The Tech Leader's Toolbox
The Tech Leader's Toolbox
How to Be the Stand Out Employer with Dawn Sipley
Guest Dawn Sipley of Sipley the Best talks with Paul Simkins about what employers and candidates need to do during the hiring process, plus how to use social media effectively, and the challenges facing employers today.
Plus, Dawn shares a recipe for Camp Grilled Wings. You can find the recipe, and many more, on the Smoke and Ash Facebook group or by emailing TLToolbox@BoldlyLead.com.
You can reach Dawn at dawnsipley@gmail.com.
You can join the discussions at our Podcast Facebook group here.
You can learn more about Paul Simkins on his website.
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Paul Simkins:Hello, and welcome to The Tech Leader's Toolbox. I'm Paul Simkins. And we're here because how you lead today determines how your team succeeds tomorrow. Now, as we record this, it is an employer's market due to the pandemic. But that's not going to last forever. And within months, you're going to be back to having to compete hard for the best talent. So today, we're going to have an HR expert with us who's going to share some things to watch for as you navigate the market. Are you ready? Let's go. Our guest today is a longtime friend of mine. We've known each other for many years. We originally met at the Central Florida Christian Chamber of Commerce, like me, she's a golden Knight from the University of Central Florida. But she has the advantage on me and that is she is a third generation native to the central Florida area. I'm only a second generation native, but we both have deep roots here. She started her career as a corporate recruiter and has spent 12 years growing a local staffing firm from losses to $4 million annually. She's very involved in the local community and in charitable endeavors, and she's built her reputation throughout the community, including meaning winning many awards over her career. She often volunteers your time as a speaker to different organizations to teach employment skills to the underemployed, and hiring techniques to business owners. she's proud to have married her high school sweetheart in 2008. She and her husband Jason are the proud parents of two wonderful children. their sons a life scout and scouts BSA working on his Eagle project, and her daughter's a black belt in Krav Maga. She is the owner of simply the best and HR consulting and career coaching firm. Please help me welcome Dawn Sibley. Dawn, glad to have you on today.
Dawn:Thank you so much, Paul, for having me.
Paul Simkins:So getting right into it. I I love journeys. And I especially love to hear yours. I of course I know your story. Well. I've heard you tell it many times. And I think everybody else needs to hear it as well tell us how you got here where you are today.
Dawn:Well, it's kind of a god journey. Honestly, I, like you said I'm born and raised here in Central Florida. I was raised by a single mom. I was emancipated at age 16. And did dual enrollment in high school. From there I got my a degree at Seminole State back then it was seminal Community College, and then went on to UCF and got my bachelor's degree in business. When I was 23, unfortunately, my mother passed away I had a 16 year old sister. And so I took her in that kind of got me out of the real estate world that I had been in. That was my college job was a realtor. And from there got into retail and figured out by happenstance that I was an excellent recruiter, and had several different recruiting positions from IT technology nonprofit. And then finally, it led me to the staffing company where I serve for 12 years.
Paul Simkins:Wow. So So then, so now you're out on your own, though. So you have your own business now?
Dawn:Yes, absolutely. God just kind of led me in this direction. And it's just been such a pleasure to kind of fill a need and the way that I see the Lord leading me to do
Paul Simkins:what is what is the need that you're seeing that you felt you were particularly able to fill.
Dawn:So it's been really interesting, because I had such an amazing experience at the staffing company to really be able to take time with each individual, rather than just filling the job order, I'm really able to sit down and consult and educate with all the years of experience through recruiting, both on the business side and for the candidates that are seeking employment.
Paul Simkins:So you still you serve both the both potential employees as well as employers.
Dawn:Yes. And I think that's really what my my calling is, is to serve both sides of the table.
Paul Simkins:So in some ways, you're almost like a broker. You kind of bring parties together a little bit.
Dawn:Yeah, yeah. I've always loved connecting folks.
Paul Simkins:Okay. So I know you've seen and facilitated a lot of hiring over your career.
Dawn:Oh, yeah.
Paul Simkins:What are some of the biggest challenges employers are facing with hiring right now?
