The SiteVisit

Innovative Solutions for Talent Acquisition with Kyle Davis, Managing Partner at SiteTalent

• James Faulkner

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Imagine transforming the outdated recruitment strategies in the construction industry and creating a seamless, efficient process for both companies and job seekers. That's exactly what Kyle Davis, Managing Partner at SiteTalent, helps us unpack in this episode. He takes us through the incredible evolution of SitePartners, a company that began as a small venture and has now blossomed into a trusted multifaceted brand. Kyle shares his experiences from a decade-long career in traditional recruitment, revealing the flaws he encountered and how his journey led him to join Site Talent. You'll learn about the innovative methods Site Talent employs to build trust and improve talent acquisition.

Discover the cutting-edge technology behind a revolutionary niche job board platform designed specifically for the construction and industrial sectors. Whether companies need a simple candidate generation approach or a comprehensive full-service model to enhance employer branding and culture alignment, this platform offers scalable solutions. This segment provides valuable insights into how this technology addresses the talent shortage in construction, promoting significant industry growth.

Finally, we decode the complexities of corporate culture within the construction sector. Kyle and James stress the importance of aligning a company's cultural messaging with its real work environment to attract the right talent and reduce turnover. They dive into how generational shifts and diverse workforce aspirations influence organizational culture and the benefits of Site Talent’s people-first recruitment model. Learn how genuine partnerships and transparent cultural representation can ensure long-term success for both candidates and companies. Don't miss the wisdom Kyle shares on creating authentic cultural messaging and fostering a balanced workforce.

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Speaker 1:

Yo, so last time I saw you I was in Calgary right.

Speaker 2:

That's right. Yeah, at the Top 40 Under 40 construction event. Yeah so that's crazy.

Speaker 1:

Site Partners when Andrew started, he was just this small little thing he had going on and now it's become this multifaceted sort of multi-channeled brand development thing for construction in general. It's crazy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. We like to say that we are a growth partner for the construction industry. And so it started with site partners, who is the marketing side, and then site news with the site jobs, which is a jobs board which is getting a lot of traction, which is fantastic, and those things. They evolved organically, you know, in partnering with construction companies. Andrew and the team were asked if there was any way that they would be able to facilitate hiring with a jobs board and they said, yeah, we can do that. Why don't we do a newsletter too? So that built out Site News. And so they've got a newsletter that comes out every Thursday. It's one of the most read construction newsletters in the industry, especially the articles about people moves and the project updates. And then their clients and partners started to ask if they would be able to support on the talent acquisition side. And so here we are with Site Talent developing new ways to become a true talent partner.

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, let's chat about that. This sounds pretty damn exciting, I gotta tell you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is really exciting and so what it was for me.

Speaker 1:

I've been in the recruitment industry for nearly a decade and I quit. Welcome to the Site. Visit Podcast Leadership and perspective from construction With your host, james Faulkner. Business as usual, as it has been for so long now that it goes back to what we were talking about before and hitting the reset button. You know you read all the books, you read the email, you read Scaling Up, you read Good to Great. You know I could go on. We've got the place where we found the secret serum. We found the secret potion. We can get the workers in. We know where to get them.

Speaker 2:

Once I was on a job search for a while and actually we had a semester concrete and I ordered like a green finished patio out front of the site show.

Speaker 1:

yesterday I was down at Dallas and a guy just hit me up on LinkedIn out of the blue and said he was driving from Oklahoma to Dallas to meet with me because he heard the Faber.

Speaker 1:

Connect platform on your guys' podcast, and we celebrate these values every single day. Let's get down to it All right. So I mean, how did this happen with you and Sight Talent? This is pretty exciting, so this is a big move for you. So how did this start? Like did you? Did Andrew pitch you? Like I knew that you were a matchbox before and that's how our connection to Christian, I believe.

