Episode 75: Innovative Retention Strategies with Yair Riemer

Yair Reimer: 0:00

So if I keep Kyle close, and I do want him to come around in the future, now I have the ability to bring him back in from that net. That's the way that I think it's pretty crucial to support those candidates through the entire journey. Even if they're not the ultimate sort of gold medalist and make everyone feel like they're a silver medalist. They're still on the podium, and they're not you know, last place in the race. I think that's pretty critical for organizations to do it will build up so much future brand will and loyalty and connectivity.

Kyle Roed: 0:26

This is the rebel HR Podcast, the podcast where we talk to HR innovators about all things people leadership. If you're looking for places to find about new ways to think about the world of war, this is the podcast for you. Please subscribe, favorite podcast listening platform today. And leave us a review. Rebel on HR rebels. All right, rebel HR listeners extremely excited for today's guest. We were talking before I hit record, that this podcast is all about HR innovation, and we have an innovator in our midst. So welcome to Yaya Reamer. He is the CEO at into a leading career mobility solution provider for the HR higher ed and workforce sectors. 15 plus years experience as a founder and and operator in the people tech and ed tech industries, building innovative career development solutions. Welcome to the show.

Yair Reimer: 1:21

Thank you so much, Kyle, appreciate it.

Kyle Roed: 1:23

Well, I'm extremely excited for the conversation today. And you know, I have I have been passionate about innovation in the HR space for my entire career. And part of that motivation has been, I think there's an easier way to do this, or a better way to do this. And, and I have a feeling that that's a little bit of your background. And so before we get jumped in jumping into some of the questions here, I'd like to ask you, you know, what prompted your interest into the people tech and ed tech industries?

Yair Reimer: 1:54

Yeah, so I'm similar you, Carl, I know your background, obviously, in sales and marketing and ops. And I heard you say previously that, so an HR found you, you weren't necessarily looking looking for it on a previous episode. But I think I come from the same background, I was looking early in my career, to work with fast pace, tech focused startups. And I ended up luckily being part of the founding team of a company called internships comm. And our goal was really to change the way college students at the time could connect with job and career opportunities. So I just came across the HR space, of course, the intersection of HR and education and careers, when you're sort of that 18 to 26 year old, college student or recent graduate was a pretty critical time for you to take your first job and take your first step. And, and since then, since, since the founding of internships, calm and, and working to build up that business, I sort of stuck in industry, ever since. It's just an industry that provides, I think, so much reward every single day, when you're coming into work every single day. And you see someone email you that says, I got a job, or I got an interview, or I'm a finalist, and it's your technology or your career coaches that have sort of helped, you know, be an advocate, and and make that process a little bit easier. Just kind of fell into it and sort of fell in love with it.

Kyle Roed: 3:23

Yeah, I love that. And I don't know who got that that domain name, but like internships, calm like, hey, winter, winter?

Yair Reimer: 3:31

Yeah, no, absolutely. SEO is a pretty critical part of our growth strategy. Back in 2009 2010, we flew out to Richmond, Virginia, and met a great entrepreneur who had owned the domain and, and acquired it from him and taught us a couple a couple of tricks about the site, and then we really rebuilt and launched launched the business from scratch from there. So it helps to have something memorable. Right? Yeah.

Kyle Roed: 3:58

Sure, absolutely. Well, you know, I, I think it's so fascinating. And, and, you know, as I was, I was researching and preparing for this, you know, looking at your background, you know, the fact that you've you've taken some solutions, you know, with technology is the foundation, but still being focused on some of the best practices in people and education, and really just digitizing that. So, you know, as you look at a solution, and as you think about, you know, I think this might be something that could help somebody out. How do you identify the, you know, the the category that you're going to focus on?

