Stack the Steal
- Chad Sowash
- Jun 4, 2021
- 27 min read
Updated: Jun 15, 2021
It's a Stack-quisition! Wait that sounds familiar...
Stack the steal!
Dollar bills, ya'll! Developer community Stack Overflow, one of the 50 most popular websites in the world, was acquired this week for a juicy $1.8 billion, an absolute steal by Github standards.
What else?
- Lowe's has a drive-thru hiring strategy?
- The boys play a little Buy-or-Sell, w/ 1) Pyn 2) Filtered.ai and 3) WorkRise - discuss the ongoing nightmare that is labor shortages,
- vaccine mandates
...and chase it all with a little change in weed testing at Amazon. Turns out potheads can organize warehouse merchandise too.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
INTRO (1s):
Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman 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 and Cheese podcast.
Joel (21s):
Oh yeah, dude. I would've just let the bear mall my pets, sorry, peepers. Hey kids. It's Joel "AARP" Cheesman.
Chad (32s):
And this is Chad "did you read my blog?" Sowash.
Joel (36s):
On this week show the Stack-quisition, buy or sell, and the number one listened to album at the Amazon warehouse this week, Dr. Dre's The Chronic. Just say no kids. We'll be right back after this smoke break.
Sovren (53s):
You already know that Sovren makes the world's best resume CV parser, but did you know that Sovren also makes the world's best AI matching engine? Only Sovren's AI matching engine goes beyond the buzzwords. With Sovren you control how the engine thinks with every match the Sovren engine tells you what matched and exactly how each matching document was scored. And if you don't agree with the way it's scored the matches, you can simply move some sliders to tell it, to score the matches your way. No other engine on earth gives you that combination of insight and control. With Sovren, matching isn't some frustrating "black box, trust us, it's magic, one shot deal"
Sovren (1m 37s):
like all the others. No, with Sovren, matching is completely understandable, completely controllable, and actually kind of fun. Sovren ~ software so human you'll want to take it to dinner.
Joel (1m 55s):
It's pronounced Louisville kids, Louisville.
Chad (1m 58s):
Loui-ville
Joel (1m 59s):
Louisville.
Chad (2m 0s):
So great story. Coming from North Central Ohio, 1995, I plant my ass here in Columbus, Indiana. We're all Midwesterners for God's sakes. I'm just a state over, I go on a sales call and actually say, yeah, I'm going to Louisville. This weekend. Guy looked at me and he's like, you're not from around here are you. It's pronounced Lowville.
Joel (2m 24s):
So yeah, let's beat this dead horse. We had a birthday recently and we were in Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky for our birthday and had a great time. My liver still hates me, but other than that, it was a great, great couple of days.
Chad (2m 39s):
Big shout out to your wife, Christine for planning, Boozefest, by the way, it was our half century birthdays. And after a week of drinking MicheLadas on the beach in Costa Rica. I come home to a long weekend of bourbon and Louisville, I love my life.
Joel (2m 58s):
Yeah, how's the detox going this week? Is it going pretty good?
Chad (3m 2s):
Oh, I think my liver has definitely was stood the onslaught. So I think I'm good.
Joel (3m 7s):
Nice, Nice little recommendation. If you go there, check out the Peerless Distillery kind of off the beaten path. It's not old Forester, one of the big guys, but it was, it was quite a nice experience. And also if you can make it to the Brown hotel and get yourself a Hot Brown, if you know, you know, very tasty.
Chad (3m 26s):
Yeah, I'm not allowed back there. So we've got a special segment that, that we want to go ahead and, and start listeners. If you have a shout out that you want to send us, go ahead and record it and send it to us via email and who knows it might make it on Chad and Cheese Shout Outs.
Joel (3m 44s):
Would that be email via Chadcheese.com or just our personal email.
Chad (3m 49s):
Reach out to us on chadcheese.com. We'll make the connection and it'll happen. Don't worry about it.
Joel (3m 53s):
I think we can all also take questions in addition to shout outs!
Chad (3m 57s):
We could!
Joel (3m 57s):
Or just, or just you guys suck, fuck off. Yeah. Let's open it to all kinds of audible opportunities,
Chad (4m 4s):
Whatever you want to say to us. Shout outs to your buddies. We suck. You love us. You want beer, whatever it is. Go ahead and do it.
Joel (4m 13s):
All rightm here we go. Without any further ado, our first send in Shout Out.
