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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
workplace well-being, aligning roles, employee strengths, job matching, veteran transition, foster care, sustainable job matching, hiring challenges, behavior diversity, managerial fit, custom job patterns, succession planning, social impact, legacy living, job fit analysis
SPEAKERS
Damon Pistulka, Jan Barlow
Damon Pistulka 00:07
All right, everyone, welcome once again to the faces of business. I am your host, Damon Pistulka, and I am excited for our guest today, because we have none other than Jan Barlow with us today, and we’re going to be talking about enhancing workplace well being by aligning roles with employee strength. Jan, Thanks for being here today.
Jan Barlow 00:32
My friend Damon, I’m so excited to join you today. Thanks for inviting me.
Damon Pistulka 00:36
It is going to be a lot of fun here. And I want to first of all, we like to start out our show by understanding, Jan, how did you get into helping people align roles and people with fit in business?
Jan Barlow 00:55
It started when I actually created my own job at a global pharmaceutical company. I was in sales and marketing, and I found myself at trade shows, helping our clinical team do demos, right? And so the sales people, they’re like, I don’t know what to do with this thing. So I’m like, This is not hard, right? So I literally, because I was bored, I actually got a clinical C, O, m, t, certified medical ophthalmic medical technician right certification, so I could teach doctors how to perform surgery, so LASIK right, and then I could also teach them how to Close patients right, because it was pathology versus retail. We were selling an elective surgery that was at that time they were charging four to $5,000 out of pocket, so I literally could sell them the half a million dollar laser train the doctor and staff on how to perform the surgery, and then teach them how to close the patients. So I literally created my own job there, but also it helped me with the teams of finding the right people on the team, right? The patient flow? How to you know, because throughput on the laser depended on how many patients you can do. Yeah, right. It’s production. That’s really what it is, it’s manufacturing. So I really gained my experience there and made my name there, hired by our biggest competitor. They were merging with two other companies to create a new division. So believe it or not, not many people would be that smart to purchase two companies and merge them for one department. But they hired me because I could do all three of those jobs, right, and we could keep on that sales process and every 120 days, you know, we could be making some money here, right? We didn’t have that downtime as much while that merger and that whole transition was going on. So it was great. I had a great manager that I knew from the industry. Two months later, Damon, they moved her, put somebody else in the job, yeah. And that person changed my whole job description, yeah. So that went south real quick. So I got real stressed. I was like, What do you mean? I gotta do Excel spreadsheets? What merge? I didn’t even know that my computer that I didn’t have the software to do those spreadsheets. And I’m like, okay, that doesn’t make us money. You know, that really wasn’t, you know, but the the underlying intention wasn’t to make money, right? It was to just pretty much get me to quit. Well, I have a My dad was a Marine, so I got to be honest. Damon, I just thought I had to try harder. Yeah. So unfortunately, you know, after seven or eight months, I I mean, my hair was falling out, my palms were peeling. It was not good. And I, to be honest, I lost everything. I walked away from the job. I just said, You know what? This isn’t this. I can’t do this anymore. And it just really my whole life crashed. And then after that, when I was really looking at my life. I said, What? What do I feel called to do? Well, I felt called to make sure that nobody else experienced what I went through, and that’s why I started better job. Fit
Damon Pistulka 04:30
Nice, nice. It’s interesting. It’s it is. It is interesting how I think people that have gone through mergers or gone through significant job changes in their life, and even, like you said, some leadership changes that that really it can turn a really good opportunity into something that totally doesn’t fit, just as like Bucha. Drives you crazy.
Jan Barlow 05:01
Well, it wasn’t good for the company either, I mean, but there was so much chaos going on, as you all know, you know, during the time, like nobody, everybody’s concerned about their own job, so there’s nobody watching the wheel. Mm, hmm, right. And so it’s total chaos. Um, so it wasn’t on anybody’s radar.
