On this week's episode
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
Hung Lee:
It's Hung from Recruiting Brain Food and you are listening to the Chad & Cheese Show. This in my opinion is the number one podcast in our industry. They are the people that seem to know what's going on before everyone else does. You just have to subscribe and listen to these guys.
Intro:
Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheeseman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark. Buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad & Cheese Podcast.
Joel:
Isn't it ironic, don't you think? Yesterday was Canada Day, which meant karaokeing to Jagged Little Pill all night long. Welcome to HR's most dangerous podcast, eh? I'm your co-host Joel Moosehead Cheeseman.
Chad:
And I'm Chad, it's almost 4th of July Sowash.
Joel:
That's right, on this week's episode, Silicon Valley plays lip service to diverse hiring. Ivanka Trump touts skills-based hiring and Canada's Shopify is hungry for American brains. Which, by the way, goes really well with Molson. Stick around, eh? We'll be right back.
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Chad:
It's interesting the artists like Alanis Morissette, when they're pissed off and they just went through shit, I think she went through a major breakup, just major-
Joel:
From the dude from Full House. Uncle Jesse or whatever.
Chad:
Then that's where Jagged Little Pill came from. But then she got married. She got a nice life and now she just puts out shit.
Joel:
Sure. That's the story of every great rock story ever. Come from nothing. You're mad, pissed off, whatever, you create great art and then you get fat and happy and it ends. That's kind of the way this goes. Kind of like this podcast. We were pretty good the first year, year and a half and now the show just sucks.
Chad:
Dude. We totally sucked that first year.
Joel:
Trust me, I'm witness to my mid-section growing fat and it's all good. But, anyway.
Chad:
Speak for yourself.
Joel:
I'm still waiting for that Sowash boot camp videotape to come out streaming on my Peloton.
Chad:
Yeah, Julie was the happy recipient, maybe not so happy recipient, of the morning workout now, now that Tristan has moved to Portland for his last year before he goes to college. Now she's getting up every morning and doing the Chad workout which is pretty awesome.
Joel:
Being married to you is like being married to a StairMaster isn't it?
Chad:
You'll have to ask Julie. I don't know.
Joel:
I know being your podcast partner is like being married to a StairMaster, so I can only imagine what actually being married to you is like.
Chad:
Yeah, no clue. You'll have to ask her.
Joel:
We have a therapy group, Chad survival support group that her and I have. We meet secretly.
Chad:
Shout outs, okay, congrats to our friend Ellie Doty. You might remember Ellie. She was the CEO, I'm sorry, the CMO of Chili's Grill & Bar. Joel loved it because I think he got some free burgers out of it.
Joel:
I got some coupons.
Chad:
She left and has taken the CMO position at Burger King. Dude, talk about a step up. Being in a brand like Chili's everybody knows Chili's but having a brand like Burger King, I automatically said okay, cool, you're at a place now where I can get Impossible Burgers and then she responded back with, "Yeah, and breakfast sandwiches."
Joel:
And by the way, is there any place in fast food to be a marketer than Burger King? As the number two, they take all the risks. They do all the things that are outside the box. What a great opportunity if you're a marketer. But she's going to have to step up and send me a King mask if she's at BK now. I won't just put up with coupons. I wants masks.
Chad:
The creepiest mask ever.
Joel:
For sure. Halloween is going to be here sooner than you think.
Chad:
Oh, good call.
Joel:
Shout out to Mississippi. I know this is a little bit odd, but Mississippi if you hadn't heard took off the confederate flag which took up about a fourth of its current flag. Kind of a strange situation. But, Mississippi is not New Jersey so this was a pretty quick move unanimously voted on to take it off. A secondary shout out to sport. I think of a lot of this was provoked by one of the star running back at Old Miss saying that he would not play for a state or would support a state that had confederate flag or support that messaging.
Joel:
If you know anything about SEC football, they're not going to lose talent to something like a confederate flag from 150 years ago. So, shout out to sports and the state of Mississippi.
