MeeDerby has been the leading executive search firm specializing in staffing and workforce solutions since 1988, and today, we are joined by its founder and CEO, Robin Mee, and president, Kim Whiteley. After detailing their journeys in staffing, Robin and Kim describe the work of MeeDerby and how the company approaches its business partnerships. Then, we unpack the lessons learned at MeeDerby from having a remote work culture for over 18 years, the current state of the remote work market, why hybrid may be the only answer, and how various industries feel about returning to the office. We also unpack the pendulum of power between hiring managers and candidates, MeeDerby’s education-and-communication-first approach to its executive search and hiring talent, and its protocol for staying connected and driving culture forward in remote teams. To end, Robin and Kim share their thoughts on the possible future of staffing and remote work, and their final thoughts encourage listeners to stay flexible and open to collaboration.
[0:01:14] David Folwell: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for another episode of The Staffing Show. Today, I am super excited to be joined by Robin Mee, CEO at MeeDerby, and Kim Whiteley, the President at MeeDerby. Robin and Kim, thank you so much for joining today.
[0:01:30] Robin Mee: Thank you, David.
[0:01:30] Kim Whiteley: Thank you for having us.
[0:01:32] David Folwell: For those of you that don’t know Robin and Kim, I’d love to start off with some introductions, though I feel like if there’s anybody that’s well known in the industry, it’s the MeeDerby team. And to kick things off, can you just tell us a little bit about your guys’ background and how you got started in the staffing industry?
[0:01:48] Robin Mee: Kim, why don’t you start?
[0:01:50] Kim Whiteley: Kim Whiteley. I’ve been with MeeDerby for 18 years. And prior to that was in the staffing industry for about 15 years. Cut my teeth in light industrial staffing and spent about eight years in light industrial clerical. Moved over to professional with mainly a focus on IT and managed solutions, and worked for a large firm, what is now Randstad. Went through the change from Spherion to Randstad. After my son was born, I needed an opportunity with more flexible hours and potentially a remote environment. And so, MeeDerby was the perfect scenario for that.
Robin was pretty much already remote at that point. We did have office space in Bethesda, but several of us worked remote when I came to work for Robin. And it was a perfect blend of being able to use my staffing industry contacts, but no longer have a long commute and an unrealistic workday.
[0:02:58] David Folwell: That’s amazing. And how about you, Robin?
[0:03:01] Robin Mee: I also started in the staffing industry much like Kim. But I actually, my first job was non-profit staffing. The thread throughout my entire career has been putting people to work. For five years, I ended up running the Summer Youth Employment Program where we were employing disadvantaged teenagers, economically disadvantaged teenagers, in the summer. And I found my way. I segued into for-profit staffing. My first company that I worked for in the staffing industry was Adecco. And my first boss was Peter Yessne, who went on to start SIA. But that’s a bit of another story.
I was in the industry for seven years. Like so many people that I have worked with since then, David, I lost my job. I lost my job in an acquisition. My company was sold, I got laid off. I spent the next three months deciding if I was going to go to work for another company or start a business. And you know what, you see what I did. And 36 and a half years ago, it was the best decision, other than marrying my husband and starting my family, that I have ever made.
For 36 years now, I’ve been doing and my team has been doing executive search for the staffing industry. And as Kim mentioned, we were remote 18 years ago. I started the company with an office on K Street, right? Everybody was in-office, right around the corner from the White House. We had this prestigious address. Everybody was in the office all day, every day. There were 10 of us then. There are 13 of us now. And the mission has always been the same. Our goal is to serve the staffing industry. To be the leading search firm for the staffing and workforce solutions business.
At the end of the day, we are still doing the same work that the staffing industry started when we launched – officially, we’re about 60 years old. I think it was about 60 years, not much more than that, when Kelly Services, and Stivers, and a couple of other pioneers saw that people needed a different way to work and companies needed a different way to hire. And at the end of the day, we are still doing that. We are putting people to work one job at a time. How we do it, how this industry has changed, and how organizations like ASA and SIA support us, and how technology supports us has changed exponentially. But we are still doing that really important work of helping companies hire and helping people elevate in their careers.
