Constant Change & Evolution

In this episode, Erin and Jeff dive into the concept of constant change, using the relatable metaphor of pears falling from a tree to illustrate the relentless nature of change in our lives and industries. They explore how current market dynamics are driving a need for greater cross-department collaboration and coordination, from sales and marketing to tech and operations. They discuss the emerging 'organizational collective culture,' where frontline teams have increasing influence on technology decisions and overall strategy. As they unpack the challenges and opportunities this shift presents, they emphasize the critical need for adaptability and proactive engagement with change to remain competitive. Tune in to learn how embracing these shifts can help your organization not just survive, but thrive in a constantly evolving landscape.

So what is the most constant thing out there, Erin?

The pears falling from my tree right now, Jeff. I mean, it's insane. They like drop from the tree. They smash onto the deck, the dogs bark. It's like this entire thing that goes on and on and on. Every day, every night, and it's driving me absolutely crazy. It's, it's constant.

be honest, I was aiming for change. I was aiming, I really thought that was, that was a popup for change, being the thing that's most constant. But pairs are clearly another layer of hell that sits somewhere in that, you know, so

Well, this does mean that, you know, the seasons are changing, the pears are falling, things are changing in our industry. I mean, if, if I do relate it to that side and not my personal dilemma of pears falling from my trees, there is a lot of change that's going on right now. It feels different though. I don't know.

It's more, it's like faster. It's relentless. It's kind of like forcing. I would say leaders to kind of adapt in ways that they also didn't use to before, which has been interesting. I mean, I've seen a big change in firms where they just have this overarching need for cross collaboration and coordination between departments.

It's, it's been really interesting to see in today, like this real shift of true. Intentional collaboration. And it's gotta happen from like the sales and marketing and marketing and tech. The tech and ops. The ops and sales. Like are you seeing this on your side as well?

why did the old lady swallow the frog? Oh, with a hog to swallow a frog. She swallowed the frog to catch the spider that we're, you know, it's like that, right? Like we're doing that. Is that the sequence that we're on at this point?

Okay, we're definitely gonna need you to sing this for folks, so I don't know why she swallowed a fly.

yeah, you know, I am seeing that need and, and you know, in the past it would've been good to do, but today I think it's critical to do, and I think that's because. It's not just one change, but it's a concert of changes that are happening simultaneously that we haven't experienced before.

Usually there's a market change. We have to address it. Then, you know, maybe there is a technology demand we have to address it. Maybe there's a behavioral shift, we address it. But in this instance, we have three of those things happening at the same time, and I think that it's really magnifying or amplifying like the impact that it has to organizations, which. Calls for a greater need, a critical need for organizations to make that shift in adjustment in order to the slide. And I think that's what's happening right now. I think that each of those departments

Yeah.

they're all slipping as a result of them trying to address things in silos and silos. It's just not gonna work anymore.

No. 'cause if these folks are in running in their own lanes, essentially, then. You can't tie stuff back to these loops that are critical for strategy. You end up with broken promises and really collaboration is what makes sure that everyone's pulling in the same direction. And we're going in this kind of circle.

It's almost like a flywheel circle. if we start at the top, let's dive in here like sales and marketing. I mean, what are you seeing? This is probably your bread and butter of what you're seeing with folks day in, day out.

the sales and marketing side,they're, they're really struggling to be heard. So, and, and I think that sales is in many ways still going to market with a classic playbook, talking about their services and not really exercising their expertise and marketing for that matter.

You know, they're likely communicating to the service level and not necessarily pushing beyond, like they're trying to associate those services still as it relates to what they believe is important for that community. So. Pulling those two worlds together, if you can get really good collaboration between the two, where you can really leverage value props as it relates to the, to the space, to the community, and redefine or regain control over your differentiation.

And if those two groups simultaneously are communicating or building in that way, you now have really. Good momentum, and those are the companies that are performing very well, the ones that are still trying to operate in silos and kind of categorically track performance. I think those are the ones that are really starting to fall behind today.

No. Completely agree because, and, and like when I. I think about this marketing needs, direct feedback from sales because they're on the front lines, they're hearing what clients are needing, so that messaging actually is helping. Recruiters differentiate in a truly crowded market as it is today.