Dawn:Well, it's a really interesting market right now due to the pandemic, we went from a booming economy with some extremely low unemployment rates to some of the highest unemployment rates that we have ever seen. So it causes a lot of movement in the market, which is rather fascinating to witness. So right now, really the challenge is, is is keeping up with all the changes that's going on and taking care of the people that they still have on board.
Paul Simkins:All right, so so taking care of who they do have and how, how, how to bring on some new people? What are you seeing something in that direction in terms of how they're tending to gravitate as they look for new people?
Dawn:Yes, um, it's a really good time to kind of rebuild a positive culture, and hire more for the personality than maybe the skill set.
Paul Simkins:Mm hmm. How do you how do you mean personality? Tell, tell me more about that.
Dawn:Well, you can certainly train people on their skill set, but you can't teach people to be encouraging, loving, diligent, timely, honest, those types of things. You can't You can't teach character and an individual.
Paul Simkins:So you're saying really, attitude and character matters much more than the skills?
Dawn:Absolutely, I can teach you any kind of skill set, but I can't, I can't teach you to be a happy human.
Paul Simkins:Yeah, I and I, and I run into the same thing. And I and I point that out a lot, you know, you can take anybody, you can teach them a skill, or how to do something a certain way within your organization. But it's hard to teach somebody who is naturally negative to be positive, or somebody who's who tends to be dishonest, how to be honest. And along the same lines, you know, we used to have that mantra, I, part of my background is I used to do a lot of training, design, training, development, training. And we always used to say, you know, I can I can teach you all kinds of processes and how to use software, teaching you to have that natural orientation towards designing something that add value to somebody is a different matter.
Dawn:Absolutely.
Paul Simkins:So, does social media play a part in all of this somewhere?
Dawn:Oh, of course, every employer should always kind of scope out a candidate social media, I usually do it before I even meet the individual.
Paul Simkins:Now, does that go both ways, then does that mean if potential employees a candidate for a job, what should they be doing?
Dawn:They should be checking out the reputation of the company as well, that's very important to do. over my years of service, I can say, unfortunately, that not all employers are good employers. And that's one of the things that I teach employers is the time to attract talent. Isn't the time when you need to make a hire, you should always be posing yourself as an elite employer that has a great culture and a welcoming environment. Hmm.
Paul Simkins:I want to jump back for a moment. So you talk about employers using social media and checking out a candidate on social media? How much do they should they be factoring in there? Because you know, people are gonna be people on social media and do some of the dumbest things in the world. How much? How much should they wait that way into it?
Dawn:Well, it's really what you're looking at, and I'm not really looking at the nitty gritty of it, I'll peruse through the pictures, make sure that the pictures are appropriate. There's no illegal activity of moral activity. But what I'm really looking at is the status updates and the kind of nature again, going back to the personality that the person has, are they constantly complaining about traffic or humans or politics or just having that whiny kind of atmosphere or are they engaging in positivity, uplifting, um, and just trying to feed into into goodness of the world?
Paul Simkins:Right. So so looking at Trying to get a feel for their overall attitude. Because again, they can put up one picture in a job interview, that can be completely different from how they really are.
Dawn:Oh, absolutely. You always get the best version and the job interview. Yeah.
Paul Simkins:Yeah, it reminds me of listening to I listen a lot to Patrick lencioni, his podcast at the table. And they talked about their hiring practice. And again, how they put an emphasis on they hire based on the values of their organization, and how the people Kennedy's match up with that, but also they said they Dawn't do an interview.
Dawn:Really,
Paul Simkins:what they do is they go to lunch. Ah, yes. And he actually, he says, He often will do this, he'll arrange with the restaurant, for the waiter to mess some stuff up the waiter or waitress to mess some stuff up. And what he looks for is he looks for how the candidate treats other people. Very interesting. I like that, and how they interact with other people and how they deal with a, you know, a circumstance like that, where they're going to be already on edge, because they think you're being interviewed and being scrutinized how they deal with something that goes wrong in the pressure of that situation.
Dawn:I had a colleague, they used to turn the air conditioning up quite, quite high to make the room warm to see how they would act literally in a hot environment. Mm hmm.