[0:05:26] David Folwell: That’s amazing. And I know you jumped a little bit into what MeeDerby does today. And also, both of you have amazing careers. And it’s great to hear kind of your background and how you got to where you are now. When it comes to MeeDerby specifically. So you’re doing the executive search. Tell us a little bit about who you’re working with and how you approach the partnerships that you have.
[0:05:46] Robin Mee: Sure. Our clients are everyone in the workforce solutions ecosystem. The majority of that are staffing companies. And those companies are across every discipline. They’re all over the United States. Do a little work in Canada, a little work in Mexico. But really, North America. We are working with startups, companies that are startups, to some of the largest global firms.
And 60% of the work that we do is we’re placing managers in those firms, 20% to 30% is placing executives, and then the remainder are placing individual contributors. Two years ago, we started a division placing sales and recruiters. We had done it as a one-off for a long time, but we institutionalized that two years ago. The executive search is we do that on a retained basis. The management, and the sales, and recruiter search, we do it on a contingent basis.
And there are 13 of us in the company. We’re a search model as opposed to a temporary staffing model. Back to our clients, in addition to staffing companies, we’ve got firms that are really workforce solutions, RPO, BPO, MSP, VMS. We’ve also got a growing number of HR tech clients. These are companies that are platforms. They are using technology to put people to work. In some cases, they are just the technology platform. In other cases, they are staffing companies that have either built or bought technology that they are using to run their companies, deploy their talent, and provide a different kind of experience to both the talent and the client. But it’s all staffing all the time here at MeeDerby, David.
[0:07:27] David Folwell: I love it. I love it. And one of the things that – this is from a previous conversation that we had had, but I haven’t thought about. You guys mentioned you even worked with private equity companies where you – I think you had a story where you had replaced almost the entire executive team.
[0:07:41] Robin Mee: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Over 50% of our clients are private equity owned, or we’re working directly with the private equity firm. And often, it is a combination. We just completed a president search and a chief revenue officer search. And in that particular case, as a healthcare staffing company, we worked with the private equity firm and the executives at the staffing firm to make sure that the correct hires were made. But yes, in some cases we have, over time – again, whether it’s working with one of those two groups, often in collaboration, it may be a single executive, it could be an entire executive team. But there’s a lot of private equity money in the staffing industry. I believe, don’t quote me on this, that a staffing company has not actually gone public in something like 20 years. But all of the investment has been coming in through private equity.
[0:08:35] David Folwell: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like the majority are owned by a private equity or being bought by a private equity.
[0:08:44] Robin Mee: Or even several private equity entities.
[0:08:47] Kim Whiteley: Right.
[0:08:48] David Folwell: Thank you for the background on MeeDerby and yourself. I know today we’re going to be jumping into the topic of remote work. We’re currently sitting in an environment where there’s been some major shifts with return to office, and really wanted to understand – and you guys had a remote work culture for – you said 18 years. You’ve been doing it for a long time, way before it was popular, for sure. Can you guys tell us a little bit about some of the lessons that you’ve learned over the years from having a remote work culture?
[0:09:15] Kim Whiteley: Coming out of an office environment and moving into a remote work culture, I mean, Robin has a great line that I think we live by on a daily basis. You have to meet people where they are in their lives. And if you can meet people where they are in their lives, in a lot of cases, they’re going to be so much happier at work. But you really have to understand that. And we truly have seen all of it from our team in the last 18 years, whether it has been my scenario where I was a primary caregiver a couple days a week for my parents. And so my schedule shifted on the days that I had responsibility for them with the end result being, again, we were still accountable to meeting your numbers, your metrics, et cetera.
