In today’s episode, we delve into the fascinating journey of Tana Greene, the visionary behind MyWorkChoice, as she shares insights into revolutionizing the hourly workforce industry, empowering individuals, and crafting a culture of flexibility and choice. MyWorkChoice is a recruitment agency that provides a modern and human-centered approach to hiring and managing the hourly workforce. In our conversation, we unpack the high turnover rates and absenteeism in the light industrial staffing industry, how her company addressed these issues by giving workers more flexibility, and the benefits of reducing turnover and increasing employee satisfaction. Hear about her company’s transition from brick-and-mortar offices to a completely virtual setup, details about the growth of MyWorkChoice, the challenges of building and maintaining software, and the importance of flexibility to the modern workforce. Gain insights into why flexible work schedules have attracted more women into manufacturing, the secret behind MyWorkChoice’s success, and how to do more with fewer employees. Tana also shares her personal journey, from overcoming challenging situations to navigating domestic violence to starting her own business and reaching her full potential. Tune in as we uncover ways the staffing industry is broken and how empowering the workforce can fix it with Tana Greene!
[0:01:14] DF: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for another episode of The Staffing Show. Today, I am super excited to be joined by Tana Greene, the co-founder and CEO of MyWorkChoice. Tana, thanks so much for being on the show today.
[0:01:26] TG: Oh, my gosh. I couldn’t be more happier. I’ve listened to your show for years, and I’m so excited to be part of your whole team.
[0:01:34] DF: Awesome. Well, I’ve already enjoyed the conversations we’ve had, just warming up to it. I can’t wait to jump right in here. I think our audience is going to be especially interested and excited about not only your story but also MyWorkChoice’s story and what you’ve done with your agency and with your brand. But to start things off a little bit differently than we do here a lot of times with The Staffing Show, I want to jump right into the meat of it and just talk about what’s wrong in the world today and what are you doing about it?
[0:02:05] TG: Oh, I love that. That’s an open-ended for me to go quite a while. I’ll try not to go too long. I think for us, it’s 36 years coming up May 9th, it’ll be 36 years since I started this business. What we saw about the shift about eight, nine years ago in light industrial because that’s pretty much where I’m going to focus today. I’ve done many other lines, but this is really about commercial staffing. What we saw was the turnover was ridiculous. I mean, it was over 400%, seven, eight years ago. You think about that and you think, “Okay, I’ve got a plant that needs a thousand people.” I’m hiring 4,000 a year to keep them whole.
[0:02:52] DF: Probably buying just resume after resume after resume off the job boards.
[0:02:57] TG: Yeah. I mean, with light industrial, they’re just piling through the doors, right? It’s like, almost a union hall where they line up outside and fill out applications. I think the biggest “aha” moment came to us when we had the electronic time clock break, when technology doesn’t work, it’s always terrible, right? The time clock broke. We had to do all of the time by hand. We didn’t have a thousand people there. We had 1,400 people there.
Now, you would think you would have figured that out based on the number of checks you’re cutting, but for some reason, when you need a thousand people on a floor, you’re just meeting the needs of each supervisor. This one needs 50. This one needs 25. This one needs 75. You’re shuffling people through, not even realizing that you’re using that many people. We sat just down and said, “How many hours are these people averaging?” Well, they were only averaging 32 hours a week. Yet, we’re firing them at a rate of 400% a year, because of what? Absenteeism.
When we really sat back and looked at it we said, “Well, if you took absenteeism off the table, what would happen?” Of course, we were met by the customer by saying, “You have to have rules. You can’t take absenteeism off the table.” It was like, but if you let them truly work when they can, what would happen? We tested it. We literally tested it with a site that had 400 temporaries a day needed. We hired 600 and we trained them all ready to go. Then we just let it happen within an app. We had a scheduler app that we used off the shelf. This was six years ago. They were hitting 95, 100% show rates.