Listener (4m 18s):
Massive Shout out to Wouter Goedhart, who recently stepped down as the CEO of programmatic advertising giant Vong to pursue our dreams. He's pursuing one of those dreams cycling with one of his mates from Paris to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, enjoying the local wines, the scenery and his bike. One way to start your intermediary retirement, man.
Joel (4m 41s):
We're so international.
Chad (4m 43s):
I don't think Voss pronounced that name, right?
4 (4m 46s):
No, Oh, hell no.
Chad (4m 50s):
Shout out to Steven Rothberg as well for all the Zip Recruiter, stock updates. Really appreciate that, Steve. Yeah,
Joel (4m 58s):
That thing is taken off. Oh, taking off! It it'll be 25 bucks a share by the end of this podcast. Yeah. Shout out to speaking of Louisville estate near nearby West Virginia, shout out to them, they looked at Ohio's million dollar giveaway and said, hold my beer West Virginia will give away firearms as a reward for residents who have received a vaccine. This is part of a Father's Day lottery that also includes trucks, scholarships, and $1 million in prizes. You'd go West Virginia!
Chad (5m 32s):
Idiots Just, all I got to say, I'm going to follow that up with message from 2008, they want their marketing plan back. That's right. Trump and his blog is dead.
4 (5m 43s):
Oh hell, no.
Joel (5m 48s):
Isn't this fuck stick just do a podcast. Just put a mic in front of them and go
Chad (5m 52s):
No! no ideas. No ideas, no ideas.
Joel (5m 57s):
But yeah I love the excuse that it was only an intermediate strategy, which lasted a month. Yeah. Right. Total bullshit it, which is the social media platform is coming. So I can't, I can't wait for this thing to come, but yeah, hasta la vista to Trump's blog. And what was it from the desk of DonaldJTrump.com or something?
Chad (6m 17s):
I have no clue because nobody read it. So yeah.
Joel (6m 20s):
We'll shout out from West Virginia rednecks to my favorite redneck ad in the UK, Matt that-British-guy Alder celebrating a birthday this week. Matt, get crazy buddy.
Chad (6m 33s):
Happy Birthday! Yeah, that's right. Shout out to people PeopleHum for including our three clicks, two apps, one higher podcast episode in their latest newsletter. Yeah. Appreciate that. That's if you, if you haven't checked it out, it's fairly simple. Go to Chadcheese.com or anywhere you listen to podcasts. It's pretty simple.
Joel (6m 56s):
Shout Out to coach Mike Krzyzewski after Bobby Knight, the best coach in college basketball history in my opinion, 74 years old, 30 some seasons. And he's calling it quits. Five titles. I think 12 final fours over 1200 victories. A couple of gold medals in there, I think. The dude done good. Mama's proud. Coach K shout out to you, man.
Chad (7m 21s):
A staple in basketball. No question.
Joel (7m 24s):
By the way. I hope I look that good at 74. Good God that guy's got a good plastic surgeon or a great workout regimen. I don't know which one.
Chad (7m 32s):
Who cares? Guy looks good! So shout out to Lowe's who was hosting a drive through hiring event for call center employees. You can apply early and drive up for on the spot interviews in your car. This is how bad it's getting kids. They're trying to hire 400 positions for the call center. Big question is I wonder if any of those positions are work from home?
Joel (7m 59s):
Yeah, and I don't think it was in the news, but I think they all got a Wendy's breakfast sandwich for showing up.
4 (8m 7s):
Oh, hell no.
Joel (8m 10s):
A shout out to free shit. Let's just talk about that real quick guys. If you love whiskey, if you love tri-blend t-shirts and you love whiskey, what are you do? You got to head to Chadcheese.com/free. We got t-shirts sponsored by Emissary. We got beer sponsored by its AdZuna. And we got whiskey powered by our friends at Sovren. No charge. Shows up at your doorstep, not delivered by us, but delivered by somebody. What could be better? And then if you're game, we'll do a zoom tasting and have a little chat and talk shop. I mean, it's a hell of a deal for free!
Chad (8m 46s):
Two bottles of bourbon or beer and maybe a t-shirt and time with Chad, and Cheese, I mean, who the fuck doesn't want that? It doesn't get any sexier baby.
Joel (8m 58s):
And speaking of sexy, Matt Charney was on the show recently. Goddamn. If you haven't heard that episode, I actually got some texts from people that I don't usually get texts from saying great interview with Charney. So you got to check that out, folks!