Speaker 2:

That's right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and sort of evolved over time. I've seen you out there. You've always been a very driven, you're very driven a guy to watch, kind of thing. Thank you, yeah. So that's good on you with this new move. So tell us all about how this all the genesis of your site, talent and Kyle like how did this all happen?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely Happy to. So, after being in the recruitment industry for almost a decade, I quit. You know the whole recruitment industry is broken and I didn't even realize how broken it was until I took a step back and a step away in joining the Site Talent team. So you know, to start off, you know there are so many recruiters who love what they do and hate their job. There are clients who use recruitment agencies. I would say probably the majority of clients and construction companies who use recruitment agencies do so begrudgingly, as a necessary evil, you know, and they hold them at an arm's length because of how they function, the way they're structured, the way, you know, people are incentivized, Um, and you know, usually the recruitment companies are trying to, uh, grow and get more clients and more clients and more clients, and what happens is you end up cannibalizing your own business. Because what happens if you work with every construction company in the city that you work in? Where are you going to find talent for your clients?

Speaker 1:

Well, I know it's from it's from your other. It's from your other clients, which is antithetical to trust right.

Speaker 2:

So exactly.

Speaker 1:

So let's just talk about the um old school, if you call it, cause it seems like site talent has a new model. Absolutely okay, so let's just talk about the traditional model to date that I've always you know, I hate to say a bit been repulsed by over time, because I truly don't think that the recruiting agencies understand the entrepreneurial journey and how difficult it is, because the promise has always been oh, if the candidate doesn't work out, we'll replace that person with someone else.

Speaker 1:

It's like yeah, but do you know how much time and invest that I have to make getting to know somebody, making sure that they're doing all the things that are correct and then they don't work out? It's just a huge. It's like a huge excavation again that leaves a hole right and that hole becomes scars in the company over time when people don't work out. So it makes other people in your organization go. What's going on here? I feel not great here because this seems like a revolving door of we tried that, we tried that, we tried these people Is it us, is it them? Who is it? So that becomes this corporate self-esteem that gets attacked just via the process.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So, and you know, as you said, the cannibalizing, you know the entire work pool if you will. Yeah, work pool if you will. So, yeah, as you said, if you had every construction client, then yeah, your source, your pool, is the clients that trusted you.

Speaker 2:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, so I always I sort of have this set of values when we're hiring people. I don't like disrupting people's lives too much.

Speaker 1:

Like our company, sightmax. You know, like we, when we hire people, I want to know that we're, that we are a positive uptick for people in their career. The time was worth it, cause you know what, really, when it comes to the money side of things, that's an even exchange right. You pay somebody X and they deliver Y, and typically, that's a transaction that both parties are fine with. Everything else, though, is time, and time is the most valuable resource we have, and the waste of time and the opportunity costs that people have in their careers is very important, so tell me about the model that site talent now has. That is different.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, I'll start with. You know what you touched on, which was you know the transactional nature of what the recruitment industry is. Now, you know I provide a service, you pay me a fee and, just like you said, sometimes that service doesn't deliver the end result you were hoping for. You hired someone and they ended up not being a fit and they say, well, we'll replace them, but that's not the point. The point is the time. Like you said, our most valuable resource that you've lost investing in this process and in this person and now having to do it again, and where it really all starts with you touched on this too is getting to know your client and getting to know your people. You know how can a talent partner hire for you if they don't know you?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, know, the vibe.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you know, when I moved out to Calgary and I was developing our new network out there, I would go out and I would meet with new prospect clients and they would often say oh you know, we already have a recruitment agency that we work with, we've got an agreement in place.

Speaker 1:

An agreement. That's the worst part.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then say I've never met them, which was incredibly surprising for me at the time, because that's not how I was raised in the industry of recruitment, but that's how a larger part of the industry functions. And so a lot of people feel like recruiters kind of sit on the outside of the industry and they're kind of you know, they're poachers or snipers, you know, on the outside, looking in, and they just swoop in and they grab what they want you know a good candidate and they drop them somewhere else at their client, they take their fee and then they fly away and that's it. You know, it's not, it's not a partnership, and so that's where we're going to change things at Site Talent. First of all, we're not recruiters, we're a talent partner. We don't employ recruiters, we employ talent specialists.