The difference is in our traditional world, you’re given an order for 100. You hit that 100 day one, you check the mark, right? I’ve done my job, but what happens day two, day three, day four, what is that show rate then? We’ll let ratchets down from 60 to 40 to 30 to 20 until they’re refilling the order again, but in the meantime, productions come to a halt, because you don’t have enough extra. So, by giving them the choice to work what shifts they wanted and signed out for, we were literally able to hit every single shift and we went, “We are on to something here.”
It doesn’t mean that you just have a free-for-all or you’re using some stranger off the street. Now, I know there are apps out there that are marketplaces that do that, but for us, it was truly, I know that the manufacturing world and supply chain world is not going to accept a stranger off the street. They have to be background-checked. They have to be trained. It was a matter of how many people do I need and you and I talked a little bit about AI, but AI can figure out what is my turnover amongst the flex workers to where I know when I have to hire to keep that pool fresh.
Turnover has gone from 400 today. We did a study recently that’s on our website, by the way. It’s a case study between a traditional temporary contingent on light industrial versus the flex contingent on light industrial. It’s 488% turnover there. With us, we were having over 50% of our people had been there year too. We had 19% in year three. We’re having consistency of people. You know why? Because they can work when they need to work. It doesn’t mean that – the biggest myth about this, which is crazy, is, “Oh, well, I’m only getting a part-time worker.” Now, actually, our flex workers work more hours than the permanent old-time workers.
[0:07:07] DF: That’s incredible.
[0:07:08] TG: Our full-time flex workers are working 37 hours versus 32 hours in the full-time workforce, but we also have a part-time workforce that deals fills in when those gaps occur. It’s like, we used to say, “Boy, I wish I had a bunch of workers just set ready every day that you could just plug them in.”
[0:07:29] DF: Yup.
[0:07:30] TG: Then when somebody said, “I’ll be out” you’d plug that person in. Well, basically, that’s how the technology works. We built our own proprietary technology six years ago. We began this. The biggest “aha” to us was if you allow somebody to drop a shift, what is the likelihood that somebody in that poll will pick it up? Well, I can tell you it’s 99.5%.
[0:07:52] DF: That’s insane.
[0:07:54] TG: As long as they drive it within 12 hours.
[0:07:56] DF: You’ve created the batch.
[0:07:58] TG: What we did was created automated backfill technology. That’s a trademark, by the way. When somebody’s not going to be there, they at the button that they’re not going to be there, and then somebody else who’s already pre-trained fills in.
[0:08:13] DF: That’s amazing.
[0:08:14] TG: We also broke down the shifts from a 12-hour shift to a six-hour shift or a 10-hour shift to a five-hour shift. Now, you can get these sideline workers that can’t work those long shifts to come in and work the four-hour shift or the eight-hour shift that can’t do those. It’s amazing how when you re-look at your hourly workforce and how we expect them to work because guess what? They’re working the way they want to work anyway. We expect them to put in 40 plus every time, but they’re not. Nobody’s doing that. They’re getting fired, because of it.
They’re a great employee, but they’ve had three strikes. They’ve had three absences, so guess what? I’m terminating them. We’re living in a world that’s very different in the way the workers work and the way we expect them to work. This is that middle-of-the-road that comes into play that gives the flexibility. Most people want the 40 hours a week or they want their consistent 30 hours a week, but they want to be able to drop when they need to without penalty. That’s what this has done for it.
[0:09:25] DF: It’s incredible. You looked at the turnover rate over 400%, basically like, how do we solve this? I feel like mostly what I hear is a higher quality, different source, better benefits. I mean, the benefits fall in here, but you were like, what do they ultimately want? It’s flexibility. It’s flexibility. So, you went out and built an app, and then have figured out how to scale that. Also, I mean, I think this is post-COVID. We have more people looking at the world of flexibility, but I think that six years ago, this was, we were early to the market and have built a platform that does that in a meaningful way. Do you know just in terms of the average hours worked, how that varies? So, I think, yeah, Is that something you –
[0:10:07] TG: We’re running at 32 average hours worked.
[0:10:10] DF: Okay.
