The Agile Within
Providing agile insights into human values and behaviors through genuine connections.
The Agile Within
The Future of Hybrid Work: Insights from Recruiter Leslie Pomerleau
What if you could navigate the hybrid work trend seamlessly and stand out in today's saturated job market? Join us for a fascinating conversation with Leslie Pomerleau, a national recruiter in the tech space, as she unpacks the rapid shift from fully remote to hybrid work - a change affecting 85-90% of jobs today. Leslie sheds light on the complexities of this transformation, while sharing her unique insights on how to stay productive amidst the unique challenges of remote communication and the struggle to create a personal connection online.
In this rapidly evolving job market, remote candidates for hybrid positions need to know how to adapt. Leslie helps us understand this change from an insider's perspective. Together, we unearth the limitations of hybrid work and unravel the implications of hiring a remote candidate for a position that is traditionally office-based. But don't worry, it's not all challenges and obstacles; Leslie also shares practical tips on how to ensure everyone feels included in the team despite their physical location.
We round off our insightful conversation with thoughts on the role of branding, engagement, and personal influence in differentiating yourself from the crowd. Leslie offers her expertise on how to present oneself as a high performer in this competitive landscape. We also delve into the exciting world of AI and its impact on roles like scrum masters. Finally, we explore the value of human connection in the workplace and how remote work could be the key to boosting internal happiness. Tune in, you don't want to miss this engaging dialogue with Leslie Pomerleau.
If you are looking for a job, or know of someone who is, contact Leslie below:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesliepomerleau/
Don't miss Scrum Day, scheduled for Sep 14, 2023, in Madison, WI, at the Alliant Energy Center. Morning keynote using Liberating Structures by Keith McCandless followed by break-out rooms including speakers from Stanford University and the authors of "Fixing your Scrum". Afternoon keynote by Dave West, CEO of Scrum.org. Scrum is a team sport, so bring your team and get your tickets at www.ScrumDay.org. Hosted by Rebel Scrum. Find the training you've been looking for at www.RebelScrum.site.
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Welcome to the podcast that challenges you from the inside. Come be more and discover the agile within. And now here's your host, Greg Miller.
Speaker 2:We are thrilled to announce that the agile within podcast is a good gold sponsor of Scrum Day. Join us on September 14, 2023 at Align Energy in Madison, wisconsin, for this one day conference. Prepare to be inspired by remarkable speakers, including the author of a pocket guide for Scrum, as well as the authors of Fixing your Scrum. Get insights from afternoon keynote Dave West, the CEO of Scrumorg. Join invaluable strategies from industry leaders on implementing Scrum in human resources, technology teams and beyond. Don't forget to visit us at our booth at Scrum Day. Mark and I will be there and get your tickets at wwwscrumdayorg for this incredible event. Look forward to seeing you. Stop by the booth, mark, and I will say hi and we'll see you then. Okay, welcome back. Just getting some coffee here Getting ready to go. So I don't know about you, Mark, but these are Canadian wildfires. I walked out the other day and it was really like weird outside. But you're probably down South Carolina, you're probably not getting a lot, but our air quality has been terrible up here.
Speaker 3:Assault, was it Chicago had? The worst in the world. Yeah, that's right, couple of places ago, something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, chicago, and I've heard Columbus, which isn't too far from me here. Yeah, Just a couple of hours north is getting that, but yeah, it's weird. So, speaking of air quality, our guest today is out in lovely Phoenix Arizona. I think she said it was 85 degrees with only 20% humidity. I've been out there a little bit. So our guest today is Leslie Palmerloo. Leslie also goes by the job whisperer and she works for a boutique firm with a national presence focused in tech space. And welcome to the show, leslie.
Speaker 4:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for being here. So today is going to be an interesting day and we're going to be talking about remote work, hybrid work and full remote work. I've been seeing a lot in the news LinkedIn, the push-pull still back and forth between CEOs. I've seen all different kinds of things. I saw something recently about companies making they want to have people go back, like every Monday or certain days of the week. So Leslie is here to talk to us about what she's a recruiter. She wants to talk about what she's seen in the market. She does work a lot in the tech, like I said, the scrum masters, so we're just going to get her perspective on that. So, leslie, we'll just open up as a recruiter. So I guess, what are you seeing at the moment? What kind of? Where is the trend going right now?