Speaker 2:

Because of the group of companies that we are a part of with Site News, site Jobs, site Partners we've got all of these tools that we can deploy to help our partners assess and evaluate their brand, assess and evaluate their internal culture, assess and evaluate their marketing message and help them build that up.

Speaker 2:

And, counterintuitively, our goal at the end of the day is for our partners not to need a recruiter at all Not to need those contingency headhunting services that are the standard in the industry. So we want to build up our partner clients so that they've identified their culture, they know how to message it out, they know how their brand is being received. They've got more visibility in the market because we've helped them with that visibility through whether it's marketing campaigns or videos or any of our other tools. They're getting more visibility from the jobs board and whether they're using us for support on some of the more challenging roles or just able to hire more organically through their own methods and processes and internal hiring team, then we would see that as a success. So, almost like BC Hydro, we're going to be actively advocating for you to use our services less when it comes to the contingency model.

Speaker 1:

So if let's just take a transaction, I don't know, it's probably the T word.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a dirty word. It's a dirty word Just like recruiter.

Speaker 1:

So you're obviously going to have a pool of. How do you get the pool of talent? So when you have a client that's saying, okay, well, we need a new senior superintendent, we need a project manager, we need estimators, let's just say that they got like five jobs that they need to fill, what is the service there? Is it just messaging to the point where they become a sticky hook, sticky net out there and hopefully people see that? Is it an exposure thing? Or are you going out and actively finding people for them?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So great question, it can be any combination of those. Where we would start is with, like I mentioned, the brand and cultural evaluation, looking through their hiring process, their marketing messaging, reverse engineering, their candidate application process. What are they already doing? Where are they losing candidates through the process as they're trying to hire them on their own? And then we can help to once we've identified the cultural pieces that truly make them unique.

Speaker 2:

Having worked in the construction industry for, like I said, nearly a decade and met with some really fantastic companies doing amazing things, the part that often gets missed are all of the great things that these construction companies are doing for their employees, and that message doesn't get translated to their jobs board and so nobody sees it. You know, and nobody knows how great these places are to work, because all it says is we're looking for a project manager with five years experience in this type of construction, and it's missing the point. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to help them to develop that message and that story and then, using our network that we've built through SiteNews, sitejobs, sitepartners, the top 40 under 40 in construction, we can increase their exposure to drive more clicks and more views directly to them, and if that doesn't work, then and where are those?

Speaker 1:

where is that asset?

Speaker 2:

viewed. So that would be social media.

Speaker 1:

We can even do you know, print multimedia add like on the television radio, all of those channels. What I'm saying is, where is the end job post? Where does that live?

Speaker 2:

The end job post will be on their careers page as well as our jobs page, and we link the two together.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about your jobs page because, this is where the rubber hits the road, in my opinion. Absolutely, because you've got LinkedIn jobs, you've got Indeed, you've got all that stuff that is out of the network Yep, as far as I mean, you have to basically bring in randoms into that, and if you had to use those as a crutch, for instance you would have to assume that other let's just say this is a Vancouver case other Vancouver construction people who are looking for a career change are going to go onto those channels to see what opportunities there are, even in their own backyard.

Speaker 1:

So they're basically going out to the universe to come back to their own backyard, which is a very strange thing to do. So you guys are going to be having a job board, which is a very strange thing to do. So you guys are going to be having a job board, so do you have a technology platform right now that has the job post and it has the title and region and all that stuff?

Speaker 2:

That's right. Yeah, and it's branded with the company, so you know right away when you see the job who you're applying to.

