A 1970s' Johnny Paycheck song captures the feeling of today's job market.
Take This Job and Shove It!
Yes, even with an unprecedented number of unfilled jobs and quitting on the rise, will we be able to find balance people desperately need? Change is hard, and Chad & Cheese are dropping a nightly recording over beers and bourbon to workout all this post-pandemic drama.
SAP treats employees like adults, while Apple's controlled WFH "culture" strategy starts a mutiny. Don't worry kids, if culture as a control device doesn't work employers are also trying to cook up cybersecurity as a way to force you back in the office. Is it legit or just more bullshit?
We also throw in some new funding and a good ol' fashioned Superpower Dust-Up for good measure. It's the end of the world as we know it, and Chad & Cheese feel fine.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
INTRO (7s):
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 and Cheese podcast.
Joel (27s):
Oh yeah. You heard it here. First. Everybody, Jeff Bezos is going to space and Chad Sowash is carrying his bags. What's up kids. It's your favorite podcast? This is Joel "the moon is made out of cheese-man" Cheeseman,
Chad (43s):
And I'm Chad "drinking in Portland" Sowash.
Joel (46s):
On this week. Show, take this job and shove it, cyber-security is the new control and an ice cream shop in Pittsburgh says, hold my cookies and cream.
Sovren (56s):
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 41s):
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 56s):
I love the evening shows. There's a whole different vibe. I'm enjoying a nice bourbon on the rocks. How about you?
Chad (2m 8s):
That's a Cascade Lakes Pineapple IPA, baby.
Joel (2m 14s):
You got some mood lighting going on, right? Is that right? Well, Parlin.
Chad (2m 18s):
Yeah, you've got to have the mood in Portland,
Joel (2m 21s):
Baby. So dude, you are the globetrotter man. You were in Costa Rica. You're in Louisville, which isn't quite much of a stretch, but now you're in Portland. Yeah. Then we're going to Chicago. The road trip begins. The summer of love starts Chicago. And then Cleveland are on. We're starting slow. We're starting slow. Yeah. Chicago and Cleveland baby June. Yeah. So does this Portland have your favorite? Is that your favorite beer city?
Chad (2m 46s):
No. I mean, no Portland IPA, I love IPA's but they are more kind of like Portland has their own or Oregon has their own type of bitter type of IPA's. I love the Midwest. IPA's I mean, they're more hazy. They're more dank, but I, I mean, hell I I'll I'll sit here and drink all day. I love it. But I, anybody who's coming to Portland, I've got to give you some tips. You want to stay in the Pearl district. Number one, number two, don't rent a car because parking is a fucking mess in this goddamn town. And it's expensive as shit. Wonder around on a lime scooter, eat, drink, be merry and last but not least beer.
Chad (3m 27s):
Just do it.
Joel (3m 27s):
Surprisingly, I've never been to Portland. So your tips will come in handy one day. I'm sure.
Chad (3m 32s):
Yeah. Now it's it's I'll tell you, you come here. We've been, we've both been to Austin. Austin is weird. They have this kind of hippie vibe, but they are not even close to what a hippie really is. This place Oregon is where hippies live, the fake hippies are in Austin.
Joel (3m 52s):
Yeah. By the way, if you haven't seen the Portlandia video about the dream of the nineties is still alive video. It's fantastic. Took me down memory lane because I remember the nineties.
Chad (4m 4s):
I did probably not much.
Joel (4m 7s):
Before smartphones.
Chad (4m 9s):
Faxes, copiers.
Joel (4m 11s):
Wonderful, naive, innocent time. The nineties.
Chad (4m 16s):
Well, it was some shout outs here in Portland. I actually had coffee this morning with my man, Matt Miller from 1220. I was like, Hey, you want to meet like at a Pete's coffee or something like that? He's like aww, not that shit. He's a coffee snob. He's like meet me at Sisters and we'll do some coffee. So we did that tomorrow. I'm going to have dinner with our favorite person in the world, Lynn Bailey. Gonna reach out to Tyler, see if he can join us, Tyler Weeks. But yeah. Gonna get a chance to see a Lynn so pretty, pretty stoked about that.
Joel (4m 47s):
Very Nice. Very nice. I got a shout out for John Malore. John Malore was the CEO and founder president at Work in Sports. Now no one will know this site probably, but this dude's been around for a long time. That site launched in 2000 out of Phoenix. And he's been to every TA tech, I H E W S every conference. So Work in Sports, acquired by iHire a few months ago actually, but it became official, recently, John, this shot of bourbons for you buddy.