Chad:
The SEC said they would not hold any SEC games like bowl games or anything like that in the state of Mississippi while they still had the stars and bars represented on their flag. To say that this was a quick turnaround, that flag's been around since, I think, the early 1900s. I don't know if it's a quick turnaround, but I'm just glad that [crosstalk 00:06:45] was taken down.
Joel:
The voting was quick. Yes, it happened fairly quickly. You know what I'm saying, man. You try to spin this shit.
Chad:
After 50-
Joel:
Make me look bad.
Chad:
... or 100 plus years, yeah.
Joel:
It wasn't like it's been on the table for a vote for 100 years.
Chad:
Ooh, so quick.
Joel:
Ass. What's your next shout out.
Chad:
Shout out to two T-shirt sightings. Have Eva Zils and Torin Ellis were sporting Chad & Cheese T-shirts last week during online video segments. That's right, Chad, Cheese-
Joel:
It's a good look.
Chad:
... We're also going to have, we're going to re-kick start the Chad Cheese T-shirt's program that's right. New T-shirts are going to be coming out. Covid kind of put a crimp in things because obviously live events aren't happening. But we found a way, stay tuned, to get T-shirts to the people.
Joel:
Wow. This is news to me. I'm excited. Shout out to Mike Batman Cohen or is Michael Cohen? Don't mix the two up, who is a covid survivor, I guess. He tweeted out this week that he had not symptoms that were so bad that he had to go to the hospital, but I think it quote, "Sucked for a while." He's back on the mend and we're happy to announce that he is a survivor of covid. For me he's the second person that I actually know that has come down with it. It won't be the last, but he's number two.
Chad:
Awesome to hear Batman. Hopefully you'll be back soon.
Joel:
Covid can't kill Batman, come on now.
Chad:
Yeah, that ain't going to happen. A cluster of shout outs because we have so many, to listeners Oliver Kipfer, David Papp, Joseph Wilkie, Matt King, Wes Winham, CEO of startup right here in Indianapolis called Woven. And one of those guys, one of the reasons why I did this in a big group so you wouldn't know who said it, one of these guys said and I quote. "Your podcast is good stuff. It's the only one I can make it through without falling asleep."
Joel:
By the way, all those names lend themselves to really great nicknames if you dissect each one of those, but anyway.
Chad:
I'll work on that later.
Joel:
I digress. Another group of names I'll throw out there, hundreds of companies are now boycotting Facebook from advertising. Big names that you'll know like Walmart, Starbucks, Home Depot and Levi's joined the fray recently. The jury is out whether or not this will have any effect on changing Zuckerberg's state of mind. But it is certainly a statement in the hundreds at this point of companies who are saying F-U to Facebook advertising.
Chad:
Yes, and we're one of those companies. We don't spend a lot of money.
Joel:
That's right, Chad & Cheese they're boycotting Facebook.
Chad:
Not spending another dollar on those assholes. On LinkedIn this week it was really funny because Ted DeVito said, he actually commented on one of the posts we put out-
Joel:
Is that Danny's brother?
Chad:
Yeah, I think so. And I quote, "We could have done without the foul language and blasphemy." I thought that was just fucking hilarious because on our home page it says, it has the little explicit content.
Joel:
As do all of our episodes have a big E on every episode.
Chad:
Yeah, and again, I just wanted to reiterate to those listening that we appreciate you listening and one of the reasons why we did this in the first place is so that in HR, unlike most of the sleepy podcasts that are out there, you could have one that was original, one that was authentic and when we spoke to listeners, Joel and I always thought that the old HR lady would never listen to us. Those are the ones that are coming up to us saying, "I love what you guys are saying. I've been saying it for 20 years."
Joel:
Yeah. Every industry recruiting has an id and we are it.
Chad:
So, anyway, thanks again for all you listeners and Ted DeVito, I'm going to give you just a common term from our friends over in England. Fuck off.