Yair Reimer: 4:42

Yeah, I think for us, and for me, whether it's intentionally or not, most founders will say it was intentional, but authentic founders know that the journey is extremely circuitous and and you kind of get from point A to point B to point C, not necessarily in a straight line. I think We started with a core concept in both of our HR tech or people, tech businesses, with democratization being a key component for solving problems. So if you go all the way back to internships.com, you know, I was in school, believe it or not University almost 20 years ago now, when I was in college only 20 years ago, there was no place online for students undergraduates to search and apply for internships or jobs. Right, LinkedIn didn't exist yet, Monster and CareerBuilder might have had a few dozen was things or postings, the only way to get a job was to walk in the freezing cold with your backpack to the Career Center where you didn't even know where it was on campus, open up this three ring binder and find the five alumni or five employees that might be hiring that graduated from the school 10 or 20 or 30 years before, it was a pretty broken process. And so we thought to ourselves, or, or of course, Kyle, if you happen to be lucky, and you had an uncle or an aunt or cousin who owned a business, or someone you knew that that was you know, fancier successful, you might be able to get your foot in the door and ask to get that summer internship or learning opportunity. And so we thought to ourselves, there's got to be a better way, right? And, and so really, when it came to our first HR tech solution, which was building internships.com, this two sided marketplace with supply and demand, we thought, let's democratize this process, right? Internships should just be for those very few who can go in and find the three ring binder with the alone or who can get an uncle or an aunt or cousin or friend, it should be for everybody. And so we set out to build that when you have a clear purpose. And you know that there's a need in the market. I think at the time, there were 20 million undergraduate students in United States across two year and four year universities. And by the time we built internships, calm, we had over 2 million registered on our sites, over 10% of the US population was was was searching and applying for jobs on our website. I think that that's kind of what drives you to solve the problem. It's got to be clear, it's got to be easy to understand. And then everything. There's the hard part, the building part, right. But that's kind of where I was clear need in the market is always something that you can rally a team around.

Kyle Roed: 7:16

Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, man, you, you tell that story is bringing me back to those days. Yeah, slugging that backpack across campus with a suit that you you're never wore, but that one time? Most uncomfortable thing ever? And? And yeah, it's like, it's like walking through the meat market. And you're like, I don't know, I don't know, any of these companies, you know, totally intimidating. And, and completely, you know, it's fascinating, as I think about, you know, the, the problem you're solving, you know, as an intern, like, you're just shooting from the hip, right? I mean, the opportunity to research the 100 plus companies, it just doesn't exist. And so a lot of the companies you're talking to, you're learning as you go and you're just kind of, you're not you really can't be intentional about you know about your internship and talk about a pretty big impact on your future, future career. You know, depending on the internship that you that you that you take, but which is how I got into selling insurance. And then we realized, I don't want to sell insurance.

Yair Reimer: 8:19

That's actually some of the greatest lessons that we had at building up that business, which is, oftentimes it's not just what you can do that can turn into a full time job, right? Imagine you the triple A baseball player, and you finally make it to the major leagues, from internships to the full time job. It's also what you decide you don't love and what isn't your passion, what a better time to do that than while you're studying and not waiting until after the fact that I think you mentioned, you know, wearing that boxy suit, right? 20 years ago, things weren't as tailored as nicely as they are today. You're wearing a box, No way, man, hand me down from your, your older brother, whatever it might be. But I think there was also a huge problem for the hiring employer, there was also a huge problem for the recruiting or Talent Acquisition Professional, because they would send the entry level recruiter, college recruiter onto campus, they'd fly there, they spent a couple 100 bucks renting a car, they set up a little booth with a sign in sheet, literally a piece of paper. And consumers would come in and write their name, if you lose that signing sheet on the way home, airplane or India, you know, the problem was that TSA PreCheck at the time, but But you know, in their airport, you know, you're you're in pretty big trouble that investment you've made as an HR organization to attract talent. It's a pretty tenuous investment for these little bite sized interactions. So that's sort of what led us to solve that, that problem that existed with technology, right? So we built this, build this community, where, you know, hundreds of 1000s of internships and jobs could be posted from 10s of 1000s of HR leaders, millions of students, they could come together, they created profiles, I could see what their GPA was their interests, their major their skills, and really, you know, built almost a LinkedIn for the for the higher education market. So, so yeah, I think it's, um, you know, it's quite important for both sides to have that connectivity.