Speaker 1:

Do you know what would be really great, I don't know if you guys are going to do this, but if you guys are going to do this, but if you guys have just a JavaScript plugin that basically puts an iframe on their website that has the posts and they can style it their way and it goes straight to that. So basically they build the job post within your WYSIWYG builder on your platform and then it goes right into there.

Speaker 2:

That's exactly what we're doing, and we're making sure that we link the job post from our jobs board directly to their careers page or directly to their.

Speaker 1:

I'm saying the technology will do that via the API. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:

And then the other thing, one of the other services that we offer, is that a lot of career pages in construction, especially, are ill-maintained. That we offer is that we, you know, a lot of career pages in construction, um, especially, are um ill-maintained. Um, they're not a particularly strong user experience.

Speaker 2:

Um, and so we've got a development team that we can help them rebuild that careers page. Um, and so, as we're pushing, you know, good candidates through to them, um, they have a better experience. You know, as soon as they hit that landing page for the careers page, they say, wow, this looks good, this company has it together.

Speaker 1:

Interesting. So yeah, I mean, I would think for. So you're right. Now it's mostly Western Canada, right? You do have stuff going in Toronto as well, I know that's right. You guys are pushing through to Eastern Canada. So but for that model to really work very, very well, you also need the light touch model and then you need the sort of full service model.

Speaker 1:

The full service is we're going to look at your employer brand, your values, your culture, all that stuff. And there's other people like, hey, man, I just like I need to get on your platform. Yep, I'll put the plugin on my website and I just need leads.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

For talent.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so, that's what they need.

Speaker 1:

So there's basically like a, and that seems like it's cool because it's essentially a niche platform for construction and industrial as well, right? So?

Speaker 2:

industrial and construction yeah.

Speaker 1:

So that's kind of cool, though, because you end up then having opportunities of what you might not have thought, of an area of interest, of an area of interest, I think, from the talent point of view. If I'm in construction and I've, maybe I could do a pivot. Maybe I've learned one thing. Maybe there's in order to get this job, you have to have these tickets. Here are the schools you can get to get that. So there's a whole bunch of other tie-ins there of people's career path builders. If you guys can build a career path, it's basically if you guys can use AI to essentially put in what your capabilities are now and what other jobs within, and you basically say, within two years, what could I be? Within five years, what could I be, what certifications would I be? And you could say what would you want your end compensation or benefits to be?

Speaker 1:

And it would show you a career path. Absolutely, that'd be amazing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and there are multiple paths and, just like you kind of touched on from the client perspective, they have different needs. Not everybody needs a full service white glove headhunting search on their behalf, white glove headhunting search on their behalf. Some clients just need to generate more candidate flow directly to their internal talent acquisition team, and that's great. We can facilitate that. At times we anticipate generating so much influx of candidates that the internal talent acquisition team may not have the bandwidth to manage that, and so at that point we can offer support in terms of triaging those profiles that are coming through and only passing forward the candidates who are qualified for the role and legally entitled to work in Canada for example.

Speaker 2:

And then you know that may even be too much, you know, for the TA team to manage in terms of bandwidth. So if that's the case, then we can engage with the candidates on their behalf and, you know, do an initial screening conversation, vet them for the role. Plus, you know, there's always a bit of a fall off between that application and actually engaging in the process.

Speaker 2:

And so they'll fall off, you know, with us, which again means that the talent acquisition team is not burning their most valuable resource time on that activity. And then we can make a recommendation in terms of a certain number of candidates that we believe they should move forward in their interview process. And the beauty of it is that we can do all of that, you know, for probably the equivalent of you know, one or two recruitment fees, but this company could end up hiring you know three or four or five or eight. You know talented people in construction and so, apart from delivering value to our clients and the industry, you know we're facilitating more people, like we need, despite the article in the post you know, entering into construction in Canada, whether it's in BC or Alberta or Ontario, right, yeah, so really facilitating that, the growth for our partners.

