Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome to Real Talk on Talent, a human resources podcast where we talk about talent acquisition, recruiting and all things hiring.

Speaker 2: 0:21

Hey, Hillary, Hi.

Speaker 1: 0:21

Tina, how are you? I'm great. How are you doing?

Speaker 2: 0:24

I'm good Welcome back, thank you Pleasure to be here.

Speaker 1: 0:25

You know it's always a pleasure with how are you, I'm great.

Speaker 2: 0:25

How are you doing? I'm good. Welcome back. Thank you, pleasure to be here, you know it's always a pleasure with you.

Speaker 1: 0:29

I'll tell you what I feel like we say some variation of this, but it's like genuinely true every time.

Speaker 2: 0:33

You know what. We just have fun together.

Speaker 1: 0:35

I just want to say I would not do this podcast with anybody else?

Speaker 2: 0:37

Oh no, no possible way. And if we didn't have Whitney here, yeah, forget about it, we'd just be sitting in a room. I mean why is Flavor Flav who's on next week? But that's neither here nor there.

Speaker 1: 0:46

If you don't get the Flavor Flav reference, go watch our last podcast. There we go, there we go Love, that yeah we are talking about marketing today.

Speaker 2: 0:53

We are, we are, and I think we're going to take an interesting position on it. We're in a little.

Speaker 1: 1:00

So school's coming back. School is coming back, and so we wanted to use the case study of the teacher shortage to talk about branding, recruitment, marketing, ways to tap into like a difficult candidate, like hard to find candidate. Yes, because the government which we're talking about public school education everybody has an opinion about the government and everyone has a very strong opinion about government employees. So how do you recruit very difficult positions when there's not a lot you can do to change your public persona and you're competing against a bunch of private institutions competing industries.

Speaker 2: 1:50

So a very similar story to this could be recruiting nurses for the VA healthcare system. Yeah same equally difficult same challenges. So positions where you are looking for people with certain experience, certain expertise, are looking for people with certain experience, certain expertise, to come work in fields where there is a known shortage and perhaps the employer may not have the most sterling reputation or there may be limitations that are well known, yes and well publicized.

Speaker 1: 2:19

I think the limitations is probably a big thing, because a lot of times when we talk to employers, we say like, okay, how do you get creative? How do you rethink your compensation, rethink your benefits, how do you think about the interesting, like any ways that you can make employment life different? But the one core function of the government is that it's very structured. There are pay grades that are. There's no flexibility. It is what it is. And so then what do you do?

Speaker 2: 2:47

Interesting question. Well, you're the marketer, Hillary. I thought that you were going to tell us. And that concludes the podcast. Good luck, no, I mean. So it really is interesting, like how, and I'm not saying that being a public school teacher is not a desirable job.

Speaker 1: 3:05

Listen my number well, probably my number one hot button issue is the fact that we do not fund our education systems appropriately so we are pro public school teachers. Yes, 100%.

Speaker 2: 3:16

We'll just be very clear on that yeah, public school graduate Woo Woo Same. There we go, but you know so, here in Florida, just in general, we know it's difficult to recruit teachers. What can organizations do to help make positions that are known to be difficult more appealing?

Speaker 1: 3:36

So you said organizations.

Speaker 1: 3:40

I'm going to speak about the government, because they're actually doing some things that are interesting but not really surprising in the context of all the discussions we've had about like candidates in our world We'd find it very familiar. So just for some context, we've had issues with teacher shortages for a while, but COVID exacerbated it. I think there was something that said it was. I think we've lost 10% of the teacher workforce since COVID hit. And so with that you think about what are the? So let me ask you, when I talk about a public school teaching position, what do you anticipate that looks like? What is the stereotype that you immediately think of?

Speaker 2: 4:24

I think it's a tough job, why? I think it's demanding. I think in Florida at least, and in the South, compensation isn't good, they're underpaid for what they're doing. You hear about violence in the schools these days, which is a concern.

Speaker 1: 4:42

So lack of compensation, lack of support, difficult, high demand, and it's all kind of getting worse when you think about inflation and you think about if you lose 10% of your workforce, then that puts extra burden on the teachers, all that kind of stuff, right. So the government has some specific programs that they're doing right now and they're focused on competitive pay, okay. So that's one of the big things is looking and saying how do we make it competitive? How do we look at supporting that? Looking at support staff, okay. So one of the interesting stats I was reading about said that even though we are down on teachers, there are actually more employees in schools today than there were before COVID, because there are more nurses, there are more admin roles, there are more special education support networks.

Speaker 2: 5:35

So really, how do you adjust the role or how do you support the role differently in order to get more value from the teacher?