We’ve had several people on the team that have had younger children, and we’ve had children say to parents, “Oh my gosh, thank you so much for never putting me in daycare. The fact that you walked me to the bus stop in the morning and that you’re there in the afternoon.” Being able to support, whether it’s the aging parents or your family, your children, but being happy in your life outside of your desk. In a lot of cases, we have found results being happy at your desk and being productive. And you’re incented to be productive because you’ve got a leadership team that is supporting your life outside of work. And so you’re incented to want to do well and to be a part of that team.
[0:10:58] Robin Mee: The way you manage evolves and changes. And so, Kim, you’ve created a culture of accountability. And so it really isn’t about the fact I can see you down the hall at your desk from, I don’t know, eight to six or some iteration of that, but that you are meeting your goals and expectations, and that your team is able to count on you and collaborate with you, and it doesn’t matter where they sit. But technology has allowed all of this to happen. We’ve all got the tools to be able to manage in a remote environment, hold people accountable in a remote environment, work together super productively. And everybody learned how to do it during COVID.
And some people want to be in an office, as Kim said. Meet people where they are. Others really want to work remotely full-time. And others do like this combination of. But the fact is we now have an organization where the majority of the work, all the work is done remotely. We do get together. We get together for – I mean, Kim, you were just in Chicago for a couple of days, co-working with Walter Shedd, who lives in that area. They went on a bunch of client calls. They worked in some kind of co-working environment. Kim mentioned, we have a new recruiter out in Kansas City where we’ve had another executive recruiter. They got together just yesterday. What is today? Monday? They got together on Friday and co-worked.
Kim and several of us live in the DC Metro area. We get together regularly to co-work together. We have a strategic planning session once a year. We go to conferences. We meet up at client meetings. There are so many ways to connect. And oh, by the way, we’ve got these great two meetings a week that – today, for example, David, 9:30 in the morning. The meeting is rotated. It’s run by a different person every meeting, and they start the meeting with some really interesting questions. I think our team knows each other better than most people who work in an office every day, because we share things about our lives that are really driven by these questions that we asked as an icebreaker before every meeting. And it’s created not just a – there is a culture of accountability, but there’s a deep culture of caring, and of generosity, and of willingness to do whatever it takes to partner with your colleague to provide the very best service to your customer, to help people, again, elevate in their careers, but all living our best lives because we’re able to live it inside of work and outside of work.
[0:13:37] David Folwell: It sounds like you guys are doing one of the things that is hard to do sometimes with remote work is build the culture, build the connection. You’ve been intentional in incorporating that into your process. One of the areas that I know – I don’t know if I have the stat right when we talked previously, but something like 50% of searches last year were for remote work. And how has that changed this year? What are you guys seeing in the market right now?
[0:14:04] Kim Whiteley: I think that stat, when Jack last pulled it, was down to 30%. If it wasn’t, 27% actually is, I think, a number I remember. We are definitely seeing a pretty aggressive callback to office, whether it be five days a week. We have a couple of larger firms that have pulled people back in. And there are no exceptions and no flexibility. Five days a week. There are other clients that are a minimum of two to three days a week in office, which means that you might be able to be remote the other days, but you got to be in the geography. It’s not remote virtual, it’s hybrid, meaning you have to live in and around that geography to make that schedule work.
[0:14:53] David Folwell: And how does that impact the searches that you guys are doing and the talent that you’re pulling? What are some of the pros and cons on that front?
[0:15:00] Kim Whiteley: I think it innately makes it tougher. For example, if you think of some of the bigger metro markets, where it is exceptionally challenging to commute into market? New York. Let’s use New York as an example. We have a candidate that lives in Connecticut that is a really strong candidate. They want her in-office three days a week, and then it’s all of a sudden, “Okay. Well, I’m not going to be home on time for this. I’m going to have to have additional care for this. I’m going to have to make this change.” It’s really challenging when there’s no flexibility.