Damon Pistulka 05:21
Yeah, yeah, so you decided to walk away tough experience. What really, I mean? What really was the the switch that flipped and said, I want to start my own company to do this. It really
Jan Barlow 05:42
when, you know, when I thought about I was feeling very vulnerable. I mean, after losing everything, car, house, marriage, everything, I’m like, Who can I help? It’s if you want to lift yourself up, you go into service mode. Who can I serve? That’s just, you know, common, you know, human nature. So to me, you know, I had friends that were CEOs or founders of veteran organizations and foster care alumni. So I took my skill set and science right the AI piece that I had been using and said, I’m going to help those populations. Because, you know, when it comes to transitioning from the military into the private sector, a lot of people assume that the military gives them the support. It’s like your kids transitioning from high school to college, right? I mean, but to them, it’s been a lifetime or a long period of time that they’ve been in that culture or that environment. So when they’re turned out to the really the general public or private life, there are no rules, right? There’s, it’s, there’s no structure, so same as foster care. So I was able to pretty much start better job fit. We were the job matching program that helped deepen the relationship with companies and with the nonprofit organization to create true, sustainable job matching opportunities,
Damon Pistulka 07:22
nice, nice. So as you’re helping these veterans as they transition out at that point in time, what were some of the things that really, really uplifted and helped you to keep going forward?
Jan Barlow 07:38
I think just seeing how, especially veterans, I mean, when in, in the foster care, when, when they were being transitioned out to the private sector. And I’d hear the stories, because I’d be part of the groups, right? They would meet weekly or or monthly, and I’d hear the stories, and it made me mad. I’m like, this system needs to change. This is broken. It’s been broken for a long time, right? And so I’ve said, I, you know, when you think about living your legacy, Damon, that’s how I look at it. I’m, I’m not going to leave a legacy. I want to live one. There
Damon Pistulka 08:18
you go. Live my legacy. Yeah, write that down. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So from then until now, let’s tell let’s talk a little bit about your journey from then until now, and some of the things you’ve learned and some of the exciting things that you get to do today.
Jan Barlow 08:37
You know, I think I took a lot of lessons from when I was starting those ophthalmic practices, right? Because there really are many startups, even though a doctor may have a pathology practice, he’s been in business, as you know, when you start any department or new venture, right? That becomes a startup within that organization. So really, I had fun doing that, and so what I just did was take that piece of startups with ophthalmologists and transferred that to, you know, really the veteran and the foster care space. So really helped the those organizations create a model to which they could have a deeper relationship with the companies that were already partnering with them. So we created a sustainable job matching model to where the foster care or veteran nonprofit organization became the recruiting source for the companies. So it literally created a holistic relationship to where the companies were truly going to the nonprofit as their recruiting source.
Damon Pistulka 09:57
Wow. So. Yeah, so in that situation, then you were helping the people looking for a job to identify the best roles where they would be, you know, be the happiest, most productive and and really fit the best. And then you were helping the agencies helping these people transition into a a job, really match them with the right opportunities,
Jan Barlow 10:23
yeah, and it was all within the companies that were already supporting those nonprofits, right with a check? Yeah. I don’t know about you, but we got, especially the last few years, donor fatigue is huge. And so what we really like to say is it’s not about there’s a lack of resources. It’s a lack of resourcefulness. And so that was one of the biggest things when we started to share what we do with better job fit and how we created this social impact model that truly has been really, it’s a great reform, so to speak. It’s just really creating holistic relationships. You know, companies are used to stroke in a check, give it to the nonprofit. They get a receipt, that’s it. Yeah, we’re able to give them back something. So when they write a check, so to speak, for the job, matching assessments for the stakeholders, we’re able to create custom job match patterns for any position that they have open, and we’re able to match those people back at them. So that’s kind of how we love doing it. Well,
Damon Pistulka 11:34
yeah, because, you know, hiring people is not gotten easier. That’s certainly in the last the last five or so years, and being able to give these employers new sources of talented people that already are kind of pre screened to fit in the the roles that’s that has to be quite a quite a relationship well,
Jan Barlow 11:57
and it’s what’s interesting Is it’s different. Okay, so, you know, the beauty of job matching is that it has nothing to do with your age, race, socio economic situation has nothing to do with that. And this is science technology that’s been out for 30 plus years. But, but HR, or traditional HR, is afraid of it, because, I gotta be honest, they think it’s going to eliminate their job, yeah. And really, it just upped their human game, yeah?