Speaker 4:Well, it's definitely been an interesting year, with the economy affecting a lot of things, causing a lot of uncertainty in the market. So in terms of jobs it's been an interesting year. But I think also companies are. People are kind of trying to get back to normal life and now we're two, at least two years past the pandemic. I would say what a year. Year and a half maybe. Some places Arizona was never really a pandemic-y.
Speaker 2:Oh, really you never, really never really hit you hard out there.
Speaker 4:Well, it did for you know, for about you know, several months, but you know, things opened up here a lot more quickly than it did in other areas.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm definitely seeing a shift, though, in terms of remote work. There used to be tons of remote work. A lot of companies hired remote employees. You know, a year and a half ago or two years ago maybe, 75% of the roles were remote and open to remote. Now, you know, actually I work with lots of different clients. I have a very large, well-known Fortune 500 company I support in the Northwest that has, you know, 70,000 employees globally. I work with some large healthcare companies that are national across the United States, smaller companies. I have a whole handful of clients and what I'm seeing is almost every one of those jobs are hybrid. Now I'm thinking that maybe 15, 10 or 15% are fully remote and that's it. I'm really seeing a decline in the fully remote work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, any insight into why that is? Is it because you know, is it true? What I've been reading it's, you know, if you ever talk to the company's, you know reason why they're going less fully remote? Because is it the trust thing that we're here in CEOs? They want you back in the office. For I don't know. I've been hearing that obviously the office spaces are empty and people want to. Like my company, we're headquartered in downtown and at one point I think it was last year there was rumor that they were going to make everybody go back to the office and we were, of course, rumor, right, we were hearing things like well, you know, we got to support the businesses, right, the businesses need want us to come because we go to the restaurants and all that type stuff is what do you think the reason is?
Speaker 4:Well, I think it's a number of factors. You know, I've now I actually have a lot of contractors who work for a company, right, so I mean I talk to those people regularly. You know, not everybody does well in a fully remote environment. You know some people aren't as productive. There could be a lack of engagement. You know, I've seen people kind of get terminated because you know they're working but not really working. But also I think it's the connection, the personal connection with people. There's something to be said about having a conversation online versus, you know, reading nonverbal cues in person. So that tells people a lot. So I think that I think that the hybrid thing a lot of employers I think it's kind of a bit more balanced option for most people.
Speaker 2:So you think they're that might be where it's falling right now. They're not like saying most companies aren't saying five days a week is what you're saying. They're saying maybe three or two in the office. Is that correct?
Speaker 4:Yeah, actually that is correct. I think this year I've had only one client who required somebody on site five days a week. Every other client I have worked with so far they've all just done hybrid two or three days a week, almost all of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, mark and I I think Mark has an example at his company I mean I do. I don't even know what I do right now. I can tell you the truth. So I'm obviously I don't. Mark and I are both Agilist Chrome masters. We've talked about that before on this podcast, but so there's, I've moved around teams a lot on the company at work at right now and some of them were like, okay, you know, we're all going to be in, like the team agrees and the department, okay, we're all going to be in two or three days a week.
Speaker 2:And these are the days like Tuesday, wednesday, thursday, mondays and Fridays from home. Right now it's like whatever there, I mean I'll come in. Sometimes I'm like, okay, and there's like nobody there and like why did I come in? And then, and then sometimes, so I'll stay home, and I think people are going to be home and everybody's in, and like I can't get it right. So it's just like I'm just like, okay, whatever, I'll just come in whenever it makes sense for me. My manager is cool with that. I have a director in our agility org that that I report to. He said do whatever you have to do. The leaders in the area I work in are really cool. They don't seem to care. But Mark, I know Mark, mark's fully remote, but you had a story you told me the other day about something with your company, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, like most companies, exactly what you're talking about, greg, just as a movement to being from for the people that are local to the home office, bringing them in, you know, a couple of days a week to work. So more of a hybrid for the people that work in the area local to the to the home office. So it presents an interesting dynamic, so one of the things you you know. So, having worked in other places where we had before the pandemic, I worked at a place where a majority of the of the team worked in the office but we had some fringe people that were that did not and it just makes communication, whether you want to admit it or not, for the people that are remote. It just makes it a little.