[0:10:11] TG: Then that’s for like people that want full time.
[0:10:13] DF: Yup.
[0:10:13] TG: Then were the ones that want part-time or working about 16 to 18 hours a week?
[0:10:18] DF: That’s amazing. From an operational standpoint, I imagine the quality is much higher, because you’re getting the same people back, and then you’re now having your team, you’re probably doing a lot more with less.
[0:10:28] TG: Yes. A lot more. In fact, we don’t have brick-and-mortar offices anymore either. This has become 100% virtual in the recruiting process as well.
[0:10:38] DF: How long ago did you shift from the brick-and-mortar? What have some of the challenges been along that path?
[0:10:42] TG: Well, we switched over six years ago. We made the decision that took us about a year and a half to completely exit all the branches that we had and to go completely virtual. It is amazing. I mean, we out-recruit. We can put a traditional temp-to-hire job on an ad, and we can put a flex job on an ad and we’re going to recruit at 106% higher for that flex job than we are for the full-time. It’s amazing.
[0:11:12] DF: That’s incredible.
[0:11:13] TG: I don’t have a problem recruiting – problem recruiting. If you have the word flexibility and they truly get that it’s a flex job, that’s why our referrals coming from you guys think that this is so high, our conversion is so high because it’s flexibility and people are telling other people.
[0:11:31] DF: I mean, one of the things that we’re talking about all of this and just to give some people context on when we’re talking about what you’ve built, the growth rate, I think, is pretty astounding too in the size of your organization that we talked about that a little ahead of time. Maybe you could show some light on where you guys are at, in terms of W-2s and where the growth rate you’re experiencing today.
[0:11:48] TG: Yeah. We’re over 10,000 W-2s last year. The key to that is typically in traditional staffing, 10,000 W-2s would mean maybe 25% of those actually worked, but because ours don’t turn over, ours is more like 70%
[0:12:06] DF: That’s unbelievable.
[0:12:07] TG: You can’t compare it to what a traditional staffing model is because our turnover is so much lower.
[0:12:14] DF: Yeah. That is incredible and that does make sense that you’re just getting more out of less. Then also, it’s sounds like, you’ve solved some of the recruiting problems as well. Can you tell us a little bit more about the experience building an app and going down that path, because I’ve been in software development for quite a while, and I’ve had lots of lessons learned, and I think that might be interesting for people to hear about.
[0:12:34] TG: Well, I remember when I first started this, it was like, you expect to spend two to 10 times more than you expect. Well, I can tell you that that’s a fact.
[0:12:42] DF: It’s a fact.
[0:12:43] TG: Delivery on time is never on time.
[0:12:47] DF: Not a possibility.
[0:12:48] TG: You’re never finished. It’s a constant grind because you’re learning. First of all, we’re a pioneer in what we’re doing and we’re building something to go with that. Every time we learn something, we can rebuild what we build. I would say that I am looking forward to when AI can actually code because I think it’s coming. We’ve been watching that very closely because right now, it’s you either build an entire house or, an in-house team which we went that way to begin with. Then we realized outsourcing using more talent. We have our product development inside, but we use outside talent. We’ve learned a lot along the way. We spent a lot of money, we didn’t have to spend, but we’ve gotten a product now that we feel is 90% there.
[0:13:38] DF: Tha’s amazing. It is an expensive learning experience to build software. It is also, I think, it was like three years ago, my accountant was like, it’s like, “Oh, well, you’re almost done with building it, right? You’re going to be done building them.” We’re like, “No, we’re just getting started. That cost is not going to be decreasing anytime soon.”
[0:13:56] TG: Right. I think I’ve asked that same question from a CEO standpoint, looking at the budget many a time. Yes.
[0:14:04] DF: That’s incredible that you’ve gotten to where you are. What else are you guys doing within that app? What are some other exciting things that you have going on?