And then if I like kind of pull that down to the marketing and tech space, it really plays into the user experience or the candidate and client journey where like marketing is shaping those journeys, but truly tech owns a system that powers it. And if they don't really sync together, then what I'm seeing is 

Major clunky application processes. You're losing candidates in the journey they're going to someone else. There's poor automation. So then you're also not like seeing someone so that that sales to marketing and marketing to tech is so, so critical on the journeys across the board because we need our candidates and our clients more so than ever.

I call it friction in the funnel, disrupting that journey in the most critical times when you're trying to build digital trust. That is definitely a number one cost to organizations losing business. And so I think when

Mm-hmm.

about. You know, the past few years with so much technology emerging, especially in the staffing industry, I think that there were a lot of decisions that were made to pull on solutions in order to resolve a singular issue, which now, you kind of have this overly complicated tech stack, if you're not careful. The user experience is sort of the cost of doing that, which now brings us into sort of like tech and ops, which really kind of fits in your space. So how are the tech and ops sort of colliding with like a more classic

Well, you kind of nailed it. You said like, Hey like massive amounts of tech in the space, and so I like to call this tech bloat.

I.

So this is what you can kind of think about. This is gonna be a fun one. Ready? So visualization, everyone close your eyes. Imagine a computer that just keeps getting fed, like technology over technology and tell you see, essentially it's like Garfield in a computer form.

This is how large this is gonna happen. This is where you see that shiny thing syndrome, and you're just piling on all of these overlapping platforms without really taking a view into what's the technology that you need, what's gonna help us orchestrate stronger processes, stronger efficiency.

Without wasting money. And what we see with tech and ops is we really need to kind of hone in and focus on what operationally do we need within our system and where can we remove some of the tech bloat so we can get a little bit more in shape. So now we're in, in-shape Garfield is what we're saying here.

but the other thing with this is also we don't wanna be too skinny. So that's where like the operation side really kind of comes into play. So we wanna make sure what's the right amount of technology that is gonna help us drive efficiency automation. even business strategy across the board.

So this is where tech and ops really needs to have that feedback. So ops is helping drive what technology do we need to be to be successful? And then that kind of ties back also to operations and sales. So we're kind of coming almost. Full, circuit Here which is like kind of that corporate alignment.

So sales promises, speed ops is gonna fulfill it. If ops isn't looped into sales activity, then you also end up with this overpromising and under delivering, which we've heard so many times probably in our lifetime here. But when they're aligned, then these corporate initiatives and delivery actually can match the client experience, the candidate experience.

We go back to our, our journey and making sure that our candidates are along for the ride, and it's a positive experience when marketing, tech, ops and sales are all in sync and have these true feedback loops throughout.

point out also one additional thing here. Like if you're gonna go through and do all of this coordination to pull all of these departments together as you should, are also some fundamental exercises probably also need to be done, which could help you manage and maintain really good accuracy in the decisions that you make from a corporate initiative perspective. Like. Journey mapping and tech stack mapping, like, I hate to say this, it's something that we've talked

Huge.

years, but like putting those two things in place really allow you to make

I.

business decisions and make sure that you're aware of like the decision that you're making, how it's going to impact everything downstream, including your client experience.

So what is that like an, an ounce of prevention's worth a pound? A cure? I feel like it's like a, what my grandmother used to say or something. 

That's a new one for me. I'm.

Or the, like, the stitch in time saves nine. these are old expressions because it's true. The more you prepare, the better off you are. And so I think this is the emergence of a more prepared environment. let's dig in a little bit to like some changes maybe that are almost not exclusively tech, but. Are you starting to see either behavioral patterns or initiative changes inside tech as it relates to kind of the evolution of technology inside these groups?

Yeah, it's been interesting. So the biggest thing has been, which kind of ties back to the beginning, which is your feedback loops, but we're also seeing feedback loops not just happening at the. Department levels now, but we're seeing 'em extend truly from the recruiters, the sales, the account managers driving into the technology leadership side.

I was on the phone the other day with a CIO from a, from a staffing firm, and we were chatting. He goes, Erin, he goes. My sales and recruiting team, they are driving our technology. I've never seen this before. They're coming to me. They're saying, Hey, would you be able to look at this platform that I just got an email about and this is what we need and here's where we're at.