Kyle Roed: 10:06

Absolutely. Absolutely. So left internship calm and and I know you had you had a successful acquisition by Chegg, which is, you know, obviously one of the one of the massive education companies. And then and now currently the CEO at intu. So tell us a little bit about into? Yeah,

Yair Reimer: 11:07

absolutely. So, believe it or not, you know, 10 to 15 years later, after internships.com, we still set out with the concept of democratization. So our main core industry that we've served as the outplacement industry. So we basically help organizations across the entire employee lifecycle in career development, you know, things are easier to remember in threes, so you're an applicant, and you're applying for a job you're applying to work at a company. So how can we improve that application or candidate experience for a company? You're an employee within a company? So how can we help you retain that employee and develop that employee? Or you're an employee transitioning out of the organization for whatever reason? How can we help you take care of that employee properly. So those are three, three main solutions, we actually started with the ladder, we started working in the in the outplacement or career transition sector. Similar internships.com, we saw a market that was dramatically in need of technology. outplacement is an industry that's been around for 50 or 60 years, was primarily focused on executive level only. So the example would be, I'm here, I'm the CEO of a company, and product didn't work out or my company was acquired, I'm laid off, and I get my severance, and I get, you know, my two or four weeks or whatever it might be. And a cobra, an organization would say, and your year, we provided you this career transition software program, all you had to do back then was get your Sandboxie suit on again, driving your car downtown, pay your $15 to park underground. And from nine to 10, you learn, you know, resume tips and from 10 to 11 cover letter and from 11 to 12. You take a Myers Briggs assessment, very structured, not that flexible, very in person, very executive focus, we said to ourselves, Well, you know, this is long before zoom and teens and a COVID pandemic force, everyone's over work virtually. But we said there's got to be a better way, there's got to be a less expensive way a more affordable way. It's got to be a way where job seekers want to work at their own pace. They want to be flexible, they want to do things, frankly, in their sweatpants in their basement, right. And so we built a career development technology, with on demand career coaches, that enables a candidate in transition to get that confidence, get that momentum all from the comfort of their own home, their mobile phone, their tablet, their iPad, or computer, whatever it might be. And so we our career development technology, combined with career coaching, delivered 100%, virtually. So it's really disruptive in the market, because one, we're able to provide access to many more people than we would if there was just a brick and mortar real estate location. And especially for people in rural areas. Right. And two, we're able to significantly reduce the cost for for HR leaders and employers who were paying for the pen in the office at ABC career transition CO or they were paying for that long term lease, right when they were buying outplacement instead of just paying for career coaching and technology in that way. So we yeah, we set out to really drive that that forward a few years later. Now we have over 600 enterprise customers 600 HR leaders that we're working with, across those three solutions, whether outplacement career mobility and development retaining employees or candidate experience. But um, but yeah, just to focus a small twist on technology in a sector that's great. Many great players in the sector, traditional historical legacy players, a little bit of technology and ingenuity can really can really drive the sort of a better way to solve solve a challenge.