[0:14:11] TG: I think what came out of that is, so we’re using it ourselves for our employer, our W-2 employees, right? Then a client comes to us and says, “We want to put our permanent people on it.” We went, “What? Why do you want to put your people on ours?” They said, “Well, because our people drop shifts all the time, but they don’t even tell us. They just don’t show up.” At least if they have some gamification to where they can push a button and say, “Hey, I’m not going to be there, because my daughter’s sick or my mother needs to be taken to the doctor.” Whatever their reason is, we want them to be able to hit that button. So, we created this fast side of this for them to put there, but now it’s holistic. It’s their people, our people, and all in the mix.
Let’s say their persons got to take a Wednesday off, but yet they don’t want to lose that eight hours. Now, they have a way to pick up a shift that might occur on Saturday that they would have never known about unless somebody was calling phone calls from internal of the company, they do not have these sophisticated tools. I was amazed at these huge companies, Fortune 500, then use a pegboard to know, yeah, which is – believe me, that’s true story. I look at that and I go, “Okay, well, wow.” We are literally helping them become 100% filled on every shift every day, which in essence cuts down all over time because you can fill every shift. The deal is having the bench of workers sitting there and have a way for everybody to know when something needs to occur.
[0:15:52] DF: I think that’s pretty incredible. You’re solving absenteeism, not only for your W-2s but also the companies you’re working with. Your clients are actually using your app to solve the same problem with their workforce.
[0:16:06] TG: Yeah. Because you want to know what really blew my mind, David, is do you know what the average absenteeism is per day in manufacturing?
[0:16:15] DF: No, I don’t.
[0:16:16] TG: It’s 30%.
[0:16:18] DF: Oh, my God.
[0:16:21] TG: That blew our minds because we’re talking to clients and they’re going, “Well, we have 30% a day.” We’re going, “What?” So, we started investigating that end of it and we were shocked. So, here’s a plant that needs a thousand workers. They’re short 300 every day, so how have they been dealing with that? They have eight different staffing companies, a vendor management system. It’s all chaos and people are throwing orders out there to try to get bodies in the door. Then I’m going to fire you because you’ve had three absences. I mean, that’s chaos to me.
[0:16:53] DF: That is chaos. So, are a lot of your customers using this for this purpose?
[0:16:58] TG: We have replaced vendor management systems and all other staffing companies in a plant, completely.
[0:17:05] DF: That’s crazy. It’s crazy when you build software for one purpose. Then can you’re scratching your own hitch and for your own selfish reasons, then all of a sudden, they’re like, “Well, we want that too.”
[0:17:16] TG: Right. Exactly. I mean, they’ll say to us, “You’ll need to go through our vendor management.” We go, “Well, we don’t play well with vendor management, so it doesn’t work that way.” So, they’ve exited vendor management contracts and contracts with other staffing, because it just – if you’ve got a traditional staffing model coming in one door and the flex coming in the other, guess what? They all coming over want to work for us, so you’re going to lose it anyway.
[0:17:40] DF: Yeah. I mean, I feel everybody today, flexibility is one of the number one things and when you have a job that you don’t have that option, it’s like, well, what are you going to do? We all have life outside of work, so it exists.
[0:17:51] TG: Yes. Truly, that is one of my driving factors of this is the purpose behind this is to empower the working world. I know that sounds like a huge job, but these are the workers of the world and they’ve never had flexibility. I feel like empowering them with choice is what’s working, but it’s working to give the holistic 100% feel to the client.
[0:18:18] DF: Yeah.
[0:18:18] TG: No overtime. I mean, now I can truly budget what I need.
[0:18:22] DF: I’m just curious. How does that shift the workforce that you put to work in terms of the quality, who’s there?
[0:18:29] TG: We’ve done a little studying on that. We tend to get a higher educated person.
[0:18:34] DF: Yup.