Speaker 3:You have to really be overly conscious to make sure that you're accommodating the remote people right, because everybody's kind of huddled up in a room that can see each other. Maybe some people are sitting in the back of the room where microphones aren't picking up quite as well. You're moving over and writing on a whiteboard and so maybe the camera doesn't pick that up. So it creates a lot different dynamics as opposed to everyone being remote in front of their, in front of their computer. So we invested in some technology not a lot of money, but a little bit to try to make things a little bit easier and more accommodating for the, for the remote people. But even still, it just it does make it more difficult and you really have to, in my opinion you really have to go the extra mile to make sure that those few people that are remote, making sure they feel like they're part of the team and part of the conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean even the one thing that I keep thinking, even even before the pandemic. I'm sure, mark, you've experienced it too with offshore folks in different countries that I've worked with. So that was going on before the pandemic and you know, we do our our typical scrum meetings and they're, yeah, it's hard to connect with them, but especially when they don't have a camera on a lot of them, like where I work now, they have there's some limitations they don't have computer laptops with cameras. But today of all days that we come in and I get this notification that we're gonna, we're testing something, and they all had their cameras on. I'd never seen their faces before and it was great.
Speaker 2:Everyone was saying, oh, this is great and and you know what it was, it was different. It was cool to Leslie's point, you see their faces, even if you're not in person. You get to look in, you know, kind of in somebody's eyes, you see their facial expressions when they're talking, but you, you couldn't see that before. Yeah, so I do agree, scrum or not, adro, not environment there is. It's those and I do find myself those moments where, like you know, you're sitting at your desk and there's no meeting going on and maybe you're sitting next to somebody or somebody walks past you and you have these impromptu conversations. I think that's what Leslie was saying, that that can be missing, and I do have to agree with that. There's a lot of that. I think that, especially when you're teaming, it just an extra, another extra, even if you don't talk about work, you just talk about whatever, you're building that relationship.
Speaker 2:And the first thing I noticed about when, when the pandemic hit, we were all fully remote is oh my gosh, how am I going to connect with the team over zoom or whatever? And it was more, for I felt like it was more. I had to set up a meeting is more forced. Okay, we're going to meet at this time to do like one on ones, whereas before it was just like, hey, let's just go for a walk or whatever, impromptu or what, and it was just, it just seemed more forced. So I do, I'm hybrid and I do like I don't like going in every day. I'm. I'm, I'm glad we have the option, but I do like going in. I guess either when I want to or when I need to. I like I'll go in for retros and the typical scrum meetings, planning reviews, like to do that, form that relationship with them. So I'm glad that, I'm glad that's there.
Speaker 3:So one one alternate viewpoint that I have on that. And then I've got a situation that I want to. I want to run by Leslie because I'm interested to get her take on this. So one of the things that we observed is that when we did have that hybrid work environment, where some people were remote, some people were in the office, even though we did invest in some technology to help make that easier we started noticing people for meetings. They would just still sit at their desks and connect to zoom or whatever they used, and slip on a headset and have a microphone. And at that point you almost have to start asking why are we coming into the office if we're still meeting with cameras and headsets and microphones? It really defeats the purpose. Then, if that's how we're, that's how we're meeting. So that was a interesting dynamic that I just noticed as people started to gravitate or just because it was easier for everybody to communicate in that mixed, that mixed mode.
Speaker 3:But, leslie, let me ask you a scenario. I'm going to pivot a little bit. So you talked about your. Your clients and most of them are looking for either on site or hybrid, not many remote. So what do you do to take this situation you're hiring for.
Speaker 3:I'm just going to throw out just because it's something that's Greg and I can relate to. Hopefully our listeners can, but you can apply it to any, any position. So let's say you've got an open position for a client, for a scrum master, and it's a hybrid where they have to be local and they have to be in the office. You know, let's just say, two days a week and you're looking for candidates and lo and behold, you get this one candidate who is halfway across the country, but you know they're an absolute superstar, very interested in the position and the company. What do you do? Do you try to angle it a different way to the company to say, hey, you might be missing out on talent, this outside your local geographic barriers, or do you just completely pass on that and just look at local candidates?
Speaker 4:Oh, that's a good question. I think if I were to come across a superstar, I always try to advocate for them, I will always push them forward. Sometimes, though, you know, there are certain jobs, you know where the manager is very adamant that they are not going to consider local or remote candidates, and so, in those situations, I'm going to follow the instructions.