Kyle Roed: 14:47

Absolutely. You know, and I think it's, it's it's one of those areas that you know, I think is is it's really interesting to talk about outplacement, right. And if you talk to, you know, HR professionals, you know, what's the hardest thing that we do? Well, it's it's, it's let people go. Right? Especially if it's not their fault, right. When it's a layoff situation, maybe it's just a complete business restructure. Maybe your strategies changed maybe, you know, maybe there's somebody who's just not the right fit any longer or, you know, the job outgrew them. I mean, those things happen that we are in a dynamic talk about a dynamic world over the last couple years. It's not gonna slow down. But you know, if you're going through that and you are struggling and you feel like you're not giving these employees every opportunity to be successful, I would encourage you to think about outplacement services because it you know, if you go and you put yourself into somebody's shoes, probably one of the worst days of their life is the day that they lose their job. If you can give them somewhere to go something that can help them, if you extend a hand, guess what those relationships that they still have at the organization still matter. And they they will share how they were treated on the way out. And that can actually help build your culture in a positive way, even in a really really challenging time. And so it you know, and there's some research on that but but I'd strongly encourage if you haven't thought about that, and the website is into ai n t o comm check it out. It's it's really interesting. And it's a it's a topic that we don't talk about much as it relates to HR benefits programs. When Molly Patrick and I tried to figure out how to start on podcast, we didn't know where to start. Thankfully, we found Buzzsprout plus probably makes it super easy for us to upload our episodes, track our listeners, and get listed on all the major podcast networks. Today's a great day to start your own podcast. I know that you're one of our listeners. So you've definitely got something to say. Whether you're looking for a new marketing channel, have a message you want to share with the world. Or just think it would be fun to have your own talk show. podcast is easy, inexpensive and fun way to expand your reach online. Buzzsprout is hands down the easiest and best way to launch, promote and track your podcast. Your show could be online and listed in all the major podcast directories within minutes of finishing your recording. And podcasting isn't that hard when you have the right partners, the team of Buzzsprout is passionate about helping you succeed, join over 100,000 podcasters already using Buzzsprout to get their message out to the world. And now for listeners of rebel HR, you can get a $20 amazon gift card sent to you from Buzzsprout by clicking in the link in the show notes. Thanks for listening. I am curious to understand a little bit more about your approach to you know, kind of the onboarding pre boarding career mobility to how do those programs work?

Yair Reimer: 17:52

Sure, yeah. So we have a solution to help organizations around talent acquisition, which we basically call a candidate experience. And essentially, you know, could sort of give you a story here a true story from my, from my past. To over 20 years ago, as a university, I applied to work for the Boston Celtics, and a summer internship and huge sports fan grew up in Boston and number of places New Jersey as well. I thought wow, this is gonna be amazing. And I'm studying marketing, I'm sending communications, I'm studying history, I'm a great writer, I've clearly going to get this job, right. And I'm still waiting to this day, 20 years later for, for the response to my application. And when somebody goes somewhere in there right now some old applicant tracking system. And I share that story because that is a common and typical candidate experience, even to this day, 20 years later, companies have done a sensational job with applicant tracking systems and employer brand and showing you the culture and the photos and the videos of all the employees that work there. In fact, ATS systems are mobile optimized, I can apply with a click of a button from my phone. And some of the basics, the basic blocking and tackling has just been missed or overlooked. Right. And one of them is replying to those candidates. And and and communicating with them authentically and openly about where they are in the process and keeping them part of that talent community. So the way we approach can experience is really with the lens of employer brand. We believe HR has an amazing responsibility as the story of a company's brand. Right at the end of the day, you are the first point of contact for applicants for employees. It's amazing, just as much if not more than the marketing team, right. And so, you know, we everything that we do, everything that we build, all of our solutions are built around that brand perception and protecting that and enhancing that. And so from McCain experience perspective, we actually have a solution, integrated applicant tracking systems, and it enables companies to send an automated career development tool, a technology, basically, Crew Development, coaching a site for builder declined applicants. So you're Kyle, and you're applying to work with me. And I'm an XYZ bank, and you're one of 100 applicants, and you're the second or third or fourth best applicant. But if I don't reply to you, you're going to go to say to your buddy, you're going to go see on Glassdoor. I worked five hours on my resume on my LinkedIn on my interview, they never got back. But if I just send you a note that says Kyle, you know what, you were a finalist for this for this position. There were so many great candidates. You didn't get it now. But we love to keep you part of our talent community. You is our career development platform XYZ bank cares about you, check it out, we've got assessments in there, we've got job, millions of job postings, resume builders, access to network and research information, stay in touch with us, you're going to go from being sort of a brand attractor, to at least a neutral, if not a positive advocate. And, you know, it's a candidate driven market right now. So if I keep Kyle close, and I do want him to come around in the future, now I have the ability to bring him back in from that net. So that's the way that I think it's pretty crucial to support those candidates through the entire journey, even if they're not the ultimate sort of gold medalist and make everyone feel like they're a silver medalist, they're still on the podium, and they're not, you know, last place in the race, I think that's pretty critical for organizations to do it will build up so much future brand will and loyalty and connectivity.