[0:15:36] Robin Mee: Well, and I think, too, the clients are losing talent. Our clients are losing the access to some talent because they can’t be either a little bit flexible even. We had a situation in the Midwest where this is a dad who’s been dropping off and picking up childcare. And this has been going on for the last several years, probably since post-COVID. And he really wanted this job, and he was willing to give up one of those, though. He could partner with his wife and she could do either the drop-off or the pickup. But the client said, “No, you’ve got to be here when we open, and you can’t leave until this time, and there is no flexibility.” And he had to say no.
Not only do I think that our clients are missing out on some talent that they would otherwise be able to hire, but also you have people who are going to leave jobs, or are leaving jobs, or are planning to leave a job because they’re either work schedule and/or flexibility. I mean, in the case of this candidate I’m talking about, it wasn’t about he wasn’t willing to do the hours. It was that he needed a little flexibility. Once he did that pickup, he was happy to work from home for the rest of the day into maybe even some extended time for the time that he would have been taking off. But I don’t know. Losing talent and then also losing internal talent. And then that’s impacting tenure.
[0:17:00] David Folwell: Yeah, it’s interesting. I have friends that are in senior roles who are experiencing the like, “Okay, we’re doing one day returning to office,” which is just the stepping stone towards three or four days. And they’ve literally said once it gets to two or three, I’m going to leave. And they’re senior people. And it’s like, “Is that worth it?” And there might be some small productivity gains and some small wins of having some in-office depending on how you’re approaching it. But also, the turnover and what’s the cost of the turnover? Because I think the attrition rates go through the roof when you’re trying to force that on to somebody. It’s interesting. It’s interesting to see the major shifts towards return to office, simultaneously seeing data. There’s a lot of data that points to the alternative or hybrid being more fruitful.
[0:17:45] Robin Mee: There has been a lot of research on this recently. SIA reported not long ago, like October of ’24, that, women in particular, they want to stay in their organizations, they are committed to staying, but flexibility and work-life balance are the two most important things, and then followed by opportunity. That’s what’s going to keep them there, but it’s also what’s going to make them leave if they don’t have it. Is it worth it? I don’t know. It’s not worth it at MeeDerby. We know that. We work really, really hard to manage the company and make a priority on creating a culture that is supportive of our team so that they can live their best lives and have a big career, but also have the kind of work-life balance.
And it doesn’t have to necessarily be family. It could be anything outside of work, right? Honestly, it could be golf, it could be a master’s degree, it could be travel, it could be whatever is important to them. But bottom line is we are seeing a massive return to office initiative.
[0:18:52] David Folwell: Yeah. How does this trend play out in the different verticals? Are you seeing major adjustments between healthcare, light industrial, professional? Or is it just across the board?
[0:19:05] Kim Whiteley: I would say light industrial. And in a lot of cases, a lot of light industrial staffing firms, David, never went home, so to speak, during COVID. I mean, a lot of them were still in office because, prior to COVID, they had not gone paperless or electronic in a lot of the things that they need to do from a drug testing background check, that kind of thing. A lot of light industrial was still in office. And we still see light industrial that is largely in office three to five days a week, if not a lot of them being five days a week.
From an IT staffing perspective, we have definitely seen – and there’s been big publicity around the reopening of branches, as they’ve called it, and the return to office. We are absolutely seeing it in the professional staffing space as well. And again, anywhere from two to five days a week as a requirement.
[0:20:04] David Folwell: And how are you guys – because, I mean, I think there’s a clear disconnect between what staffing firms are saying and, actually, business as a whole, right? The RTO is not just staffing. It’s a major trend across the board right now. Versus the employees saying, “We don’t want to do that.” The disconnect of we actually want flexibility, we value flexibility. How are you guys seeing that play out? Or how are you guys managing through that with your customers?
