As an employer, you might have a lot of questions about what potential employees look for in a company before they apply. And you may also wonder where to find the best possible candidates.
In this episode, HR Generalist Paige Tamlyn returns to the podcast to answer questions people have about recruiting employees and the common questions asked in the workplace.
Finding potential candidates for a job and hiring them can be quite a feat, but knowing what potential employees are looking for in a job can make this task easier and reduce the number of people that aren’t qualified for the position.
In this episode, you will learn about:
- What “Ghosting” is all about
- Things employees look out for in a Job
- How to create a company handbook
- The best place to find candidates
- Whether or not to put a range of pay on your job ad
- How to deal with Millennials and loneliness at work
Listen to the Episode:
Read the Full Transcript:
Brandon Laws: Welcome to the Transform Your Workplace podcast. I’m Brandon Laws and I’ve got Paige Tamlyn with me. Paige, what’s up?
Paige Tamlyn: Hello.
Brandon Laws: I had to make sure to squeeze in one more episode with you before I left for sabbatical. So this is –
Paige Tamlyn: Yes. I’m so glad you can make time for me.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. I don’t know when this is going to go live. But this is July 22nd. I will be on sabbatical in about a week or so.
Paige Tamlyn: It took about 10 years to get that sabbatical.
Brandon Laws: Ten years to get that sabbatical. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself. But I thought …
Paige Tamlyn: You will probably still be so busy. I’m going to see you on social media and you’re going to be like, “I did all these 20 things today.”
Brandon Laws: No that’s just a front. That’s just to make you believe that …
Paige Tamlyn: Actually you just sat on the couch all day. You’re just not that type of person that I just – I don’t see that.
Brandon Laws: We will see. We will see that …
Paige Tamlyn: Maybe one day.
Brandon Laws: So I thought you’re basically a podcast pro now at this point. You’ve been on so many times.
Paige Tamlyn: New title.
Brandon Laws: I’m going to throw something different at you because I’ve done this with Lacey. She has come on a lot at Xenium and I’ve done lots of very specific episodes with you where we talk about – like an article or some data or whatever it may be. But I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions related to HR and maybe about you too. We will see how deep we want to go. But …
Paige Tamlyn: Love it.
Brandon Laws: If you’re up for it, let’s do it.
Paige Tamlyn: Let’s do it. Rapid fire.
Brandon Laws: So one of these things that I’m really curious about – because I’m just not in your world a whole lot. But I keep hearing this term “ghosting” and I know you could speak about it definitely from the daily insight. I think we’ve even made mention of it –
Paige Tamlyn: We totally did on I think the last podcast.
Brandon Laws: Probably. It’s funny to me.
Paige Tamlyn: It is funny.
Brandon Laws: So for people who are listening and have never heard this term “ghosting” in the recruiting process or hiring process, whatever it may be – I guess they’re probably hired at that point, right?
Paige Tamlyn: Not necessarily.
Brandon Laws: OK. So explain what it is.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: And then give me your opinion on why you think it’s happening.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. So ghosting could happen during the whole recruiting and hiring or even the onboarding process too. It’s kind of rare that they’ve like come on to your company and then like they just leave. I have heard of it happen on occasion. Usually it’s during the kind of recruiting and interviewing process where they just – like no matter how many times you reach out to them, they just don’t respond, like won’t pick up your phone calls, will not email you, text you back, however it was that you’ve been communicating with them, and like for no apparent reason.
You don’t have any reason to believe that they’ve like fallen off the face of the earth. They’ve just totally ghosted you. So that happens.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: And I have lots of clients that deal with it and it’s very frustrating.
Brandon Laws: So this is a recurring theme that’s happening right now.
Paige Tamlyn: Yes, yes.
Brandon Laws: Has this really happened in the past?
Paige Tamlyn: No. I think it’s kind of – as the new generation is coming into the workforce, I think – again, I don’t want to like overgeneralize, so like this type of generation does this. But I think that the newer kind of generations that are coming into the workplace have a harder time like speaking how they feel sometimes, like giving the feedback and I get it. Like sometimes it’s even hard to like just tell somebody that you’re not interested in them anymore. It’s the same thing in the workplace of like, “You guys seem like a great company. I just don’t see myself working there. Sorry.”
Brandon Laws: Yeah. So they don’t even say anything. They just –
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. It’s easier to just not say anything.