Kyle Roed: 21:32

Absolutely. You know, I agree. 100%. And I think, you know, when you think about like, employer brand, you know, the quotations what is an employer brand, right, it's, you know, I think about it, like, you know, that's a rep, right. Like, that's, that's what people in the community, see your organization, as, and yeah, marketing has an important role to play course, you know, I suppose, you know, you see a TV advertisement or, but you know, my organization, we're business to business, nobody knows what our brand is, unless you specifically work in the industry that we are selling to. And so it really, it doesn't fall on marketing, to educate and, and communicate to a candidate. That's me, right. So I better get real good at helping articulate, what do we do? How do we do it? Why do we do it? And you know, it's one of those things that it's so much of that falls back on that candidate experience. You know, you can say all the things and you can say, well, we make machinery that's recycling and, and to help it's biodiesel, and I thought, it's CBD oil. It's all these really cool things. You know, it's like, oh, that's a cool headline. But if you treat a candidate like crap, and you don't hire them, they're never going to apply again. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty simple. And I'll share a story of that. So and, and I will not name names, because we're in the midst of the process right now. But a few years ago, and I I live in a pretty small community. I mean, it's not it's not tiny, but it's definitely small enough that people know, know each other's names and definitely know the businesses around, right. So we don't have a whole lot of opportunity to draw from a huge pool of people, right. So a few years ago, I was working with an individual. And I left that organization went to a new organization, and somebody applied for that job in the organization with the same last name. Well, guess what? It was her spouse. So ended up hiring this individual, he was absolutely awesome. Just knocked it out of the park. He was literally we got a we got a resume. And I called him that day that I got the resume, we had an offer to him within three days, and didn't need any other candidates. It was literally the first resume that came in, right. It was just like, it was like, Ah, this is perfect. Well, he ended up finding a great opportunity left that organization, I'm currently in a new organization. And guess what resume just came across my desk? If you say, well, guess what had that person, you know, had a bad candidate experience or a bad employer experience, and got my phone call and been like, I don't want to work with his church. Nearby, it probably wouldn't have gone well, well, you know, fortunately, that wasn't the case. But it's just it's just funny like these these paths cross right, and this reputation, it will follow you well beyond whatever, you know, pamphlet marketing put together.

Yair Reimer: 24:33

exactly correct. I think it's a great story. And I'm sure every HR practitioner listening is nodding their head in agreement, because that is the power of authenticity. You know, we were in HR technology or an HR, and it's a people business, right? People work for companies and for people that don't work for job descriptions. And so if you show who you are, and if you show, you know what your what your belief system is, and that resonates with someone, they're going to follow you if that experience was good. And the data backs this up as well, right. I think there's a study from the Harvard Business Review. It's focused more on the consumer side, but it's something like if you're if your organization, a restaurant or a mechanic or any business on Yelp, the difference between a three star review and a four star review is a 10% increase in your revenue than ever has been a four and a 5%. Another 10%. So every single star rating, or user review is 10% bump in revenue, right, the higher rating the better review and and that's the world we live in and glass doors there for us as well as a number of other companies compatibly and others indeed. And so I think great HR leaders value that reputational aspect. Because it's not 20 years ago, where I remember sitting in the classified section and opening up newspapers in high school, right, and looking for jobs in a newspaper, and now everything is connected and word of mouth plays the biggest, biggest role.