Joel:
By the way, what's your favorite Danny DeVito movie?
Chad:
What was the one where they were twins? That was horrible.
Joel:
Twins. It's called Twins.
Chad:
With Arnold Schwarzenegger. That was probably the worst fucking movie.
Joel:
Remember Romancing the Stone?
Chad:
Yes.
Joel:
He was great in that. And Hoffa he was pretty good too. A rare underground hit, I think, one of Nicholson's better performances that doesn't get noticed. But, anyway, I digress. Shout out to Gordon Collier who survived the firing squad. That episode went out this week, I believe.
Chad:
Yeah.
Joel:
He's a big fan of the show. I know he was real excited to be on and glad that that went out. He's been pimping it big time. We appreciate that as well.
Chad:
Ready for events?
Joel:
I'm ready for events, baby.
Chad:
All right. We have the big event coming up this coming week, kids. Jamie Leonard and the team that brings you Wreckfest every year is bringing you something new. Something cool. Something global. It's called TA Global Gathering.
Joel:
Something timely.
Chad:
That's right, yeah, it's very timely. Next week so July 8th and 9th over 100 speakers across the world are going to be a part of this thing. And we, the Chad & Cheese, we've created this entirely new competition and it will be airing on just like July 8th. Get your pens ready kids. July 8th at 2:15 Eastern time. We actually have the biggest chunk in the entire event.
Joel:
What?
Chad:
I think most of the speakers are 30 minutes and we have four contestants doing what Joel?
Joel:
They're pimping their new features. We're calling this thing Featurama. We have death match which features startups and their businesses. Now we have Featurama which features established companies that are launching new and cool things that we put under the microscope, we judge and we pronounce a winner which will then receive the bad ass belt of HR tech aside from the chain of champions so we're bringing out all the hardware, all the good stuff. We have four great companies that are competing. We got Nexxt with two xx's. We got Zor who just won death match. We got HiringSolved and we have Jobvite. Talk about some 800-pound gorillas going to the mat, going into the octagon. It's going to be fun everybody.
Chad:
It's going to be a blast. Going to be a blast. And since everybody loves firing squad in death match because those are more startup driven, we wanted to be able to give some of the bigger brands an opportunity to cut through the noise because they're working really hard to drop new features. And in most cases, they don't get any love.
Joel:
Established companies are people too, everybody. They're people too.
Chad:
And now they have a platform to be able to do so called Featurama, so there you go.
Joel:
You're welcome everybody. You're welcome. You're welcome.
Chad:
Topics. Have you heard of this thing called Black Lives Matter?
Joel:
Yeah, I have.
Chad:
So, HR Executive, they actually had this number of the day thing that they put out around Black Lives Matter and this is from a Monster survey. 62% of employees would be more likely to work for a company because its response to the Black Lives Matter movement. So, depending on the response of the Black Lives Matter movement, are you just staying silent not saying a goddamn thing, this actually impacts how people look at your brand, your company. Obviously, not just from a standpoint of coming to work there but also buying shit. But 62% say that it matters if they're going to come work for you or.
Joel:
Absolutely. Now, my first take on this story is how the hell did Monster only get 300 people to answer a survey? Don't they have more people than that-
Chad:
Probably not.
Joel:
... in their database. Yeah, that tells you the state of Monster that they can only get 300 people to fill out a survey. However, that is within the realm of whatever official survey data as we know from our buddy George LaRoque. The only thing is I'm curious, people answer surveys largely in tune with what they think they should say, so it'll be interesting to see how... and we talk about this with [inaudible 00:15:19] getting on to diverse hiring and sort of the we've heard this story before.
Chad:
Right.