Chad (5m 17s):
Way to go, John. That's awesome. Big shout out to Matt O'Donnell. So you know how Spotify provides, well, they kind of pull together your listening habits. It's kind of freaky, but they pulled together, then they present you with like this really cool visual. You've seen those, right?
Joel (5m 33s):
Yeah. Yeah.
Chad (5m 34s):
Anyway, Matt, O'Dell loyal listener and Pappy's winner, by the way, he tweeted one of those personal visual Spotify creates about your listening habits. And it says, quote, "playing the Chad and Cheese podcast in the morning is pretty much the most you thing ever." I teared up a little when I saw that.
Joel (5m 60s):
Very nice. Right, that's really great marketing because you can share that list on social, right? Like I've seen that before. Yeah. That's fucking great marketing way to go. Spotify, shout out to you. Well, I got a shout out for Michael Cox. He is our monthly whiskey winner and people are taking this to heart, when we said, send us your audio files with shout outs and comments. So Michael has some words for us here on the show.
Chad (6m 27s):
Oh ok!
Michael Cox (6m 28s):
Chad and Cheese, Michael Cox here wanted to say, first of all, love the show. Second of all, you guys send t-shirts out your clothing me. I got a t-shirt for my birthday last year. Now you're getting me drunk you're sending me a nice little bottle in the mail. I cannot say thank you enough! Much appreciated! Have a good one. Take care.
Joel (6m 49s):
Holy shit. Feel the love.
Chad (6m 52s):
Again tearing up. Just tearing up on this show. Can't do it.
Joel (6m 57s):
So I got to say, if you haven't taken us up on chadcheese.com/free, it's a real thing, people. People are actually getting drunk. They're getting dressed because of us. If you haven't signed up, we got shirts from Emissary. We got whiskey from Sovren and we got beer from Adzuna. What are you waiting for? chadcheese.com/free.
Chad (7m 18s):
Amazing. Shout out to Sir Richard Collins for the comments and insights on LinkedIn around the, who would or could acquire Broadbean. This was all started by our newest interview with Rob Prince about the programmatic space. Check it out. Prince of Programmatic on Chadcheese.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Joel (7m 42s):
That's right. And don't forget Matt Charney interview with them and thank you to hung Lee for adding us to his newsletter, but he's right. Matt does not do a lot of interviews. And if he's going to do one, he should do it with us, Chad, Cheese and Charney. I mean, I feel, I feel a vibe there. You gotta, you got to check it out if you haven't listened yet.
Chad (8m 0s):
It was snarkalicious.
Joel (8m 1s):
That's for sure. It was snarkalicious, hazy, hazy. Snarkilicious.
Chad (8m 6s):
Hazy, crazy. So it is June it's Pride month, which means a Chad and cheese had to put out LGBTQ plus for dummies because we're dummies with special guest, host, and expert Michelle Raymond from My G Work. This is Pride month, obviously. And instead of creating rainbow logos, whichever everybody seems to do, instead of just doing that, you know, for us, Chad and Cheese is about education, it's about understanding and it's about seriously just giving a shit about the community. So we thought we'd take some time. We put together this limited series and every Monday in June, check out the feed LGBTQ plus for dummies, we did part one last Monday you can go find it.
Chad (8m 55s):
next Monday with part two, et cetera.
Joel (8m 58s):
Very nice. So shout out to our friends at Jobvite, sponsors of the show. I was on their Summer to Evolve webinar series, they let me kick off kick off the, the Summer of Love. I guess if you will. I was on with Michael Wright at group M who I think is fair to say he's a fan of the show. Also Pete Lampson, the new CEO over there, so a shout out to Jobvite. That was a lot of fun. I think your wife is on an upcoming one and Hung Lee to name drops for Hung Lee today, that's a good fan. So he's on the next webinar. So basically I feel like the warmup with the warm-up act for Hung Lee. So that's, that's nice. Or the fluffer for hon, maybe that's more appropriate for our favorite.
Chad (9m 42s):
Dude. Yeah. So I wake up this morning and my wife is on a, some type of event and it was for Harvard University. Like what the fuck? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, thanks babe. Thanks. Yeah, I know. You're the smart one in the family. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks for that.