Paul Simkins:Well, and that goes back up. I Dawn't know if you're familiar with it. But going back many, many years, we're kind of chasing a rabbit here, but that's okay. Many, many years ago, they did a study at Bell Labs, where they were doing a psychological study of employee environments. And they wanted to see whether cold weather a cooler environment made people more productive, or a warmer environment made people more productive, and they kept very ating the temperature in the room. They'd make it cool. And then another day, they'd make it warm and go back and forth. And what they found was that when it was cool, when they cooled it down, people were more productive when they warmed it up, and that people were more productive. And they're going and they're going like, well, what what's going on here, what they found was, it wasn't the fact of whether the room was warmer or cooler was the fact that people were actually paying attention to them.
Dawn:Interesting.
Paul Simkins:So that's an interesting story. But so on social media, they're looking for just a general theme, then they're not looking for, oh, well, look, here's where you know, you guzzle beer at a party, you know, and
Dawn:yeah, now.
Paul Simkins:So flipside of that, for a candidate. When they look at social media, and websites and all that for an organization, they want to be a part of, what do they need to be looking for?
Dawn:Well, it's always interesting when you go to those websites and social media to see who the audience is that the employer is speaking to, are they speaking to their customers? Are they speaking to their vendors? Are they speaking to potential employees? And what kind of culture? Are they saying that they have instilled there? Are they a team environment? Is it more of a sterile environment? environment is very important when considering a potential employer. Will you be working in a cubicle a private office a full pin? What does that look like?
Paul Simkins:Would it be appropriate for a candidate to maybe seek out on social media? Some of the people already work there? Oh, yes,
Dawn:yeah. And then go on to their social media and kind of do the same see what kind of individuals you'll be exposed to every day. Because honestly, we spend more time with each other at work than we do our fam during the workweek. We're with each other eight hours and what we get three or four hours, maybe in the evening with our family.
Paul Simkins:Right? And, and so I always, you know, I one of the things I always tell one of my mantras is, you know, hey, it's all personal. You know, you forget this stuff about it's not personal. It's just business. It's all personal. You spend probably more like you said more time with your waking moments with your coworkers, and then you do with your family. So how to, how would an organization's as a candidate in looking how would an organization's core values factor in there for me?
Dawn:Well, I've Dawne a lot of recruitment for Christian organizations where their core values are very biblically based. I've Dawne searches for organization That are very community based, and then other ones where it's all about the money. So really knowing what motivates your employer and their their y is going to speak a lot to what pushes things forward there, and how to advance if their mission is the kingdom, you know, then really, maybe Customer service is very important to them. If their mission is ROI, then you better have top level productivity.
Paul Simkins:So I want to I want to go on that. Do you see any with all your experience? Do you see any patterns there in terms of when an organization simply puts their primary emphasis on the bottom line, as opposed to putting their emphasis anywhere else, in terms of their values is, is there a difference in performance? Is there a difference in the last year elasticity longevity,
Dawn:I would say they typically have a shorter tenure. And they have to pay a bit more than they would otherwise. Because people will do it, what you pay them to do. And very few people are truly motivated by money. The number one reason that people leave an employer is because they Dawn't feel appreciated, has nothing to do with the amount of money that they're making. But companies that are money motivated, they're going to pay a little bit more because they think everybody else is money motivated. But at the same time, they're going to have a natural, higher turnover and shorter tenure than companies that are truly invested and have a high level of engagement.
Paul Simkins:See, and I and I had an experience like that when I actually worked for companies where I got got attracted to a job with a large corporation. And what attracted me was that the salary was half again, as much as I was making. And going great, great, great, great. And Anna, and I lasted it lasted three years. And I'm surprised I lasted that long. Because it was just three years of misery. Yeah, miserable experience.
Dawn:Yeah, all the time.
Paul Simkins:Because so much of the rest of it was just out of out of skew and not lined up with who I am and what I'm about. So it was a it was a happy time for both of us, I think when I left,
Dawn:buddy how that worked.
Paul Simkins:But But yeah, I see it so many times in organizations where they're heavy sales oriented. And the sales management gets this mindset of that the only thing that motivates their sales people is money. And that's all they have to do is provide them with that carrot of you can make a ton of money and and that's all it takes.
Dawn:Yeah, no sales people usually have the love language of words of affirmation is what I've noticed. They need a lot of encouragement, a lot of a lot of just you can do it great job. And that's really what motivates a salesperson. That's not the winning the prize. It's the being called up on stage and being given the prize.