Speaker 4:I'm not going to be disrespectful of what their requirements are. But you know, if I come across somebody I think is an absolute superstar, I'll at least post the question and send their profile over and say, hey, here's the deal. But I also try to speak to the candidates about potentially traveling for a position. I mean now that there's hybrid. There are some people that are able to go travel somewhere and be there two or three days a week. You know there's per diem that helps with travel. You know there's certain situations that maybe can be help make it a little more accommodating and it's a lot better than before. There were people that I worked with that traveled five days a week.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I when I was so I can remember when I was a developer and thinking through the nineties as a developer travel was just kind of that's just what you did you traveled to the clients office and you work there periodically. Are people or companies at least the ones you're working with, maybe some of the larger ones? Are they open to doing that, to having that expense of bringing flying people in a couple days a week, maybe a couple days a month or a quarter?
Speaker 4:What I mean. I think it depends, so I actually. So some of the roles they support are full-time opportunities, direct hire that I will find talent for, and in those situations, if the employer hires them on full-time, then they are hiring them knowing that they're remote and that they might pay for them to come travel once a quarter to be part of meetings and stuff like that. In general, in terms of contract roles, most situations the companies do not reimburse for travel and us, as the staffing company, we have to find creative solutions to help accommodate people with travel, whether we have to increase the rate to build it in or help them with per diem, so we have to come up with different options.
Speaker 3:Interesting Gotcha, gotcha, yeah, so, yeah. So what can? Is there some advice you could give people that you know? A loaded question? It's a possible to answer, but I'm just going to throw it out there. How can? What are some strategies people can do to become a superstar or to paint that light so that they have the spotlight of being a superstar and being worthy of being a remote employee?
Speaker 4:Oh, that's a great question. I think it's all about engagement and branding themselves. So, you know, I have several people who still work remotely and those people are engaged. They show up, they have their video cameras on, they address appropriately, even if they're sitting at home, you know they're engaged with their audience, they're not turning their cameras off and doing other things while talking to somebody, you know they're engaged in a conversation and I think that also in order now, like in this world, the Internet day and age, you know like there's something to be said about having an online presence and, you know, communicating appropriately and kind of being a little bit of an influencer.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep, absolutely, and I guess that's what I'm trying to tease out. Is that so maybe, if you're in a community or part of the country or whatever, where you do, you don't have as many local positions and you're banking on remote positions, you know how can you turn the table and open yourself up for remote positions, because you know one reaction could be oh well, it's local only. So woe is me, I don't have any, I don't have a shot. Or, you know, you could really try to go the extra mile to paint yourself. As I'm giving air quotes here. I'm famous for doing that on a podcast. That's wonderful, isn't it?
Speaker 2:I do too. I use my hands a lot yeah.
Speaker 3:As a high performer or an influencer I think you use that term, Leslie. Yeah, so that's just been something that's been on my mind is to help people to feel powerful and not powerless.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean I think that right now, you know, obviously we all met through LinkedIn. Linkedin is a huge that people can take advantage of and you know you have control over the things that you post. Maybe posting content that's going to generate a lot of conversation, but also not, you know, posting. You know you have to be careful about what you post these days and that's meaningful, it has to be genuine and, you know, reach a broad audience. Also, I think people that you can tell people are engaged with the community or if they do outstanding work because they have a lot of recommendations on their profile, you know they've impacted a lot of people and people have good things to say about them. So, you know, if I talk to somebody and they have like zero, zero anything on their LinkedIn and they don't have any description of what they did and they don't really have a lot of connections on there, it kind of it does make you wonder a little bit about you know. I mean this person bs me, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, absolutely.
Speaker 4:That's a good indicator and I always tell people to build up their LinkedIn profiles because you know, basically these days it's a more personal representation of your resume.
Speaker 3:Hmm, all right. All right, greg, I think you think you had a word from one of our sponsors.
Speaker 2:you were going to do? I do. We need to take a brief break here. We do have a sponsor, so yeah.