Chad (9m 13s):
Got to check that out. Also have to check out the Lynn Bailey podcast interview. She melts our brains, dude. She is incredibly smart and I think we might get her and Tyler Weeks on the program and just, allow them to melt everybody's fucking brains. But yes.
Joel (9m 35s):
I'll bring the edibles. I'll bring the edibles. It'll be Banff redox.
Chad (9m 42s):
Here we go. Nice. And last but not least for me. Hey kids. It's Pride month. That's right. And we are dropping a special series of podcasts called, are you ready? It will be LGBTQ plus for dummies every Monday in June to celebrate pride, Joel and I thought, you know who better to ask uncomfortable questions about LGBTQ plus than a couple of white straight cisgender males.
Joel (10m 9s):
This feels like a trap. This feels like a trap.
Chad (10m 12s):
It possibly could be thanks to Michelle Raymond and my G work for helping creating the mini podcasts that answer those uncomfortable questions about the LGBTQ plus community. So look for those every Monday in June.
Joel (10m 27s):
Soon to be canceled near you. Okay.
Chad (10m 34s):
Topics!
Joel (10m 35s):
The stack-quisition. Okay. That was good. That was good. That was good process. I assume I'm pronouncing that correctly. A global consumer internet group and one of the largest technology investors in the world announced on Thursday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Stack Overflow, a knowledge sharing platform for the global community of developers and technologists for approximately $1.8 billion. Couple of highlights here: Stack is one of the 50 most popular websites in the world. It was founded in 2008. The company has expanded to include Stack Overflow for Teams and knowledge and collaborations solution for enterprise.
Joel (11m 18s):
Over 85% of its learning focus community visit the platform every week to access more than 52 million questions and answers,
Chad (11m 27s):
They what?
Joel (11m 27s):
Will now reach 90% of the fortune 100 across its corporate learning companies, including Stack Overflow, Skill Soft, Udemy, and Code Academy. New York based Stack Overflow had previously raised $153 million. So the investors are pretty happy at a 10X acquisition. Microsoft, as you remember acquired GitHub, I'd call it a Stack Overflow competitor for around 8 billion in 2018. If you're curious, Hacker Rank has raised 42.9 million. A little reminder here as well. Stack Overflow has a jobs section, unlike GitHub, which currently only has 3000 job postings.
Joel (12m 13s):
Sounds like an opportunity to me, Chad, your thoughts?
Chad (12m 17s):
Opportunities everywhere kids. This is a highly engaged community. Did you not get that over 85% of the community visit the platform every fucking week. This is a lifestyle platform, kids. Stack Overflow is a model or shit, the model for our space. This is where companies like Dice had an upper hand and they didn't execute. This is where Monster had the upper hand and they didn't execute. This is the killer app! Becoming a lifestyle platform, a community is the killer app. So all of you job boards that are out there, all of you jobs sites or anything that have to do with careers whatsoever, take notes, look at what Stack is doing, because remember, how did LinkedIn start as a network, as a community, and then guess what happened?
Chad (13m 11s):
It turned into what it is today. This is how you get engagement. And that's exactly what you want in what you do.
Joel (13m 18s):
Absolute steal for 1.8 billion. Now, these guys only talked about the education piece, which I'm sure they know a lot more about, than, than we do, but you, you throw in Code Academy, Udemy, Skillsoft, and this thing's a juggernaut for corporate education and upscaling. So that alone makes this a steal. You throw in the job search component, only 3000 jobs. That's nothing for the tech community. I mean, if they just have a dedicated force to like start selling this thing as a job component, it's an absolute steal. And you mentioned LinkedIn at 26 billion, you got GitHub for 8 billion and Stack Overflow was next in line.
Joel (14m 6s):
I think Hacker Rank is probably pretty happy about this. You know, they gotta be next up. But yeah, these, these communities, these education focused, community focused platforms that have a lot of really skilled people visit them on a regular basis, are super important. And the teams aspect is incredibly huge. So you get, you can imagine big engineering teams where the same questions are asked over and over. So you sort of automate and clear that you get engagement and collaboration on assignments and build outs for development. I mean, this is a huge deal. I'm I'm really surprised it didn't go to, I don't know, an employment related or some sort of HR tech focused company.
Joel (14m 49s):
The fact that went to an online education firm is pretty interesting. But yeah, total steal, the Stack acquisition gets a big, big round of applause for me.