[0:18:34] TG: We’re 55% female now, which is unheard of in the manufacturing world because they can pick their shifts. If you think about it, I hear these manufacturing companies say, “We have got to figure out how to get more women in here, but I expect them to work 40 hours plus overtime every week.” “I’m sorry. Something’s wrong with this picture because that doesn’t work. You go back to Ford created the eight-hour work day, so that he could fill his manufacturing with seven days a week, right? But it was only men in the workforce. They had wives at home that took care of all the other stuff. Life is not like that now. You have shared duties between male and female. I’m sure you can attest to that. You don’t get to just sit back when you come home and read your news page.
[0:19:24] DF: The world is different.
[0:19:26] TG: The world is different. People need flexibility, but they don’t need to be fired for it.
[0:19:31] DF: Yeah. I wonder, do you know how that compares to, I’ve imagined 55% has to be in multiples over the traditional workforce. Yeah.
[0:19:39] TG: Yeah.
[0:19:40] DF: That’s incredible.
[0:19:41] TG: It is. Again, we get a higher, I feel like the quality is so much higher, because you’re getting a higher caliber person that is committing to that. We’ve seen that across the board.
[0:19:53] DF: Why also think it’s the, in general, I mean, this might be anecdotal in my own experience, but the people who expect more flexibility are the people who expect higher – that they want more from what they’re doing. It makes sense that they’re also aligned with the higher quality of workers as well.
[0:20:08] TG: Yeah. Think about your retiree. It’s like, “It’s raining out. I can’t play golf today. Well, I need to earn some money, because I want to go see my grandkids.” They’re phenomenal at this as well. It’s not just the Gen Z’s, and the XYZs, and all that. It’s everybody. Everybody who needs to work. If they want to go and work for the client, then you got to work for the client. If they have a permanent job opening, we open it completely, no fees. They can go right to work for that client, but they don’t choose to, because they need the flexibility.
[0:20:41] DF: I mean, it’s true, like gig economy meets manufacturing. People can pick up a job when they want and work. If they need to call out, they don’t feel bad about it.
[0:20:52] TG: Yeah. The problem with the gig worker is letting their 1099, which we all know with the new rules out now and you – can’t use them. No. Number two is I as a manufacturer can’t just take some stranger off the street. Just because you recruited 3000 people in my town, doesn’t mean I can throw a job out and just take a stranger. I need to know that they’ve been trained. That’s where we’re a little different.
[0:21:19] DF: Are you doing, I imagine self-onboarding, do you have like the training materials included in there, as well as that all part of the vetting spree?
[0:21:27] TG: Yes. As much as we can do prior than walking through the door, we do. Then the client takes it from there when they get to the floor.
[0:21:35] DF: That’s incredible. What are some of the, I guess, secrets to your success over the years? I feel like you’ve got a ton of stories that we’ve talked about a little bit, but with driving this to where it’s at. I know a lot of stuff in agencies say they’re going to go build software and doesn’t always end up in this, with where we’re at right now. What are some of the things that you keys to get into where you’ve been?
[0:21:57] TG: For myself personally, I’m a futurist. I can see the things. I am very fortunate to have a very innovative team surrounding me, because I cannot take credit for this alone. Trust me. It has taken an entire village to make this happen. Just having that innovative team, my presidents got as many years in the industry as I have. He’s taking companies public. He’s seeing it all. Yet he continues to work by being with the client and say, “Wow, this is really good. Make it happen.”
I think, I’m a huge risk-taker. When I see something that’s going to really value and benefit somebody, I’m going to drive it till it drives me. I mean, I’m not going to quit. One of our core values is never sell. That’s where I drive, even at my age now, who’s now officially on Medicare. I am driving change every day, but that’s just my makeup. When you see something so broken as the staffing industry, you go, there’s got to be a way to improve this. Yes, it’s taken a lot of blood, sweat, and tears and a lot of money.
[0:23:16] DF: With that, I mean, I think that MyWorkChoice story is just incredible. I also know we had a brief conversation about your personal story. Would you mind just digging and sharing that with audience a little bit about your personal journey? Because I think it’s pretty incredible as well.