Brandon Laws: I wonder if there’s this theme with certain generations where they talk amongst themselves and say, “Hey, what you should do is try to line up as many jobs as possible and then just take the one you like,” and leave the rest of them without saying anything. I wonder if that’s …
Paige Tamlyn: It could be that too.
Brandon Laws: … kind of what they talk about and it’s just socially catching on.
Paige Tamlyn: And it’s a competitive job market so they can. So it’s not like there’s one job out there and you really have to go for it. They could have five people lined up and maybe you were the last one in line.
Brandon Laws: So when times change which I think we’re all kind of waiting for the other –
Paige Tamlyn: We’re waiting for the bubble.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, we’re seriously waiting for that. Not that I want it to come but I think we’re all like –
Paige Tamlyn: No. I think that’s the trend. Like this happens and then the bubble drops or the shoe drops or whatever.
Brandon Laws: Yes. So then those people basically have to learn how to do confrontation, right?
Paige Tamlyn: It’s not even like confrontation though. I think it’s just that like feedback process, like being comfortable giving a message that you’re not super like wanting to do. Like nobody wants to get up in the morning and like decline somebody. That’s not – I don’t know. Maybe you do. If that’s your thing, like maybe this podcast isn’t for you. But not everybody wants to do that. So I think you’re right. It’s going to have to happen. There’s going to be a shift.
Brandon Laws: Tomorrow I’m recording a podcast on feedback and how to get that. So those people should listen to that.
Paige Tamlyn: There you go. There’s a part two to this podcast.
Brandon Laws: There is. So switching gears a little bit. From your perspective, you work on a lot of different organizations across different industries, for profit, non-profit. Probably different sizes too I would imagine. So what is probably one of the most underrated perks or benefits that you’ve seen? You’re doing a lot of handbooks. So you’re definitely seeing what they’re offering.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: What’s something that really sticks out to you as being – something that should be more well-known and probably pursued by employers?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. I would say – I think we all know kind of like having a really competitive like PTO plan is important to like recruit and attract and retain talent. But I would say like having a flexible work schedule, if it is possible within your industry. Not every industry can operate that way. Like if you have a manufacturing plant and you have to have people there at a certain time, like maybe that doesn’t work. But you could have swings shifts or things like that. I think just that flexible work schedule, especially if you’re in an office environment. Like people want to drop their kids off at school and come in at 9:00 and not be here at 8:01, you know, and I think that that’s something that I like personally take advantage of a lot and I forget that that’s not a benefit that’s offered everywhere.
Brandon Laws: You’re like, hey Lacey boss, I’m going to go drop off my kids at school. Oh wait –
Paige Tamlyn: She’s like, “You have no children. I know that for sure.” But like I am not a morning person.
Brandon Laws: Yeah
Paige Tamlyn: I’m just not. So I get here at 9:30 and I work until about 6:30, sometimes later, and she knows that and she doesn’t care because she knows I get my work done.
Brandon Laws: That’s all that matters.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. We talk about this as a really good benefit. But I think it should be the norm in work honestly.
Paige Tamlyn: I think it should be too. But I think like focusing on that, that’s what the kind of newer generation wants is that flexibility.
Brandon Laws: I had mentioned that you work with employee handbooks quite a bit, like customizing them. I know you like just churn those babies out. By the way, we customize the hell out of those things.
Paige Tamlyn: Oh, they’re so custom.
Brandon Laws: There’s a lot of like firms out there whether it’s law firms –
Paige Tamlyn: I have like creative firms that like don’t want certain terms in their handbooks or they only want certain pictures. They only want this – like what’s bare minimum legal policies I have to have. Like …
Brandon Laws: My question to you on the handbooks is a lot of times clients are coming to us with handbooks and saying like it’s probably outdated. I want it to sound and feel like us and look like us from a culture standpoint. You’re seeing these. You’re doing an intake. You’re reading the whole entire handbook. What’s the biggest gap that you see?
Do this for me. Compliance gap and then a culture gap I guess.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. Those are the two biggest gaps that I always see, right? Either your harassment policy is two sentences long, which is not going to be legally-compliant.
Brandon Laws: Oh good …
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. So it’s just like bare minimum. Like you probably got it from a Google search, which if you’re a small firm, I get it. Like that’s where you’re trying to piecemeal things together. That’s why you come to Xenium. So I would say, yeah, having policies that are not like legally compliant or so like I would call – like legally intense where it’s just so much legalese that you can’t even like actually figure out what the policy is trying to say. I see a lot of those too.
Brandon Laws: That’s a good point. So you’re – like you’re reframing the policy language in a way that makes sense for employees.