[0:20:31] Robin Mee: I think we give them feedback. We try to set expectations accordingly. When we’re doing a search, depending on what the work environment requirement is, it is going to take longer. We’re not going to say we can’t fill the role. We can. It’s just going to take longer to identify the candidates that are going to be the right fit, right? There’s so many boxes to check. But those candidates that are looking for remote, or some flexibility, or some kind of hybrid environment, they will find it. It’s just a matter of time. Those companies that want to hire five days a week in the office, they will hire. It’s just going to take them more time. We are going through this kind of mass – and it just feels like there’s change everywhere we look, and this is one of those drivers of change.
[0:21:15] David Folwell: Yeah. Zooming out a little bit on this, I mean, it just feels like the trends of who has the power in hiring and who needs the job more. And three years ago, I would pay my senior developers whatever they asked for. And now the world has shifted a little bit. And you’re kind of seeing kind of this like swing in the pendulum back to how will the businesses have some control? And I think that’s kind of like we haven’t figured out where it’s going to land yet in the middle, but swinging pretty hard both ways.
[0:21:45] Robin Mee: Well, and they’re saying that too about the unemployment rate, right? That there’s going to be more talent on the market. It’s swinging towards an employer market all over the country. Just the cuts in the federal government. I recently read 1.3 million people will be impacted. And that’s not just federal government employees, but it’s also private sector employees that are in –
[0:22:05] Kim Whiteley: In the federal government.
[0:22:06] Robin Mee: Right. Government adjunct, their contractors, et cetera. And they’re not just in Washington DC. Maybe 20% are in the DC area. But they’re all over the country, and this is putting talent into the market. And by the way, I do want to say that there are people who do want to work five days a week in an office, but it is about finding the right environment. And I think it is just going to take more time for everybody. The people looking for a job to find the right work environment. The company’s looking to hire, finding the right people based on what their requirement is. I mean, at MeeDerby, we’ve hired people that had never worked remote before, and it has taken a little time, even with our most recent hires. She had not worked remotely before. It is a different way of working, it’s a different way of managing too.
[0:22:48] David Folwell: My team has been remote for 12 years. I’m also on the same boat. I’ve only had remote. I’ve had a few people in Denver over the years, but we meet up once a month, once a week, depending on who it is and what we’re working on. I’ve been a proponent of let’s find the best person, period, and focus on that. That said, I get tired of Zoom. I get tired of being on Zoom all the time. But I also feel like the talent side of it outweighs the other approach.
But when it comes to your guys’ approach to the executive search, that sounds like you’re educating the customer, you’re educating the talent. Is there anything else that you guys can do to bridge that gap, or is it at that stage right now?
[0:23:30] Kim Whiteley: Well, I think it is opening the lines of communication on both sides from the very beginning of a search and really understanding what’s important to the client. And quite honestly, if a search is starting to drag on because there are requirements of in-office that are more rigorous than what we’re finding in the market, it’s, like Robin said, being able to share that and walk them through that. And same on the candidate side. Really understanding what’s important to the candidate from that very first interaction and continuing to keep those lines of communication open throughout the search process.
[0:24:11] Robin Mee: I also think that at more senior levels, candidates are traveling way more than they were. I mean, not candidates, but executives are traveling way more. They’re back to travel. I think there is more flexibility at the executive level to work remote, unless there’s not. I mean, it really does vary.
In general, though, if there’s a candidate that a company wants to hire and they are a remote candidate, and I’m speaking at an executive level, most often, a company will work with the candidate, that person that they want to hire. Whether it’s getting them an apartment in their location, working at a travel schedule that works for everybody. Because often, particularly when they’re sales leaders, they’re in front of customers, they’re traveling with their sales teams, they’re not in office anyway. And we saw that before COVID, too.