Joel (10m 3s):
Oh yeah. Shout out Steven Rothberg, who has our second audio shout out.
Chad (10m 8s):
I love these.
Joel (10m 9s):
Of the week. Yeah. Keep these coming. Send them to Chad or me. If you've got questions, comments or shout outs here, Steve.
Steve (10m 15s):
Hey, a shout out to Jeff Dickey Chasen's better known as the Job Board Doctor. This is Steven Rothberg with College Recruiter. Jeff has been helping a sick relative recover from an illness. And so basically playing a real doctor for that relative. We're all thinking about you and pulling for your relative and just wishing you guys all the best for a very speedy and very complete recovery. Our best Jeff.
Joel (10m 47s):
The Doctor, I love him. Dude, survived a heart attack a couple of years ago. You remember that? And now he's healing other people it's like, yeah, fucking medicine woman.
Chad (10m 57s):
I think we actually brought him back. They put the earbuds and he was, yeah, I think he listened to Chad and Cheese. It was like clear! Chad and Cheese.
Joel (11m 6s):
Hide Your kids. Lock the door.
Chad (11m 8s):
He's back he's back! Yeah, no, I got, I got to give it to he's. He's one of the best people in our industry. Just more human than human. So Job Board Doctor, we love you man. Last but not least for me. We got a pimp, the new Chad and Cheese European edition, which is going to be coming out next Wednesday kids. That's right. You've all been asking for it. We've been listening. We just wanted to make sure we did this shit right. And so next week we're going to try to do it right. We'll see how it goes. But we we've got Levin coming on from House of HR. So we actually have an embedded European with our dumb American asses.
Joel (11m 50s):
20 Years experience. We've found our equivalent in Belgium.
Chad (11m 55s):
So I'm excited about it. How about you?
Joel (11m 58s):
Oh dude. I'm pumped. Like we love Europe. Europe loves us. Yes. It just makes sense that we should have a show dedicated to all the cool shit that's going down in Europe because all the cool shit is going down in Europe and I'm just excited to learn more. I think this will be more of a show about us asking questions and sort of shutting up and learning more about the continent than it will be about us. You know, just spewing trash, trash talking.
Chad (12m 23s):
Yeah. That's doubtful. That's very doubtful.
Joel (12m 25s):
Yeah. I'm excited. I mean, it's a complicated continent, a lot of countries and cultures, and I'm excited about that.
Chad (12m 32s):
Yeah. That's just gonna happen every other Wednesday. So we're going to have a bi-monthly and again, depending on, you know, how much news comes in from that area, who knows, it might actually blow up to a weekly show, might take on a life of its own, who the hell knows, but we're going to get it done.
Joel (12m 50s):
And how much fun did we have making the intro for that show? If you don't listen to anything else, just listen to the intro. It's pretty dope.
Chad (12m 56s):
It's not Christopher Walken or Morgan Freeman, but it's pretty damn good.
Joel (13m 1s):
Yeah. And it's not Winston Churchill either. But anyway, my last shout out Nancy from Philly, I did my best to pronounce her last name, Beresovoy. She's celebrating a birthday this week loves the show. Nancy. It looks like she's with a new company in Informatica. I didn't know that she moved. So shout out to her man. How about have a Happy, Happy Birthday? And with that Topics! Jobs unfilled.
Chad (13m 31s):
Oh my God.
Joel (13m 32s):
Holy shit. Job openings in April surge to a record high of 9.3 million, this is according to the U S labor department. This is an increase of 1 million from the record setting numbers in March, the leisure and hospitality sector rose 32.7% during the month, almost 4 million people, 4 million people quit their jobs in April as well. That's nearly double the number of people who quit one year earlier, nearly half of America, small businesses can't find workers. This is according to the national Federation of Independent Business. The seasonally adjusted 48% reporting unfilled job openings is a record high in April, nearly one third of people handing in their notice were retail workers who made up 116,000 of the 324,000 people who quit jobs that month is according to a recent job openings and labor turnover survey retailers are reluctant.
Joel (14m 26s):
Here's the key folks. Retailers are reluctant to raise wages and erode their margins and are losing workers to employers who pay more. Chad it's it's anarchy, but, but your favorite company, Kroger is holding a hiring event on Thursday, which may be the day after people listen to this to fill 10,000 jobs. The event will offer virtual and in store interviews for prospective staff and it's retail, e-commerce, pharmacy, manufacturing, and logistical operations. The company has an average national wage, you'll enjoy this, of more than $15.50 cents per hour. Why are you giving them a hard time? Kroger added its benefits to include a tuition reimbursement program, mental health counseling, and discounts on groceries, electronics, and streaming services.