Chad (14m 59s):
Well, think about this. All of the individuals who are actually in the community who are participating and they're providing answers to all the questions that are out there, you can get an engagement score, right? If you can see what that individual's engagement score is and also take a look at the quality of responses. Right, not just responses but code so on and so forth. Dude, this is proof in the fucking pudding. It's not, to me, this is not about jobs. This is about going out there and matching your job against this. This is the evolution of jobs in a system.
Chad (15m 39s):
You have a wreck, push it into the system It automatically floats individuals to the top. You check out all of what they've done and you've got proof right there, right? So I think overall I love and I agree, I agree, a hundred percent,` a fucking steel!
Joel (15m 60s):
By the way, we didn't even talk about a marketplace where they can rake in some more bucks.
Chad (16m 4s):
Yes!
Joel (16m 4s):
So anyway, so that's obviously huge buy from us. And we were getting a little nostalgic this weekend that we haven't played buy or sell in a while. So here we go. Are you ready? A little buy or sell. Okay. Number one in buy or sell, so we have three companies as usual. Number one is Pyn or Pyn. I don't know you choose P-Y-N. Let's go with PYN. Okay. I'm going to call this MailChimp for corporate communications. So the Australian based HR tech startup has raised $8 million in US seed funding around led by Silicon Valley, VC firm, Andreessen Horowitz, who apparently is funding everything these days.
Joel (16m 47s):
They got some help with the fundraising from Excel and Ryan Sanders, who was the co-founder of Bamboo HR and Scott Farquhar co-founder and co CEO. Did I say that wrong?
Chad (17m 1s):
I don't know.
Joel (17m 4s):
Okay. Co-founder and co CEO at, at LaSeon found in 2019, Pyn improves relationships between companies and their employees and guides communication throughout the employee life cycle based on user's data. Pyn provides more targeted messages when communicating internally, they bring personalization to Pyn by tracking information in existing systems that companies already used such as Workday, Bamboo HR, Salesforce, etcetera. That means company-wide emails can be relevant to everyone and only go to those who want them. You can track how many people have opened the emails and how successful you were in hitting the mark.
Joel (17m 45s):
MailChimp for corporate communications, Chad buy or sell?
Chad (17m 49s):
Andreessen Horowitz is on a fucking roll dude, not to mention, talk about BambooHR and Atlassian. This is fucking crazy and let's face it. Communications to employees suck. Meaning the experience sucks. Communication is everything in the workplace. Pyn CEO ran HR at Atlassian and Squarespace. Dude's got he's got experience. Pyn's co-founder John Williams started Culture Amp, which is an employee engagement platform in 2011. He has experience in this. Messaging overall, to be quite Frank is commoditized, leadership and connections rule the day, which is why this is a big fucking buy for me.
Chad (18m 38s):
Create needed point solutions that core systems do not want to build, work inside the system instead of trying to be the system. This just makes sense. This is a huge buy for me.
Joel (18m 52s):
Okay. All right. I'm going to be on the other side of that trade, my friend. It sounds really great on paper. It sounds really good to the tech community. A few things in my mind go against MailChimp for internal communications. Number one is it's not a must have. Slack works pretty well. Teams worked pretty well. The days of sort of mass emailing to departments and all employees is sort of antiquated in and of itself. I think existing tools can kind of serve the purpose. This thing does not impact the bottom line from a recruitment perspective. I'm not sure who they're going to sell this to if not HR. I mean, I don't think marketing is going to take it on.
Joel (19m 33s):
I don't know what other line of business will. HR doesn't understand marketing shit. They barely understand like resume emailed to people for job alerts. They let the ATS handle that. So like employing them to figure out an automated email, personalized email tool just doesn't bring like, it's going to be a big one for me. So Pyn, sorry.
4 (20m 2s):
Oh, hell no.
Joel (20m 4s):
It's a hell sell from me. All right. Let's go to filter.ai. And I hope you can explain this one. Okay. So Boston based companies raised 7 million in a seed round. The company says it helps humanize hiring. Okay. I spent a good 10 minutes with this fucking site and I I'm still not sure what it does. So trying to understand what they do and I guess it's a combination of like pre-screening and testing. There's some gamification in there. They use all these things to filter out the best candidates. They obviously throw in some DEI shit and unbiased hiring, but God damn, the site is confusing.
Joel (20m 45s):
Can you explain it to me? Yeah.
