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HR entrepreneur Mike Coffey, SPHR, SHRM-SCP engages business thought leaders about the strategic, psychological, legal, and practical implications of bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. As an HR consultant, mentor to first-stage businesses through EO’s Accelerator program, and owner of Imperative—Bulletproof Background Screening, Mike is passionate about helping other professionals improve how they recruit, select, and manage their people. Most thirty-minute episodes of Good Morning, HR will be eligible for half a recertification credit for both HRCI and SHRM-certified professionals. Mike is a member of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) Fort Worth and active with the Texas Association of Business, the Fort Worth Chamber, and Texas SHRM.
It's not just being very clear about what success looks like in a role from a skill perspective, but also what does it look like to be successful on day one, and what can someone learn once they once they're on the job?
Mike Coffey:Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, president of Imperative, bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. And this is the podcast where I talk to business leaders about bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. For several generations, the expectation was that if you get a college degree, any degree, there'd be a job out there waiting for you. However, in reality, the average US College Student graduates with over $38,000 in debt.
Mike Coffey:Often only to find that their degree did not prepare them with the skills that employers are actually seeking. Additionally, evolving technology and rapid change in the business environment often mean that what someone learned in college ten years ago may not meet today's job requirements. And because so much focus has been placed on college prep, training for well paying technical and administrative positions, and even jobs in the trades has been de emphasized. On the employer side, college degrees have become the default credential for many roles, creating what today's guest calls a paper ceiling for candidates who can actually do the job, but they can't even get an interview because they don't have a four year degree. But as unemployment has returned to near record lows, many companies are reconsidering the criteria by which they evaluate prospective employees.
Mike Coffey:Many are embracing alternative routes to skill development. I'm joined today by Audrey Mccahill. Audrey is senior vice president of private sector and membership experience at Opportunity at Work, an organization whose mission is to rewire The US labor market so that all individuals skilled through alternative routes, STARS, can work, learn, and earn to their full potential. Welcome to Good Morning HR, Audrey.
Audrey Mickahail:Thank you so much, Mike. It's a delight to be here.
Mike Coffey:So I mentioned the paper ceiling, and I know OpportunityWork uses that that term a lot. Describe what the paper ceiling is and and what problems it it it causes for both employers and, and job seekers.
Audrey Mickahail:Well, the paper ceiling is that barrier that workers face when employers often unwittingly or without even questioning their basic assumptions about workers place a barrier and that can that barrier to employment can be at the initial stage when a worker is applying for a job. Or frankly, what we increasingly hear from folks is they may be able to make an entry into an organization, but perhaps that barrier will creep up on them when they're looking for mobility, they're looking for their next opportunity. You know, it's partly a factor of our technology. It's partly a factor of, well, this is the way we've done things. It can be a matter of unexamined assumptions.
Audrey Mickahail:But I will also say that our research has found that it's one of the consequences of the great recession. We saw STARS, workers who are skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree, lose ground after the great recession when you may remember this, Mike. Talent acquisition leaders were just flooded with applications at that time. And so one of the things that we we saw happen then was, an increasing use of degree screening just as a means of of trying to filter applications that, you know, it was a perhaps a reasonable reaction to the moment, but I think it's a hack that has long outlived its usefulness at this point.
Mike Coffey:And well, and even then, in 02/2009, '2 thousand '10, I was arguing, you know, in my conversations with our clients, our employer clients, that that kind of shortcut probably is not serving you. You know, I I I've been a advocate for skills based hiring. I came out of aerospace and then health care. And in health care, I mean, certainly, there are degree requirements and certification requirements, but the bottom line is competencies. And can you, you know, can you demonstrate these specific competencies?