Damon Pistulka 12:30
Well, I mean, in, in my experience, in hiring of, I mean, fair amount of people over the years, both in all levels, in the in organization, it’s not easy. It’s, I mean, it’s not easy identifying someone that you think is a good fit for a role, and they’re totally the wrong fit, and it’s so hard. It’s just super hard. I would think that when companies start to learn about this that it makes a big difference for them.
Jan Barlow 13:02
It’s a, I gotta be honest, it’s 1/3 of the decision making process, but it gives you the objective information that you have no way of getting unless you’ve worked with the person for a year. Yeah, cut that time down in half, yeah, less than that. I mean, really, less than that, because you’re going to get information about the person before they start the job. Yes,
Damon Pistulka 13:27
yes, huh. So what are some of the things that that employers tell you that they’re really see valuable in the process, or that they’re surprised by in the process.
Jan Barlow 13:44
You know, we like to work with hiring managers or the C suite, because they’re the ones that feel the pain. Yeah, um, HR does not, I gotta be honest. You know, a lot of people think, oh, because it’s hiring, we’ll send that to HR. That’s not who, that’s not who will suffer the pain, who experiences the pain? It’s the candidate and the hiring manager. Yeah, right. And that’s who we like to really work with, because that’s those. Those are the people that that it makes the difference to,
Damon Pistulka 14:19
yeah, yeah. So what is the feedback you get from the the hiring managers when you’re talking with them after they’ve seen a few candidates come through the process, they’re, they’re doing their interviews and things. What do they say about it? Well,
Jan Barlow 14:31
can I share a little story with you? Yeah, it’d be great. So we had, I had this one nonprofit organization. They’re over 100 years old. They knew the process right? Worked with them before, and I got a call. They said, Jan, we want to hire for a new position. You know, new position. We want to create this new position. I said, Okay, let’s we got to create a custom job match pattern for it. First, it asked questions like. Like, does the job require college level? Math? Does I mean specific? This isn’t about a job description. Yeah, this is asking specific questions. What does success look like for that job? What is it require every day? Mm, hmm, different, right? That’s a whole different ball game. Yes. She said, Okay, I’ll call you. So I kept on sending her emails, whatever, follow up, no, no response. Finally get a call. She says, Hey, wanted to let you know I hired somebody already. Okay, so we had them take the job matching assessment. We did, you know, we had the job match pattern. The person was a 67% match. Not so good. We only, we only take 85% and above. So I’m like, holy moly, what do I do with this? I mean, I can’t do anything like, what? How do I I can’t fix it, right? Yeah. So after talking myself off the ledge, I said, Okay, what can I do to provide value to my client, right? And to this new person, because this isn’t going to bode well for this person. Yeah, right. I mean that. And the sad part about it is she that the client went to him and recruited him directly. She got that person from her previous employer. She never worked with him. She worked with somebody that worked with him. So she went to him so he wasn’t even looking for a job, yeah. So she went specifically talked him out of from leaving his current position, said he would be great for that job. So we sat down and we did what’s called the managerial fit report, going to show you know, when it comes to pace decisiveness, all the nine behaviors, right that you deal with somebody during the time you work with them, right? There were three areas, very big gaps, so pace decisiveness and assertiveness between the manager and the new employee. Yeah. So there was going to be some serious we addressed resistance gaps. How do we work together when it comes to those gaps? Afterwards, she said to him, we need to thank Jan for being there. And he said, Well, what do you mean? She’s and she pushed the report forward, and she said, if I didn’t know these things before now, I would have, in six months, I would have thought that you couldn’t keep up, and I’d have to fire you. Yeah, me, that’s the, that’s the big that was the big deal, yeah, because you got somebody that quit their job based on somebody saying you’re, you’re great for this position, I know it. Mm, hmm. And now, six months later, you fire me because now I’m not a good match to the job. Yeah. Yeah, right. To me, anybody that’s in, you know, has been in, in work transition, been let go, been downsized, been laid off. You know that you go into that food, water, shelter mode, yeah, right. That’s an emotional state. You can have a house. You can have money in the bank. It has nothing to do with that. It’s that basic Maslow hierarchy of need. Yeah, your brain is now scattered, and you can’t think clearly. You can’t see opportunity. You can’t you’re paralyzed, right? So to me, it goes much deeper, right? So to answer your question, question in a long roundabout way, that was the response,
Damon Pistulka 19:09
yeah. Well, that’s good, though, because one of the things that you mentioned there is you were brought in really after the fact, but the job fit analysis that you do really help them to go through where the discrepancies or the challenges might be and address those before they got to be problems. Yeah, and that’s something that’s really valuable, I think, too, is because there’s a lot of good people in organizations that may not be understood by their leaders well enough, and you help to bridge that gap between the the person that’s doing that and their leader so they understood each other better and could continue, continue down the road more productively.