Joel:
So, I'm really interested. We can't see in the soul of people and the heart of the people that were surveyed. But, curious how much of this is I guess white guilt coming out a little bit as opposed to real dissension and feeling. However, I do think no matter what, one of the points in the survey was really valid and it was made by Claire Barnes who's the SVP of HR at Monster who said quote with all that in mind from the data that they got, "It's essential to evaluate your employer branding and ensure all of your recruitment materials and efforts accurate reflect your corporate values."
Joel:
You and I, you in particular grew up with websites coming up with diverse jobs in their name and their URL and diversity hire and things like that which were really only things that were done because I the government came calling, you could say, "Hey, we're making efforts to hire these folks," as opposed to actually doing it. I think that you're paying lip service and answering a survey is one thing. But actually putting your money in your mouth and your resources to the other is another thing.
Joel:
So, yeah, I agree that the world is headed this way. The future is not in the confederate flag a la our Mississippi shout out. And companies should be moving in this direction and at least in terms of this survey, they are.
Chad:
70% said it's very important that companies are upfront about their diversity of their employees. More than one third cited that being transparent about the diversity of employees would help a company demonstrate its commitment to diverse hiring. Now, to me that only makes sense, and we've been talking about this for years now. When a company says quote unquote, "We are diverse," or, "We're female friendly," or, "We're veteran friendly," or, "We believe in hiring individuals with disabilities." Well, then if that's the case, be transparent about it. Show your numbers. Right? It feels like you are hiding something.
Chad:
And the transparency can't stop there. This also drives the pay equity conversation. Black females make about 66 cents on the dollar compared to white dudes, right? Hispanic women make even less. So, the conversation needs to be loud and we need to continue until measures are put in place to ensure that equal pay is happening, that equity is happening, that diverse hiring is actually happening. Because, again, a lot of this shit is just smoke and mirrors.
Joel:
Absolutely. And by the way, stop using stock photos in your employment branding with people of color if they don't actually work at your company. That's a bad look in terms of transparency. And in terms of transparency, I think that's great and part of... I don't want to jump ahead to the next story.
Chad:
No, go ahead.
Joel:
But, there's an element of the transparency being real with he messaging that you're giving the world. I bring up Nike quite a bit. Go to Nike's website and look at their executive team. It's really white. That should reflect on their marketing and their messaging and who they're appealing to. I hope that that starts changing over the next few years. I also think that transparency in terms of level of employment and what really matters. So, to jump ahead a little bit to our next story, Amazon and Apple tout their diversity numbers, however, that's a little bit skewed because of warehouse workers and the retail shops.
Joel:
They're able to sort of skew the percentages because they hire mass amounts of people that are basic level folks that can look more like America which is not transferring to the high tech jobs and sort of the management positions. I think it's really important to be transparent in terms of all levels of your organization and not just say in aggregate here's our number and that's good enough.
Chad:
Yeah. You definitely have to break that down. The transparency piece, the aggregate especially when you have jobs which are from retail all the way up through tech and whatnot, it's not good enough. Especially from somebody on the outside looking in. Facebook, being really a technology company cites... Six years ago they released statistics on the makeup of its global workforce that did not reflect the demographics of its users. Just 3% of its workers were black. Then Facebook cites the creation of a diversity team a year before vowed to make more hires with lower attrition and that came out to be 3.8%. Right?
Chad:
So, then COO Sheryl Sandberg announced a new effort with more specific goals and support. A company committed to a 30% increase in the number of people of color in leadership positions over the next five years. Now, personally from my standpoint there's non-question in the C-suite you have to have diversity because that's where everybody's looking at. Right? That's where the standard should be set, but it's not good enough. That has to bleed back down.
Chad:
For me, this always rings hollow. It doesn't ring true. I've seen companies perform this smoke and mirrors bullshit tactic for decades. They announce they have working groups and then you don't hear a goddamn thing.
Joel:
Yeah. By the way the 3%, 3.8% is really hilarious in terms of-
Chad:
Well, it's not.
Joel:
Well if any company-
Chad:
Fuckers.
Joel:
... should look like the world it's Facebook, right?