It's almost like Jeff, like this, like innovation inversion that's like happening right now.

I

Is that a word? Is that like, is that a word out that's out there?

just coined it like we could hashtag it, but you know, you're getting frontline influencers then, right? Like these are really

is

change.

Yeah, a lot of change makers we're seeing from the front end and it's it's opposite than what we've seen before, but the, and it makes sense because the recruiters and the sales folks, they're in the systems every day. They know exactly where the friction is and they're raising their hand and they're basically saying like.

This workflow is slowing me down and this automation would be great to have, or this AI tool helps me submit faster. So can you help? So this feedback is now influencing like the CTOs and the CIOs directly and helping drive what are the actual technology that they need to have in their tech stack. So it's, it's, it's been really exciting to see and it's something we've not seen before.

That's, that's one big change that I'm definitely seeing.

like something else to note here, and it seems as though with the democratization of technology, like that lower barrier of entry to participate in either software and or hardware solutions that individuals are identifying ways that they can perform their jobs. Better, but they can do it on an individual basis.

You don't need to necessarily have an enterprise license in order to test and to see what the effect is or the impact is of some of these concepts. So being able to have access like that at your front line, if you're corporate culture was one that fostered it, you really could be identifying a lot of really strong potential in like improving, you know, that technical infrastructure.

Yeah, it's really leading to like smarter conversation about orchestration where like firms don't necessarily need all the tools going back to tech load, but they need better orchestration of the tools that they have. So this is where like a tech audit almost always reveals what's too much, what's overlapping.

Whereas low adoption, where are we wasting money? There's always money wasted. But when the frontline has this influence, orchestration is becoming. More grounded in delivery, and that's really when I'm starting to see kind of the change stick, which has been, which has been awesome to see.

important to note here, right? What we're not recommending is that individuals at the frontline just, you know, at an ad hoc fashion, start adding technology to the tech stack. Like all of this should be Put through the corporate engine in order to have some additional oversight.

Make sure that it works with all of your tech stack mapping, your journey mapping. And that it won't be disruptive, but certainly as an influence to that conversation, you know, frontline probably has the greatest amount of visibility.

And I think this is also, I mean, I don't know, you're gonna know way more here, Jeff, what is the impact that you are seeing really on the sales and marketing, like alignment and expectations, like what are you seeing in your world from that side?

sales is really having a hard time being heard. Yeah. And I think that a chunk of that is because of the go-to-market strategy. Oftentimes, you know, you'll talk to, especially end of year, you'll talk to leaders about what the preparation or what the plans are for the upcoming year. And it, it leads with, you know, we're gonna grow by X amount of percent, and then it's followed up by, we're just gonna do more of what we did. that that isn't translating. So as your teams are going out trying to use the same message about the services that you provide and how you've been in the industry or in that market for X period of time, it isn't the thing that's starting conversations.

We have to get to a point of expertise if we want to be heard by that group and, and on the other side. You know, we also have kind of like a technical problem too, right? So the other side of being heard, we've got changes in consent management requirements on websites that are really causing blind spots in your analytics.

We've got algorithm updates in search engines and in social media platforms that are starting to show a sharp decline in performance of either websites or corporate profiles. Then you have behavioral changes, which all of these things impact. And so just without geeking out too much on data, I believe the last figure I saw said that one in six or one in seven searches result in an AI search summary that 70%,

Wow.

of searches generate zero clicks by the person performing the search. Which means they're living in that AI summary. 

Candidates and clients are like getting answers without even landing on someone's website.

so as a brand to be heard, you've got to start

I.

and reimagining yourself to be a knowledge hub. will help serve and support the community that you're, that you are in fact helping and assisting, that your frontline teams leverage that in that information in order to build that digital trust.

So it's a bit of a, you know, you, you said a flywheel earlier, of the same concept, but we need to reimagine and redefine how these instruments work so that that way they can still be beneficial to the organization. So I know that I just unpacked a lot in a very short minute. It's, it is kind of complicated and I think it's too much for this particular segment.