Paige Tamlyn: Yes.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: Especially we get those when handbooks come like straight from a client, from their attorney partner. They’re very, like very dense policies. I get it. I get why they’ve done it. That’s their job as an attorney. But it’s just like it’s not friendly at all. It’s very harsh, very not approachable. Then from a culture standpoint, I would just say I just see a lot of handbooks that are – because they come from an attorney party, there’s no culture at all in it. It just doesn’t seem like them and it’s like, “What are you trying to focus on?” I mean I have so many applicants that come in and say, “Hey, can I have a copy of your handbook?” and I think that’s a great way to learn about a company pretty quickly.
Brandon Laws: Sure.
Paige Tamlyn: And if you’re giving them this handbook that’s 20 pages long and it just has legal jargon in it. It doesn’t say anything about you as a company. It just doesn’t speak to who you are.
Brandon Laws: What a wasted opportunity.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: Those are gaps. What are you seeing from a trends standpoint of employers? What are they adding?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: We are primarily dealing with fairly progressive employers I would say. It’s probably half and half, right?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: Some are trying to cover their basis. Like they know they’re behind. But others are like – they have this vision for what they want it to be. So you’re probably seeing some trendy stuff happening. What are you seeing pop up?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. Focus on like the more unspoken benefits. Like putting a flex time policy in your handbook. Putting in those more culture-friendly handbooks. Highlighting that you have floating holidays and things like that that employees really want to know.
Brandon Laws: So like a perk.
Paige Tamlyn: Still having like the legally-compliant policies in there is important, but making sure that you and your brand showcase throughout your handbook is probably what I’m seeing as more of a trend and like less policy procedures, putting that like in an operations manual and having your handbook just really be about who you are as a company.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. Switching gears, I’m just throwing you curve balls left or right. In the Me Too movement, there has been a lot of like employee complaints whether it’s harassment or just bullying. It could be whatever. Complaint happens. What are you seeing is like the most common thing when it comes to complaints? If there’s a trend of some sort, you don’t think it’s specific, but I’m really curious if there’s like some general theme that you’re hearing.
Paige Tamlyn: I would say a lot of times I see what it is. It’s like the offhanded comments and jokes that people just make. Like not even directed at a person.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: It’s just an offhanded comment and it offends somebody that’s listening or they know somebody that’s – you know, of an association and what they were joking about. They joke about themselves and like maybe their religion and it just seems funny at the time. But it has an adverse impact. So I would say it’s kind of the offhanded comments and jokes and things like that.
Brandon Laws: So a complaint happens. They’ve obviously not interacted with the other employee from a like, “Hey, that offended me.”
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah, yeah.
Brandon Laws: Like they’re not really confronting it. They’re just going right to HR, their managers –
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. Like hey, we were all in this group. Somebody made a comment. I just wanted you to know.
Brandon Laws: OK.
Paige Tamlyn: Well, at times that’s what they want. It’s just like I want you to hear me. I want to feel heard. Help me out.
Brandon Laws: This seems like a really common thing that would probably happen. What do you do in response to something like that?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. I mean you have to confirm that it happened. So obviously that’s a little bit harder to do if it was just two people, right? Because it’s a sad sort of situation. But if there was a group, it’s pretty easy to discern if that did happen or not. So if you’ve confirmed it happened, then you have to kind of go into like resolution mode. Like OK, what does the employee want out of this? Do they just like not want this to ever happen again? Which is pretty often.
Sometimes people don’t want a personal apology but you kind of just have to like assess what they really are trying to get out of this. Is there a training that’s needed across the company? So it’s just a mediated conversation between the two people. You’re just going to have to assess the situation.
Brandon Laws: Let’s switch over to some recruiting stuff.
Paige Tamlyn: OK.
Brandon Laws: We kind of started there with ghosting. But I want to go back. What do you think is like the biggest headache that comes to mind when thinking about like sourcing candidates?
Paige Tamlyn: It’s like a double-edged sword because unemployment is so low right now.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: So you’re really having to attract – I mean it’s a great thing for the economy and I totally get it. But trying to source talent is really incredibly difficult right now.
Brandon Laws: Because you’re really trying to basically extract them from other employers already.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah, yeah. I worked in an industry as an onsite where it was a very small community and so everybody talked and everybody knew if somebody was leaving to come work for us. So it was very, very difficult to try and they were also a vendor for all of this other industry as well. So they were competitors but they also were like – they’re a vendor and it was just very, very complicated and you’re like stepping on people’s toes and making sure to still be respectful. So sourcing talent is really, really hard and then especially when you think you have a really great candidate and you’re super excited about them and then they ghost you.