[0:24:58] David Folwell: Yeah. When it comes to your approach on the executive search side, I mean, I’ve known the MeeDerby name for years from the Wi-Fi. That’s the first thing that pops into my head. It’s the Wi-Fi password from years and years ago when I was back at Travelers Haven. But one of the things that we talked about separately was that very collaborative team approach to hiring. I think you guys have been in the industry long enough to be well-networked and have access to talent. But can you tell us a little bit about what your approach is when you get an executive search? Somebody comes to you and says, “This is what we’re looking for.” How do you approach that in a unique way?
[0:25:33] Kim Whiteley: Probably the recent searches that Robin talked about, we had a very specific strategy in mind in meeting with the client and within meeting with the teams that were going to manage the searches. We worked with a client to come up with a very defined list of companies that they wanted to see people out of. And the first part of the strategy is researching all the right levels in each of those organizations that they want to see people out of and then going after those people, so to speak.
But a lot of those people are in our network. We are in a unique position that – I mean, we are about as well entrenched in the industry as you could be between our relationships with SIA, ASA, TechServe. And in a lot of cases, talent reaches out to us when they’re thinking, when they’re just thinking about kind of dipping their toe in the water. Our first resource is almost always our connections. Who do we already know?
And then we’ve often said, it often, from there, becomes kind of six degrees of separation. We may not know the executive at that firm, but we know somebody that knows them and can typically get an introduction. And from there, especially on senior level searches, it is meeting with the client on a weekly basis to let them know exactly where we are in the search. Who we’ve talked to. What we’re hearing in the market. Who we’re ready to present. Feedback on interviews if we’ve had people going through the interview process.
With a client last week on an executive level search, I think one of the key things they said is we need to get to three to four people that we are highly interested in that have made it through multiple interview levels for us to feel really good about this because anything can change throughout the interview process. Instead of, so to speak, hanging our hat on one candidate, “Oh my gosh, we love that candidate,” we’ve got to continue to look and get to the point where we have three to four candidates. It’s really working very collaboratively with the client and our team on a weekly basis when we’re managing a search.
[0:27:56] David Folwell: That’s really great. I mean, I can say that I have a lot of conversations with people in the market who reach out to me or who I’ve met, I run into at a conference, they’ll say, “You know, we’re kind of looking to see what’s out there.” And probably over half the time, I’m like, “Well, have you talked to MeeDerby?” They go, “Oh, yeah. Yeah, we know them.” It seems like you guys are well-connected at the executive level in a very full way.
[0:28:21] Robin Mee: Well, and since there are 13 of us when we start a search, we have the ability to immediately get into those networks. It’s a multi-step strategy, so we’re going into those relationships first. At the same time, we’re doing this kind of recruitment mapping that Kim’s talking about. We’re targeting the companies that the client is very interested in seeing. Sometimes we’re doing a search where it is very narrow, and sometimes it’s broader. We may have a chief revenue officer search and the client is open to the industry vertical. And in other times, they want somebody who has done that exact job at a competitive company. And so there are benefits and disadvantages to both. And we work, again, partner with the client to make sure that they are seeing the very best talent that we’ve identified both through this recruitment mapping process and inside of our relationships.
[0:29:15] David Folwell: That’s really, really great. And we’re going to jump over to just kind of a few closing questions. And we’re bouncing around a little bit here with topics today. But I was just wondering specifically at your organization, you mentioned that you have the unique questions you’re asking every Monday. Are there any other elements that you put in place that you’re like, “This has been really powerful for keeping the culture while having a remote team?” Are there other things that you kind of standard processes or ways that you guys have made sure that you stay connected and drive the culture forward?
[0:29:49] Kim Whiteley: Well, I think in addition to the weekly team meetings, one of the things we started doing several years ago was one-on-ones with the staff. And as we have kind of built out the infrastructure where we have two people on the team that each have two people reporting into them, they are having one-on-ones as well.
But having one-on-ones on a weekly basis with everybody on the team, having those multiple touchpoints. And listen, those one-on-ones could be 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, and it’s different every single week. They’re still reporting on activity. But when I say it’s different, it could be a week that you see them on camera, and you know something’s going on in their life, and they just need to talk about what’s going on outside of work.