Jan Barlow 19:59
Exactly. Right? And the biggest piece there as well is, you know, we were able to look at we there’s a report called a multiple position report, and it shows we run it against every position we have custom and and generic match pattern in our library. So I was able to share with her how else she can leverage that person’s strengths beyond just their job. Yeah, right. So that’s another aspect that people say, oh, you know, this person is okay. You know, when it comes to their job, they’re an okay performer. Well, guess what you’re leaving. You know, if we did a match, and maybe they’re a 79% match to their job, well, guess what? You’re leaving the percentage, right? I mean, you’re leaving how much percentage on the table of strengths and other ways that you can use that person. But unless you know, objectively, know, the different ways you can use that person in their job or even as an extension in your company. How? How would you know it’s like using a screwdriver? How many different ways can you use a screwdriver? Mm, hmm, right? I mean, a screwdriver is purchased to screw, right? I don’t know about you, Damon, but I’ve used a screwdriver to pop a paint lit off and use the handle to put it back on, right?
Damon Pistulka 21:26
Yeah, yeah. There’s a lot of and that’s one of the things that when you said that, I was really thinking how valuable that would be. Because if you did that with a team, saying, I’ve got a team of of people that are working together, and we go, oh, we need some help with this. And you look around the team, and if you knew that, yeah, you could say that, you know, Steve is creative in this way, or would would be, you know, they’ve, they’ve got really some talents here. They don’t do it in their daily role because they’re a good fit in that. But they also have talents here that we could utilize if the need came up exactly,
Jan Barlow 21:59
and how we like to use it is, you know, we have companies that, excuse me every every position in their company. We have a customized job match to so we have a a manufacturing plant here in Dallas, a client that has like 80 employees. So they’re growing fast, right? So what we did was, but what’s interesting is, his leadership team managers couldn’t go on vacation because they don’t have anybody to replace them, right? They don’t have backup. And a lot of people, they’re loyal employees. They’ve been working it’s a family owned business. They don’t take the vacation that they have. So what we did was we did job matching right, and now we pull a list who is a match to the various jobs. So now we have actually two every position has a backup, at least one backup, so they’re able to take vacation when they want to take vacation, right?
Damon Pistulka 23:07
That’s awesome. That’s awesome because that, I mean, again, just as we, as we talked about enhancing that workplace well being doesn’t necessarily mean yes, you want to align fit, but you also want to let people take some time off because that that’s as bad as anything for work, as
Jan Barlow 23:25
well being that, and also growing, right? Um, human beings, where everything living grows and expanse, right? I don’t know where we’re getting this idea that, hey, you’re hired for this job, you’re going to stay in it. Like, come on now, right? Like, we’re beyond the Industrial Revolution. Um, what we like is, is to go into a company and say, Hey, especially to new hires. Guess what? You’re a match to five other positions in our company. We want to keep you so at the end of eight or nine months, let’s look at how many different positions in the company you’re aligned with. And how about if we go and have you shadow two of these, two or three of these other positions, so you can see what’s available in our company, what you might be interested in a couple, two or three years down the road.