You’re like, “Oh, start back to square one.” So …
Brandon Laws: There’s a chart that I found earlier. It’s on LinkedIn I think, from HBR. So they put a screenshot of this graph that showed companies are overlooking internal talent. It says top channels for hires. Employer referrals is the top. Job boards is next. Social networks is after that. Recruiters, staffing firms and then internal hires. I thought that was interesting.
So in your mind, what is the best place to find candidates?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. I was going to say employee referrals. So I feel like people are not going to refer somebody that they don’t think would do a good job because that’s my name on the line. So if you don’t have an employee referral program, start one. It’s like the best way for you to source people because they’re only going to refer good people to you.
Brandon Laws: What I would add to that, because I’ve been – this was years ago. I’ve been burned several times by people in my life.
Paige Tamlyn: Really?
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: Why did you refer them …?
Brandon Laws: Because they’re friends, they’re family or whatever.
Paige Tamlyn: See? I would not put my name on the line for somebody that I wouldn’t think would do a good job in that role.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. I always have –
Paige Tamlyn: Maybe that’s just my HR background. Maybe it’s harder as the friend and you’re not in that position to create some boundary there. I think there’s a nice way that you could say if you’re ever in that position maybe. Hey, I would love to give you a personal reference and talk about my experience just being around you and what you’re like as a person. But I don’t know you on a work level to be able to give that kind of a reference. Would you be OK with that?
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: Because I did that for somebody I referred to here to Xenium.
Brandon Laws: Really?
Paige Tamlyn: I was like cool with her and I know what she’s like to work with at school in a group project setting. But we were both fairly new to the workforce and they were like, “Yeah, personal reference is great.”
Brandon Laws: So I’ve had that situation on ends of the spectrum. I’ve had like a really close – like best friend and then I’ve had somebody who I barely knew and actually I remember referring somebody here to Xenium and I was like I just can’t speak to their work ethic.
Paige Tamlyn: You just have to be honest. I think that’s all …
[Crosstalk]
Brandon Laws: … from my personal network. That’s basically it.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. And I think when you’re in a position like you are, you’re fairly well-known and people respect you quite a bit. They’re going to want that referral from you. So then it really puts you in a hard place. Like I would never personally ask for a referral from somebody if I didn’t know them super well.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: I just feel like that just puts them in a really uncomfortable position.
Brandon Laws: There’s a chart that originally started talking about that. It said the most overlooked source is internal hires. Do you agree with that?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah, like succession planning, I can tell all of that is very, very important right now, especially as like …
Brandon Laws: Like career-pathing people up.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. Generations are looking to retire or at least phase out maybe and slowly retire, maybe work part-time and things like that. It’s like what are you doing as a company to make sure that that knowledge doesn’t just walk out the door with them.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, that’s a good point. Especially like you know what they are at that point too. So you can grow them and develop them. Like …
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. Have them trained by somebody who has done this job for 10 plus years. Not only are you growing them as an employee. Then they feel valued. Then that knowledge doesn’t walk out the door with them. So it’s like win-win.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, it is a win-win because when you start hiring people from the outside, you don’t know what you’re going to get.
Paige Tamlyn: You’re going to start from scratch. Even if they have industry knowledge, like they don’t know you as a company. They don’t know how you do things and so yeah, I think internal hires are really looked over.
Brandon Laws: I think it’s the challenge with like recruiting, especially for a growing company. It’s like if you’re going backwards, it’s easier to probably fill in. But most companies are probably growing and so they’re adding heads while you’re adding from the outside. We can’t just like shuffle people from internally.
Paige Tamlyn: Right. Hopefully, you have like a really good like training and development programs and things like that for your people. And not like the kind of like empowers them too I would say, someone who’s been with you for maybe only a couple years or looking for new opportunities to grow like, “Hey, I’d really love for you to mentor this new person that we have coming on.”
Brandon Laws: Yeah, we love that. Yup, that’s genius.
Paige Tamlyn: Thank you.
Brandon Laws: Oh, your head is exploding. Oh, it’s getting bigger and bigger.
Paige Tamlyn: Oh, I’m like that emoji with the head explosion.
Brandon Laws: So this probably a quick answer for you. In job ads, do you like having a range of pay on there or no?