Chad (20m 47s):
Okay. So they, they want to be a part of your experience and ensuring that you are getting the right people into your organization. And these are tech positions, right? So this is kind of like a mini Stack Overflow with fraud protection. I think it's smart that they got funding because bootstrapping is great, but it's slow as fuck. And today speed is the key. Unfortunately for Filter, this space is growing. The CEO looks like a smart dude, but that's not enough in today's game. I hope the filter crew can find momentum, but I can't find a reason. And I tried to find a reason to buy on this one.
Chad (21m 30s):
And there was no reason this is a big sell.
Female Voice (21m 34s):
oh hell no.
Joel (21m 36s):
Dude, if I can't figure, if I who've been in the industry for 20 years, can't figure out what the fuck you're doing after 10 minutes on the site. Dude, Susie HR has no chance. All right, let's go to Work Rise, which has built a workforce management platform for the skilled trades announced this week that it has raised 300 million in a series E with the latest financing work rise has now raised more than $750 million. You may know the Austin based company better by its former name. RigUp. The company changed his name earlier this year to reflect the new emphasis on industries other than just oil and gas after well, energy kind of took a hit last year.
Joel (22m 21s):
I don't know if you heard the news since then Work Rise has broadened its reach to include wind solar, commercial construction, and defense industries. In a nutshell, it connects skilled laborers with infrastructure and energy companies, looking to staff and manage projects. Work Rise's online platform matches workers with over 500 companies and its network, manages payroll and benefits, and provides access to training. Last year, Work Rise placed more than 4,500 workers or nearly a third of all its workers placed in 2020 in renewable energy jobs. Chad Work Rise, the artist formerly known as Rig Up by herself.
Chad (23m 4s):
Did you hear that? It was Rig Up moving all their eggs out of one basket. That's right, kids, diversify or die. And Joel forgot. I don't know if you said this or not $2.9 billion valuation. Work Rise is smartly spreading out and evolving. I like that. And expansion into wind, solar, construction, defense, the steps are kind of manual though. You have human review on the resumes after they're uploaded, then matching. I don't know if that's something that also happens on the human side or if they actually have tech for that. And then training all three of those steps seem incredibly manual, which means from a scale standpoint, that's going to be hard to be able to increase margins, but with $300 million and a lot of tech that's out there that could help them do this.
Chad (23m 58s):
I love the trade segment. There's no question in those areas, wind, solar, construction, defense, oil, and gas. I think this is a big win, but they're going to have to get their shit together and get tech involved so that they can scale, increase margins and make that money, baby. This is a buy!
Joel (24m 23s):
Well, you know, you know, I love a good wave and an average surfer on a good wave can be a hell of a surfer. And so in addition to everything that you just said, can you say federal government infrastructure bill? Yes you can. Which means a whole lot of money is going to this shit. And it's no, it's no surprise that they changed their focus to put in solar shit and renewable energy because there's a Democrat in the white house and they want some of that cash. All right. Let's take a quick break and we'll talk labor shortages.
Jobvite (24m 59s):
You know, Steve, it feels like we keep getting pushed to hire more and better candidates with no more budget. Right? I wish there was a way to get better results from what we're doing. Actually, I heard in episode of Chad and Cheese about this framework from Jobvite. Oh yeah. Evolve. It's a technology agnostic framework to help TA teams get better results from their recruiting efforts. And we don't even have to be a Jobvite by customer to use it. I bet we would get better results if we orchestrated all of our efforts. You mean like a centralized process and all of our channels working together? For sure, whether it's job boards, social, or even texting with candidates. Let's do that. jobvite.com/evolve.
Jobvite (25m 39s):
I'll send you the link. Cool. I'm going to finish watching this episode of Bridgerton.
Chad (25m 44s):
Dude, Ted Lasso is fucking legit. Two days binged it. It was probably the feel good happiest kind of, if you just want to feel good, enjoy some time in front of the TV with the family this, well, maybe not in front of the family, but in with your wife, this was a great fucking show.
Joel (26m 8s):
Yeah. And a surprise hit. I would say no one, no one really saw it coming.
Chad (26m 13s):
Jason Sudeikis was amazing.
Joel (26m 15s):
Yeah. And by the way, Jason, Sudeikis accepting, was it the Emmy? What was it for that show? Anyway, a dude was high as a kite, was not expecting to win. So I think he was as surprised as everyone else that this thing was a hit show. And I'm glad that you're embracing the Apple by the way. That's a nice, nice change for you. Must've got it free for Julie's new Apple watch or something.