Mike Coffey:And I think a lot of employers are just really beginning to wake up to the fact that in order to do this job, these are the five things someone has to be able to do. And that's all I'm really concerned about. I'm I'm I'm concerned about their cultural fit, you know, the share of values, all those things, which are really important. But, you know, as far as, you know, did this person attend, you know, a university or or whatever it was, what you know, whatever that their their traditional criteria has been to measure someone, you know, at that first or second level of of review may not maybe making it harder for them to hire the best candidates. I mean, certainly, it's easy to hire warm bodies, and you can certainly find people with degrees, but that doesn't mean that those people are gonna be the ones that really have the skills that you
Audrey Mickahail:need. We think that's exactly right. And you've mentioned it in your intro, but one of the things that we often ask folks when we are introducing this topic to them is we think we ask them, okay, think about the skills that you're deploying day in and day out on your job. And particularly once you get past the first few years of your career, where did you gain those skills? I think for me, for sure, there's very little that I learned in college that is really serving me today.
Audrey Mickahail:And we would argue that, you know, most people are learning their skills day in and day out by showing up by showing up day in and day out and learning on the job. And in fact, even for folks who are really in in rather senior positions, their journeys to their senior positions often included some interesting detours or lateral moves or stretch opportunities. I think that's a natural if you think about your own journey through your career. And it's a shame then, and it's certainly, I think, counterintuitive and counterproductive to think about that degree that someone may or may not have have attained many, many years ago as being as continuing to be relevant.
Mike Coffey:You know, one of the things I hear when I'm having these conversations with employers, is, well, you know, even if the college degree is not relevant, it still demonstrates that the person could stick with something and, you know, and actually complete a project, you know, really fight through something. And my answer to them is always, do you really have a culture where you need people who can just grind through and stick with something and, you know, who without examining other options? Is that really what, you know, your workplace is is hiring for? I think that's more of a defense mechanism for their current hiring, you know, the status quo then it is a really a a real business imperative to find people, you know, because quite honestly, that person who didn't go to school and, you know, maybe they worked, fast food and did temp jobs and and gig work or whatever came along, for four years. They were still doing something and maybe hustling harder than a lot of college students had to hustle for that four years.
Mike Coffey:And I'll say, you know, in our experience, one of my best analysts on our background investigation side of the business, she worked in the service industry, in the food food service industry for the five years out of out of high school before she came to work for us. And now she's she is one of my best analysts. And, she was she's an avid reader. She's got a deep understanding of English language, how to write things, how to say things. She's a great problem solver.
Mike Coffey:College was not an option for her. And, you know, it worked out to my to my benefit that I've got this amazing analyst who, you know, just happened to randomly apply for our job and passed our initial competency test that we present through the application process, and we end up hiring her. And she's amazing.
Audrey Mickahail:Mike, I think you have described the story that so many people experience. And, you know, there's a simple notion here that tear the paper ceiling represents, which is simply if you can do the job, you should be able to get the job. You should get the job. And the truth of the matter is, I think, by including, especially early on in the process before you've really had an opportunity to assess people's skills. When you choose that degree screen as a de facto, early step in the process, you're doing a number of things that I think are not intentional on the part of most employers.
Audrey Mickahail:The first thing that you're doing that I think is quite damaging is that you are actually preventing yourself if you're a hiring manager or you're in a talent acquisition role, is that you're blinding yourself to the skills of those applicants. The second thing that you're doing, and and certainly, I think the the challenge here is one of recognizing what your goals are as an organization. So for example, when you insist or when you include a degree screening step, you're eliminating from consideration big chunks of the population. I mean, the reality is stars are 70,000,000 workers in this country out of a 40,000,000 workers who are active in today's labor market. And that includes the majority of men.
Audrey Mickahail:That includes the majority of white workers, of black workers, of Hispanic workers, of veterans, of older workers. To say nothing of the demographic cliff that we're about to embark on where both from a raw numbers perspective and from a percentage of the workforce, we are seeing fewer individuals choose college as their as their route. And I should name this. I hope it's obvious, but I should say upfront, we are like, college is a great opportunity if it's right for you. But I think what the college for all argument misses is that that may not be someone's preference.