Paige Tamlyn: This is my biggest pet peeve. When I see job ads, I write a lot of job ads for clients. I would say that’s like I get asked at least like once every other week to do one.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, and?
Paige Tamlyn: And I cannot stand it when clients don’t want to put a wage range.
Brandon Laws: Oh no!
Paige Tamlyn: This is like it’s the easiest way for you to like reduce the amount of people that are qualified for your position. Put the wage, at least a range. Put a range in there.
Brandon Laws: The range, it could be a giant range.
Paige Tamlyn: It could. Yeah. Say somebody who has little to no experience is going to be at this rate. Somebody who has a lot of experience is probably going to be towards this end. And when you’re phone screening people you tell them that’s what the range is and have them say whether they’re phone arranged or not because if they don’t, then they’re not even going to apply.
Brandon Laws: Exactly.
Paige Tamlyn: Don’t waste your time. Don’t waste their time.
Brandon Laws: And now with all the pay equity laws in Oregon specifically…
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah, they’re going to find out.
Brandon Laws: They’re going to find out when they make more sense actually at it because it’s all going to be out in the open the ranges for the position.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. And I am a proponent of telling people whether in positions, here is the range for this position. Here is where you’re at. Here’s your growth like here’s your trajectory for how much pay you could get.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: You’re at the top end, we got to figure out something else to do with you. So I am all for transparency. I know that that’s like hard for some companies who just don’t want to release that information, especially if it’s like really competitive, in your industry you don’t want to do it but you’d have to differentiate yourself. Then if everybody’s offering competitive pay, what are you doing to be different? But it’s just the easiest way to like get people out that don’t fall on that range.
Brandon Laws: Or string or when you string people along like I have a personal story and actually, like I mentioned this on the podcast but probably years ago. My mother was going through the interview process. She’s like inside the software sales and she had gone through like job posting, didn’t have a range of pay on there, went through three interviews without even ever talking about pay.
Paige Tamlyn: Oh no.
Brandon Laws: I don’t know if it’s like taboo or her generation really doesn’t talk about it or doesn’t feel comfortable. I get it. Maybe she just thinks like that position is probably got to be in the range.
Paige Tamlyn: A certain range. And for the audience, like I know Brandon’s mom so like maybe that I’m just a little bias here. I feel like she would have asked but if you just don’t know the person well enough, you don’t feel comfortable asking, I feel like most the time though like people give it at least somewhat early on in the range. Like there would be no way I would ever go through three interviews and not know the range.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, because what happened, you could probably guess what happened. It was just a way off and she was almost like shocked to the point where like everything was aligned except for the pay was like… I want to say it was like 40 or 50 grand off or maybe it’s like a giant misalignment and it was like what?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. I think that there’s an opportunity there to say like if the range is that far off if there’s an opportunity though because she’s in sales. Like maybe the bonus structure was going to be enough to like and that’s maybe why they weren’t kind of being forthcoming without but you’re just wasting everybody’s time then.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. I agree. Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: Please don’t do that.
Brandon Laws: So early on the process of – if by then you find some candidates, you’re going to do phone screening with them, what’s your favorite question to ask?
Paige Tamlyn: I love asking what opportunities they think they have to improve in their own work?
Brandon Laws: What kind of answer you’re looking for?
Paige Tamlyn: I’m looking to see…
Brandon Laws: If they thought about it?
Paige Tamlyn: If they thought about… How much time they think to think about – you know think about it because I know that they don’t want to have like that long pause of like “Oh, I don’t know.” I’m like that’s fine. I’d rather you take a beat, think about what your answer would be and just be honest with me like “There’s this particular software I’m not super comfortable in it yet but I’m trying. I’m working really hard” or there’s lots of areas of improvement that don’t mean that you’re failing at your job. It just means that you’re not 100% competent in that and that’s fine. I just want to know.
Brandon Laws: I love it. You’re so funny. When you talk to employers, I’m sure they’ve asked about like “Millennials, how do you track them?” “How do you…”
Paige Tamlyn: We’re talking about millennials so much, Brandon.
Brandon Laws: It’s crazy. Well, we are millennials but also like it’s just…
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. My clients always ask me and they’re like “I don’t know how to deal with these millennials.”
Brandon Laws: Every now… It’s crazy.
Paige Tamlyn: I’m like, “You deal with me.” Mic dropped.