Chad:
Yes.
Joel:
But, yeah, obviously not. You can speak to this better than I can, but the story from Market Watch that had this with the quote of, "Most companies just stay in the lane of what is legally required." Your time at Direct Employers I know you saw this and can speak to it more than I can. But, government interaction and the risk of going to court and being fined tends to have more impact on companies than actual society sentiment. So, I'm really curious as to whether or not these companies really, really get serious about this.
Joel:
Of course, some of the commentary from some of the African-Americans where they've heard this all before. For years they've heard about diversity programs and it's all just lip service to the press to make themselves look better. Hopefully, we see some actual numbers increase. We actually see the needle move because for decades it hasn't.
Chad:
Yeah. The biggest issue is that companies want to make huge announcements and then they don't want to fund any type of internal creation of programs that would develop talent. Companies should be aggressively funding internal programs which manufacture their own talent like the U.S. military does with the ROTC program. Right?
Joel:
Yeah.
Chad:
You want them to actually learn specific skills etc. Well, guess what? We're going to go ahead and we're going to pay for your college and here's when you pop out or what have you, you're going to have a three-year contract with us etc. But they should also be aggressively funding companies like The Mom Project which we're going to be talking about later in the show. That's the thing. They talk about all this money that they send out to the black community in this case, right?
Chad:
The problem is they're not investing in their own infrastructure and they're looking for quick hits. They're looking for silver bullets. Well, guess what, people? They don't fucking exist. If we don't build infrastructure, and that's being in the company. If we don't build, we don't actually put money into it, we don't put resources into it, it is all hollow. It's not going to work and it's going to take your 3% to 3.8%.
Joel:
I think it's worth noting as well we talked about Netflix's CEO donating I think $120 million to historically black colleges. You can bet your ass that Netflix is going to start hiring more from those colleges as they're giving money to them and certain programs I'm sure to help funnel people into Netflix for jobs that they need filled. Also, Microsoft announced this week that they're hoping to train 25 million people on digital training and education. Of course, they have the nice benefit of using things like LinkedIn and Gig-Hub etc. to drive some of that stuff which also drives users into Gig-Hub and LinkedIn etc.
Joel:
But, there's no crime in if you're helping the world while also helping your business that's not necessarily a bad thing. So, companies like Netflix and Microsoft I think are worth highlighting as companies that are looking like they're putting their money where their mouth is and will actually make a real difference.
Chad:
Netflix should be going into those universities and they should be providing guidance on what the universities are teaching because it's what they need, it's what they want. So, those universities should be turning into talent factories for them. We hear way too many times that individuals pop out of university, they've graduated, and they have all these skills gaps. They're not worthless, but they're sure the fuck not worthwhile on day one.
Chad:
We need to be able to ensure corporate America that we're not looking to the government to try to fix all of our ills. We fix our own shit. We go to those HBCs that we're spending a shit ton of money with, and we're helping them better understand the type of talent that we need. That's what we should be doing and unfortunately, all they do is write a check, given them a check, walk away and expect something magical to happen.
Joel:
Let's take a break and we'll talk about that Mom Project that you mentioned.
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Joel:
Mom. With age comes context right? When I was born in the '70s mom stayed home. I don't know what yours did. I'm assuming it's something similar.
Chad:
Somewhat.
Joel:
And then as divorces grew including within my family and mom took on a role of working and the latch key kid generation, kids coming home alone was like a thing. And then it became guilt and raising kids that didn't have mother and how do I do both things. You and I remember commercials like, "I can bring home the bacon, I fry it up with a pan, and never, never let you forget you're a man." Or the Virginia Slim cigarettes like you can have it all and all that shit.
Joel:
So, when I see efforts like this The Mom Project that helps women navigate both being a mother and having a lucrative and fulfilling career and bringing together those entities with companies that are willing to provide both or support all of those legs of the stool if you will, I think it's awesome. And The Mom Project sort of highlights the world that we're going into which I think is a much better place than where we were decades ago.