Damon Pistulka 24:18
Yeah, yeah. Because if they’re matched to multiple positions again, you could have create some backup redundancy. You could create a growth plan for that person. If it was a lateral into another area where they could go up, or an upward move they could make in the company. Yeah, that would really uncover a lot of great opportunities for you. And
Jan Barlow 24:39
we love peeing, you know, the private equity because, especially if the company has, you know, maybe they have 100 companies or 50 or 100 companies under their umbrella. Well, why not cross pollinate? Like, why would you know, let’s say that you’re acquiring a company, and, yeah, you might already have a. Accounting firm, or maybe you’re outsourcing, you know, the accounting firm, your accounting department, to an outside Well, why would you get rid of those people? What? Why that’s like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and you just paid for that intellectual property. Why not be able to match those people to other companies or other departments in the company that you just acquired? Why? Why wouldn’t you do that? Yeah, I mean, it’s 1/3 of a of a person’s salary just to get to hire somebody, 1/3 that doesn’t include training them, and then the expense of everybody else that’s helping to train them, right?
Damon Pistulka 25:42
Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s an, it’s, it’s a very, very expensive process to hire people, and I think it’s often overlooked because the process, the dollars get baked in over time, if you’re not good at it, and they just think it’s an operating cost, but it’s in there, yeah, and, but that’s a that’s a great observation, too. And I know you’ve helped people do this talk a little bit about that, because, you know, in the in the worlds of company mergers, they’re oftentimes, it’s just some of the people are inevitably going to go because they’re duplicated, or something like that, and how, how does this really help them in that situation?
Jan Barlow 26:25
You know what I love about you know, for the people that are are transitioning out right? You know what we found is, especially if there is what I think it was like in 2018 we had a lot of HR people that were those positions were being absorbed by other positions in the company, right? So we had a lot of HR people that were out of work. Well, they naturally kept on looking online for jobs in HR position. And I’m like, Okay, that is the example of insanity. Okay, so with our job matching ability, we’re like, Look Good point COVID, right? We had the top because we’re connected to VC and private equity. We had the top six COVID, you know, expanding industries, right? It was healthcare or telehealth, telemedicine, it was education, it was cyber security. I mean, there were six different types of industries that were booming. Well, we were able to take our job matching science and be able to cross pollinate these people into those industries that were thriving, yeah, right outside their HR position. So how do you take, you know, that’s what, what is so great about it is using that objective science to say, Guess what you you know, yeah, your job was HR compensation benefits, but we had a person that she was a high match to sales and technology. Well, guess what? She got a position just from the way that we do our Boolean search. What you know, part of our process, she was able to garner a position with a startup tech company that sells software that helps companies identify what compensation or what health plans to purchase for their employees. So she she was able to work in a sales position, a user experience the back end of sales, right? So that’s kind of how we leveraged her HR benefits, compensation benefits, leveraged her, her match to sales and technology to be able to transition her to a position like that. Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 28:56
yeah. Cuz that’s it. Mean, I think a lot of times people get, as you said, with those HR hiring managers that were out of work, they think, Well, I’ve been an HR hiring manager. That’s what I need to go do. And there are some times and the better job fit analysis really helps these people to understand why was an HR but I’m really would be good at this as well. And it opened up, opens up new possibilities. And
Jan Barlow 29:21
I think that right there, you know, we only know the 5% of what we think is possible, or what we’re a match at, and somebody else’s belief system of us, or limited perception of us, is still 5% that’s what I love about our objective technology, because we’re the 95% of that no other human being could know.
