've found a way to persist through all of this, and so that's what we're going to continue doing one day at a time.

We did have the opportunity to get back to some face-to-face events in 2021, and I myself thoroughly enjoyed that. I was able to attend the Service Council Symposium in Chicago in September, Field Service Palm Springs in November, and I was also able to take my first trip out of the country since COVID began to visit the Netherlands to attend IFS Connect, and provide a keynote there, which was a really wonderful experience. I had the opportunity to connect with some folks face-to-face that I had thus far only met through Zoom and Teams. So, that was certainly a highlight for me to be able to get back to engaging face-to-face.

We are up to, I believe at the end of 2021, 143 three episodes of this here podcast, which I just am so thankful for. The ability to have these conversations and share them with you all, the wonderful, wonderful guests that I've had on and gotten to know, really. It's just been a very fulfilling experience for me, and I hope you all have enjoyed being along for the ride.

The other thing that I really enjoyed about the podcast in 2021 is we had the opportunity to really diversify some of the guests. So, we had folks from really all over the world. We had folks from Malaysia and Singapore and Australia and Finland and Iceland, and so I just really, really have enjoyed that as well. Getting to see how the trends and conversations differ from region to region across the globe, and also just getting to know some of the wonderful people that I've gotten to know.

I have had the pleasure throughout 2021 of running a customer community group at IFS, and that has been a wonderful experience for me as well. I have a group of just about 40 folks that we have actually met very frequently in 2021 about twice a month, and we have focus groups of an hour at a time where we come together and talk about different business trends and challenges and opportunities. Really just in a situation where we all haven't been able to travel for quite some time, we started these to really have that sense of community and connection and to be able to build collective knowledge, and it's been just a wonderful experience.

So there's much, much more that happened in 2021 that was fantastic, and if I were to try and go through every highlight, we would be here for a very long time. But it was a good year and I appreciate you all being a part of this podcast. I'm incredibly thankful for the wonderful guests that joined me on Future of Field Service throughout the year, and there was a lot of great highlights.

So, if we shift gears and talk about 2022 headlines. I'm not going to say predictions, I'm going to say headlines. So, the way that I put this together was to think about some of the conversations I've had throughout the past year, throughout the past years really, and how I would like to see those progress in 2022. The conversations I'm very interested to continue and see evolve essentially is what I'm looking at here.

The first is a whole host of topics really around the employee experience and employee engagement. I think we all know that the great resignation is posing immense challenges for industry, after industry, after industry, region, after region, after region and business after business. It's an issue that I think has been a long time coming, but is becoming critical for folks to address. There's some different layers to this, right?

I think if you look at some of the content that we've done throughout 2021 as a platform to start the discussion this year, we've had some wonderful conversations. You look at the responsibility of organizations to become more creative in how they recruit and hire and what their employee experience looks like.

I actually have a podcast episode coming up that hasn't yet been released with Roy Dockery. He was one of my first guests on the podcast, I think it was episode two. We sort of had this conversation I think before folks were ready to hear it, and we recently revisited that conversation and that podcast will be coming to you soon. But his point is as businesses in this space, we need to take more responsibility for solving this problem, rather than just kind of dwelling in it. So, that'll be coming.

We took a look at how companies are doing that, right? So Tetra Pak, Bonnie from Tetra Pak joined, that was episode number 85. We had Bureau Veritas come on and talk about how they're building the future of work. That was episode 129. So, those are episodes that are great to go back to and sort of think about how we can continue this conversation in 2022.

I think the topic of mental health is going to be very important for us to address this year. I know that I talk about this quite a bit myself, because I like to normalize the conversation and share my own experiences, but I think collectively when we look at the impact this has had on all of us, this being the pandemic, it's just every everyone's tired, everyone is a bit worn and a bit burned out. I think that as employers and as businesses, we really need to elevate the way we are considering how we can help related to mental health.

I had a great episode with Jordan from QIAGEN, that's episode 105, and he was very open about how he has realized this is such an important issue with his team. He's in Australia and some of the things he's done, and so this is a conversation, I think, that's going to be imperative. Also just leadership, right? What are we doing to create a culture within our companies that employees want to be a part of, that they feel fulfilled and they are happy and they want to stay, right? We can't force people to stay in role, but we need to look at what we're doing to impact that.

A couple other episodes I'd point out. Just recently I had an episode with Karin Hamel from Schneider Electric. Episode 140, where we talked about five areas of focus she's considering when she looks at building the future of the frontline workforce. Also had an episode with Lauren Winans, who is the CEO of Next Level Benefits, she's a consultant in this space, about creating a strong employee value proposition. That's episode 132. So, all of those will be great things to check out if you have some time to go back and kind of set the stage for where we can take that conversation this year.