Brandon Laws: They’re putting millennials in like some like weird category. It is weird. It’s still widely…
Paige Tamlyn: Well, like putting this weird bucket of like “I don’t know how to deal with you.” And I’m like “The next generation has their own set of like values and are even more outspoken than millennials.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. So that is basically what I wanted to say to you or ask you was if you kind of look at this millennial bucket and then you have the Generation Z popping up into the workforce now if employers ask you about like “How do I embrace them or how do I attract them?” or what kind of stuff are you telling them?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. I would say that you need to utilize them, especially the millennials. They have a way of understanding the Gen Z that’s coming in. And if you want to be an employer who like embraces like diversity of thought like you need to listen to everybody that has an opinion.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: So utilize them. Listen to them. They have ideas. They will tell you.
Brandon Laws: Take a point. Yeah. And I think also like when you start categorizing or stereotyping I guess.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: You’re almost like open-minded about what can bring to the table too. That’s why like…
Paige Tamlyn: Right. Yeah. I think there’s a time and a place for demographics and studies and things like that. But when you start putting people in the buckets of like “Oh well, they’re such a millennial.” Like how do you say that? What is it about?
Brandon Laws: Right. You know you went through that same like thought process where you’re… Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: Exactly. The generation before you have the same thought about you and whatever it was in your typical generation. And we are a byproduct of our parents’ generation. So – so I just blamed my parents.
Brandon Laws: Absolutely. We’re all learning from previous generations. Just to go off on a tangent really quick. I think that really the only difference between generations is not about the way we think or anything. We have sure we have influences around what have happened during our lifetimes.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah, right.
Brandon Laws: But other than that, it’s like the boomers were 23 years old at one point like they have their own – you know. They’re underdeveloped from an adulating standpoint.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. I think, yeah, our environment changes and the way that we were raised changes.
Brandon Laws: The environments changed but… Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: But in reality, you’re right. Like we all were the same age you know in certain period of times. So you know what it’s like to be 28, so please don’t judge me. It just gets harder.
Brandon Laws: You know what you’re at. It’s like… Exactly. Yes. Thank you. Good advice.
Paige Tamlyn: I feel like it gets harder. But that’s just my opinion as a millennial.
Brandon Laws: Do you think so?
Paige Tamlyn: I’m a little biased.
Brandon Laws: Do you think it’s getting harder?
Paige Tamlyn: I think so.
Brandon Laws: Maybe they’re just weren’t aware of what was going on at the time.
Paige Tamlyn: No, because I mean like my parents will tell me stories about their childhood. I’m like “Yeah, I understand you had to walk to the bus stop uphill both ways…”
Brandon Laws: Both… Oh, I love that.
Paige Tamlyn: “…and go pick fruit on the weekends.” That’s my mom’s story. She’s like “We had to go pick blackberries on the weekend for like 5 cents a day or something.” And I’m like that’s child labor, first of all.
Brandon Laws: I don’t understand. That’s the story I heard too. Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: But I’m like we have different things that we have to worry about, right? Lots of people have student loan debt that’s just the crippling that they will never be able to like buy a home until they pay it off. Like we just have different I think substantial issues that we have to deal with. That’s my opinion. Take it or leave it.
Brandon Laws: I appreciate your opinion as a listener and so giant group of listeners, we appreciate your opinion. OK. So there’s this article that I think we’ve talked about this before but there’s this article from SHRM I believe. It was talking about loneliness at work.
Paige Tamlyn: Oh yeah, all the lonely workers if haven’t listened to our previous podcast.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. Can you remind me like just a quick way to make sure that people don’t feel lonely at work, what would you encourage employers to think about?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. It’s hard because sometimes you don’t know that people are lonely too like you can make some assumptions but it’s like, especially you feel like those people who like requested to work at home. And you think that that’s just like what they want, you totally granted that and you think they’re fine. They still need to be integrated with your team. So that’s like do they come out for your team meetings? Do they – do you Skype them into all of your meetings that you have or do you just fill them in after? Like it’s the small things like that that can make a huge world of difference, so.
Brandon Laws: OK. You just passed your SHRM Certification.
Paige Tamlyn: I did.
Brandon Laws: What’s an area you felt like when you’re going throughout your life, I’m never going to use as ever?
Paige Tamlyn: I really hope nobody from SHRM is ever listening to this.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, whatever.
Paige Tamlyn: As great as I thought the content was…
Brandon Laws: It’s relevant to you. This is about you.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. I would say the content that I think that maybe just didn’t apply to me as much at least at this point in my career was all of the section on just like global HR.