Chad (26m 40s):
We did. We did. And I, I love Jason Sudeikis. I love sports. We had it for free. I'm like, oh, let's check it out. After the first episode. Shit, five minutes into the first episode I was hooked.
Joel (26m 52s):
Yeah. There's an Oasis joke in the first five minutes, which pretty much made it for me by the way, Mare of Easttown, the finale. Have you seen it? Did you?
Chad (27m 1s):
I have not. sh, sh... Yes. We'll have can't wait. That's a great show. That's a great channel. That's a great show. Labor shortages?
Joel (27m 13s):
So I have a something I wanted to say. I thought about this on my, my morning walk today, I was trying to get a clever way to say. So Coach K, we just gave a shout out to, and growing up in the eighties, what I think about it when I think about Coach K is Dean Smith, the coach at North Carolina. So if you know, college basketball, you know, these guys had epic battles in the eighties and nineties and Dean Smith had this strategy called the four corners. Again, I'm dating myself, but the four corners was before the shot clock. And basically you put a player in each corner of the court and then one guy dribbled around and then pass it to somebody else in the corner.
Chad (27m 53s):
And then it was horrible.
Joel (27m 54s):
It was horrible. Like 10 minutes of basketball, you could just watch running, running out the clock. So the shot clock came around anyway. So I'm thinking about that. And then I'm thinking, is there a parallel with that in the current state of the labor shortage? And I got to thinking that, you know, some companies that are in the apex predator category can give raises, can do $15 an hour, can do thousand dollar bonuses can do a hundred dollar, you know, payments for vaccines. But most companies are just barely keeping their head above water, right? Like to think about a pay increase means they're out of business. They're not profitable. And then once that happens, then everyone goes to their competing restaurant or small business.
Joel (28m 35s):
So to me, like all these, all these businesses that aren't able to give big raises are like running out the clock, hoping that government funding runs out or people finally get like Amazon hires enough people. And there's something that forces these folks back to the old ways of $2 and 13 cents an hour, and hoping that, you know, tips and whatever, get them through successfully. What I hope, what I think they're hoping doesn't happen is the shot clock runs out on them and shit's fucked up. I don't know if that's a good metaphor for what's going on, but it's the best I got today.
Chad (29m 14s):
Yeah. I think what we're seeing here is two classes of issues. You'll have what I'd like to call the trades and then the office workers issues, right? So two different issues with the same end result, there's a labor shortage. So the trades we see with Brexit and we also see with Trump's old America first policy is that farming, hospitality, trucking. I mean, a lot of this has to do with immigration and individuals who were doing those jobs before whoever got the fuck out or, you know, they they're just not allowed into the country. Right. We did have migration and such seasonal migration. So you see that. You also see countries like Australia who were trying to lure more of those individuals their way.
Chad (30m 1s):
And it's not just Australia, but the state of Queensland just launched a work in paradise campaign that offers 820 pounds in cash plus subsidized travel to lure workers to the tourism sector in Australia. So, I mean, there's all of these different pieces that are being moved all over the place. And I don't think it's just immigration. I don't think it's just wages. I don't think it's just, you know, it is all of these things in a perfect storm of COVID and I hate to say it, but overall we have not evolved how we do business in many of these industries.
Chad (30m 45s):
So we haven't been able to increase margins because we're still doing business like it's the fucking thirties, right? So I think there are some restaurants, some hospitality, some of these organizations who are able to do better because they innovated because they did things differently. And I think that is something that we really, this was a shakeup and I'm not really sure that giving money to those companies who are not evolving is the right idea.
Joel (31m 16s):
Yeah. So a little context here, the chamber of commerce put out a report. So a record 8.1 million job openings were vacant in March up from 600,000 in February with around 1.4 workers available per job, half the average over the past two decades, according to the chamber of commerce, a quote, "lack of available workers" end quote is cited by 90% of state and local chambers of commerce as preventing economic growth. While the chamber CEO and president Suzanne Clark stated quote, the worker shortage is real. No shit. And it's getting worse by the day. The report suggest removing barriers that prevent people from entering the workforce.
Joel (32m 0s):
We've talked about these, the STEMI's, the childcare issues, the COVID fears, the shift to Amazon warehouses also getting individuals the skills they need for open positions and in enacting sensible immigration policies were at the heart of solutions that the chamber of commerce recommended. You mentioned the UK wanting some European immigrants to come serve beer is an issue. How's that Brexit going. And by the way, here comes the big Exodus. A May survey of a thousand us adults show that 39% would consider quitting if their employers weren't flexible about remote work. This is a generalized generational issue among millennials and gen Z that figure was 49%.