Speaker 1:

So really facilitating the growth for our partners. That's pretty cool let's talk about, as you're touching there on culture and the employer brand side of things. I mean, obviously this is a new thing and I know that Andrew and his team before you you've been involved have been touching on that side of things already. On the culture piece Really difficult thing to nail down Very I've always advocated for the thesis that the culture is the net behavior of the organization. That's a good way of putting it Because people often what happens is, is, is, and you've seen this on the on on your in your previous life. Let's call it um of candidates will say we know what's the culture of that company. That's actually a very personal, corporately personal question to answer honestly. You nailed it. It's easy to answer fake but it's hard to answer in an honest fashion. Yep, Because really the net behavior is sometimes something nobody in the company wants to talk about.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so I mean you're nailing it right on the head. You know there's the, there's the HR marketing. What is our culture like? The spin Statement, the spin right that everybody knows.

Speaker 1:

Here's our values. Here's a list of the 500 values. Let's pick six.

Speaker 2:

That everybody knows how to repeat, and then you go and talk to.

Speaker 1:

Integrity is one of my, I think, most overused ones.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, integrity, respect, accountability.

Speaker 1:

Accountability.

Speaker 2:

And so then you go to speak to one of the senior leaders in the company and you ask him or her why have you stayed here for 15 years, what is it about this company that makes it special? And they'll give you an answer that gets you a little bit closer to really understanding the culture. And then you go talk to another senior leader and another senior leader and they give you different versions of the story, right, um? And so that's where we start. But then we also do a third party Um, we call it like a, uh, corporate um, culture personality assessment, um, and so we're going to pull the senior leaders as a third party, so independent it's.

Speaker 2:

This information is, you know, not going to get back to your internal team without filtering and anonymity.

Speaker 2:

And then we also send that to the employee base so they can give their honest opinion about what their experience is. And then this is how we start to identify the true culture of the organization. Like you said, that the net behavior and the important part is comparing that to the outgoing marketing message about what your culture is and making sure that those two things are in alignment. And so the two places where a lot of construction companies miss is that it's one they haven't fully identified the things that really make them special and they're not putting that message out into the market. So, as I mentioned earlier, there are some construction companies doing truly amazing things to take care of their teams and are really places that people absolutely love to work, and they're not sharing that information with the rest of the market. So the only way that you find out is if you're lucky enough to get a job there and then you work there for a couple of months and you think, oh wow, this is actually an amazing place to work.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, but it's like a. I find that yeah, exactly I mean. The part that I find is interesting is that when you take the, if the culture is the net behavior of an organization, okay, there are some people that have a different weighted average on the influence on that, absolutely Okay.

Speaker 1:

So you could have, like the initial founder, let's say who's.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I've been in these construction companies and I've basically seen, when somebody walks in the rooms, like wow, there's the weighted average, okay, that person batting a huge part about the culture of the leadership of the company, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And then there's some other people who are maybe mid-level or so, that have this kind of zippy kind of thing or holding up the bottom end yeah, who really respect that person and are living and wanting to one day be that person yeah, so they're living sort of that vicarious vision through that person yeah, living towards the ideal, exactly, exactly. So what do you think of today when you see a lot of the change in construction companies, of the changing of the guard from generational changes happening the younger generation do they want to be that person. And so let me just give you an example. I remember when I was sort of coming up and I would sort of see the CEO of a company and be like I want to be like that. They got the nice car, they got the nice suit. Wonder what my life would be like if I was like that. Do you think that people these days, aspire to have that or like no, I don't even want that guy's job.

Speaker 2:

I mean, it's a great question. There are definitely people who are like you, looking up to the CEO and thinking, oh man, I want to run the show one day, and maybe it's because I want that fancy car or I want the big house in North Van there's something that they want, yeah. Or I think what's becoming more common is seeing that, wow, they are an incredible leader and I know how they've affected my life in a positive way and I want to be that leader because I want the opportunity to do that within my organization.