Brandon Laws: Oh yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: Well, I think that’s super valuable for somebody who works in a huge industry that is global or has competitors that are global. You’re attracting talents.
Brandon Laws: The market is global. Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: Exactly. I think that that’s super important for you, for us at Xenium…
Brandon Laws: That’s a good point. But you have to do it anyways.
Paige Tamlyn: …to really apply but yes, that will – I think there was a whole book on it. So it’s like, “All right, let’s do it!”
Brandon Laws: Yeah, interesting. And then what’s the area of the curriculum that you felt like they touched on that was such a trend that maybe you have an experience but you’re like oh, I’m going to watch out for this.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. I would say probably there was a section on corporate social responsibility. And I think that employers can do a better job at conveying what their corporate social responsibility policies are and like what their values are and you know I think all of that could be a little bit better broadcasted.
Brandon Laws: Interesting. Yeah. I don’t know if you’ve done much research on like the B Corp status.
Paige Tamlyn: Uh-huh.
Brandon Laws: Do you think like doing something like that would cover it?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah, absolutely. I think that’d be great.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. So if you have that B Corp stamp you would be like oh…
Paige Tamlyn: I think if I was looking at a place to work, right, like that signifies a different meaning to me that like oh, they care about the people. They’re planning – you know the profit and all of that stuff like that’s important to them and you know that’s great. They’ve taken additional stuff to like be this B Corp. Yeah, it’s cool. Not everybody can do that but at least if you have some awareness, do the small things.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. You’ve attended some of our book clubs over the years, not many of them.
Paige Tamlyn: Mm-hmm. Ooh, calling me out.
Brandon Laws: Oh, few of them, few of them.
Paige Tamlyn: Are they studying for the last six months? Let’s be perfectly honest. I’ve had no life.
Brandon Laws: That’s OK. And we’ve been – we’ve been going strong since like 2012, so no excuses.
Paige Tamlyn: I started in 2013 but thank you.
Brandon Laws: That’s true. What’s been your favorite book that you’ve joined in on with us?
Paige Tamlyn: I like the Culture Code one that we did.
Brandon Laws: Yeah. But that actually a pretty recent one that was…
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. That was really good.
Brandon Laws: And that’s good for any size of employer I think that [0:26:21] [Crosstalk].
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. And I meant to join the last discussion we did which actually, it was not a book. So we watched movies.
Brandon Laws: We did movies. Yeah, we did movies.
Paige Tamlyn: So if anybody out there is listening who does a book club, you can do other things.
Brandon Laws: It threw everybody for a loop. Because the book, I just buy them all, right?
Paige Tamlyn: Right, yeah.
Brandon Laws: You know to…
Paige Tamlyn: But we picked movies that were lake easily accessible that – or that most people have seen at least one time because we did….
Brandon Laws: We did Apollo 13, We Are Marshall, and Sully.
Paige Tamlyn: Sully. That’s right.
Brandon Laws: It’s all about to draw out leadership from it and we felt like those movies did a little bit of that.
Paige Tamlyn: Leadership skills. Yeah. Yeah. So you could like pick a theme that you think that’s you know important to your business whether it’s emerging leaders and leadership skills or lots of things.
Brandon Laws: I still like the book. I think it’s easier.
Paige Tamlyn: I think the book is good but I think it was a nice like a little reprieve.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: And it was during the summer, a lot of people don’t necessarily read as much during the summer they’re busy with kids stuff.
Brandon Laws: Yup. So now that you passed SHRM, you’re certified, official, you’re doing some Xenium book clubs, what do you do for development?
Paige Tamlyn: Well, I’m going to have to keep up. It’s the part of the SHRM Certifications that you continue to do versus continued Eds. And that’s always been super important to me. So actually, like a week before my exam, I signed up for a course. I was like, what am I doing? I have…
Brandon Laws: Oh. Of course through SHRM or through somewhere else?
Paige Tamlyn: No. it’s through – actually, an insurance broker that our client needs because they just said, “Hey, I just wanted to invite you to this…” And it was on workers’ compensation. And so that’s an area of mine that I don’t… I know like the basic process of how that works but we have somebody here that manages all of our workers’ comp and she does a fantastic job.
Brandon Laws: She’s awesome.
Paige Tamlyn: But when clients ask me questions, I’m like “Hmm let me ask. Let me ask Heidi. I’ll get back to you soon.” Shout out to Heidi.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: But I just knew that that was an area I needed some extra development. So like two weeks before my exam, I’m like sitting in four-hour training like just trying to cram stuff into my head, so.