Audrey Mickahail:That may not be an opportunity. And I think, you know, forgive the expression, but damning folks who choose other options or other routes into the workforce to lower wages and for and to being paid for their labor rather than their skill is both a that's a problem for employers and it's a problem for workers. We talk to employers all the time who are starting, as you alluded to earlier, to appreciate that they have real needs that are not being filled today with workers if they're only looking at individuals who have attained that bachelor's degree. And so the the values, I think, of Skills First Hiring, and you're clearly a leader here and ahead of your time, But those values are starting to catch up with us, and that's the good news. I think part of it is the campaign, the tear the paper ceiling campaign and hopefully the impact it's had in showing workers who are genuinely enthusiastic about their work, who are ambitious, who have proven out the skills that you referenced in ways other than a bachelor's degree.
Audrey Mickahail:So to your point earlier about, well, if you've gone through college and you've stuck with it, you've proven something, great. That's a fantastic way to prove that you can complete a four year degree. But is it the only way to prove that you have skills? Is it the only way to prove that you have grit? I would argue that it's not.
Audrey Mickahail:I think that perception that, college proves something about you is a little limiting. It may, in fact, prove something about you, but it's not the only way to to to prove to prove that point.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. And I would argue in and of itself, it doesn't tell you anything about the person. I mean, I I know people with PhDs who, you know, quite honestly, would have a hard time finding their own rear end with both hands. And, you're welcome listeners that I was polite this time. But, the idea out there and I'll I'll I'll go full disclosure here.
Mike Coffey:I dropped out of well, I I worked full time through college. And then when I was in my early twenties, I dropped out to start my first company. I flew that airplane right into the side of a mountain, but I learned so much in that two years. I learned I mean, that was an MBA and, you know, and it was it was about as expensive as an MBA. And and then I went back to school when I went back to corporate world for about five years, but then got married, so having kids, never finished it, then started this company twenty six years ago.
Mike Coffey:And my boss won't give me a raise if I go get it if I finish that last 13 of that degree, and so I don't have one. So, maybe it's maybe it's easy to say, oh, yeah. Mike Coffey doesn't have a degree, so he's he's passionate of those folks who have them, but I'm not. But I'm saying that I, you know, I'm interested in what somebody on day one when I hire somebody. What can they do for me?
Mike Coffey:How quickly can I get them up to speed? And maybe that person who's hustled, who's worked hard, done a lot of different things can demonstrate to me just as much as that person who got that that degree, maybe that advanced degree, and and really had to you know, maybe they worked their way through school. They did a lot of things. I wanna know the whole thing, though. I don't I don't wanna know just you got a piece paper.
Mike Coffey:Tell me the background of of what that experience was like. What did you learn about leadership, interpersonal relationships, whatever else during college, which is a great place to do that. But I think we emphasize even there too much about colleges, you know, brings this special unique value because of leadership, these things. I'm sorry. If I'm working in a McDonald's with, you know, maybe 80 other employees rotating through different shifts, I'm gonna learn a lot about interpersonal dynamics, about negotiating with people, about, you know, maybe I get to be a supervisor, how to manage all kinds of different folks.
Mike Coffey:There's a you know, I think you can develop those skills early in your career, whatever you're doing, if you if you just are if you're if you have the aptitude to look for those opportunities.
Audrey Mickahail:I mean, I would add to that list. You learn to deal with prior or to you learn prioritization. You learn conflict resolution. You learn how to, manage multiple demands simultaneously. And and and furthermore, on the contrasting side, again, not not to take anything away from college at all.
Audrey Mickahail:One of the things I've learned in my career, I've managed lots of folks who were early in career professionals who had that bachelor's degree. And one thing they struggle with so we you talked about grit earlier. And folks who've been through college know how to complete often know how to complete a task, one that's complex, and then they hand it in. And one thing I would tell you as a as a manager today and someone who's managed folks for a long time is that's great, but can you take feedback and incorporate it? Can you stick with a project even when your stakeholders tell you you're off base?
Audrey Mickahail:Can you go back to the starting board? And so I think those are things that you uniquely learn in the workplace when, you know, you don't have the privilege or the luck of being able to just finish an assignment, turn it in, and never look back. Often in work, you actually have to iterate and cocreate with a wide variety of people. And I think, that's one of those things that, you know, again, it's not to take anything away from college at all, but how many people really thrive in group projects that you you had to do when you were in school? Often you try and get away from that as soon as you can.