Chad:
Definitely. Yeah, mom worked her ass off. Mom and dad divorced when I was eight and she worked her ass off. And the thing is that in this case, I'll just go into The Mom Project. They just raised 25 million in Series B funding which brings in-
Joel:
36 million total.
Chad:
... 35.6 according to Crunchbase. So, overall not to mention they also have an advocate in Serena Williams who joined the company as a strategic adviser. That's big.
Joel:
Super woman. Talk about super women.
Chad:
Yeah. The Mom Project community of over 275,000 talented professionals in more than 2000 companies links moms and small businesses and leading brands like Delta Airlines, Pinterest, Dropbox, Accenture, Etsy, Facebook and Nike. This is a project that I think that companies like the Facebook's and the Amazon's of the world should be getting behind. We were talking about the actual funding of getting behind the projects where there's already infrastructure that you can tap into this, this group 94% have bachelor's degrees, 40% advanced degrees, 250,000 in 50 states. It's pretty amazing that you can tap into a group but also understand that you have to provide them with the autonomy to get done what they need to get done.
Chad:
What they need to get done isn't just work for your fucking company. They have a life. They have kids. They have idiots like us that they have to deal with.
Joel:
I think it was SHRM in the early 2000s featured Jack Welch who's a famous executive made most famously at GM ....
Chad:
GE
Joel:
...where he famously said "5% of the workforce needs to be fired every year because at least 5% suck. But, he went on and essentially touted that women ultimately have to make a choice whether they are a career person or they're going to be a domestic stay-at-home mom. And that the two entities could not coexist. And Jack Welch, rest his soul, I think he passed away this year or last year. Smart guy, good executive. But you had to think listening to that that there's got to be a way that this uber talented group of people didn't have to choose between one or the other. That somehow they could balance both of them and that there were companies that were willing to embrace that reality.
Joel:
So, 10, 15 years hence, it really makes my heart smile that companies are embracing the dual existence of you can be a mom and also be really super talented and help our company. You don't have to choose one or the other.
Chad:
Yeah, Jack Welch really embodied that of the management in the 1950s. You come into work, you're busting your ass and you're staying late and you're doing whatever we, the company, need you to do. Screw your family, okay? This is about us and if you don't think so, then go find a job somewhere else, right? And luckily we've evolved to the point to understand that we can get more out of people. We can keep them longer. They can be happier at work. They don't have to begrudgingly get in and do their fucking job. They can enjoy what they do on their own time just as long as they're getting their shit done. What does it matter, right?
Joel:
Yeah. And fortunately the culture is catching up to that as well. I think there's much less sort of envy or aggressive behavior on people who aren't there all day or work from home more than others. That there isn't this sort of animosity which I think Jack Welch's time definitely was. Like not showing up to work, going on vacation was a weakness. All the other companies, this is corporate America, dog eat dog kind of mentality and we're getting away from that which I think is a great thing.
Chad:
Yeah, on The Mom Project website it says, "86% of working mothers will leave a job for an opportunity that better supports their work and life considerations. 75% of women surveyed believe employer support of work-life flexibility is the most crucial criteria for feeling respected at work." Again, it's giving a shit about the human beings that are actually making the products and providing the services under your brand. Once you don't give a shit about them anymore, your service starts to suck and so does your product compared to your competitor who's actually giving a shit.
Joel:
Yep. And thankfully also technology allows us to do this more and more which is a good thing. Covid with Zoom meetings and everything else has made it that much more amenable in today's world.
Chad:
Is Amazon giving a shit now that they're paying 500 million in bonuses to frontline workers?
Joel:
I'm ready for you to bow down to the statute of Bezos and apologize for all the hate that you've spewed at them for the last three years, announced this week they're going to be giving five billion, I believe, worth of bonuses.
Chad:
Millions.
Joel:
500 million. Sorry. Yes.