Kyle Roed: 25:59

Absolutely. You know, it's, it's funny. You know, you mentioned that, I mean, I think there's, there's so many statistics out there that show, you know, hey, you know, better whatever employee, you know, opinion survey scores, a better candidate experience happier employees, but it morale, you know, and there's all those dollar signs. But what's so cool about me about the the work that we do is the fact that it's also just the right thing to do. Right, like, exactly right, like, you know, I, I'm not the preeminent thinker on psychology, but I know if I do something that is, you know, not the right thing to do. It's not going to end well for me. Right? So sometimes it's just boiling it down to just just that simple, right? Just just doing the right thing. So I want to talk, you alluded to this a little bit, I want to deep dive this just a little bit, because I have a feeling you have a maybe a different perspective. So we hear a lot about the great resignation, you know, and then the new world of work and the new normal. And, you know, there's all these all these buzzwords out there. And and so that has sent HR CEOs, boards scrambling to say, Okay, how are we addressing the great resignation? And so obviously, no, that's your business. So So as you look at how you support businesses, and, and and what businesses can do to be proactive and thoughtful and and, you know, continue to retain some of these top players, you know, what, what advice or thoughts do you have on on how we can approach this?

Yair Reimer: 27:39

Yeah. Wow, that's a difficult one. And an important question. I think the short answer is, it goes back to exactly what you just said. Honesty, authenticity, listening and doing the right thing. I'll give a longer answer as well as probably I'm want to do. But I think that's the short answer. At the end of the day, the cost of replacing employees is so high, I think something like 4.3 million Americans quit their job in August 3% of the workforce, you know, something like one in four workers quit their job in 2021. So, so this is the number one topic on the minds of, of HR leaders. I think, at the end of the day, there are some really sort of easy, no cost or low cost ways to, you know, rebel, if I may say against, against the resignation. And I think the first one honestly, is listening to your people. Right. So there are easy ways to do that. You know, I think there's a famous Mark Twain quote, right, if you, if you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. And so really, it's telling the truth amongst your executive and leadership team is what I mean by that, what are we good at? What are we not good at? Being on, not hide, don't hide our weaknesses. Let's, let's look at that. So let's be honest with them, let's survey our team. So our leadership team continuous feedback, and communication, I think one thing that's really cool that we've done at our organization is a hyper focus in the last few years, totally, proactively not in response to great resignation, just to your point, Kyle is the right thing to do a really big focus on recognition. I think employees love to be recognized some in private, some in public, it's not a one size fits all. So you really have to understand sort of department by department leader by leader how it works. So we started a practice year to go, which we call the chain of recognition. And every single Friday, every single Friday, without fail, we nominate one person, one person keeps the chain going. So it's Kyle this Friday, and you write about one other person in the organization, who meets the values at into. So we've got four core values that which we live by internally, speed, innovation, collaboration, and caring. And every Friday, someone in the company, one person, the company, the previous winner from the previous Friday, writes an email, cell phone email that says I'm nominating Kyle this week, because of a b and c or X, Y and Z. And the next week, it's your turn, Kyle. And so you keep that chain moving. And then it's your turn on Friday. And you can say this person helped me with a B or C or this person, I'll do XYZ, and it's a human element at the end of the week to take a deep breath to realize we're collaborators. We're a team. We respect each other. We're recognizing success we're recognizing and promoting that positive behavior. And I think it really goes a long way. It's a free thing to do. I think organizations that have struggled, have focused on quick fixes and transactional fixes to retention and resignation things like a ping pong table back when we were working in the office or a $50 monthly stipend to go to the gym. Right. And those are fine benefits. And those are great benefits if you're looking at benefits as a silo. But if you're looking at retention, generally, I think something that's a bit more meaningful goes along, much longer way. So think about recurring retention benefits, training, development, teamwork, recognition. l&d, right. So there isn't a one size fits all approach. But I really think that, you know, retention is something that if you want to do it, you can do it the worst thing in the world to hear from an HR executive, or CEO. And if you're one of the people listening to this, and this is what you're thinking, then you got to do better, you got to do much better. And the worst thing to hear is, there's nothing we can do. It's the market man, it's the market work from home, in demand skills, it's the market, it's the market, rather can't pay so much more than me, that's the worst thing you could do. That is such a defeatist thing to do. Right? The optimist in me, says, If you want to prioritize this, if this is important to you, to retain those people, you can do things you can learn, you can listen, you can take that feedback into your people, and then turnover will be much will be will be reduced significantly. So it's absolutely one of the top if not the top, concept, or, or or topic amongst HR leaders right now. And you don't have to have a big brand, you can have a small brand, but you can do a great job with this. And you can you can really work on retaining your employees. And it takes it takes effort. And it doesn't happen on its own.