Audrey Mickahail:You can't do that. It worked. You actually do have to negotiate and navigate and iterate quite a bit. Didn't mean to rhyme there, but there you go.
Mike Coffey:It worked. So maybe you should have stayed and got a a poetry degree. But, if I'm an employer and I'm recognizing that, you know, there's there's probably a pool a talent pool out there that I'm not tapping into. And so we we need to reevaluate maybe some of our our our reliance on those credentials. Where should I start?
Mike Coffey:You know, what's that first step if an employer comes to OpportunityWork and says, hey. How do I go about this? What does that look like?
Audrey Mickahail:Well, Mike, I think one of the things that we start with is where are your needs? What is your what is the business problem you are trying to solve? Because, ultimately, that is what's going to make change sustainable and worth the squeeze in the long run. Mhmm. For, you know, the past couple of decades, I've worked with executives in various kinds of management challenges that they've faced.
Audrey Mickahail:I come from a research and advisory background. And one thing that is very clear to me after all of these years is that you have to understand and work with the needs of the organization and the incentives of the folks that you're working with. So we at Opportunity at Work don't come at this work from a wanting folks to, you know, do the right thing just for the sake of it being the right thing. We actually want the right thing to be the right business decision. And increasingly where we try to focus is helping organizations make that right thing the easy thing for them to do, the thing that solves their problem.
Audrey Mickahail:So when we work with HR, people in culture folks, we start with, what is your need? What's your pain point? What are the roles that you're struggling to fill? What's the cost to your organization of not filling those roles? And that's that takes us a pretty far way down the path.
Audrey Mickahail:There are other organizations that say, you know, actually, we're less worried in this moment about hiring and more worried about retaining the talent we have already recruited. And so that's an increasingly frequent conversation for us. And there, the same sort of DNA of understanding skills and skilled pathways is a similar conversation. What are the roles that you're trying to fill? Where are you trying to retain people?
Audrey Mickahail:What are the positions in your organization that are great springboards to mobility for your workers? And what I've found is that folks often have a really good intuition about what those roles are. So for example, in our research, what we see, and we call them gateway jobs. Gateway jobs are those jobs that are accessible from lower wage positions, and they open up tremendous pathways for those workers. So they're things like computer support specialist or help desk technician.
Audrey Mickahail:They're jobs that are often incredible springboards to opportunities for workers once they've spent a bit of time in them. And when we talk to large enterprises, they often have those roles. It may not be the exact ones that I just mentioned, but they're often places where people can find their feet, so to speak, they can get their start, they can build some of the foundational skills that they may need. And those skills give them, again, a springboard of opportunity into other pathways, whether those are, you know, ladders up or lateral moves. And we see companies actually being very thoughtful in certain cases.
Audrey Mickahail:Again, not necessarily a mainstream practice yet, but we see progress in this area once folks understood that as a business need they wanted to retain people to get really more precise and deeper in their understanding of the pathways that folks are traversing by looking at what are the transitions that are being made by their workers, whether internally or where our analysis tends to focus is what are the transitions that workers are making in the labor market writ large. And often there's really good insight for employers for how to not only retain and advance their workers, but also how to think about recruitment. So we have a tool that's free for the public, and anyone can use. It's called Starsight, and that's s tarsight. It's at starsight.org.
Audrey Mickahail:It's free to use. But one of the things that tool enables folks to do is to understand for their given role, for the for the role that they're trying to hire from or for, I should say, the role they are trying to hire for, what is the predecessor role that a worker might have had? What are real labor market transitions that workers have made into that job? And what that enables someone to do is to think about, well, is there a skills proximate job that I might recruit from? Maybe I have those jobs in my organization already or maybe this gives me a sense for how to recruit someone who's almost there and I might, as an employer, top them up, give them that little bit of onboarding or training that might get them that last few percentage points, of skill building that they might need.