Speaker 1: 5:43

type position. How do you alleviate that burden? You can't necessarily just crank up pay rates, because everything is within a matrix system. But if you can alleviate the burden of how many hands are there to help with the students or they're also doing, they're increasing the planning support. So if you about like a high demand job, so if you have more hands to help and you have more support in making in, in planning and actually doing your job, then that alleviates the burden. So then it kind of balances out the low compensation in some ways.

Speaker 2: 6:20

So I'm just thinking of parallels that are kind of related but not really related. It's similar to how do we support recruiters to make recruiters more effective, dealing with more hiring managers, and what you want is your recruiter dealing with the hiring manager, but what is the behind the scenes support that you can provide them? So sourcing support, interview coordination, et cetera. So kind of the same thing. How do we have the teacher doing the teaching, but what are the other layers we can provide them to? Absolutely Okay. Yeah, I get it.

Speaker 1: 6:58

One thing I do I am curious about, though, is in thinking about these programs that are set up to support teachers. Oh, the other thing that, of course, hit exactly in the same way looking at increasing the diversity of their uh teacher pipeline, and not just in like having an increased pipeline of potential teachers to better match what the student populations look like, but also thinking about the various skill sets, like special education teachers. How do you pipeline that a little more aggressively? And we talk about that all the time, um, but one thing I am curious about is how are all of these efforts resonating with their, their population?

Speaker 1: 7:36

yeah, because we know the target candidate yeah, yes, because when we think about us for the past years, we've hired a lot of teachers to become recruiters. Teachers make great recruiters. They do, yeah, but this is the problem is now, public schools are fighting not just against charter schools and other districts. They're fighting against career changes. What would you do If you were in charge of the government? Let's not go down too aggressively with that because I apologize.

Speaker 2: 8:05

The election is coming up, so you look very professional. I am a professional businesswoman, so this is what I would expect.

Speaker 1: 8:11

So let's say you couldn't change your budget. I've laid out the facts there. How would you get in front of your candidates and change that perception of being a public school?

Speaker 2: 8:22

teacher, so I'm leaning heavy into storytelling here. Please, that's what I'm doing. I'm so proud of you by the way.

Speaker 3: 8:28

Thank you.

Speaker 2: 8:29

So first, what I want to do is wow, I'm not the marketer, but I'm going to own this answer.

Speaker 1: 8:33

That's why I asked.

Speaker 2: 8:35

So I want to find teachers who absolutely love their jobs and I want them to tell the world why they love their jobs. I think that people don't understand the impact that teachers can make, and I think if we can make that impact tangible to potential candidates, I think that helps in the interest and conversion of them. So I want some really good storytelling. I want videos about teachers and the impacts that they've made. I also want to hear from students. I want to hear from students about how a teacher positively impacted them. I actually have a story that they've made. I also want to hear from students. I wanna hear from students about how a teacher positively impacted them. I actually have a story that I'll share right now. Oh, yes, this is a great one.

Speaker 2: 9:12

So probably about a month ago, my high school history teacher tracked me down I hadn't talked to him in 20 years tracked me down and said I was cleaning out my garage. I found an old project of yours Do you want the project back? And he sent me a picture of it and it was. The project was where I interviewed my mother and it had a picture of me and my mother on the cover of it. My mom passed away two years ago and so this is something that I would have never seen, never had. So amazing. And I'm just sitting here going God, this guy, what a great, freaking teacher he was and I'm like what other students did he reach out to and just kind of brought this little gem you know back, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 9:58

And so like that. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, and now that picture's on your Mr Bond, by the way. Mr Bond, yeah, shout out to Mr Bond, thank you, and that picture's on your desk. Now it is on my desk. Yeah, it's so great. And I completely agree those stories and those pieces of it. The other thing that I would like, when I think about what I would do and think about some parallels, potentially for like other hiring managers or TA leaders, is yes, you want to tell the impact stories.

Speaker 2: 10:22

Yes, Impact stories. There we go. Marketing term that's my marketing term.

Speaker 1: 10:28

I guess I like it Today. I think most people who are teachers know that because there is that passion that's going in. I would also then say, okay, if they know, if they're sold on the story, but where do they have the biggest roadblocks to being able to focus on that in their day-to-day? How do you help them recognize the investments that you are making to support them? So how do you, through your networks, through your interviewing, through your pipelining, to like on education, like systems a lot of states are actually starting to create their own talent by having more like apprenticeship pipelines and things like that. So, if you help them understand not just this is a path for you, but here's how we're going to enable you with debt relief, with making sure you have the right ratios to students, how do you help craft the insight of we hear you, we see you, we know what you care about, we know the burdens that you're going to have to carry. Here's what we're doing to support you through that.