Speaker 2:

They want the influence, they want the well, it's the influence, but in a positive way. I get that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Right, not a negative influence. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Not a Kim Kardashian influence Exactly, but more like an inspirational influence.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the influence, yeah, the influence. And you'll see other people who look at that person and they say, wow, building this company over the last 20 years, I can see that they've put in 80, 90, 120 hours a week and I don't want that. I don't want that for my lifestyle, I don't want that for my family, and that's okay, too right, it's a choose your own adventure in construction. And uh, also, the reality is that not everybody can become the CEO. Uh, otherwise we would have too many leaders and uh, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And not enough doers, right, right, um and so um. But I think what we're seeing, especially with the uh, younger generations coming into, is that they're looking more for purpose and meaning the lives of the people that work at that company. Then that's going to be the type of person that people look up to and aspire to be, more so than just the nice car and the house in North Van.

Speaker 1:

Can we double click on that a little bit? Because I like the. You are echoing something I've been saying for a long time and I think it's because meaning and purpose has been missing and, whether we like it or not, religion has become at an all-time low. People don't have a moral framework to follow and when that is missing, your purpose in your sort of baseline frequency of living has a very weird pulse to it and people are looking for some other thing.

Speaker 1:

And hopefully they can get that through their work and their achievement and if they can find models of people who they can see will not necessarily help them get there but be somewhat of a guide light to feeling something different feeling that sense of achievement.

Speaker 1:

Hey look, I went from here and I got to here and I think that's very much a. I think we're seeing that a lot these days. We're seeing a lot of things change and I don't want to get. This is not going to be a political podcast, so I'm not actually going to bring up any of these items but we are seeing things level set and change now, yep, more based on sort of a meritocratic kind of approach you achieve this, you get this, not you get it anyway. Yeah, you know what I mean, because I think that that is changing and construction is a very weird industry in terms of the setup in general. You've probably heard me say this on a podcast before. It's meritocratic in its essence. Yeah, like at the end of the day, you turn around and you either built that thing or you didn't. Yeah, there's no like subjective opinion of whether or not it's done or not. It is. It's either not or not.

Speaker 2:

I mean it's right there, yeah, and also, you know, in that process you either, you know, worked and played well with others in the sandbox and you've got future partners, or you didn't and you've got, you know, a group of you know partners on this project, many of whom will never want to work with you again. Right, um, and that, you know, takes things sideways really quickly in construction. Right, because you need help to build that thing. Nobody, no one company, shows up and builds the thing on their own, right, right, it's a, it's a.

Speaker 1:

Actually, you know what? I was on my run today and I always stop at the same spot um, right in front of um, the convention center, the foot of Burrard Street, there, yep, okay, so where the cruise ships come, there's a railing there and there's actually a sign which has a picture of the rebar guys forming the building of that. Yeah, and it says this story about I should have taken a picture of it. I will, I'll post it. Yeah, but it was. Yeah, it says this story about I should have taken a picture of it. I will, I'll post it. Yeah, but it was. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Comment on this on linkedin I'll, I'll, I'm gonna go for my run on monday and I know, and I'll post that, but it was such a great little, it wasn't like it wasn't a poem, it's just like a little passage about, you know, teams showing up with teams and, uh, if one doesn't do the job, somebody, uh, the work doesn't get done or someone gets hurt. So there is this entire huge trust factor around construction that I think that in itself doesn't allow for any of this other political stuff to even work. Yeah, because you can't. You can't have an objective opinion about safety. Oh, sorry, a subjective opinion about safety.

Speaker 2:

That's right. Yeah, it's an objective one. Yeah, safer it's not. Yeah, so exactly.

Speaker 1:

So I mean, when you talk about the culture and you talk about how companies connect with those people and how achievement dovetails with that, it really is not that complicated.

Speaker 2:

No, and the part that a lot of employers miss and this is not isolated to the construction industry, it's across industries. We were talking about meaning and purpose, and so I think you kind of touched on this a little bit. But 30, 40 years ago, people would get their sense of meaning and purpose from, you know, church, uh, or maybe their family right. Or their religion, um, and they would get their community, yeah Well, and then they would get their sense of community and belonging from.