Audrey Mickahail:So really thinking, like, how might you start? What are the open roles that you have? What are the hard to fill roles? What are the high volume roles that you as an organization have? And I think one of the things that's interesting about that consideration in creating a strategy where you might start with removing degree screens is there's so much interest in new to world roles and AI and roles that didn't exist in the past.
Audrey Mickahail:And in those situations, one really has an opportunity to question whether or not that degree screen is even relevant. Because I think one of the things where you're seeing very clearly and I actually, have a son who is he's in art school. So, you know
Mike Coffey:I feel your pain. I'm paying for a clarinet degree right now for so, you know, for yeah. Who's he's an amazing clarinetist.
Audrey Mickahail:It and we need we need clarinetists, Mike. We need them. So it all to say
Mike Coffey:Unfortunately, we only need one or two in every orchestra. That's my biggest concern. But anyway
Audrey Mickahail:I hear you. I hear you. I my my son is a photography major. So, you know, all to say that those are some of these new to world roles are places where actually the the post secondary system hasn't caught up yet. And so you hear this tragic story of there being degree screens or requirements that actually are impossible to meet because the job description is not an accurate reflection of, for example, how long the technology has been in use or whether or not there are appropriate credentials aligned with with a particular skill.
Audrey Mickahail:Those are great opportunities to rethink what might you know, what are the core skills you need on day one? That was something I think you, alluded to earlier in the conversation. It's not just being very clear about what success looks like in a role from a skill perspective, but also what does it look like to be successful on day one, and what can someone learn once they once they're on the job?
Mike Coffey:And let's take a quick break. Good morning. HR is brought to you by Imperative, bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. On Thursday, March 20, I'm hosting a webinar entitled alt control the c, protecting yourself from remote employee fraud. While many employers recognize the advantages of remote work in attracting and retaining employees, most are unaware of, much less protected from, the risk of illegal activity and fraud unique to the remote environment.
Mike Coffey:Foreign actors like North Korea, fraudulent employment verifiers, and dishonest over employed workers are but a few of the sources of liability, data breaches, and financial losses employers have suffered. Using traditional deception methods and modern artificial intelligence tools like deep fakes, bad actors are targeting unsuspecting employers. In this one hour webinar, I'll discuss some of the ways that dishonest actors have harmed employers and practical steps employers can take to protect themselves. And just like this podcast, the webinar is free and preapproved for recertification credit. You can register or watch the recording later by clicking on the education tab at comparativeinfo.com, where you can also find all of my previously recorded webinars.
Mike Coffey:If you're an HRCI or SHRM certified professional, this episode of Good Morning HR has been pre approved for one half hour of recertification credit. To obtain the recertification information, visit goodmorninghr.com and click on research credits. Then select episode one ninety and enter the keyword stars. That's s t a r s. And now back to my conversation with Audrey Micahel.
Mike Coffey:And you were talking about gateway rules and it reminded me of a family member who's wicked smart guy. His father is a mechanic, owns a mechanic shop, and he always was very good with the, you know, those kind of things. High school gets a job at a Sam's Club, and this is in in the early aughts, starts working on what they called hard lines, which is like their computer where, you know, they leased back then, you know, where they sold computers and stuff at Sam's and started learning instead of just really teaching himself how to help customers with their computers that they brought in or issues they had, understanding all of that, and and really self trained. And this may really I guess it's late nineties, in in kind of a pre Internet era, self trained on the technical skills on that stuff. And turned that experience after a number of years working at Sam's Club, no didn't go to college, into a technical role kind of, you know, frontline help desk kind of thing and moved on, rose the ladder, and then was running all the server farm for a a large Internet company that we most of us, at least those of us who are sing who who might have ever recently been single and dated would be familiar with and, you know, earned credentials, studied, learned a lot of things along the way, but no college degree.
Mike Coffey:And that gateway job for him was just the luck of the draw that one day somebody sent him over to work in the computer section at Sam's versus working, you know, in the food section or whatever. But, you know, found his skill set, you know, the the you know, developed the skills that his aptitudes were were right for. So if I'm I've I found that employer and I'm saying, okay. I'm gonna move away from just just looking at degrees, and I wanna look at competencies. But how do I use competencies?