Damon Pistulka 29:44
Yeah, yeah. So what is the most interesting thing you think you’ve learned by giving you know, seeing these this many people take these tests and and really get the results from them. I mean. There. There have to be some interesting things you’ve gleaned from seeing these people and learning these things. It’s the
Jan Barlow 30:06
the one thing that everybody experiences first when they see the list of what they could be a potential match to first is the shot like they’re trying to understand, how can I’ve been in HR, right? Yeah, that example, and that client, particular client, saw the sales and technology, and her first response was, oh, I can’t do that. Sales people are, are pushy. Okay, let some pack that belief system, right? Because that’s the only thing that was blocking her from entertaining that as an opportunity. Yeah, right, cuz the objective science is there. She’s a 90% match, right? So we just skip like that. Just skips everything that just kind of puts you ahead of the class. We don’t have to figure anything out. This is telling us, right? Mm, hmm. But that personal perception limited perception of sales people, yeah, enough, you know. And I said, Did you have a bad experience or what? Well, no, uh, okay, what? Then, what? What is it that’s blocking your you know, belief in that? Well, everybody knows sales people are pushy. And what’s interesting the behavior scale. One of the the behavior is assertiveness, scale one to 10. Well, the one is unassuming, the 10 is forceful. She scored an eight. Oh, yeah, that’s what I’m saying. We can’t be objective about ourselves. Yes, that’s why this tool is so important, right? Those assessments, like Myers, Briggs and disc those aren’t job matching tools. Those are asking you how you feel about yourself, right? Well, we already know we can’t be objective, but what I think the the biggest aha moment was with her was after I told her, I said, Okay, on that scale one to 10, you’re an eight. If you score one or a 10, you represent 2.5% of 140,000 people that were in this validation study. If you score a nine or two, you represent 4.5% if you score an eight or three, you represent 7% I said, So 93% of 140,000 people think you’re pushy. That was the aha moment. I mean, yeah, so that, right there, is really the biggest it’s the biggest challenge, but the biggest aha moment. Once you can move beyond the limited belief of yourself, of what you think is possible or what your opportunities are, that’s when the world opens up. Damon, it really does, and that’s what’s fulfilling for me,
Damon Pistulka 33:19
yeah, because you’re helping people see things that like you said. They didn’t, they couldn’t see. And when you start to go through it the way you did, and understanding the scales where they’re at, why they’re why it’s saying what it is, people could then realize, Oh yes, I see this now
Jan Barlow 33:38
well, and it was so revealing, because I connected it to the experience I had at a global pharmaceutical company I was in sales and clinical right when we were going for second generation FDA clinical approval. And you know how important that is to a company? Mm, hmm, they had already bought that company for a billion dollars. It was the largest medical device acquisition back in 1999 so they already bought the farm, right just to get that company. And then five years later, they went for their second generation approval. Well, I’m in the middle between sales and clinical, and you got the FDA process. It’s called a red folder. So, you know, they just pass this red folder and they have to do all these experiments and studies and tests and everything, right? Well, the clinical people that are all on the same behavior profile. They’re all alike, low on sociability, right, low on decide. I mean, there’s no diversity in behavior there. Well, sales is a total opposite, yeah, so you have that resistance gap, right? Okay, well, fast forward, I was trying to tell leadership, like we got a problem here, like this, we gotta bring everybody together. And he said, Why don’t you just take them bowling? That That doesn’t work so fast forward, in 2018 really looking at this information and how it’s transforming teams, and how that company lost, I mean, they lost their their FDA clinical approval. Damon, you know how much money that that equates to. So thinking back to that, I trademarked what’s called behavior diversity. Because when you see those resistance gaps, it’s easy enough to bridge those resistance gaps, but you you have to, you know, really engage people in understanding themselves. Yeah. So they first that aha moment of oh, now I understand that’s how I am. And then now the second piece is, oh, now I can respect somebody else. That’s a that’s a two step process that opens up the whole expansion, right? Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 36:15
it’s gotta be really cool, though, when people like you said, like the HR manager going into a different, completely different thing, and then it turning out well for them.
Jan Barlow 36:24
Well, what’s interesting? It really isn’t. It really isn’t outside their bubble. Mm, hmm, because they were already dealing with other age, you know, compensation benefits, that topic, they were already dealing with technology within her own company. She had to deal with that for her company. So now we just positioned her, really, in a company that it serves more HR people. So really didn’t, you know, it’s like positioning people, really at a higher level. It’s still doing the same, similar work. It’s, it’s not so far out of their wheelhouse.