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Speaker 2:All right, now back to the conversation. So yeah, I was going to ask. Lastly, gosh, I had something in my head. Oh, about Mark was talking about. It's a remote role and it says fully remote. I shouldn't apply. I've always been taught even I think even my dad told me growing up that you should, even if, like you're not the perfect fit on what's the description of the job, and, but it's something that maybe you, like you think you do you should go ahead and apply for it. Is that? Would you agree with that? Like you know, maybe stretch yourself a little bit. If you go ahead and don't count yourself out again Let them tell you that you're not a good fit. Basically is what I'm saying.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, I think I agree with that too, but I think if it's not a perfect fit, there's got to be a compelling reason as to why you're interested, so maybe attaching a letter or reaching out to the job poster and saying hey, I'm really interested in your company and this is why I applied, not just randomly throwing spaghetti against the wall, because personally, as a recruiter, I really don't like it when I post a job and about 90% of the people aren't qualified it just isn't wasted.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, like is it? People like say you have a job for a scrum master. I know you're telling us off the air that you're seeing a lot of jobs for that. There's a lot of scrum masters out of work right now. I do want to touch on that. But so you see, we see, like a lot of people that maybe don't have experience in scrum master, they're just applying for it because they just maybe a different field, kind of like that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, let's see. Well, with the scrum master ones, I actually get a good amount of qualified people. Actually, the issue I come across is I will post jobs that are on site and a lot of people will apply. They're not willing to be on site. So that is what happens. But you know, when I post a job, I am also very clear about the requirements and I will specifically say must be on site, no remote work, and if I put that, that means there's really no flexibility.
Speaker 2:There is no flexibility. Yeah, got it. I don't want to go over that.
Speaker 4:as a recruiter I can't control who the manager hires or what they require in terms of the on site stuff.
Speaker 2:Right, that might be somebody doing what I said. Oh, maybe there's some wiggle room. But when you say it you really mean no, there's no wiggle room at all. So otherwise you would say that's that's good, that's good to know. So yeah, I'm going to go back to you were telling us off the air that you're seeing there's a lot of you think there's a lot of scrum masters out of work right now. What so what do you see in as far as that goes?
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, I do hire a lot of scrum masters. It's one of my specialties actually, because it's a I relate to people that work in that position. That's what I kind of mentioned to you and that it's a role I enjoy recruiting for. But yeah, recently I actually have several talented scrum masters who have worked for me in the past with my clients and, you know, got great feedback from their managers. They were fulfilled their contract obligations and a lot of them, you know it's three months later and they're still looking for work and in a typical, in a normal setting, these are people that would have been snapped up within a couple weeks. So it's interesting and really I mean I think a lot of people notice when they apply for jobs at LinkedIn, a lot, of, a lot of jobs show how many candidates have applied and oh my gosh, what I'm hearing is.
Speaker 4:I mean I see people post about all the time. I, oh man, I I've put in 100 applications and as soon as I apply there's already been 500 applicants.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So the market is just in and, unfortunately, there were a lot of tech layoffs this year and the market is very saturated with talented people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly like I. I get things I mean I on the LinkedIn job things and I get I'm not getting. I really don't get hit up by recruiters Much at all. I used to get like several week and now I don't get. I don't think anybody reaches out to me anymore. To be honest, I'm not that I'm looking, but when I do see the jobs, to your point, you know I'll. I get Notifications from LinkedIn every day and I'll just click on it just to see. You know, I just I'm curious about the market too and you're exactly right. I'll click on a job and it's like, posted 12 hours ago already has, like you know, 500 applicants, and I'm like, oh god, that scares me away. I'm like, if I was looking, I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't, that's a massive hill to climb. I mean, in 12 hours I've seen, I've seen some like over a thousand, and it's like, wow. So it's just like, yeah, that's very daunting. And so what people are saying on LinkedIn? I think it's true, you know you know, leslie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, put you on the hot seat, gonna be warm.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 3:All right. So for these, let's say you, you do put a position out there on LinkedIn and you do have a thousand applicants. What do you use to whittle through those thousand?
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 4:I think those would be my speed reading skills. I can I do put screening questions on my job postings so.
Speaker 4:I have Questions. When I post a job, I'm allowed to put some screening questions and some of them are like mandatory, so some of those will screen people out. You know, I have like I can set up like an automatic rejection feature. If they don't meet the qualifications, I post it. That helps. But other than that I'm actually like I said. I literally speed reading is one of my abilities. Luckily I have the ability to look at a resume in 30 seconds and know right away if that person has what a rule really.
Speaker 2:Yep, you are the job whisperer, I guess. Right, so that's yeah.
Speaker 4:I Can get through applications, yeah, pretty quickly and I mean serious question you don't have.
Speaker 2:Obviously, I know the answer, but you're not using a bot like some of these companies do to automatically we have. So you you said you're actually physically, you would actually physically go through a thousand resumes, right?