Joel (15m 15s):
We're not done. Chad, a new survey from our friends at Jobcase said 93% of unemployed workers are currently not making more money with the COVID-19 relief package than they were prior to the pandemic. We've been fooled. This debunks, the rhetoric around unemployment benefits, being a disincentive for workers to reenter the workforce. The new survey found that a majority of unemployed workers are eager to get back to work. 59% are currently looking to return to full-time and 26% have been looking for work for over a year. But the biggest obstacle to finding work right now is perceived job availability in their area and COVID-19 remains a big concern.
Joel (15m 56s):
According to co-founder and CEO, Fred Goff job seekers are eager to join employers who demonstrate commitment to their workers by providing living wages, upskilling opportunities and career growth potential. He said, quote, "employers can not only attract great talent today, but they can hire for long-term retention. They simply need to step up and value workers as much as they do shareholders." It's that easy! Ooh, you gotta be loving some of this shit.
Chad (16m 23s):
Fred Goff is fucking gangster. I love that dude, man. He is so fucking smart.
Joel (16m 29s):
He's so nice.
Chad (16m 29s):
He's so nice, but he's so, so smart. And also in that survey, unemployed workers rank pay as their top consideration in selecting a job 41%. Right? So, pay, I'm going to say that once again, pay and then, you know, to go back to Kroger, I mean, fuck Kroger, they're a bad actor. You said they, they average, I love this. We average $15 an hour. Set a goddamn line in the sand, don't start this bullshit averaging stuff. They're a bad actor with the CEO that makes $22 million a year and closed down several locations because the essential workers, you know, the people actually doing the hard manual work.
Chad (17m 14s):
Labor or the ones who are actually the face of Kroger in the stores face to face with the local community. You know them during the pandemic. Yeah. They closed several locations in California and Washington because those locations wanted to extend the $4 per hour hero pay. Yes, a guy making $22 million a year makes the executive decision to close locations because of $4 an hour for essential worker. So Kroger's lining up all this bullshit to try to make themselves look good in PR, easily enough to say, fuck you Kroger. Now back to the, the reason why the market looks the way that it does is Jobcase actually demonstrates 41% of their looking at pay.
Chad (18m 2s):
And for all of these companies who are saying, look, we're going to wait this out and we're just going to wait until they have to come back. Which means what exactly are we telling Americans? What we're telling them, shut up and work your shitty job with its shitty wage. If you take a look at how we're treating people today, and then we talk about the whole loyalty factor, which doesn't exist in corporate America today. Back in the day when we had unions that actually focused on ensuring there was a pension, there was longevity, that there was retention that is literally 180 degrees of where we are today and yet, and yet we wonder why we're having a problem.
Chad (18m 47s):
People aren't loyal to you. They don't give a fuck about your brand.
Joel (18m 49s):
Yeah. You know, the, the world is changing. I know that's a cliche, but in times where the world changes, there's a huge contingent that doesn't like that change and wants things to stay the same. And I think you're seeing that in mass with a lot of, well, the majority of employers, I think it's a little bit of like, we want to stay rich and keep the money up top. And there's a little bit of, if we pay more, we're going to be in trouble. And those people have to come to grips with the fact that maybe they have a bad business that can't pay people, a solid wage. I think as this thing continues to unfold, it becomes clear to me that, that things aren't going to change and go back to the way they were.
Joel (19m 29s):
Things are going to change in the way that it's just going to happen. And that wages are going up. Prices are also going up, there's going to be inflation. You're going to pay more for those chicken nuggets. You're going to pay for more, more for that dry cleaning and that carwash. And that's just the way that it is. And that's the way, that's the way the world's going. Otherwise. What's, I mean, what's, you know, what's, what's the alternative? Empty restaurants because you want to continue, you know, selling quesadillas for less, instead of adding a couple of dollars to the price tag, like I get that you don't want to, you don't want your quesadillas to be $2 more than the quesadillas maker down the street. But ultimately everyone's coming up to $2.
Joel (20m 10s):
It's just a matter of time.