Paul Simkins:Right. And being recognized. And, and like you said that affirmation, which is why a lot of them have such trouble handling rejection is because it's not an affirmation.
Dawn:Yeah, probably.
Paul Simkins:And yet again, at the same time, I see so many sales organizations that a lot of them will even do mass hiring. And how it I heard it described one time is the spaghetti test, you know, where they take, say you take a strand of spaghetti to see if it's Dawne and throw it against the wall. And if it sticks, then you know, and that's what they do is they say, you know, just hire a massive amount of people and see who sticks.
Dawn:They build it into their system, they predict the high level of failure, which is just so sad.
Paul Simkins:All right, so I'm an organization I'm looking to hire. How should I set myself up? to hire the best person for the job? What are some of the do's and the must haves must do's must haves.
Dawn:One thing that I noticed is a lot of companies Dawn't have a true job description. They have this piece of paper with all these fancy words, but at the end of the day, they Dawn't even know what the person is actually doing. So really to do a full job description, you need to talk to the supervisor, the people next to the person and the subordinate, because it's amazing. When you ask what is this person in this role do you'll get a different answer out of all three tiers. So Dawn't worry as much about making the job description sound fancy, but really sit down and try to nail down the actual tasks that the individual is doing and not the things that they accomplished. There's a real big difference between those two.
Paul Simkins:So you talk about job descriptions Have you ever seen, because again, is especially as a stat with the staffing firm, you saw a lot of job descriptions come and go. We didn't really talk about this beforehand. So I'm throwing you on the spot here. What some of the dumbest things you've seen on a job description
Dawn:that just listing things like answering phones, or must be able to carry five clowns, and just, it would be so assumed, but it's almost like the HR director is trying to justify their salary.
Paul Simkins:Mm hmm. One of the ones that really throws me is when they throw in must be able to multitask.
Dawn:Yeah, there's no such thing as multitasking.
Paul Simkins:Exactly. You know, there's just been so many studies Dawne that show that we all suck at multitasking.
Dawn:Yeah. I mean, there is there's the ability to handle interruptions. I think I had one employee that worked for me, she could not be on the phone, and then take an incoming call it just completely out of control where I very naturally Hey, could you hold on just one second, I got another call. Click. Hey, you know, this is Dawn, can you hold just one minute go back to the other one is, but it just been her completely right into a tizzy. So yeah, it's not multitasking. It's really just prioritizing,
Paul Simkins:right? So yeah, we so we can say must be able to adapt, must be able to switch gears effectively. But to say must be able to multitask, you're setting up for failure, not a single person technically would qualify for the job?
Dawn:Yeah, absolutely. So.
Paul Simkins:So I talk a lot about core values. What are the core values for your company? And how do they drive your decisions,
Dawn:really just serving people from a place of love, we live in such a kancil culture, and we're very rarely given undivided attention of someone else. And so just our, my core values are just being in the moment with an individual and trying to hear their needs, not just their immediate needs in regards to their employment situation or their hiring situation, but their overall needs really, as a human. And I think if you give someone that undivided attention, and you make that connection, that that at the end of the day, you'll be blessed.
Paul Simkins:Okay? What's one tip? Finally, what's one tip or one thing a leader can do or apply today to add value to their team?
Dawn:Know your team truly know your team? Know what motivates them know what? What gives them anxiety, what what puts fear in them, know what they love, know their family know their lifestyle, just just know them. I'm always impressed when I go into a larger size business, and the boss knows everybody by name. Because that's not every employer. There's a lot of big bosses that can walk a production floor, and they're just random people to them.
Paul Simkins:Yeah, excellent tip. It's one of the stories I love to tell is that a lot of people Dawn't know about Theodore Roosevelt. He knew the name of every person who worked at the White House when he was president.
Dawn:Wow, very impressive
Paul Simkins:from the gardener on up that's been greeted him by name, and knew about their family situations and everything. And made a point of that very
Dawn:well respected for that, because I'm sure many of those people saw presidents come and go and, and it was probably a rarity. For for them to experience that.
Paul Simkins:Exactly. Dawn, thank you so much for being with us today.