Speaker 2: 11:31

So I love that you said this. So this reminds me of I don't know a couple of podcasts ago, where we were talking about employers putting their best foot forward and a realistic job preview. So to me, this is a really great opportunity for public schools to say, hey, listen, here are some of the challenges that we've heard, and just address it head on. Let me tell you what we're doing. So when you become a public school teacher with us, we're going to help you in this way, this way, this way. So I love it, you know, I mean hit it on the head. Here's what we're doing to support you. Here's what it looks like.

Speaker 1: 12:04

I also think you're never going to be able to change that perspective of like, working for the government Because, again, like, if you think back to when you talk about what is a talent, identity, it's every single interaction that you have, for positive or negative, and we interact with the government in every like. All of these different ways to try and change that identity is something that I think would be a lesson in futility, is something that I think would be a lesson in futility.

Speaker 1: 12:30

But so I'm going to challenge that, in that I can easily separate education and government and that's where I was going with it saying how do you then create that identity at the district level? There we go, so I kind of think about this like, if you it's like oh, you know you talk about like corporate. Yeah, it's like, oh yeah, corporate's like that. Yeah, but like here's what our office is like you know big organizations.

Speaker 1: 12:51

I think it's that kind of perspective of saying there are always going to be this connotation here, but the reality is that you deal with this superintendent, this is the PTA, and here is how the community kind of plays into this larger thing. So it's like reframing the actual experience, because I completely yeah, we're saying the same thing.

Speaker 2: 13:10

Interesting? Yes, we are. It's because we're both like super smart.

Speaker 1: 13:22

It's like one brain Mensa. There we go. Okay, we really struggled to be creative on how smart we are. We're like, yes, brains, smart Mensa.

Speaker 2: 13:28

So here's what I would like to say. So I think we've talked about there is kind of the whole advertising play, impact branding, impact stories, as Hillary said. There is the interview and recruitment process. Let's do a realistic job preview, let's talk about what the known or the perceived challenges are and let's address them head on with our solutions. So those are tips that really any organization can apply when they have let's call it knowingly difficult positions to recruit for.

Speaker 1: 14:00

Also, can I make a plug? Yeah, please fund your schools.

Speaker 2: 14:04

Oh yeah, and keep your local schools too. They're trying to shut down a little local school in my community. Oh no, yeah, it breaks my heart. Not enough kids, that's what they say. And yet, ironically, last time you told us about the flyer. Yeah well, that's because I'm getting advertisements. You're right for private schools, I might be part of your problem.

Speaker 1: 14:22

Know your community, know your target audience. There we go, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:25

AB Elementary. I'm with you, aw, just want to say that.

Speaker 1: 14:28

Schools are great, yeah, yeah, schools are great, yeah, any other?

Speaker 2: 14:33

thoughts on that? No, I just think that they're here. Any other thoughts? No, but yes, let me continue. So time is all back into talent. It is really important that people understand if a position is challenging, be upfront about it, but also talk about what your plans are to make it better. And I think that's kind of the major lesson from the teacher shortage discussion today.

Speaker 1: 14:55

Thank you, it's been a minute since we've had that. Oh, it gave me joy. So last time we were talking about data and you asked when does data go bad? And it reminded me of a study that I read from HubSpot and I threw out a number that I wasn't too far off, but we wanted to give the exact number. But it said in a 12 month period of time, your data will deplete or depreciate by about 25%. So every 12 months, about a quarter of your data is bad.

Speaker 2: 16:27

Hey, fyi, open to best practices on staying on top of data, like keeping it clean and up to date and all of that. You want them now? No, okay, just FYI.

Speaker 1: 16:39

I think well and I do want to make a side note that the fact that you are paying attention to it is half the battle.

Speaker 2: 16:45

There we go.

Speaker 1: 16:46

There we go.

Speaker 2: 16:47

Yeah, alright, okay Cool.

Speaker 1: 16:52

Are we hot taking? Hot hot takes for hot topics, not hot my favorite.

Speaker 3: 16:59

Oh, this is actually a hot take from a teacher, so I just I'm going to read what she says and I would love to hear your thoughts on it. So her hot take is the cause of the teacher shortage is teachers leaving, primarily within their three to first three to five years, not a lack of new people entering the profession. For example, my former, former district just raised the new teacher salary to sixty thousand dollars. District just raised the new teacher salary to $60,000. But a teacher entering the district with 25 years of experience would make roughly $75,000. Make it make sense. On a related note, teacher turnover should be a major factor in school evaluations by the states or districts. If a third of your staff quits every year, that's a glaring red flag that someone needs to step in and make meaningful change.