[0:23:29] TG: Sure. It’s an open book. Well, for me, I grew up in Virginia. I grew up in a very traditional family where my father was a military officer retired working at Sears. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. I was a chaplain in my school when it was an elected position. I was on the principal’s committee. I was an honor roll student. I started high school. What every girl wants when they get to high school is to have a boyfriend.
Well, I got Mr. Popular wanting to date me in the ninth grade. I fell head over heels. Unfortunately, between the summer of my ninth and tenth grade, I found out I was pregnant. I went to my parents and we said, “We want to be married. We wouldn’t have this child.” They said, “Fine.” Two weeks later, I was walking down the aisle wearing a white dress and expected to go off and live this fairy-tale life. Well, one long into that, I realized this was not a traditional relationship. It was a one way and it was abusive.
I kept trying to fix everything because what we do is we try to fix it, because we take it on, this is our fault. If we did something better, it would make it better. I lived with that for two years and came out of that. I had a big event occur where we were supposed to go on a date night and my parents were going to babysit. He came home from work and had been drinking. I spent the entire day getting ready for this big date night, because what does a teenager want to be with her friends.
I remember I quit school. I’ve been out for two years. He comes home late. We get into an argument in the car. He proceeds to park the car in front of my parent’s house. He proceeds to physically abuse me and drive off. At that point, I had to go to the door with a carrier and an 8-month-old baby in my arms and my dad just took one look at me, saw the blood, and went looking for him. Thank God, he didn’t find him, because I don’t know what he would have done to him, but at that point, my mother reached out to the YWCA, because remember, this was 1975. There was nothing called domestic violence then. She reached out and said, “I need somebody who knows what’s going on here to talk to my daughter.”
I went into a week-long intensive therapy with them and at the end of the week, this is what they said to me, “You can choose to be a victim or you can choose to be a survivor. You have to make that choice. You need to decide and write down some goals on a piece of paper.” I wish I had that piece of paper to this day because I wrote down. First thing was I want to finish high school. I didn’t want to do a GED. I wanted a cap and gown.
The second thing was I wanted to earn my own home by the time I was 25. The third thing was I wanted to own my own business by the time I was 30. The fourth thing was I wanted to marry a knight in shining armor somewhere in there. So, I finished school. I did the three years in two to finish. I wore my cap and gown working a job too. Luckily, I could live at my parents. I had the help of my parents with the baby. The second thing I bought my first home at 22. I married my knight in shining armor. It was 39 years ago last Friday. We celebrated.
[0:27:00] DF: Congrats. That’s incredible.
[0:27:03] TG: Opened the doors of this business at 29. Just going through that, I realized the power of goal setting, and of never settling, and of creating what you really want out of life. I think that has carried through with me. It’s carried through to our values and our company. To the point where it’s my road map, but I didn’t speak about it. I didn’t tell anybody. Here I was, almost 50 years old. I was sitting on the chamber’s board. I was on a couple of other boards advisory boards. My friend’s daughter said, “Would you come speak to my class?” She was a senior at a private school, “And tell them about your experience. We’re studying healthy relationships.”
I went, “Sure.” Then I went. “Have you lost your mind? You can’t tell that story.” First of all, you don’t have a degree. You’re on all these boards. What are people going to think of you that you got married at 15 and had a baby at 16? You can’t do this. Then I thought, I’ve already committed. I’m one of those that if I commit to something, I’m going to follow through. I called my hotline for the domestic violence. I said, “Can you send somebody with me? Because if they asked me a question about statistics, or I have no idea.” A woman went with me and little did I know she was the CEO of Safe Alliance, which is the large agency here in Charlotte and surrounding counties for domestic violence.
Next thing I know, I’m on their board of directors, and I’m raising USD 10 million to open a new shelter. I am the spokesperson. I am speaking on the news channels. I am out there doing it. That’s when I realized there’s a lot of joy in serving others. I mean, we serve others in our business every day and getting them a job, especially with flexibility now and an hourly, but just being able to get back to people, so that they don’t have to suffer what you suffered for. For me, it took somebody naming it for me to really make a plan around what I was going to do to get out.