Kyle Roed: 32:37

Yeah, I'm laughing here because I do have a ping pong table at one of my office. It has not correlated to an extremely low turnover rate. So you know, I think there's probably something to that.

Yair Reimer: 32:53

We had a table in our office as well before we went on virtual in the pandemic. So it takes one to know one and I'm I challenge any listener, if you're in the greater Los Angeles area, I challenge you to a match. But it's that's not the reason you stay at a company. You do you definitely enjoy it with your colleagues, but it's certainly not the reason you stay.

Kyle Roed: 33:12

Yeah, no, my problem is, you know, I get to put a ping pong table or something like that I get I'm so hyper competitive that then it then it becomes like a morale bust. Right. Because it's like, Man, I just ah, you know, you know, now

Yair Reimer: 33:23

I'm here losing every day. I gotta cheat. I'm sweating through my shirt. I have to have an extra dry cleaning bill to work at this company. It's doubly expensive. Yeah, just throughout

Kyle Roed: 33:35

my shoulder trying to try to blow and I didn't even hit it on the table. You know, you whatever.

Yair Reimer: 33:41

Hopefully have the good health plan. No.

Kyle Roed: 33:43

Hey, you know, yeah, yeah, well, that yeah, there you go. No, that's, you know, what I love about that is it's it's again, it's not, it's not expensive. It's not some like world breaking world shattering technology that nobody's ever thought about. It's just it's the human element. Again, there's, there's a common theme here, right? It's, it's going back to recognize somebody for doing something that it was good. Make it authentic. And make it and make it a system make it repeatable, right, so that it's so it doesn't get lost in the flavor of the month. So so as the CEO, I'm assuming that you were the first one or you were the one that set that expectation for your team.

Yair Reimer: 34:25

I sent the first email out, I sent the first email out, and I know exactly who won that that first email, it was our our VP of legal our legal counsel, she had worked on building a ton of amazing infrastructure for us and, and all of these great sort of contracts that we had done it again of that year. And we started and I sent a long email, sort of recognizing her for her accomplishments. And she was the one who then the next Friday set the second one. And ever since then, the greatest part about it for me, is when we hire someone new, to explain that you're joining a company where this is happening. So they this coming Friday, you're gonna get this weird email. And this is why we do this weird email because we're a team here and we recognize each other and it's a, it's a really great, it's a really great, great feeling. And it's like you said it's free. So many there are so many free tasks right at previous organization. We did one where we BCC everyone. We sent them just two questions. In the email. I wrote, one, what do you love about your job? And two, what do you love about our company? We got you know, 100 responses, and we picked a few of the best. And we asked him for permission to put them on our website, and it's still on the website to this day. Why do you love working here? Right? And so we use it for the external employer brand. You mentioned that the community now can see why do you working there, and we use it sort of internally for these employees to sort of pay remind themselves and think about it. One of the reasons why I love it. So there's so many things that you can do that don't require a six figure enterprise implementation, right? And a six month technology process.

Kyle Roed: 35:58

Absolutely. And that's coming from a guy in the in the tech space, you know, so, I mean, you know, I'm sure you would have a solution if somebody wanted to do that. But you know, I think great advice for listeners if they don't have a six figure budget for recognition. That's exactly right. Well, this has been an absolutely wonderful conversation, just there's thoroughly enjoyed learning about your story and your organization and kind of your journey here, but want to shift gears and we're going to go into the Revel HR flash round. So all right, here we go. Question number one, what is your favorite people book.