Damon Pistulka 37:12
Yeah, it may seem a different at the on the outside, but on the inside, it’s the same components Exactly,
Jan Barlow 37:20
and that’s the biggest, really, the biggest differentiator is because people can’t. Most human beings can’t see beyond that. They just see the job. Well, what, what job did you do before? I mean, you literally have to explain to a recruiter, you have to You’re the one that has to connect the dots of what you’ve done and how you fit the job that you’re applying for. They don’t know that. You can’t assume that they know it. Yeah.
Damon Pistulka 37:55
So are you seeing that more companies want to use this to retain, retain the people they’ve got, like, in situations that you said, like, if we’re going through, maybe we’re doing a downsizing, or maybe we’re doing a merger with another company. Do you think that people are because of the hiring challenges over the past, you know, three, four years? Do you think they’re more willing to look at things like the better job fit analysis, you
Jan Barlow 38:23
know, it’s coming to a point now where they’re feeling the pain. Yes, see, that’s the difference. So we, we, you know, we, we like to talk to different companies and share what we do, but they still are like, Well, I’m not sure. Like, like, maybe you need to talk to our HR people and but the pain isn’t as great yet, right? But I gotta be honest, the pain is getting worse. Don’t you agree?
Damon Pistulka 38:52
Yeah, yes, I there is some, there are some roles that are so incredibly hard to hire for now, and it’s not the same roles that, that we saw, you know, three, four years ago, when the tech roles were so hard to fill and things that I don’t think those are as hard, but the ones in healthcare are tremendously difficult to hire. For some of the specialized healthcare,
Jan Barlow 39:14
what I love to do is, you know, those are the companies that I want to talk to and say, Hey, let’s create a custom job match pattern for that role. Let me run it against everything we got. And I can tell you, you know, we could pull people, you know, let’s say that position is equal to a Director of Operations. Let’s say that so I can sit there and pull those different jobs, you know, categories of positions that match that job and have a whole slew of people that have that skill set, they just call it a different role, right? That’s what people get hung up on, yeah,
Damon Pistulka 39:54
yeah, huh. That’s a great way to look at it, because it could be a very valuable. Thing, if you’re, if you’re trying to, you know, hard to hire. But do we have anybody else that we could move in, in internally, already move into that role and then hire into a different role, potentially?
Jan Barlow 40:11
That’s why we say that if everybody in the company, if every job has a custom job match pattern, every person has a job match profile, we run everybody against every position. Now you have a succession plan. Mm, hmm, why would you not? Why would you not want to do that? Yes,
Damon Pistulka 40:30
right. Great point. Great point. Because your your succession. The first part of your succession is identifying who it would be, and that could help you a lot in that process.
Jan Barlow 40:45
Well and again, the growth of the individual, right? Yes, when you say to a person, hey, you know anybody, whether it’s a new person coming in, or you’re existing, they look, we want to keep you alright, but we want you to feel challenged. We want you to grow and expand. How many employers say that to their employees? Yeah, it’s
Damon Pistulka 41:07
not nearly enough. That’s never hurt.
Jan Barlow 41:09
I mean, nobody says that, yeah, yeah,
Damon Pistulka 41:12
not nearly enough. That’s for sure, right? For sure. Awesome, awesome stuff. Well, what do you have exciting coming up, Jan, I mean, this is awesome, how you’re helping people with a better job fit the the matching and really understanding what’s going on there. But what do you have coming up that’s exciting, that getting you fired up, or that people might want to go to
Jan Barlow 41:36
I got to tell you, I want everybody to come to our workshop, where we got a workshop on the 19th, 12 noon central. I put the the the sign up link in there. And I know you said you’ll share it with everybody.
Damon Pistulka 41:49
It’s in the it’s in the the post for the event, so it’s in there. Awesome.