I want to somebody named the domestic violence to me and told me what the cycles were and told me how to get out, I could. I thought, okay, this is what I’m supposed to do. I’ve been doing that for a long time now. About a year ago on my goal sheet, which someday, maybe I won’t keep doing this, but I wrote down on the goal. I said, “I want to do something more national with this platform rather than just the local.”
Last January, I got an email from a museum in San Francisco called the Courage Museum. They will be opening in 2025. They wanted – they have 15 stories of people that have overcome domestic violence. They’ve overcome rape. They’ve overcome human trafficking. They’ve overcome shootings in their schools, anywhere there was violence related. This museum will open in 2025. It will have an educational component that will go around and also in a traveling piece of the museum.
Another thing is to put it out to the universe like that, and you say, “I want to do something.” Be careful what you asked for. Because so far, it has all come to me. I can’t always say it’s easy. But I read a book, that is called, The Happiness Advantage from Shawn Achor at Harvard. His quote was, “Happiness comes from fulfilling potential.” Well, when you’re fulfilling your potential, it’s not exactly comfortable, because to fulfill potential, you got to push yourself out there. I think I can write the book on that. That’s my story on how I got here. It’s so, it’s a rough road, but you know what, I couldn’t be happier in life and where I am in my business.
[0:31:05] DF: Well, it’s an incredibly inspirational story. The first time that I heard about it, I was just blown away and I was already sharing it with others. I think it is great that you are open about it and sharing it. It helps bring other people up and move people forward and incredible what you’ve done over the years. With that, I mean, I think that you also said, along your journey, you also have like sold a business, you’ve built a software platform. You just gloss over that. Just part of the path.
[0:31:34] TG: Yeah. Well, I always tell people, I said, they always go, “Wow, yeah. Now, all the success.” I said, “Well, I’ve had six startups, counting six startups. I’ve exited two successfully. I still have one, that means there’s three failures in there somewhere.” It’s not all rosy and easy, but again, if you got passion for something and you see a need for it, and you have the team I have around me, that’s where it matters.
[0:32:03] DF: That’s truly incredible. You mentioned that, normally I was going to ask what’s next, you said you’re you are going to be doing the speaking and then joining this museum. What’s next for MyWorkChoice? Where are you guys going from here?
[0:32:15] TG: Oh, I want to see it go international.
[0:32:18] DF: International.
[0:32:19] TG: Yeah.
[0:32:19]DF: I love it.
[0:32:20] TG: We’ve got a lot of clients now that are international that are already saying, “Can you come here? Can you come there?” So, it’s like, “Okay, we need to expand ourselves and see how it works in other markets.” I think Europe will be very open to it. It’s very advanced on the gig economy as it is.
[0:32:37] DF: They appreciate flexibility as well.
[0:32:40] TG: Yes. They do.
[0:32:41] DF: You got the time off, that’s for sure.
[0:32:44] TG: True. True.
[0:32:45] DF: Well, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story. I know one oddball thing that we are maybe not oddball, but the thing that we knew and I talked about, and you just brought up, I think the guy from Happiness, was a TED Talk that I’d seen. The last time we talked, you brought up the concept of Todd Talks, and I just wanted to touch on that, because you were smiling and laughing when you were talking about it. I thought it might be worth sharing with audience as well.
[0:33:08] TG: Right. Are talking about the Todd Talks on our LinkedIn?
[0:33:12] DF: Yeah.
[0:33:13] TG: The president of my company, Todd Warner, is the mastermind behind this. He is driving it every day. He’s coming up with the creativity. He does a Todd talk. It’s coming out about weekly now on LinkedIn.
[0:33:27] DF: I haven’t actually seen on LinkedIn. I just know the last time you were talking about Todd Talks and went off on a tangent there. I was like, “Oh, if we could figure out that kind of –
[0:33:35] TG: Yeah. If go to the MyWorkChoice, LinkedIn page, you’ll be able to get all of his rants. We call it, The old man rants.