Chad (20m 11s):
Also we have to, we have to focus on the margins and the profits that corporate America is actually made of the last 50 years who saw an amazing growth. So the profits are there to be able to say that margins are eroding is total bullshit. They're not eroding. What's eroding is the American dream.
Joel (20m 31s):
Yeah. I mean, by the way, you know, going back in time, I think it was, you know, Ford who said, you know, I need to pay my workers enough that they can buy my cars. And so it's like the logic around that as well. If you're paying these folks more, we know by historical standards that the money is going to go back into the system. So this thing might actually work for everyone's benefit. If more people are making more money and more money is coming back into the system and around we go, that's probably a good thing. And being fearful of that is probably we're finding a negative thing.
Chad (21m 6s):
Yeah, what we've seen the last 50 years, the money has been going to the top and it's actually going into wealth strategies. Right? Which does not go back into the market, buying jeans, buying chicken nuggets, buying any of that stuff. If it would have trickled down, which it never did, if it would have trickled down so that, the middle class and the low wage workers would have seen a boost in wages, those dollars would have gone directly back into the market and it would have juiced the market. So what we're doing is we're playing this whole game of propaganda, which we'll talk about more in this podcast, to be able to design a narrative, to engineer a narrative, to say why they can't pay for people to actually have a wage where they can live on.
Chad (21m 52s):
Their families can live on. It's totally bullshit.
Joel (21m 54s):
There's a great article, I think it was in ProPublica.
Chad (21m 56s):
Oh, God dude.
Joel (21m 57s):
Did you see that about the it's basically, I mean, it's a strategy, right? I mean, rich people, basically their money, you know, their, their wealth is tied in, you know, the value of stock and they borrow money against that stock and then paying off the debt isn't taxed in the same way that income is or dividends are, and they can actually pay it after they die. So it's literally like make the money, borrow it and then die and then the debt gets paid off. And that obviously is a loophole that will have to be addressed. And I think also with, I think also in the news this week was sort of a baseline of corporate taxation and the G20 is going to go, you know, a ways of helping to create a quality around the world and create, you know, the Googles of the world and Apples, you know, cant just drop anchor in Ireland and you know, not pay taxes.
Chad (22m 47s):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that being said, I mean, we're talking about mainly middle to lower wage workers now, and those are the individuals who are face-to-face. What about the work from home side of the house, right? What do we see with Apple this week?
Joel (23m 1s):
Some big stories out of that. So there's a battle on, the lower income end, and there's a battle on the higher income end. So in a new survey, roughly half of workers said they would turn down a job, offer that mandated full-time in the office work. Apple came out as well this week, employees are being asked to return to the office three days a week, starting in early September. Most employees will be asked to come into the office on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays with the option of working remotely on Wednesdays and Friday. So this is a new casual Friday, I guess, in an email to workers CEO, Tim Cook said "there has been something essential missing from this past year, each other.
Joel (23m 44s):
Video conference calling has narrowed the distance between us to be sure, but there are things it simply cannot replicate" end quote Apple's stance on remote work while getting more relaxed is still conservative compared to the other tech giants. In May, Google announced that 20% of its workforce would be able to work from home permanently. Mark Zuckerberg has said that remote work is the future and told Facebook employees, they can all work from home forever so as long as they get their manager's approval. A Forbes article said quote, "the entire concept of work as altered as a result of the pandemic. If senior leaders be at Apple or elsewhere, don't wake up to the seismic shift employees will walk out the door to an organization and go to an organization that gets it."
Joel (24m 33s):
We also heard from SAP this week, another mega corporation after regular surveys of its workers, SAP announced employees will be able to work from home, at the office or remotely and will be able to set flexible schedules. SAP will redesign its offices to make more space for teamwork and collaboration. An internal survey revealed 94% of employees said they plan to take advantage of the flexibility.
Chad (24m 57s):
Duh.
Joel (24m 57s):
I wanna talk to the 6% that said no. And 49% said they plan to work in the office one or two days per week. President Jill Popelka said in a release quote, "people will need to decide what works best for their schedules, what they are comfortable with, how often they need to be in the office and how to align with their teams. In short SAP treats employees like adults." So Chad, are you down with Apple or SAP? Yeah, you know, me.