Mike Coffey:And I've got definite opinions on this because it's what we do. But how do I use competencies early enough in the process to really filter my candidates? What would you tell them?
Audrey Mickahail:Well, there are a couple of things I'd say. I I think one of the points I'd make up front was when we just discussed, which is I I do think, and we've all been guilty of it, that many folks in the hiring scenario really identifying think they're hiring for an entry level role or think they're hiring for more of a specialist role, but then define a set of competencies and and put a set of requirements in a job description that are really difficult to meet. And I think the key thing for folks to recognize about that is you could go that route, but you will elongate your hiring process. You will add expense to it, and you may not find that right person because the reality is that with every think of it as as a you're starting out with a big pie of potential candidates, and every additional requirement that you add and every, like, wish list item that you add to that, either job description or as you go through the talent acquisition process, your screening will reduce the pool further and further. And we've, you know, done some research looking at what that actually means from a what is the viable talent answering the question of what is the viable talent pool in a in a given scenario for a given role.
Audrey Mickahail:So I think that's where I think being pragmatic and limiting the number of skills or competencies you're looking for, and then being really clear about what you're testing for throughout the talent acquisition process. One of the things that you mentioned, Mike, that I think is really important is that you used a, what, you know, what we might call a performance task or a challenge prompt
Mike Coffey:Mhmm.
Audrey Mickahail:Which is you were really clear about what success looked like and what was must have. And then you provided you did some kind of talent assessment or some kind of skill assessment to ascertain that in a more reliable way than interviewing, which is not all that reliable and I think privileges those individuals who happen to be good at interviewing, or test someone for their ability to write good keywords on a resume. So I think that's one of the things that I would, really encourage folks to do. Understand what's must have, what's day one, and be be very explicit and and thoughtful about what you're looking for at each stage of the process so that you're either you avoid that doubling up, you run an efficient process on your end, and that you don't try to find as as the talent acquisition folks like to call, like, the purple squirrels or purple unicorns.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. And and the thing that we do is right at the very beginning of the application process before we've we even know who they are, they also complete some basic skills, online skills assessments. And for my analyst role, I can train anybody who's bright enough to be a really good analyst. If they if if if they, you know, if they if they can put a subject and a verb in a sentence with appropriate punctuation, and they can read information and extract it back out and summarize it in a way that makes sense, I can probably train them to do this job. And then I'm also looking for people who can sit in front of a computer monitor for two or three, you know, hours at a time, then get up and then go back and do it again.
Mike Coffey:Somebody unlike me, you know, somebody who's very, you know, I'm you know, not ADHD and, you know, somebody who can and and do that kind of work. And so we've even designed our employment application itself, our online process, to be a little bit more tedious because it would run somebody like me off. You know? I I'm you know, just I would self select out of the process, and we also tell them in that job description, one of the things where I actually get them to give me text, you know, written you know, something you know, show me you can write a sentence with with appropriate punctuation and grammar, is I tell there's a paragraph. It tells them this is a really tedious job.
Mike Coffey:You're gonna be sitting in front of a computer monitor, two or three computer monitors for, you know, most of your day, very little social interaction, and go through all that. And then I say, what in your experience would suggest you'd be a good fit for this? Maybe they tell me something good, maybe they don't, but I'm mostly reading the answers to see if they can write. Yeah. Because our delivered product on the background investigation side of the business is a written product, and and my clients need to you know, it needs to make sense.
Mike Coffey:It needs to be simple and concise. And and so we get through that. Somebody gets through all of that process and our our behavioral assessment itself, which I think the whole our whole application process is also a behavior assessment, and they match our general loose criteria there. They're not like me. In other words, I can almost hire anybody who gets through that process.
Mike Coffey:I, you know, I interview them, but I've got extreme introverts who have a hard time making eye contact even in a video camera. Versa and and then I've got some much more buoyant personalities, but they all are able to do the job, and I'm lucky to have every one of them.