Speaker 1:

You know uh, bowling league on Thursday nights um, which was often an extension of work.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, you know you would. You would finish your work day and you would go with the same group of guys or women and you would go to bowling league or whatever it was Softball or whatever, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And so you know, what has kind of shifted culturally over time is that you know, fewer people are attending those religious institutions and they've got their reasons for that. Not here to debate it, but what you know kind of gets lost a little bit. Or what people end up looking for is that sense of meaning and purpose. So where do they go looking for it? Well, they look for it at the other place where they spend most of their time, which is at work. Right, and the same thing with their sense of community and belonging. You know work used to be a place where you go to get your paycheck so that you can take that home. Where you know you feel like you've got a sense of community and belonging and you would do a block party you know, with all of your neighbors, all of whom you know.

Speaker 2:

But that's not the same anymore either. So you know, when you're looking for community and belonging, you go back to looking at the other place where you spend the most of your time, which is work, you know. So that's a lot of pressure.

Speaker 1:

Well, hopefully that's the case. I mean, I think that what has been a proxy for this now is this community that is dispersed throughout the rest of the world on social media.

Speaker 1:

This is the issue now, right, because before social media existed, you would have to work in to your values, work into your interests, work into the commonalities we have as people, by negotiating the differences with people. Yeah, because you had to, that's the only community you had, yeah, whereas now somebody could say, yeah, well, I don't go to the barbecue, or I don't go to this because my community is not there. Do you know why? Because it's dispersed all around North America and the UK and Australia and where all these other people are that they chat with and they.

Speaker 1:

DM with and, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2:

Yeah that they have, that they found commonalities with. And so they don't have to, you know, resolve those differences.

Speaker 1:

They don't have to.

Speaker 2:

They just find people who they already have commonalities.

Speaker 1:

So what it does is it fractures the bringing together of people at work.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the physical communities, it fractures those.

Speaker 1:

It's the intellectual community, the commonalities of things, that people talk about. People are more silent now. They don't want to talk about things because they feel that they're not the same people. Oh no, I just work with that person. There's a lot of that. No, we just work together. No, you don't. You spend more of your time at work than you do at home.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

You don't just work with these people. You are learning and shaping your life through these people, whether you like that or not.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So this is really cool that you and Andrew and the site talent team and site partners team are connecting on a more of a cerebral level on what all of this meaning and purpose is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Because that, to me, is a very important thing. You know, prior to doing, when I had the brand agency Andrew knows this, he's going to roll his eyes when he hears this but I used to do employer value propositions for big banks and we used to go in and we had I mean, there was one big insurance company that everyone knows. I won't say the name, but I had in Toronto, 24 vice presidents all in a long table and we were doing this workshop and it was like herding cats trying to get these people to and it was about what does it mean to work here? Yeah, and we came up with their credo.

Speaker 1:

But what was interesting is that, as we went through this entire workshop, what we found out is the message they're saying out there, their employer brand message, Yep, and what actually is the culture inside. It did not have an equity to it. It was totally incongruent. And I said, well, here's the thing we're going to need a message here that actually says in a palpable way and in an attractive way what you actually are. So live the truth of the culture of this company, and then you're going to have less churn on the people that come in here, because you might have everyone come in here because it's the biggest insurance company in Canada.

Speaker 1:

But when they get here they're like, oh my God, this isn't what I signed up for this isn't what I signed up for Exactly. So let's put this message out here Yep, and this is really like, if you can hack it here, you can hack it anywhere. Yep, it's this awesome like you know achievement kind of a message.