Brandon Laws: So I’m curious with HR so big. Actually, we are looking at that graphic that SHRM has that’s like the HR body of knowledge.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: And it’s like leadership in business and there’s one other area.
Paige Tamlyn: Organization, people.
Brandon Laws: Not to mean compliance or something like that but it’s like…
Paige Tamlyn: Ethics I think is part of that.
Brandon Laws: Everything about HR, there’s such a huge thing.
Paige Tamlyn: We touch everything.
Brandon Laws: One person couldn’t possibly know everything. So I’m curious. You just mentioned the work comp thing and that was a weakness of yours and you’re seeking to train around it. What’s to prevent you from exploring things one you’re interested or things that you’re really strong and just getting more advanced knowledge versus you know like the Marcus Buckingham thing where you’re just focused on your strengths and not your weaknesses, what do you think about that?
Paige Tamlyn: Right. Yeah, I, for me, I don’t like being uncomfortable. I mean I think a lot of people don’t. Some people thrive in that like uncomfortableness of like “I just need to get through this,” right? I am not that person. I like to have an answer, at least have a good general idea about how things can go and I just source people appropriately. So I feel like, yes, of course, I can like capitalize on my strength and just roll with that but I also kind of have like a wide variety of experience and I think that that’s more helpful in at least in how Xenium operate.
Brandon Laws: I think so too. I think in a lot of injuries, do you mean like when you consider being like a software engineer, yeah, you need to be a specialist.
Paige Tamlyn: Mm-hmm.
Brandon Laws: But I think in a business like ours or even in certain roles like I’m a marketing person.
Paige Tamlyn: Right.
Brandon Laws: Being a generalist is not such a bad idea because I’m a marketing leader. I need to know enough about a lot of things to be dangerous and to know where the gaps are and where to put resources too.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. Or the source appropriately.
Brandon Laws: But my biggest thing is finding the right people for the right thing as a leader as you need direct resources.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. You only have so much time.
Brandon Laws: Yeah.
Paige Tamlyn: So it’s like where do you want to spend your time?
Brandon Laws: Exactly. I think you can be a specialist to narrow then you could be oblivious to something else.
Paige Tamlyn: And that’s what I don’t want. I mean unless it’s something that you foresee yourself spending the rest of your career. And if you do, great, like you found your niche like that’s fantastic.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, exactly.
Paige Tamlyn: That’s just not where I see myself at this point in my career. I mean look, 10 years from now, I could totally be like… No. I love recruiting. I love you know whatever it is. I don’t ever foresee that being like compensation or like workers’ comp. But certain things have happened.
Brandon Laws: Yeah, most could be… Good that you’re open-minded about it.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. So yeah, being a generalist, literally, because that’s my job title.
Brandon Laws: Yup.
Paige Tamlyn: I just find that that’s more valuable to my clients. So I mean I dabble in things when I need to. I’ve become very well-versed in DOT regulations. Didn’t ever think that that was going to be a need but at a client with a DOT audit like my first week there and I was like “All right, let’s do it.” So.
Brandon Laws: But this is like HR people are dealing with, right?
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah.
Brandon Laws: They’re like dealing with audits, compliance-oriented issues and then they’re like “OK. Well, how do we engage employees and fight this turnover?” And like strategic… It’s crazy.
Paige Tamlyn: Yeah. And then like the regular HR style and then I get involved in other things because I think that what business leaders are correctly assuming is that HR has a good… Just like playing field for everybody and I can just kind of comment on lots of different things and they just – you know, it’s a valued opinion of business partner mindset.
Brandon Laws: You are a true business partner.
Paige Tamlyn: Oh.
Brandon Laws: And you’re a rock star. Thanks for coming along.
Paige Tamlyn: Oh, you’re the best!
Brandon Laws: I appreciate you coming along and let me just grill you with a bunch of random questions. Hopefully, it was fun for you.
Paige Tamlyn: I love it. Yeah, it was great.
Brandon Laws: OK. Well, where can people find you?
Paige Tamlyn: You can find me on LinkedIn.
Brandon Laws: Not anywhere else?
Paige Tamlyn: Calling me out. I keep my Instagram private because it’s like family pictures. And I have pictures of my niece on there. So it’s kind of weird to have like baby pictures everywhere.
Brandon Laws: Totally, totally. OK. I’m on LinkedIn and certainly, I’m in all of those places. So connect with me there. Thanks for tuning in today.