Audrey Mickahail:I love that, Mike. And I think one of the things that you're highlighting so nicely for folks and I do think this is almost like the two zero one level of how how do you really match your needs to available talent. Because at the end of the day, from from an employer perspective, that's what we're trying to help folks do and help them do that in a way that is opening up opportunities and pipelines that they may not even be aware of. And what you've so nicely demonstrated is that you've created a process that's fit for purpose for the roles that you have. And you've been clear in demonstrating, you know what?
Audrey Mickahail:I have some introverts. I have some extroverts that that's not a differentiator in terms of what makes someone successful in role. But their ability to stick with a task and to pay attention to detail and to sustain their attention and energy, that's some of the stuff that I think, can be really, first of all, important to understand that is not necessarily a hard skill, but it is one that is differentiating in the context of the work that you're doing and the context of the organization and the environment that you have built. And so I think that's one of the most important things for folks to understand and sit with, and particularly where where sometimes we see disconnects between hiring managers and HR professionals, is what are the maybe, non obvious considerations? And fit can be a fraught subject for folks, but it is so important to understand, without getting into, like, who's cool and who's not cool, who's gonna fit in and who's not gonna fit in.
Audrey Mickahail:It's really not
Mike Coffey:a matter of, do I wanna go fishing with this guy on Saturday morning.
Audrey Mickahail:That's right. Exactly right. And that I think is a really key point to emphasize because what we're not talking about is who's gonna, you know, be the life of the party and who's gonna be beloved by everyone, but rather
Mike Coffey:That's my job.
Audrey Mickahail:Yes. Exactly. And and there's only one you, so let's not get it get it confused. But for an individual coming in and needing to thrive within a set of tasks and and a job description, how can we understand both the skill that they need to bring in on day one, what can be taught over the course of their onboarding, and by the way, I think that's an area for folks to really be more thoughtful about. And what are the circumstances in the context of the work?
Audrey Mickahail:So are you in a very large, very process oriented organization where folks need to be comfortable turning the crank each and every day in a similar way? Or are you in an organization that's a startup where ambiguity is the is the reality that folks have to live in? Those are, I think, later in the process conversations, but ones that are also important. So takes us a little bit out of the skills only, topic. But certainly, as folks are thinking about how might we pick an individual who not only has the skill they need rather than a particular degree or credential, but also start to get more sophisticated in understanding what are the circumstances in which they'll be operating.
Mike Coffey:And that is a a great place to end it mostly because we're out of time because I I really I I'm sure there's so much more we could talk about about when somebody is onboarded, what training you offer, how do you prepare your current workforce for whatever the next skill sets are gonna look like. And then maybe things like apprenticeships and and stuff like that that I know we're seeing more of not just in trades now. We're beginning to see white collar apprenticeships. So I'm gonna try to, squeeze you back on our calendar. I want you back so that we can talk about some of those other things.
Mike Coffey:So once I've got this star on board or I've identified a star internally who maybe was gonna go a different career path, how can I incorporate those? So, I hope we can we can do that again later this year.
Audrey Mickahail:That would be great, Mike. I think there's so much more to talk about with respect to how do we make onboarding effective so that hiring stars doesn't become a revolving door. And I think you named some of the big trends that we're starting to see. You're exactly right. Apprenticeship has gone well beyond the trades, and we see really exciting, not intuitive organizations experimenting with apprenticeship in really powerful ways.
Mike Coffey:Very cool. Well, thanks for joining me, Audrey. I really appreciate it.
Audrey Mickahail:Thank you, Mike. This has been fun.
Mike Coffey:And thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please write us a review on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you're listening. It helps other people find us. And if it's not too much to ask, find us on LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram and share this episode. Tell people how much you enjoyed it.
Mike Coffey:It helps spread the news. Rob Upchurch is our technical producer, and you can reach him at rob makes pods dot com. And thank you to Imperative's marketing coordinator, Mary Ann Hernandez, who keeps the trains running on time. And I'm Mike Coffey. As always, don't hesitate to reach out if I can be of service to you personally or professionally.
Mike Coffey:I'll see you next week and until then, be well, do good, and keep your chin up.