Jan Barlow 41:53
We’re, we’re doing a free workshop. It’s really a great engagement session. We want to know what’s going on with people who are want to grow their business, what it takes to to grow the business to the next level, and when you want to sell it, maybe you want to sell it to p and E. What does that look like? What is What are you going to have to do to get that ready to sell right, that you can work on now and put those processes in place. We talk a lot about how to take those people that are in your company. If you’re going to sell, what can you do with them? You know, what are the options? Plus, if you’re the owner of that business, what next? We love working with entrepreneurs, business owners that are ready to, hey, let’s sell, you know, after I, you know, take a few months off on the beach or whatever. Lot of people think, Oh, I’m just going to lay on the beach, right? I I’ve spoken to too many business owners that, yeah, they’ve taken a little break, but then they’re bored. Yeah, right. It’s, it’s what’s next. People are living their legacy now. Damon, it’s, it’s not about that word retire. Now, there’s too much living to do, too much impact to make.
Damon Pistulka 43:11
Yes, I can, I agree, 100,000,000% on that, because there are so many business owners that can that sell, or think they’re going to sell their business. Oh, I’m going to go fish, or I’m going to retire, I’m going to play golf or something, you know. And like you said, six months down the road, they’re like, I never really imagined what it was like to pay golf every day. And I don’t like it every day, right? And or I don’t like there’s not enough projects that I can do around the home, you know. And there really are some incredible legacy careers that you can do after that, are for social impact or your own impact. Whatever you want to do, start a new business that, you know, is in one of the things that’s funniest ever is is we got to help a number of years ago. Here now, it’s been a number of years ago. The of one of the, I don’t know they gotta be at least in the Inc, 500 private or publicly traded companies. The CEO from the company retired. He opened a bike a shop, and buy a bike shop, and he opened a bike shop, and he now he runs a bike shop. It’s like, this is to do. It’s like, Dude, you are flying in private jets. No, I want a bike shop. I like biking. I want a bike shop. I want to do it. Well they, you know, and these are the kind of things that you can do at that when you’ve got other people that it’s a whole philanthropic thing that they can do. There’s a lot of people that are just giving back and sharing their the knowledge that they’ve had, and it’s an awesome point in life when you can realize the benefits of having that business and then turn around and do what you what you do. Didn’t think you could do why you had the business, but now you have the time.
Jan Barlow 45:03
That’s exactly right. Damon, and you know what we we saw so many people transition to their next and wanted to do something for social impact. Wanted to really live their legacy. We actually started a group last year called the force multipliers for good. So you literally have the group that is creating individually and collectively social impact through what you know their calling is. So we’re really excited about that group as well.
Damon Pistulka 45:33
Awesome, awesome. Well, Jan, if someone wants to reach out to you about better job fit, job matching, you know, just trying to get the right people in the right roles so they’re enhancing their workplace well. Being, what’s the best place or what’s the best way to get a hold of you find
Jan Barlow 45:50
me on LinkedIn. That’s the first that you know. That’s easy as well. But also you can email me at J Barlow, at better job, fit, dot, O, R, G, I want to schedule an appointment, a call with with everybody, and be able to sit one on one, learn more about them what’s going on. You know, in their bubble, I welcome that
Damon Pistulka 46:16
awesome, awesome. Well, thanks so much for being here, Jan. I appreciate you stopping by again. We had Jan Barlow from better job Fitch, he was here today talking about enhancing workplace well being by aligning roles with employee strengths. Wow. Such great information about what you’re doing and how you’re helping people really discover the resources they have under their own roof. Sometimes, for people with that can move into different roles. Just thank you so much for being here today,
Jan Barlow 46:49
my friend, thank you so much.
Damon Pistulka 46:50
I appreciate you. Yeah, awesome, awesome. Well, I also want to thank everyone that was in here in the comments today. I know I didn’t get to you much, but Rhea, thanks for being here today. Jackie, thanks for being here today. Bucha, you’re here. And there’s others that didn’t drop the comments. We appreciate you out there. Listen. I can see we have a lot of listeners online. Thank you so much. We appreciate you being here, and if you’re in the US, have a great holiday weekend this weekend, Jan, hang out with me for a moment, and we’ll finish up offline. Awesome. Thanks. Bye, everybody. Have a great day, everyone. Bye.