The next area is really around digital. Again, this is kind of an umbrella with a lot of different sublayers, right? But I think the idea here is I anticipate 2022 is going to be the year that it clicks for a lot of companies that they need to become far more strategic in their digital strategy, right? So, companies know that they need to be deploying digital tools and they need to be considering the digital experience and things like that, but it's still very disconnected. It's still in many cases, not in all cases, of course.

So I think there's a lot of sort of refinement, I also think this is an area where some businesses are going to realize ... I wrote an article last year called It is Time for A Digital Rebirth? So, I think it may also be a situation where folks realize that they need to go back and kind of start fresh in certain instances.

Some of the podcasts from 2021 that are kind of great lead-ups to continuing this conversation in 2022. One is a conversation I had with Pekka from Cimcorp, that's episode 110. His was a conversation really around modernizing our approach to IT, which again, I think is a very important subset or pillar of sort of becoming more adept at digital.

I had an episode with Russell who was formerly with Rolls-Royce, Russell Masters. That's episode 128, and we talked about the need for more digitally-adept leaders, which is super important. I had an episode with Eduardo Bonefont from BD, episode 139, who told a really interesting story about how related to their digital tools and digital investment specifically, they decided to press pause and take a chunk of time to kind of reflect on what was already in place and address some employee feedback.

Which the idea of what's your digital reputation among your employees, and are you making decisions with their best interests and their voice in mind are very, very important things. The elimination of silos as it relates to digital strategy, I think, will be an important conversation to continue, and evolving into how are we leveraging digital and data to tell stories, and how does that result in new and different employee value propositions? So, lots to discuss there.

The other big topic that I'm excited to continue exploring is the progression on As-a-Service and outcomes-based service offerings. Had some great episodes last year with Kaer. That's Dave Mackerness, episode 136, told the story of how they have evolved to a completely As-a-Service business, wonderful, wonderful insights.

Schneider Electric Australia shared their story in a two-part series, 113 and 114 of how they kind of tackled it in a microcosm approach and made a big impact in their region that will spread across the business. I did an episode with Kevin from TSIA on some of the myths around As-a-Service, so there's some great stuff to dig into there.

Towards the beginning of last year, I had an episode with Tim Baines from the Advanced Services Group talking about the blueprint for servitization. I also had a great episode last year, number 104, with Jennifer Deutsch from Park Place Technologies. She's their CMO and she came on talking specifically about the marketing of services and service businesses, and it was super interesting. I think that's another area that as we evolve the business models and the go-to-market strategy, there's a lot to consider around how are we communicating this evolution to our customers in a way that will resonate? So, lots of cool stuff to discuss.

Finally, I'm super excited to continue the conversation around sustainability. This is of growing concern and interest across the globe, that we had a few episodes in 2021 to sort of initiate this conversation. One was with Sasha Ilyukhin from Tetra Pak talking about the intersection of service and sustainability. It was episode 131. Similar conversation in terms of that intersection with Bureau Veritas, episode 133.

Had on Dr. Andreas Schroeder of the Advanced Services Group at Aston Business School. He was on a few times this year. He's a great person to talk with, but specifically 127 was about this topic. So, I think that's also an area that there's so much to dive into both related to how companies improve their own efforts around sustainability and how that also translates into new service offerings for customers.

So I've been doing this for a while, and I've been in this space for a while and I often get asked how do you keep writing about this stuff? Don't you get bored? It's all of these layers that exist in each of these topics. There's these sort of buzzwords or these categories of conversation that people know are important, or have heard, digital transformation or As-a-Service. It's really when you dig into those things and you start to talk to people that have done it or are doing it and understand all of the layers that go into that type of change and that type of transformation. That's what makes it interesting for me, that's what keeps it interesting, and I'm thrilled to be here sharing that all with you.

So I look forward to some great, insightful, fruitful, actionable conversations this year. Thank you so much for joining me here on the Future of Field Service Podcast. I know it's been around for three years now, which is hard to believe, and I'm looking forward to a wonderful 2022. So happy new year, thank you for being here, and I'll speak with you all again soon.

Stay Connected

Related Content

Defining the Service Leader’s Duty Around the "Silver Tsunami"

The Service Leadership Trifecta

Are We Measuring Today’s Service Success on Yesteryear’s Metrics?

Most Recent

A Plea to My Fellow Business Travelers

A Focus on Efficiency is Only the Tip of the AI Iceberg – Expert Advice for Considering What Comes Next

How Trends in Enterprise Asset Management Intersect with Service