Chad:
500 million.
Joel:
They're doing five billion to fight covid in the workplace. Yes, they're giving 500 million in bonuses to frontline workers have been deemed essential in the last three, four months. This is a good thing, right? Are you actually going to come up with some angle of where this is a negative?
Chad:
Imagine that. A white guy thinking this is a good thing. The payout comes after the company decided last month to end a short-term pay bump. Okay? Let's do the math real quick and help you understand why this is fucking horrible for workers and more of a PR stunt than anything else. A one-time bonus is just that where a bump in salary is a long-term investment in that person, in that worker, in that employee, in that fucking human. Right?
Chad:
This is just another bullshit optics play for PR. A LinkedIn commenter because this is actually on LinkedIn, actually said, okay, so listen. Amazon has 840,000 employees. Let's assume 500,000 of them are frontline workers. I think it's probably less but let's just go with that. That's $1000 bonus each. Roughly $800 after taxes. Is that hazard pay? Is that good headline? If you think about it overall, let's say it was twice that. I'm going to be generous. Let's say the bonus was $1600. Well, a $2 pay bump would catch that $1600 or that $1600 bonus in about five months. And then that worker would continue to make more money not to mention when the next pay raises would happen, they would be making more than that. Right?
Chad:
So, this is a play by corporate America to be able to smoke and mirrors shit as opposed to paying people more. Nearly 20% of Americans, 20 fucking percent are considered working poor. That means they are at the level of poverty but yet they're fucking working. We need to lift them up by paying them more and quit giving them the scraps. These are the scraps. Jeff Bezos, you think he's getting scraps? Fuck no he's not. He's giving these people the scraps. He's telling them take it or leave it. You can find a job somewhere else.
Joel:
I tried, Jeff Bezos. I really, really tried.
Chad:
This is another reason why Amazon needs a union, by the way.
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Chad:
Oh, Canada.
Joel:
Oh, Canada. Canada's largest most influential company Shopify, no everybody it's not Blackberry anymore. By the way there's a bad track record of being Canada's biggest tech company. But anyway, I digress. So, if you hadn't heard our president Donald Trump is sort of cold toward immigrants and people coming in from outside the country which is a longstanding American tradition, and has put a pause button on H-1 visas for workers to come into the country. Have you heard about this Chad?
Chad:
Yeah. All over the news.
Joel:
So, not to be outdone Shopify who would love to get this brain power into Canada and at their company had a fun little dialogue on Twitter this week where their founders commented about, "Hey, if you can't go to the U.S., come to Canada. We'll love you here."
Chad:
Canada has been trolling the U.S. for workers especially individuals who are outside of the United States and even inside the United States ever since Trump took office. They're like, "You might want to come up here for a little while." But the visa system was conceived so companies could hire overseas workers to fill a shortage of highly skilled positions in technology services, product development. But critics argue that companies abuse the system by replacing American workers with foreign labor.
Chad:
From my standpoint, I was just thinking how many people are here on H-1B? In 2019, the USCIS said the U.S. has 388,000 plus H-1B visa holders who work in occupations that require theoretical and practical application of a body of highly-specialized knowledge. That's a bunch of fucking fluff right there. Overall, here in the U.S., once again, I'm a big fan of the H-1B visa program. But there has to be a balance. From our standpoint, we talked about this earlier with regard to company's actually creating infrastructure and spending money on resources that will tap into their local communities that will skill those individuals up and get them in the jobs. We are looking for the quick heroin hit with H-1B visas.
Chad:
I'm in a little town that has probably one of the most diverse communities in the world. I kid you not because Cummins Engine Company is here and we have the most H-1B visa allotments in the country. I love it because most of my friends are from Europe. It provides diversity not just for me but for my kids so I love that. But, we here in the United States are always looking for the quick hit and we need to find a balance which means companies need to spend money making sure that the local communities are pipelining talent into their companies. Not just pulling H-1B visa holders and taking those jobs.