Chad (25m 28s):
SAP actually asked their employees, where Apple's like, fuck you, we're going to do what we want. I love this from the Apple message, it was employees also have the chance to work remotely for up to two weeks a year, to be close to family and loved ones, for change of scenery, manage unexpected travel, or a different reasons, all their own. Oh yeah, managers need to approve remote work requests. I mean, wow, up to two whole weeks, a year! Apple employees are sounding off with, motherfucker, I worked remotely with kids doing school via zoom, dogs barking, FedEx showing up at my door every five fucking minutes while driving your productivity through the roof.
Chad (26m 13s):
Tim Cook is giving his employees the real, fuck you, I'm the boss. Get back into the office. And that isn't working the way he liked because now Apple is starting the mutiny.
Joel (26m 27s):
Yeah. It sounds, it's sort of like tale of two strategies. On the side of Apple, I see in my mind a conference room with a whole lot of white dudes saying, Okay, here's our new policy, we'll give the workers bread and circuses in the form of two per week working flexibly and they're just going to take it. And unfortunately, a lot of them aren't, and they're revolting against that. And then you have SAP, which apparently has been surveying their employees since COVID happened. And they've been checking on them regularly about their mental health and their home life and how can we help and how can we better serve you? And then when they asked, okay, what do you want to be the policy around working from home or not?
Joel (27m 12s):
Employees answered and the company said, okay, we're going to give you what you want. And you know, one of these policies is sort of, you know, stuck in the past and hoping to, again, hold onto that past, and the way things were. And the other is embracing the future and work in a whole new way, and treating people like adults. And that's really positive. I'm surprised by Apple, just from the fact that they play in the Silicon Valley and that's where, you know, they compete against those guys, Google, Facebook, et cetera, on a really high scale. So you would think that market forces or necessity would make them say work from home forever if Facebook is doing it, we are too.
Joel (27m 54s):
If Twitter's doing it we are too. So what happens will be interesting. I think that tight rope we need to learn to walk is how do we keep culture and grow culture and still work from home. I think that if we figure that out, we've done our job, but we're, I think we're a long way from that.
Chad (28m 15s):
First off Apple, it's funny. You give Apple a lot of credit. They also have slave labor in China. Isn't that right? Yeah. Yeah.
Joel (28m 21s):
That's a different podcast Chad, that's a different podcast.
Chad (28m 24s):
Yeah. It's the same company, same company, right? So they were trying to walk the line between slave labor and allowing remote. But, but this, in itself, I think also you talk about culture. Culture is the new, pretty much dog whistle for control, where somebody is like, oh, we can't get the culture, right. Well, if you can't get the culture, right, you could not, you should not be a fucking manager. You should not be a fucking CEO. You should not be in leadership because today is not 19 fucking 50, asshole. We need to do business differently. We need to evolve. We need change. We've already demonstrated that production, productivity and efficiency happens when we allow autonomy. Now, the second part of that is we're seeing that cyber security is now going to be a dog whistle for the exact same fucking thing.
Joel (29m 12s):
Yeah. We both found this really fascinating. And we had, obviously the gas pipeline recently go down from a malware attack or ransomware attack, and a news story from the Wall Street Journal came out this week. That could, I guess, derail the whole work from home party. You said it, if culture is the new control, cybersecurity may be the new prison. The hybrid workplace that's being adopted by growing number of companies could prove to be a quote "Cybersecurity nightmare" says the Wall Street Journal "with employees, toggling between office and remote setups and their devices moving in and out of company networks. Company IT security staff are being stretched thin."
Joel (29m 54s):
Companies are more
Chad (29m 54s):
Stop, stop, stop. This is all fucking propaganda and bullshit. Okay. The colonial pipeline was breached. Why?
Joel (30m 3s):
Well, a few reasons.
Chad (30m 5s):
No, because there wasn't a two-step verification because IT, and because their systems were not actually up to snuff. That's not a remote employee issue. We talk about going between throttling, between being in the office or being at home, it's called VPN kids. We've had it for fucking years, you know, to be able to create an environment in which we are safe, right? And there was actually a survey that showed the percentage of global IT decision-makers who believe employees have increased their company's risk of security breached by 83%, letting others use their work devices.
Chad (30m 47s):
It's fairly simple. You put a standard operating procedure in place that says no. And if you do, and we should find out that you did, there will be ramifications. 88% downloading software, not approved by it, lock the fucking machine down IT, if you can't do your job and do that, then you're fucking worthless. And then last but not least 88% using personal devices for work. Once again, standard operating procedure. You put that in place, you put rules in place and they have to abide by the rules. If you see that they're not coming into the VPN. Well, first off, if they're on, if you're on a personal, your personal system, you should not be able to access that VPN.