Speaker 1:

It's like we are this, we're winners, we're all, and so we sculpt the entire message around that Yep Is, if you want to have an easy life and you just want to blah, blah, blah and phone it in, this is not the company for you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah exactly, and people kind of like that? Yeah, and this is the part where a lot of companies miss on their messaging. They may be pushing out messaging about their culture and marketing about their culture, but, just like you said, it may be incongruent with what their culture actually is. Most of the time yeah, a lot of the time like they haven't identified the things that make them special, and they maybe also haven't identified the things that are not for everyone right, but it's important to identify those things or the work in progress.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, or just like you said, to make sure that those are being messaged outwardly, because all you're doing by having an incongruent um, you know, cultural marketing message is you're attracting the wrong people. And so you know, equitably, you're not attracting the right people. You know, by changing your message. Even if your message, you know, changes from uh oh, we're a beautiful place to work with a lot of life balance, and you think that's going to attract the right people, if that's not the kind of culture you have, then the people that you attract, just like you said, are going to come in, and then they're going to say, well, this isn't the place for me, this isn't a fit, this isn't a fit for my family life.

Speaker 2:

But if you say this is a company where we work hard, we get things done and we grow people's careers through that hard work, that is going to attract the right kind of person who will end up staying at that company for five, seven, nine, 15 years, and that's the person you really want to attract. So the lesson is to you know, don't be afraid to deliver your authentic culture in your marketing. And so this is one of the pieces that we want to help our clients with is to make sure that those things are in line so that if we're partnering with them and looking for potential candidates on their behalf, we're looking for the right ones and anybody else who is applying organically and coming straight through to their talent acquisition team is also more likely to be the right person.

Speaker 1:

This is all very exciting stuff. Yeah, looks like you guys have it down.

Speaker 2:

We do, and you know. The other piece is that recruitment is a very hard industry to work in you know Salaries are often low.

Speaker 2:

and then there's's commission packages which incentivize closing deals, making the placements, and what ends up happening is that incentivizes a lot of the poor behavior that the recruitment industry is renowned for. You've heard the story about the agency that makes a placement and then, the day after their guarantee runs out, they call that candidate that they just placed and say, hey, how's everything going over there? I've got something else for you. But they're incentivized to do that because they're barely getting by unless they make their numbers.

Speaker 2:

and they make that volume of placements. And so I mean Andrew this was long before me, but Andrew and his team have truly built a people-first company, and so we're going to carry that ethos forward, and the belief is that if you want you know true talent partners who are going to treat your partners well, then you need to treat your talent well, and it starts there.

Speaker 1:

That's cool. Yeah, you know I have to say, kyle, that I've always been a fan of you as a person, and what has always been very difficult for me is that your model got in the way. Does that make sense? No, it makes absolute sense. Because I was always like I don't want to engage this guy because I can't stand the model yeah, but I like the guy yeah. You know what I mean. So I'm really glad that you have been able to connect with Andrew and make this happen.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1:

So how does everyone get? What are the URLs? How does everyone get involved here? Yeah, so.

Speaker 2:

I mean, if you're, if you're looking for a true talent partner, we are sitetalentca. You know, you can hit me up. I'm Kyle at sitetalentca.

Speaker 1:

I'll be happy to answer Kyle Davis on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2:

Kyle Davis on LinkedIn. You know, and I'm, and as a recruiter, very active on there.

Speaker 1:

The R word.

Speaker 2:

The R word. Yeah, and when this podcast gets published, pushed out, we're going to be doing a big marketing push, a big release. We've got our new location that's getting built out, so we're going to do an open house for that Great. So it should be pretty easy to find me on the socials, for sure.

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, from SiteMax and the site visit, we wish you guys all the best of luck and anytime you want us to help out, let us know.

Speaker 2:

Awesome, thank you so much Pleasure to be here, as always. Thanks, kyle, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Well, that does it for another episode of the Site Visit. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at sitemaxsystemscom slash the site visit, where you'll get industry insights, pro tips and everything you need to know about the Site Visit podcast and SiteMax, the job site and construction management tool of choice for thousands of contractors in North America and beyond. Sitemax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building.