Speaker 4:Yes, I mean, sometimes I have those jobs that I get 200 resumes, you know, easily For certain types of roles. But you know, I want to kind of touch on something that we talked about a little bit. You're asking me about, you know, specifically scrum masters. I think, in terms of all of this, that we're talking about remote work, hybrid work, all of these things.
Speaker 4:I think that we also have to think about the type of people in jobs who are, you know, successful, right? So, like I guess, for an example, does a, does a software engineer have to be on site every day? Do they even have to be on site two days a week, Don't they get? Do they get distracted by impromptu Visits at their desk when they're trying to do programming, you know? So I think it also depends on the type of role that can lead to like success in a working remote environment. The other thing I want to mention is with the scrum master work. I think what's interesting is that Maybe there a reason why there are a lot of scrum masters out on the market right now is the emergence of AI and Well, thinking that you know what, we don't really need scrum masters. We can make our team self-organized. Let's see how we can do without them.
Speaker 4:We know now let's try to do it ourselves.
Speaker 3:So maybe that's the reason, yeah we would love to bring you back later and For you to tell us how that's going If you have any, if you have any, like you know, if you have any data or tangible results from that, would love to hear how that's going, yeah.
Speaker 4:You know with chat. To see all the you know with chat GPT coming out in the last couple months like it's gonna be very how things and end up this year so I Not to get too far off, but I tried it for the first time the other day.
Speaker 2:I didn't tell you, mark, we were talking with somebody, mark and I, and and this person does a has a podcast, and he said that he uses chat GPT. He'll like put in, I guess like what the show is about, and it will come up, help him come up with like a title for his for his show and. But yeah, ai is Something that I think we have some guests we're gonna come on and talk about that. But yeah, you probably heard about I don't know what Caused this, but was it Leslie? Was it last year? That was a capital one. Let go all their scrum masters. Is that right? Yeah, I'm sure you heard that. Yeah, do you know exactly why? I mean, I don't, I don't. I heard rumors. I don't know exactly why. Do you know why I?
Speaker 4:Let's see. I've talked to a few of them. Mm-hmm, I have to say, and it might just be for the reason I mentioned. So I I actually, like I've mentioned, I work with the. I don't support capital one as a client, but I have another very big client that I support and they are also starting to let go of their scrum masters, and it was for the reason I just mentioned where they're. They are trying to become more self-organized and they've just decided that they're gonna try it on their own and see what happens. They've been practicing scrum now for a while and I think they're kind of Moving away from the scrum masters and maybe bringing on more like project managers. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, really.
Speaker 3:Interesting that's interesting, brings up a good an interesting point, as we're going down this road and, leslie, you can add some color here but some advice that I would give for people that are looking. If you're trying to paint yourself in a positive light and let's just say you are a scrum master and agile coach, some sort of an agile e position Do you really want to paint your position as Someone who creates meetings, who Facilitates daily scrums that's a whole nother topic who Updates Jira boards but those are all things that you can do. But so how do you differentiate yourself? So we're talking about AI and chat, gpt. What makes you valuable that a bot or some artificial intelligence Couldn't do, and it really is. When you talk about working with people, that's where I feel like our biggest strength as Agilist really lie is trying to help people work better together and understanding and empathizing with those people.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a good point. I know that in terms of I've had so many scrum masters interview for jobs over the years. I'm not a scrum master myself, but oh.
Speaker 3:But you are, aren't you? Well, I have you certified.
Speaker 4:Principles, yeah, but you know typically what I'll ask people when I talk to them is you know, um, yeah, anybody can facilitate a meeting, anybody can do a Jira board and it's that's like administrative tax tasks. But what have you done to level up the team? How did you gain buy-in from a team? How did you influence a team to do better? Those are the more interesting things. Can chat GPT do that? Right build morale across the team? I don't think so.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was listening to another podcast actually you think it was last night in Agil, and they were talking about that same thing and and the the host said he thinks it's just Like a glorified search engine and I kind of, after using it, I was like, yeah, I mean I'm enough. Either one of you used it. But yeah, I tried it out chat GPT and I was like I just put in a question and it came back with all this long it. I mean what I could really see it is. I'm like, oh my gosh, college students writing papers would love this, right, I mean, because it's like it sent, it kicked back a whole paragraph to me. I'm like, oh my gosh, you just copy and paste and there's my paper, right, like I could see, I could see kids doing that.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I don't know. I mean I didn't use it very much but I don't know what it can do. But yeah, that's kind of what this this other host was saying is that it doesn't have those Intangibles. As you know, the reason why we're saying that companies want us back in the office is that. So it's like it's like you know two ends of the spectrum. They want us back in the office because they missed that human connection right. But at the same time they want to use think. Chatgpt can replace some of us, and you know what I'm saying. Let's be for real.