Chad (31m 27s):
Again, it's all standard operating procedure. And these, IT decision-makers are fucking either shitty at their job, or they're just designing a fucking narrative that they can fix, but they don't want to. So fuck them.
Joel (31m 44s):
I just wanted a chance to talk about the rumored ransomware attack on CareerBuilder. That's all I want. We'll be right back.
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Joel (32m 21s):
So we talk about chatbots a lot on the show, Chad.
Chad (32m 25s):
We do. We do.
Joel (32m 25s):
But we maybe didn't think about it in this way. So Whatfix a company I've never heard of just raised $90 million in funding led by SoftBank. Yeah. That SoftBank the one that funded, WeWork to the tune of 4 billion or whatever. So Whatfix's total fund count now stands at 139.8 million. The company claims that its valuation is increased by as much as three times in the past 15 months. The latest investment buys the company at about 600 million significantly higher than 150 million that it was valued during its previous funding round, a year ago. What do they do? They provide enterprise chat bots to help with everything from onboarding to remote training, to performance support, for instance, they integrate with Workday.
Joel (33m 9s):
So if someone has a question about pay schedules or vacation time, a bot can answer questions instead of a human being. So what happens first, Chad is Whatfix get into recruiting or does Paradox jump into Whatfix's backyard?
Chad (33m 23s):
Yeah. Well, I mean, it depends on how much more money Paradox takes. They'll have spread out if they take more money. I think, you know, for the most part with Whatfix there is the standard FAQ, which, you know, any dumb bot can do it's an FAQ hierarchy type of a thing. But what they're actually doing, is they're actually in place to kind of like train over shitty integrations. I was watching a video of one of their clients on the site, and he automatically drops moving to Salesforce and the adoption of a new platform for their sales team. Now in doing this before and being through shitty integrations and the sales team, not being a part of the design methodology and it all being fucked up for months before they actually get it fixed there is a huge market for this.
Joel (34m 14s):
Obviously.
Chad (34m 15s):
Yeah, there's, there's no question. Not just for sales, but customer service and all the way through, because much like the, IT decision-makers that we just talked about, all of these other decision makers who were, are actually making decisions on platforms, and then also helping in the quote/unquote "design methodologies of implementation and usage" none of them are doing their job. They're just total shit, which is why this is a platform that is necessary. It shouldn't be, but guess what? It is.
Joel (34m 48s):
Yeah. It's actually an incredibly fascinating company.
Chad (34m 51s):
Yeah, it is.
Joel (34m 53s):
They've taken Clippy Microsoft's little helper from the nineties and sort of brought it into a current day, but you're right. Being able to integrate, obviously integrations are huge. All these companies are integrating their shit with Salesforce, with Slack, with Workday, and to be able to understand all those integrations and what you do, there's a need for this shit. I think it's really fascinating and good on them. I think you'll see more competition around here, but if we were playing buy or sell, I think this would be a buy for both of us.
Chad (35m 25s):
Yeah, no question. Again, we're talking about shitty management, shitty integrations. We see it all the time and in our space. Oh my God.
Joel (35m 34s):
And according to surveys, even if they do know how to do their job, they're going to leave after, you know, the pandemic clears out anyway. So you need to have bots educating everybody. Well, speaking of educating everybody, we've got a good old fashion, super power face off here this week, Chad. So China versus the US.
Chad (35m 53s):
Ding, ding, ding.
Joel (35m 54s):
A new piece of legislation, countering China's growing economic influence has passed the U S Senate this week led in part by Indiana's own Todd Young. I know your wife voted for him. It was with bipartisan support. Yeah. Bi-partisan what the hell is that? That's when both parties agree on something, which we haven't seen in a while, the bill would invest more than 250 billion into America's manufacturing, technology, research, and development, even after the bill we will still be quite a bit behind in China's R and D. But Hey, it's a start. My perspective on this is it's a repeat from Russia going to space before us. The government realized, holy shit, we need to educate people in science and engineering and all those good things and money float into the educational system to get people learned on those skills and the same thing, history repeats itself.
Joel (36m 45s):
But now it's with China. A lot of the money will go into 5G, all the good stuff for the future. I'm for this, I assume you are as well Chad. Any commentary on this?