Dawn:Thank you for having me. While you're here, take a moment right now to subscribe to the tech leaders toolbox podcast, and leave a review. That way, you will always be up to date on the bold and innovative leadership principles we are sharing here and come join the tech leaders toolbox Facebook group as well, where you and other leaders discuss these concepts in more detail. And we answer your questions. Subscribe today and share this with your friends.
Paul Simkins:And we're back and this part of the portion of the show as we always do. I always share a outdoor cooking recipe with you because I love outdoor cooking. I do all kinds I have my own. I have a smoker out of my back yard and I've got a grill back there and I'll do a lot of that I kept a lot and so I love cooking over open fire. I have several Dutch ovens and I'll do a lot of cooking in those cast iron Dutch My one of my favorite things to do, and I love it so much. I've actually created a Facebook group called Smoke and Ash. And on the smoke and ash Facebook group, me and all my friends, we share recipes with one another. We talk about what we're cooking this weekend, we find the latest gadgets and all that out there. And lately, I've been putting a lot of quiz questions out there for people to answer and just to see how much they know about grilling about smoke, cooking about using Dutch ovens and so forth. So again, you're welcome to come out and join us there. It's called smoke and ash. And so again, I always share a recipe here on the show. And when I have a guest, I like to invite the guest to share their favorite outdoor cooking recipe if they have it. And Dawn, you said he had one for us.
Dawn:I do I do. I have Dawne my fair share about door cooking be in the mom of a Boy Scout. And one of my all time favorite meals that we've ever had is weights on the grill. So what I do is when we're packing out, I grab a bag of frozen wings, I put about a half cup of worst a shower sauce, if I'm saying that right. And they're in which is here sauce. And then about a quarter cup of Montreal steak seasoning. And that steaks these men on there with that were Shire sauce, I guess this got some sugar in that sauce or something because it carmelized is up just beautifully when you put it on an open flame. So by the time you get to your campsite, it's been on in marinating in that bag for a good amount of time. And they are just sticky and salty and crunchy and delicious. Wow.
Paul Simkins:So you just lay him out. You have a little grill out there and you just lay him out on the grill and
Dawn:Yep, absolutely.
Paul Simkins:Wow. Sounds great. So camp grilled wings. And All right, that's a great recipe. So folks, we're going to have that recipe. If it's alright with you, Dawn, we're going to share that and share that out on the smoke and ash Facebook group.
Dawn:Absolutely.
Paul Simkins:So if y'all want to get that recipe, you can go out there and download it. Or you can just send me if you're not much on Facebook, you can just send me an email at TL toolbox at boldlylead.com. And we'll get that recipe to you. And again, Dawn't forget to come out to the smoke and ash Facebook group. And join us out there and see some of the other recipes and things that are going on out there. Well, today we were talking with Dawn Sipley and we talked about some of the challenges of hiring people today. And also when you're looking to be hired today, Dawn works with both the employer and the employee with her extensive background in employment and staffing. So Dawn, what are you working on right now that you're really excited about?
Dawn:Well, my newest client is a local nonprofit called we care support. And what their mission is, is to provide skills and training for adults that have a disability. And so it's just been such a pleasure to learn a little bit more about that world. I've never had someone very close to me, that had a significant disability and, and experienced those challenges. So it's just been such a blessing to learn a little bit about those folks. They're just absolutely amazing. And then be able to introduce them to employers that are thinking a little bit outside of the box.
Paul Simkins:Okay, so somebody wants to get ahold of you. They they want some more of Dawn Shipley Sipley the Best there. What's the best way for them to get ahold of you, Dawn?
Dawn:Yeah, I've got a Facebook page as well. Sipley the Best and you can email me at dawnsipley@gmail.com.
Paul Simkins:Now that's si p le y. Yes, sir. Dawn sipley@gmail.com. Great. Well, thank you very much, Dawn, for being with us today.
Dawn:Thank you so much, Paul, for having me.
Paul Simkins:Well, that's it for this week, folks. We're gonna be going. Don't forget if you listen to this podcast on your favorite app on Apple podcast or wherever. Don't forget to leave us a five star review. And to share this with others and subscribe so you always know when the new episodes come out every week. Until the next time, go out and be the leader. You were meant to be.