[0:30:42] David Folwell: Give space outside of work.
[0:30:44] Kim Whiteley: They need room to talk. It could be – routinely, I have one of the people on the team that my one-on-ones with him are actively working on the searches that he has on his desk, especially if he’s stuck on something. We will jump on and share screens, and work on a search together, and go through candidates together, and talk about who’s going to do what follow-up. They differ with everybody on the team, but the idea is that there are multiple touchpoints during the week.
And I’ve also noticed that several of them also have scheduled meetings with each other on a weekly basis, especially if they’re partnering on searches. We have what we like to call open calendars. You can see everybody’s calendar and who’s doing what and what they’re working on. But you’ll see on the calendars that several people have meetings scheduled with each other on a weekly basis.
It could be they’re going to learn something from that person, they’re working on a search together, or they just have a weekly touch base with each other. And I’ve seen that as a great motivator for a lot of them. I mean, I learned last year at the strategy meeting only through somebody finally telling me, they’re like, “Hey, did you know about the millennial chat?” And I’m like, “No. What’s in the millennial chat?” And it was very funny because it was all around the schedule for the strategy meeting. And somebody finally fessed up and said, “Okay, five of the group thinks that Wednesday afternoon is a free day.” I’m like, “Really?” And initially, I was like, “That kind of pissed me off.” But then I was like, “You know what, if there’s a group of five of them that has become so tightly connected, and they want to go off for a couple of hours and do something together, more power to them.” And they did. And we reorganized the day to make that work.
[0:32:39] Robin Mee: We also have a culture of learning. Everybody is committed to being a lifelong learner. And so, we’re constantly delivering opportunities for webinars, and podcasts, and trainings. I mean, everybody that wants to go to THRIVE next week, for example, which is the Women in Leadership Online Conference next week we’ll be attending. The new teammate that started two weeks ago, she attended an ASA event today. Wrote up a couple of key takeaways, shared it with everybody. All of us are constantly sharing things that we were learning, things that we’re hearing. And wouldn’t you say, Kim? It’s pretty constant. Yeah.
And we’re reading the SIA Daily News every day, and we’re reading the ASA Daily News. So, tidbits. Just this constant sharing. And then technology. We are constantly looking at technology to elevate, iterate, and add. And we’re thoughtful and careful. Kim would probably say I’m too thoughtful, too careful. But on the other hand, we are committed to – we have a good amount of technology now, but we know it’s going to elevate and we know we’re going to be automating as much as we can so that we can further empower, adding AI, et cetera. Further empower the team to do the things that they do uniquely and that technology can’t. We are evolving our service offering.
I would say that we’re innovative. We are constantly learning. And that includes changing up our processes. Making sure that our processes are tight. Making sure that they are easily – not only that everybody’s using them and constantly iterating them. But also that, as a group, we’re doing the same things in the same way so that we can maximize performance and also do it at the same time in this remote environment so everybody’s able to drive their own professional goals, their financial goals, company goals, all at the same time that they’re evolving professionally.
And we’re in a fairly flat business, right? I mean, recruiters, and salespeople, and managers, I mean, there’s different levels of those. But I find that I’m committed to helping our team elevate inside of their own positions. And I’d say I’ll leave you with the fact that I learn something new – I learn something new every day, and I think that everybody in the team. We’re constantly learning from our mistakes, from our successes. And we’re sharing that information so that we’re all elevating constantly.
[0:35:14] David Folwell: Sounds like you guys have built a culture with a very strong growth mindset, which is the best type of culture. I absolutely love that. With that, in terms of the future of work, do you see staffing flexibility continuing to dominate? Do you think that the return to office is going to win? Do you think it’s going to balance out? What do you see over the next few years?