Joel (32m 44s):
This was a survey done by Morning Consult on behalf of Bloomberg news. And also you remember that police dogs, the robotic kind can't even stay employed in New York. So nobody is having fun right now.
Chad (32m 59s):
The second part, the first one was the trade kind of workers, farmers, hospitality, so on and so forth. Then you have the office workers, and this is more a matter of control versus autonomy. And there is a survey by Flexjobs where they surveyed over 2000 workers: 84% didn't want to commute. 75% said they saw cost savings during COVID, a little over obviously quarter said that COVID exposure was an issue. So that, that wasn't even the biggest issue. You're gonna love this Jimi Hendrix. I shit you not. That's the guy's name. Jimi Hendrix, a 30 year old software software developer in the Netherlands quit his job in December as the web application company he worked for was gearing up to bring employees back to the office.
Chad (33m 51s):
He's like, fuck that. Then let's go ahead and look at the other side of this coin, the executives. PWC surveyed 133 executives in late 2020, 29% and this is all around company culture, right? 29% said that they need their people in the office at least three days a week to sustain company culture. 21% said five days a week, 18% said four days a week. Now tied for only 5% was one to three days a month, one day a week, or no office is necessary to maintain company culture.
Chad (34m 33s):
And I think what we're seeing here is, and again, this might be a shot clock, kind of a metaphor is that the context of this specific conversation culture has become the new word for control. And whenever you're talking about work from home and an executive says, well, what about our company culture? Well, that just means you want control. You don't trust that individual, even though they're producing and you believe they have to be at a desk from nine to five. That's control, right? It's not culture again, there's so many different dynamics here, but it is, it is a more than an interesting topic because we can't get the people and yet we're still telling them, wait a minute, you have to come in to work.
Joel (35m 22s):
By the way I have to ask is Jimme Hendrix of the Netherlands spelled J I M I or is it the J I M M Y kind?
Chad (35m 29s):
J I M M E.
Joel (35m 32s):
Okay.
Chad (35m 33s):
Yeah.
Joel (35m 33s):
Jamie, Diamond's not picking up anything you're dropping by the way. I think, I think going back, going back to Louisville and our birthday Fiesta, I think we saw a lot of this firsthand. We did, we saw a lack of service, literally the first morning that we were there, we met up for brunch. The restaurant couldn't open on time. It was 40 minutes later than it was supposed to because they couldn't staff the restaurant fast enough or with enough people. And, we saw that throughout the whole time we were there. Like, so yeah, to me, you know, a lot of, a lot of business owners are willing to have tables unfilled in hopes that they can run out the clock and that people will come back to work as normal and they can go back to business as usual, but I'm not so sure.
Joel (36m 23s):
And I don't think you are either that they're going to be able to go back to business as usual.
Chad (36m 27s):
Yeah. We, again, we're trying to do business like it's the 19 fucking 50s, even though during COVID, we saw that our people performed and they performed at home with kids on Zoom learning, with changing baby diapers, all this shit, right? Imagine how productive they could be if they didn't have all of that noise going on and the kids were actually in school or they're in daycare or what have you, right? So I think once again, we are overrun with control and thinking that, that is the answer, as opposed to the real answer in this case, not for everybody, but for many is autonomy.
Joel (37m 10s):
Well, have you been watching any of the NBA playoffs? Chad?
Chad (37m 13s):
I have not.
Joel (37m 14s):
So if you were to watch any of the playoffs, you would, you would probably be a little surprised at the sold out games at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Well, apparently to get into the games, you have to have your vaccine card, to have been tested, or, you know, you have to have some qualifications to get in. But as far as I can tell, there's a whole lot of people enjoying a basketball game and not even realizing that COVID is going on while I was in LA, you still have cardboard cutouts, but this leads me to the next story of vaccine mandates by companies. So the Federal Equal Opportunity Employment Commission has updated its guidance to say it is legal for employers to offer incentives to workers to get vaccinated.
Joel (38m 1s):
The guidance states employers must keep vaccination information confidential and clarifies that employers can legally require new recruits and those reentering the workplace to be vaccinated, but must allow exemptions based on religion or disability. Meanwhile, you have Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on a collision course with the cruise industry over a law he signed banning vaccine passports. My vaccination is laminated and in my Velcro wallet, how about you, Chad, you ready to go to a game?