Speaker 3:Greg, If all you're doing is scheduling meetings, then ChatGPT probably can automate.
Speaker 2:You can probably. Yes, you can probably have an automated scheduling. Yes, you can automate meetings, but then if that's what they're using their Agilis for, then I think they have a misguided understanding of what Agilis can really do. To Leslie's point, it is that human connection. It is that in there's all kinds of books on teaming and how you get teams to perform and I don't think some AI chat bot and you can put in how do you run a retrospective? It can tell you how to do that. It can't do it for you, right?
Speaker 2:I think, whether you get rid of, whether you have someone with the formal title of Scrum Master or not, every team, I think, will need somebody. I mean, like Leslie said, if this company gets rid of all their Scrum Masters and they're going to try without it, I think the natural what's going to happen is they'll start teaming. They won't have anybody to look to and somebody will emerge to fill that gap probably, I would imagine, someone with the law and they'll say hey, why don't you just start being the Scrum Master? And it's going to go right back to that again. You'll have a, you won't have someone with the title, and maybe they get to save some money. I don't know.
Speaker 4:Well, slightly, I mean. I think. Also the other thing we're talking about here is how do people stay motivated and what motivates somebody to be productive in the workplace? And I guess the remote work kind of plays along with that. Right, I think that's my favorite schedule. I think a lot of people really like that because it gives them more of a balance in their life, whether it's hey, they can get away from their home life for a couple days and have some camaraderie at work and another social outlet that's not just involved with their family, but then they also have some time at home to get things done and be able to cook dinner and go to their kids' events and stuff like that.
Speaker 4:So I mean that tends to increase internal happiness. I think so. That's just another layer that's probably involved with the remote hybrid work and productivity in general, having good morale in the workplace, Like. I'll give an example Our company. We're really small, like I mentioned, but my boss is in the 70s. Every person in my company I've been there for eight years, Most of them are 10 plus years as recruiters, which is unheard of. People are usually get burned out after five years in recruiting Really. Really OK and common in the workplace of recruiting.
Speaker 3:Got a thick skin.
Speaker 4:Yes, it can be a tough job, but my boss, his social outlet, is coming to work. He loves coming to work every day, talking to everybody, seeing what everybody's working on, meeting with his clients. So the COVID when that came, I mean he was in the office five days a week before. It was a huge adjustment for him. And COVID came. We all worked from home and we were actually all extremely productive and we still did very, very well in the last couple of years and he realized we don't need to be in the office. How can he balance bringing us back and having our connections with each other but still be in productive? So now he has us come in twice a month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you told me that off the.
Speaker 2:I was like wow, twice a month, Wow, that's you know and that is just hearing that Maybe the fact that you gave his age to me, that's almost that's, I guess, a mixture of impressed and stunned. That's, you know, a man that came from that routine of five days a week. I love being in here, and why doesn't everybody else love that too? He could have very easily been that way right, but he's not. He saw that and he said OK, yeah, what's the balance For me?
Speaker 2:Personally, when the pandemic first hit, I was like I was at work and they said everyone's going home. I was in the middle of my day and they sent everybody home and I was like what's going on? And they said two weeks. And I was like, ok, two weeks. And we know how that went.
Speaker 2:And I started this show and then I knew right off the bat I was like man, I've never been more productive in my life. I was like my mind was just going crazy. I was starting this up and I was just, you know, I still find myself. You know, I'm at home right now and I get very creative when I'm at home. I feel like, maybe even more so than I'm in the office. I mean, sometimes the office for me is like, you know, I don't like hearing other people's conversations, and multiple conversations at once. I'm like, oh, I'm just going to go into a room, or I wish I was at home. You know why did I come in? I get like that sometimes, and so there's a part of that me that says, yeah, I just want to be at home. But then sometimes it's noisy here. You know, it's summertime now. My kids are home, dogs are barking, lawnmowers are gone. It's like, oh, so yeah, I do like the balance. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the other thing too that I thought was interesting is you know we also have to. We hired two new recruiters in the last two years that are fully remote. They and this my boss would have never entertained that before and we always had to be local. But since everything was remote, he actually ended up hiring a couple people. One lives in Virginia and one lives in Seattle. So talk about opposite. You know sides of the country, oh wow.