[0:35:36] Kim Whiteley: I’m hopeful that it will balance out at the end of the day. Listen, I grew up in the staffing industry, going to an office five days a week. And when you look back at that, I mean, in a lot of cases, when you were just starting your career right out of school, that’s how you met people. That was your social as well. I never want to diminish the value of being in an office. I just think there are alternative ways to work as well. And if we go back to meet people where they are and where they need to be in their lives, as you’ve said, David, it’s not only the right thing to do, but there’s data behind its successes.
[0:36:24] David Folwell: Absolutely.
[0:36:25] Robin Mee: And I would just say that I just feel like we are in kind of an uncertain time right now. I don’t know how this whole remote work is going to shake out. I don’t know how all the technology is really going to change the future of work. There just seems like so many unknowns right now. The industry has about 30 months of let’s call it a spade a spade, it’s been a downturn. And everybody’s trying to figure it out. And so I think that we all – at least I am focused on us doing our best every day, us serving the staffing industry to the best of our ability in so many ways. Not just helping companies hire and helping people find work, but also the industry at large.
I do think the future is this technology-embedded service offering that is not going to replace people. But I think we are going to be – our service levels will be enhanced. In executive search, our touchpoints are already high. So I don’t know that it’s going to impact us so much, but I think it’s absolutely going to impact the way staffing companies serve their customers and their talent in a way that is substantially different than the way we were servicing both those groups five years ago or ten years ago.
We’re not going away, but I do think it’s shifting. And I think all of us need to be flexible, and we need to have a growth mindset, and we need to have an open, flexible mindset to help us get to where this next iteration of staffing goes. But also, our teams, and our colleagues, and our industry in total. Because I just think we are at a place of change, possibly unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
[0:38:06] David Folwell: Absolutely. I think it’s changing faster and changing more than ever before. And also, everybody’s trying to figure out what works right now and kind of –
[0:38:14] Robin Mee: Yeah. And I’m going to just give an example. The whole idea of calling somebody versus sending a text or sending an email. I heard something recently, I mean, like in the last week, about the fact that we need to schedule phone calls.
[0:38:27] David Folwell: Yeah.
[0:38:28] Kim Whiteley: Now, come on. The way we all did our business, all our work, it wasn’t even this. It was this. It is not. I mean, I’ve got pictures of myself from my first job at Adecco. Literally, I’m like this. And it is not the way we do business anymore. Again, I’m just going to leave with –
[0:38:48] Kim Whiteley: Well, somebody on our team, Robin, actually said – I’d given him a call list of 12 people. And the response was, “Well, that’s just a change in the way we recruit.” And I was like, “Why? You got a phone number. Call them.”
[0:39:07] David Folwell: Calls still work, but a text five minutes before can help.
[0:39:10] Robin Mee: Right? Right? Even with almost everybody, almost everybody. I was trying to get a call with somebody at SIA last week, and they couldn’t reach me. I couldn’t reach them. We had to schedule it. We just scheduled it for five minutes later, but we scheduled it using text. We have always talked about the industry being an agent of change. And I just think we got to strap on those seatbelts because it is like such a period of change.
[0:39:44] David Folwell: All fronts right now, there’s a lot of change happening. Completely agree with that. With that, are there any closing thoughts that you have with the audience that you’d like to share?
[0:39:52] Kim Whiteley: Be open to collaboration and be flexible wherever you can.
[0:39:56] David Folwell: Yeah.
[0:39:57] Robin Mee: And I also think that we need to focus on what we do, which is putting people to work, and utilize all of these other pieces to help us grow, to help us be better, do better, and continue this evolution of work.
[0:40:15] David Folwell: Absolutely. Well, Robin and Kim, I really appreciate you guys joining. Your insights were excellent. And if you guys are listening to this and you run a staffing firm and you are looking for help, these are some people you should reach out to. Connect with them. They know what they’re doing. Thank you, guys, so much for joining today.
[0:40:30] Robin Mee: Thanks, David.
[0:40:30] Kim Whiteley: Thanks, David.