Chad (36m 56s):
America always needs a bad guy. Instead of seeing China or Russia as the bad guy, how about we look at the American lawmakers who created the situation in the first place? China, they didn't make the fucking policy. So yes, it's bipartisan because it's against China and we need to mend a lot of shit. Most of it called infrastructure. And just a really quick beyond R and D, we talk about how we need better infrastructure. Obviously we have failing bridges, roads, so on and so forth, but also we had 2 million of our smartest Americans, women leave the workforce in 2020, which is one of the reasons why childcare needs to be a part of a new thought process of infrastructure, right?
Chad (37m 44s):
So we, as an Americans, again, need to get out of the 1950s mindset. We need to take a look at R and D. We need to take a look at all of these different areas, but we have to understand that China's playing the long game. We are playing the two to four year game.
Joel (37m 59s):
Yeah. The next, the next election. Yes. And I think there are issues around immigration and visas and work visas and all that good stuff. I mean, there's a reason why Canada is the new Silicon Valley, at least that's what my wife feed on Facebook says. But yeah, we have a long way to go, but yeah, it's a step in the right direction. Let's take a quick break and talk a little ice cream.
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Chad (39m 10s):
I hope they serve righteous gelato.
Joel (39m 12s):
Or maybe some bourbon cream, cream bourbon. Oh, oh my God.
Chad (39m 16s):
Righteous Gelato has a bourbon flavor. It is delicious.
Joel (39m 23s):
Come on now. See you get these shipments. And I don't. So that's just rubbin' it in my face. So anyway, all right, Chad, you don't have to be Amazon or Walmart or Target to pay workers a competitive wage! Case in point Klavon's, I'm guessing Klavon's Ice Cream Parlor in Pittsburgh. tell us how to pronounce that received more than a thousand apps after raising their minimum wage to $15 an hour. As you can imagine, a lot of those people got turned down, so the owner is helping those who won't be scooping some Rocky Road ice cream find that work! Posting on social media he has said that they have screened applicants ready to work for restaurants and other businesses that are struggling to hire staff.
Joel (40m 7s):
Here's the kicker. And you'll love this. He won't pass on resumes to just anyone saying, quote, "the rule I have with all these businesses that are reaching out and trying to hire these people. You have to say upfront the wages you're paying and that it's comparable with what we are hiring for. If you're trying to get someone at $2.25 an hour or something like that, we aren't going to help you" end quote. And I'm obviously about three drams into this podcast. So I apologize if I'm ramming, but I say, boom! And he also added take that leap of faith, increase your wages, and you'll see the benefit from it. We have so far in think they will too. I love small towns, small business America.
Chad (40m 49s):
Yeah, well, we say it over and over every week that we have to think of different ways, even as small businesses to evolve and be more efficient and to be able to ensure that our people are treated fairly, which means they are making a living wage, that they're getting the benefits, right? That we're actually feeding our community. That's the thing that matters most. And to actually see a small organization first and foremost, take the plunge. They definitely need to do. If you take a look at wages in this area in Pittsburgh versus the rest of the state, they definitely need to do that.
Chad (41m 29s):
But also they are holding other companies feet to the in saying, look, if you want to hire these individuals, we have given them our promise. That matters. And this is where loyalty comes from. How many people do you think are going to eat ice cream at that fucking place from now until they die because of this decision and because of the connections they make the perspectively get a job somewhere else.
Joel (41m 55s):
And what do you think turnover is going to be at this ice cream shop? Pretty close to zero until school starts again, or whatever these folks are doing. I mean, we hear so much about, you know, we have jobs to fill. We can't hire anybody. No, one's applying to jobs. No, one's, you know, like you, we hear this all the time and I go, you know, I try to like, just keep my finger on the pulse. And I drive around and it's like, I go, you know, past, I'm not eating there. I know what you're thinking. And blah, drive past Arby's or Taco Bell or whatever. And it's like, you know, they're paying $10 an hour and you know, like you just need to pay people a decent minimum wage and magic happens. Yeah. It's really that simple. Holy shit. We just solved America's employment woes over bourbon and beer!
Chad (42m 38s):
Every single week!
Joel (42m 39s):
Saving the world one podcast at a time, Chad and Cheese.
Chad and Joel (42m 44s):
We out, we out.
OUTRO (42m 46s):
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. Any hoo 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 (43m 30s):
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.