[0:33:41] DF: The old man rants.
[0:33:42] TG: It’s about everything that’s wrong with our industry and why it’s broken. Yeah, I think it’s going to be that million-dollar shade club. The dollar shade club thing.
[0:33:55] DF: I’ve got it. Got it. Got it. You’ve also, you didn’t bring this up, but you’ve also written and published a book, Creating a World of Difference. Is that something – Is this first of many books? Is this the one that you want, to plan to do another?
[0:34:08] TG: Yeah. It’s time to do another. I’ve been really thinking. That’s been heavy on my heart lately because that was published in 2012, so much has changed since then. So yeah, it’s laying on me to be my next one. really, I’ve used it mainly for internal, because we want our staff to really understand who they’re working for and what it’s all about. It is a very motivational book that tells my story, but it’s really about our values and what’s important in life. That’s really why I wrote it. I use it for talks to whenever I go anywhere.
[0:34:44] DF: I am going to pick it up, and I am going to read it. I have not had a chance before our conversation. I put it into ChatGPT to ask to give me a summary of it. It’s based off of your reading, based off of your recommendations. This would be a great book for you. It’s a really good recommendations on influential lead – it had a whole reason, five reasons why I should read it. I’m excited.
[0:35:06] TG: Oh, that’s awesome. Well, if you’ll send me your address, I’ll send you a signed copy. How about that?
[0:35:12] DF: I would love that. I love that. Well, at this point, we’re going to jump over to that the speed question. Just got three more, and then we’ll wrap up. What advice do you wish was given to you when you entered the staffing industry?
[0:35:24] TG: I wish I had taken a class on cash flow.
[0:35:29] DF: Me, too.
[0:35:31] TG: Because I remember thinking on the first big order, we got hundreds of people and it went for like three months. Then I’m sitting there and going, where’s the money? It should be pouring in. Where’s the money? I think that that was probably – even though I took a [Inaudible 0:35:48], but it didn’t matter. You don’t understand cash flow until you live it.
[0:35:55] DF: I studied finance undergrad, and I also wish I had taken a course on cash flow about five years ago. It is a lesson that you learn running a business and something that nobody else, I don’t think you get it, until you get it.
[0:36:09] TG: You don’t get it until you’re there, right, which is most lessons in life.
[0:36:15] DF: Yeah. In the last five years, what new belief, behavior or habit has most improved your life?
[0:36:21] TG: I think, truly trying to live in the moment has been the biggest improvement for me and trying not, I say trying, because I still struggle with this, but it’s not going to pay off to worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow may be a debt you never owe. Be worried that you will. Don’t worry about the past. I mean, the past is the past. I can tell my story without the emotion that I used to have come with it, because this is the past. I really think the living of the now has, and I will continue to try to do that daily.
[0:36:55] DF: I absolutely love that. Last question I’ve got for you is, what is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made?
[0:37:02] TG: In my family. That’s obvious. I mean, I just found out Saturday that I’m going to be a grandmother of a little girl.
[0:37:10] DF: Oh, my God. That’s incredible. Congratulations.
[0:37:13] TG: Thank you.
[0:37:15] DF: I’m so excited.
[0:37:15] TG: Yeah. Family comes to mind, right now.
[0:37:19] DF: I love that. Well, Tana, it’s so nice to have you on. Are there any closing comments or closing thoughts that you to share with the audience?
[0:37:26] TG: No. I would just tell them if they’re not using your platform for referrals, they’re missing a big piece of this.
[0:37:32] DF: Oh, that’s very kind of you.
[0:37:35] TG: Yes. It has helped us tremendously. We have over 30,000 ambassadors now, because of it.
[0:37:43] DF: I appreciate that so much. Thank you so much for joining. I love the conversation and we will talk with you soon.
[0:37:49] TG: Thank you.
[OUTRO]
[0:37:51] ANNOUNCER: Thanks for listening to The Staffing Show. Don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter at staffinghub.com to never miss an episode. Until next time.
[END]