Speaker 1: 17:51

Yeah, I don't know if I agree with that. Go ahead. Well, so is it to clarify when they say turnover, are they leaving the industry or are they just leaving that particular school? Did they clarify? I'm gonna assume that they just left that particular school.

Speaker 2: 18:10

I mean 35% turnover if a third's leaving, it's probably not that bad third, within the first three years. So I think there's a couple of things here. So first they talked about people are leaving the profession within the first three to five years. Is that what we heard? Yeah, which is different.

Speaker 1: 18:26

Which is different.

Speaker 2: 18:27

I know, I want to talk about that. Not surprised by that, though? I think a lot of people.

Speaker 1: 18:32

I don't think that people have professions now the way they did historically, so that's company longevity I don't think those are things that are as, and that's where, and that's where I was going for it is saying that, um, we have younger generations. The people who are joining now tend to be in the younger generation. They might be a second career type of thing, but still they're going to be younger. The expectation on longevity is very different and, granted, I think school dynamics are different than like business or corporation dynamics, but to me, I think it's unfair to hold a school If you use turnover metrics within the first, let's say, three years, let's say that three-year mark, I don't know if it's fair to then hold the schools accountable to that, because that might also just be a change in expectation.

Speaker 2: 19:21

Yeah you know, here we go. This harkens back to our last podcast, using data without context. So I think that, yes, you can hold schools accountable to turnover, but you have to understand what type of turnover you're looking for. You have to understand what the baseline is, but you have to understand what type of turnover you're looking for. You have to understand what the baseline is and you have to understand historicals Correct. And then you need to look at industry benchmarking.

Speaker 1: 19:41

Great, great point. But to just slap a label of like turnover is bad. I mean, here's the other thing, and I've actually seen this. I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus. They'll never see this, I'm sure. But I have a couple cousins who've recently. By the way, I have 40 first cousins, so I have many cousins. I have a couple who-.

Speaker 1: 20:02

That's a lot, that's a lot of cousins and I have a couple who started into careers with very specific career paths, education requirements, et cetera. And then they've gotten into the career and they're like, oh yeah, like this isn't really what I thought it was going to be. And now there's this moment of like well, I've jumped into this. Now what? I think we need to be better at setting expectations of what careers are Like. Not just a realistic job preview of like what is this job going to look like?

Speaker 1: 20:38

But think about the education system. What does a teaching career look like? What is it like? How often are you actually in front of kids and how often are you doing planning schedules and how much do you have to deal with the principal of your school? What does that look like? Where is the expectation for the PTA plays in and how are you going to have to deal with the principal of your school? What does that look like? Where is the expectation for the PTA plays in and how are you going to have to work with them? Because those are all very different expectations and dynamics that if you thought you were just going to be able to spend all day growing young minds, you may hate all those other things Interesting. So the fix may not be entirely on the school district.

Speaker 2: 21:16

That will, and I think we're going to see that across a lot of different types of careers. You know, I think it's going to be the same thing. It's this evolution, you know, I I mean how many kids go to school, go to college and study some degree and then never work in that degree? A lot of them. You don't know as much planning and as much information as we want to give somebody. Oftentimes you can't make a decision until you've actually experienced it yourself. So you know, there is the experiential part of all this. Experiential. There we go, dang it Close. I left out a syllable, right. Okay, I need a cup of coffee, I mean listen, you know, We'll get you one but not before we finish this podcast.

Speaker 2: 21:58

That's it. Coffee break. That's a wrap I need my coffee.

Speaker 1: 22:01

Nope, that's yeah I agree and I think this is the other thing? Going back to saying the government has a lot of these like structures and and, because you can't run a government of our size without very specific structures and rules. But are there certain tipping points of saying, okay, this is no longer working? Now what? I will say one thing. So one of my aunts she went back for a second career to get her teaching degree after working in the corporate world and she worked at a school. I thought this was interesting and I thought about this in the context of turnover. In three years, her school was set up where she was assigned a class in first grade and then was with them first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, until they went. They moved on, and so you end up creating these really close relationships with these kids and so they would do these cycles. Yeah, I don't know what the theory was behind that. I don't know. I mean, it's obviously not the most common thing.

Speaker 2: 23:08

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 23:08

But that might be one of those ways to think, being creative within the framework of limitations you may have.

Speaker 2: 23:14

Yeah, no, I like that. Is that I get what you're saying?

Speaker 1: 23:16

No, yeah, I'm not advocating for that, I'm just saying it's one of those things I think about.

Speaker 2: 23:20

No, that is, it's interesting. Yeah, got to work with what you have. Thanks for being here, dina. Thank you, hilary. Okay, bye.