So if anybody has questions, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn I'm happy to, to help educate on all those pieces. But, you know, amending your go to market, identifying what your technology circumstances are, and then, realizing behavioral change and trying to meet your community where they are now. And where they're headed because as much as we'd all like to go back to what it was, pre pandemic, pre ai, I mean, heck, sometimes I even wanna go back to pre-social media, if I'm honest. If I'm honest. But like, you know, we can't like the cat's outta the bag.

let's just say it's a good thing. There wasn't social media through the college years, Jeff, like I.

Fair.

Not gonna lie. I am kind of glad that was not around so I can understand. But it is crazy 'cause it's kind of out of like the direct control of someone with all the changes that are happening. So it is kind of a, a scary change that is happening in the staffing firm.

But I will say, you guys, if you do wanna geek out on this. do not hesitate to reach out to him. 'cause he'll like dive in. You guys will go down rabbit holes, you won't believe, but it will be great and it would be well worth it.

So I promise you. Okay. So Jeff, let me like kind of bring this around here. So all these changes though, which we're seeing a lot from the digital, the behavioral, the cross collaboration. We have the sales and, recruiters that are driving these change my innovation inversion as we're saying it, but now it's also adding up and it's kind of almost like this cultural shift that we're also seeing.

I'm gonna see if I can coin another term here. I've, I've come up. Are you ready? I almost see it as like this new organizational collective culture. Like

I

it's a lot of, it's a lot of words, but it is, it's like an, it's like this collective culture where like staffing firms are moving away from the singular and silos as we were looking at and chatting about before, and it's now this top-down culture where change doesn't only come from leadership, it's coming from every single parts.

It's way more. Collective, truly across an entire organization. So it's almost like feeding into this amazing ecosystem that's happening that this cultural shift is, is looking at

agree, right? It's, I think the companies that are doing the best, the ones that are performing the best, the ones that are at least starting to leverage some internal innovation and move in a right direction, they're moving away from that singular top down mentality, and they're moving from a more environmental out in.

Mentality. So like taking everything

Mm-hmm.

even the environment, your community, the behaviors that are happening, tracking those in through the frontline workers and then having that bubble up for a real, you know, important conversation is, is definitely happening. And, and honestly, the ones that are, are truly just crushing it right now. Are the ones that are, are finding themselves to be able to be very present in the moment. I think leadership has to be present and they have to be willing to sort of like take in all of this feedback because it is, it's more work, right? And it's distracting and there's a lot of things that need to get done when you're trying to run a business.

But this is very much important to the survival and to the growth of your business is to really be there.

Yeah, and I think that if you're like listening to what's happening on the ground, it really helps you drive what strategy? Where do you. Need to be. And then it's kind of putting it into this picture of being really open to change. So not resisting it, but leaning into it. So if you're in that realm, you can truly, truly be.

Prepared to adapt. I mean, have an adaptive personality behavior, and it's really adaptability is what this all kind of comes down to. I don't know if you're like Yeah, if you probably agree. I mean, we are highly adaptive. So

Like, honestly, it, like

yeah.

be willing, you have to be willing, like you cannot

Yeah.

on anymore. You can't, you can't stick your head in the ground, whatever the analogy is that you want to use. You can't, if you want to be if you wanna still have those really strong growth goals, if you want to see yourself continue to evolve, the evolution requires you to be willing to participate differently than you have in the past.

A hundred percent agree. 'cause if you're prepared, you're willing, and if you're willing, you're actually going to act on the change that truly matters. But I mean, none of this really is new for us. I mean, collaboration between departments and feedback loops have been a part of the conversation for decades

really.

you could really replay this, I mean, aside from some of the technology stuff, you could replay this 10 years ago, 20 years ago, and the idea of adapting to change and like needing to evolve. It is absolutely the same exact conversation. It's just a different time.

A hundred percent agree. So like today's democratized technology and human behavior are making it a requirement to survive. And truly thrive as we move forward. I mean, constant change is here to stay. We're seeing it in the need for stronger cross collaboration in the inversion of influence from frontline to CTO and digital dilemmas reshaping visibility, and truly in the new collective culture that's kind of emerging.

I mean, the firms that embrace these shifts don't just survive change. They're actually getting ahead of it.

Well, Erin, this has been a really good discussion. 

This has been great. We will see everyone next time.