Speaker 4:And I was tasked with training them remotely, and both of them are brand new to recruiting and never done any recruiting before. So if that was a very interesting thing, obviously being in person makes that process so much easier, and what I've realized is that I actually carve out time every week to meet with them on a personal level on Slack and say hey, do you have time to huddle? Let's just talk for 15 minutes, let's just chat and see what you're up to this week. I don't want to talk about work, I don't want to talk about jobs, I just want to see how you're doing, and so you have to make an extra effort to do that now, in a remote environment.
Speaker 2:Yes, you do.
Speaker 4:Now, everybody wants to do that, though Most. I would say I'm an extra-volunteer person, but a lot of people aren't. Yeah, that's what I've seen earlier.
Speaker 2:It's a conscious effort. It was a conscious effort.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So wrapping up here, leslie. So what do you see? Where do you think the job market is heading? Where do you think it'll land If you had a crystal ball, like, say, a year out? Where do you think majority of companies will land with their positions?
Speaker 4:Oh man, so tough. There's so much uncertainty right now. It's the future is hazy, but I'm going to say it's going to go back to the hybrid schedule. I don't really see people going back to work five days a week anymore. I think five days a week is in the past. I don't really see that really coming up again. I feel like hybrid is going to be the future. I think that the remote is slowly going away and I think that it's still going to continue to be minimal and with the actual types of jobs that are in demand. I don't know. It's going to be hard to say, because it's been six months of a little bit of turbulence now and I don't really know when it's going to end. I hope it ends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I hope it lands on remote too. That's that's my preference. Mark is fully remote. So, uh, if you ever had to go, what to Atlanta, mark, I guess you have to yeah, be a four hour commute, so that would be rough.
Speaker 2:That would be rough. That's the one thing I was just thinking. Is that like, if, if that's why I was always I'm, I never, I always, uh, look out for fads, and I thought this was a fad. I never. I'm not a fad person. I always thought, okay, let's see when the dust settles, cause, if you get a fully remote job, I'm in Cincinnati. If I get a job, if I were to get a job out in Phoenix, fully remote a year ago, great, woohoo, they can change at any minute, right? I mean, they it's, it's their priority, right? They could say, oh, suddenly we need people, hybrid, right? And what would I do?
Speaker 4:Mm, hmm.
Speaker 2:Is that true? I mean, could they can do that right? Is that, is that an accurate statement? They could say suddenly we want you in the office, greg, two days a week. I know we told you initially, but we changed our policy Tough.
Speaker 4:Absolutely they can. In fact, I just had a friend text me last night asking me about if I knew of any remote HR jobs, because now they're going to start making her travel, which was not the requirement when she started, and she can't travel, so now she's going to be looking for a new job. So absolutely.
Speaker 3:That can be really tough. I mean, if you've got a young family, if you've got, you know, aging parents that you're checking on, you know any number of things. Travels, just yeah, it's not a given that people are just going to be willing to travel. No.
Speaker 4:So I think, to your earlier point too, like I think the remote work is great for a lot of people, but people who are only wanting to do remote work, they're going to have to do more to set themselves apart. You know, across the flooded market of candidates, other people that want to work remotely.
Speaker 3:That's a great point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that could. That could be what's causing some of this people that are getting their jobs changed and stuff. Yeah, yeah, it's going to become tighter and tighter. That's exactly right. Well, leslie, thanks for joining us. This has been great. We got a ton out of it. Maybe we may have to have you back on or some things. Maybe we'll talk about the as this market evolves. You know, with the chat, gpt, the AI, does it really go hybrid? The job whisper says it's going to be hybrid. So that's going to happen, right, yeah, so yeah, that's your title. That's what I was told. So it's on you. So that's your label. We did it. We did episode on labels, by the way, last time.
Speaker 2:Oh right, there you go. Check out our labeling. Episode last time.
Speaker 4:Yes, you know labels, that's my label.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 4:There you go.
Speaker 2:Yep, yeah, anybody want to check that out? So we did. The huddle was on labels. They'll be coming up here soon. So with that, this has been Mark and Greg and Leslie, the job whisperer. We'll talk to you later.
Speaker 4:Thank you.