Chad (38m 37s):
Dude, I'm ready. I'm ready to go do shit! Vaccinated. Good to go! For for companies, you know, they are most are, are not requiring this. Rather. They are trying to encourage the vaccine. Remember we actually talked to Seth fight from Charter Communications and Spectrum where they said, Hey, we're encouraging it. We want our people back in the office, but we want them to be safe. And they had like seven different areas where you could go be vaccinated by the company, right? So I think companies are doing whatever they can to be able to encourage it instead of mandating it. Now, I love when, you know, you have like, again, Madison Square Garden or anywhere where you're getting spiffed or you're actually allowed to come in, because you can demonstrate that you have been vaccinated.
Chad (39m 32s):
I'm a big proponent of the, you know, the whole passport thing. And if you do have an accommodation, then that should be on the passport as well.
Joel (39m 40s):
Yeah. I understand the politics of this and, you know, taking a stand for freedom and not having to verify that you're vaccinated plays really well on Fox News, but I'm constantly just a little confused by this. I mean, you need a license to drive a car. You need to go through security to get into an airport. Why there's such a stink around showing proof of vaccination in order to do things like go to a professional basketball game is a little bit odd to me. I got to think at some point it's going to come to a court. I don't know if it go to the Supreme Court or not, but there seems to be precedent for this, that you can require something in terms of, you know, the health and human services of the civilization and the community that you can do this.
Joel (40m 29s):
I think DeSantis is all about running for president. And that's why he's going on making laws, which are going to be laughed out of court, according to people that know what they're talking about. So to me, there's gonna be a lot of politics around this, but I think ultimately if it goes to court, they're going to say that companies can require employees, specifically, ones that are in, or that are public facing or customer facing have to be vaccinated in order to go to work. That seems pretty logical to me and not out of bounds whatsoever. No.
Chad (41m 0s):
We talked about Delta last week saying that they are only going to hire new employees. They're only going to hire those who can prove that they're vaccinated.
Joel (41m 8s):
And by the way, you can't stop other countries denying you entry on the airplane, so that makes total sense that you should have that if you want to travel internationally. By the way, most of Europe is going to be opening up or is already open to US travel.
Chad (41m 22s):
So here we come baby!
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Joel (42m 14s):
Just say no. Chad. So probably from the desk of Chad's BFF himself, Jeff Bezos, quote, in the past like many employers, we've disqualified people from working at Amazon if they tested positive for marijuana use, however, given where state laws are moving across the US we've changed course, we will no longer include marijuana in our comprehensive drug screening program for any positions, not regulated by the department of transportation and will instead treat it as the same as alcohol. We will continue to do impairment checks on the job and we'll test for all drugs and alcohol after any incident. And because we know that this issue is bigger than Amazon, our public policy team will be actively supporting the Marijuana Opportunity Re-investment and Expungement act of 2021, which is federal legislation that would legalize marijuana at the federal level, expunge criminal records and invest in impacted communities.
Joel (43m 11s):
We hope that other employers will join us and that policymakers will act swiftly to pass this law. Translation, "we're going to make a shit ton of money off drone delivered pot brownies in the future." Chad smoke up buddy.
Chad (43m 27s):
So why now is the question? Why do you think they're doing this right now?
Joel (43m 32s):
They need peeps.
Chad (43m 33s):
They need people. That's what it is. It's like, we're, we're kicking all of these people to the curb who tested positive for marijuana, and we need them to work in our warehouses. That's the only fucking reason they're doing this. And the pot brownies.
Joel (43m 51s):
You're such a cynic, man, they're going to get by behind the legislation. They're encouraging other employers to do the same.
Chad (43m 57s):
Well, you can see again, a wave. You can see where the waves heading, right?
Joel (44m 1s):
Yep.
Chad (44m 2s):
And now that I think we all probably understand that reefer madness was a fucking sham. Can we all just be smart enough? Ban the box, ban the reefer testing, ban all these things that don't make any fucking sense anymore and just get the fuck on with our lives.
Joel (44m 21s):
Just chill the fuck out everybody.
4 (44m 23s):
Hell no.
Joel and Chad (44m 24s):
We out.
OUTRO (44m 25s):
Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Anyhoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode.
OUTRO (45m 10s):
And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.
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