Yair Reimer: 36:34

My favorite people book is probably probably grit, from NE Duckworth, I think is the author. And it's really about a focus on initiative, focus on managing yourself as well as other people to, to bring the best out of your, your your work ethic and your focus. I just finished one called Thinking in bets by Annie Duke, which is really about the discipline to make proper decisions, and the discipline to not look at outcomes with a bias after the fact while I get this layoff should I have done it after the fact and actually, to look at the decision and the reasons for making it in in real time. Sort of a behavioral behavioral science component. So yeah, I would say I would say grit is probably number one all time but thinking invest, which I just finished was a great, great one as well.

Kyle Roed: 37:29

I love that thinking about Yeah, it's like some, like probability of decision making, and then thinking, you know, more strategically, as opposed to emotionally is that kind of

Yair Reimer: 37:39

exactly right. Yeah, exactly. Right, with practical examples. And then also, you know, we use this in technology a lot in product development, a retrospective. Right, let's look back, and then let's look back at how we accomplished it. And I think I think that's important for all leaders, especially HR leaders, who are more and more responsible for the culture and the feeling and executive impact in in an organization as well.

Kyle Roed: 38:04

That's one of the you know, that's really interesting. And, you know, the, especially as my career's progressed, you know, it gets harder and harder to think in those terms. And it gets harder and harder to separate some of the emotion and the strategy and to truly make good decisions. And it gets harder. So but yeah, that's, that's interesting. Um, check that out. And then great. Yeah, Chris, just just a great book. And, and well worth the read. It's, it's a good read, it's a timely read for the last few years that HR has been going through. So if you get ready for, you know, vaccine mandates, you might want to pick that one up. Alright, question number two, who should we be listening to?

Yair Reimer: 38:48

So I think there is a great name is Byron, Augusta, he is a great opportunity at work is his newsletter. And he is really a great economist who looks at where the future of work is going, what the impact is, of both macro economic components. You mentioned the vaccine mandate, as well as upskilling, and rescaling and various aspects of labor. So sometimes we can get so into our company, or our job or our task list, that micro level, and that's great. But I think having a bit of curiosity and looking sort of high level, he is sort of one of these voices that puts it all together for me. So his name is Byron August. It's opportunity at work newsletter. He's all over LinkedIn. And he's a really interesting economist who's looking sort of at macro labor terms.

Kyle Roed: 39:41

Cool. Sounds like kind of thing I could nerd out on. So

Yair Reimer: 39:44

yeah, you definitely could ask.

Kyle Roed: 39:48

Alright, last question, how can our listeners connect with you?

Yair Reimer: 39:51

Yeah, so it's my first name, why a IR and dot and in my last name, RI e MPR. into.com. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn as well. Our website is into.com i n t o.com. Please feel free to follow us on LinkedIn. We're always putting out there reports data around retention and great resignation webinars, candidate experience and of course, our core career transition and career development. So if you're looking for data studies, facts, you know, let me know shoot me an email Find us on LinkedIn happy to connect both personally and from the company, companies, social media outlets as well.

Kyle Roed: 40:34

Sounds good. We will have all that information in the show notes. So if anybody wants to get connected learn more strongly encourage it. Really great conversation today. Appreciate the time and look forward to seeing what you come up with next.

Yair Reimer: 40:48

Thank you so much for having me. Have a great day.

Kyle Roed: 40:51

Have a good one. You too. All right. That does it for the rebel HR podcast. Big thank you to our guests. Follow us on Facebook at rebel HR podcast, Twitter at rebel HR guy, or see our website at rebel human resources.com. The views and opinions expressed by rebel HR podcast are those the authors do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any of the organizations that we represent. No animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast. Maybe