Chad:
Am I a fan of H-1B visas? Yes. Do I think we have too many of them and we need to really focus on spending money investing in our local communities? Fuck yeah we do.
Joel:
If you had to estimate, how many of Cummins workers that come from overseas become American citizens?
Chad:
That's a good question. I know that most of them that is a goal. Not that they want to stay here per se, but that is-
Joel:
They want to vote against Trump.
Chad:
Yeah. Especially. I know that there are many and I've seen many of the Facebook posts of those individuals, friends, who are like Christine did last week getting her American citizenship. That's big. And it's easier to stay, obviously, if you have a skill that is in high need. Again, I think our community is much richer because of the diverse an H-1B visa program brings, although we have to invest in our own people as well. We have to find a balance to this.
Joel:
Yeah, I agree, balance and I'm by no means a expert on this issue. But, I do know that America's brand in the world has historically been one of openness, of opportunity, of freedom. It was a place where the world wanted to come whether it was to get rich or to worship in the way that it chose. And the optics of stuff like this whether it be the wall in the southern border, whether it be H-1B visas, all goes toward corroding the brand of America that has made it so strong.
Joel:
We talked about diversity in the workplace. Think about what diversity as a country has meant to us in terms of growth, in terms of ideas, in terms of innovation, in terms of all that stuff. In many ways we're turning out back on that when we do things like this. And countries like Canada are smart to say, "Hey, we're open for business and we're open to you coming to our country." I think that optically is a bad thing for America. I do agree there's probably got to be some balance in there. But I don't fault other countries trying to take advantage of our stupidity and eroding our brand of one of openness and opportunity and freedom by doing things like this that Shopify exemplified.
Chad:
You have to ask yourself would they still be pulling these programs together if they had to pay the same rate that they did to Americans in the same jobs.
Joel:
Yeah. I don't know. My wife's a professor and we were talking about this the other day. Her university as every other university is very concerned about enrollments for the next year or the coming semester. In her school which is a microcosm of other schools around the country certainly undergrads at Duke are different than undergrads at Nebraska, right? But in her world they're looking at a 3% decrease in undergrad, but they're looking at 5X that in terms of their graduate program which tend to be very heavy on international students.
Joel:
So, starting sort of there where countries want, or people want to come to America for an education, they're starting to feel excluded from that world and they're going to go to places like Canada and get an education and stay there and work there and build companies there. I just think that's a shame that America is losing some of that as a result.
Chad:
That's revenue that they're losing as well as a university.
Joel:
Yes, that's true. And that means people losing jobs and hours and all that good stuff.
Chad:
And then we have this great spokesperson who's talking about skills-based instead of degree-based.
Joel:
Yeah, so Trump signed an executive order to quote "Transform the federal hiring process and replace the one size fits all degree-based hiring with skills-based hiring." Not anything particularly wrong with the message.
Chad:
No.
Joel:
However the messenger who's probably been employed everywhere that she's worked in due part because of her father, sent the internet into a tizzy as you can imagine on Twitter. There's some great ones. Chris Hayes on Twitter said, "New policy. Anyone whose parents had the job can get hired for the job themselves regardless of qualifications." Hart Hanson said, "Does that mean you all will leave in favor of people with actual intelligence and ability?" Norm Wilner said quote, "I'm grandfathered in. Well, okay, I'm fathered in," etc. So, poor Ivanka. She can't get a break.
Chad:
But you would think that someone would have put their hand up and said, "This is probably not the thing that you want Ivanka to talk about." If I was Ivanka I'd say, "You know what? This is probably not the thing I should talk about." But they're all so fucking blind.
Joel:
I got nothing. I got nothing except-
Chad:
A beer.
Joel:
We out.
Chad:
And we out.
Outro:
Thank you for listening to podcast with Chad & Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all they talk about nothing. Anyhoo, be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play or wherever you listen to your podcasts. We out.