Revolutionizing High Volume Hiring with Fountain CEO Sean Behr

[00:00:00] Deel has helped over 35,000 businesses simplify global hiring, onboarding, payroll, and compliance.

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[00:00:25] Hey, this is Ryan Leary and William Tinkup, and you are listening to and hopefully watching the Use Case Podcast.

[00:00:32] William, today we have an interesting one. Very fun topic, something that we spend a lot of time talking about.

[00:00:41] Frontline workers, high volume hiring and tech and software and all of that.

[00:00:46] So we've got Sean Behr on. Sean, welcome. Sean is with Fountain, by the way. I should at least introduce you that way.

[00:00:53] But Sean, welcome into the show. Why don't you introduce yourself to the audience and kick us off here?

[00:00:58] Yeah, well, thanks so much, guys. First off, great to be with you again.

[00:01:03] Yeah, sure.

[00:01:04] Really excited to be here and chat about Fountain and frontline workers and all kinds of good things.

[00:01:09] But yeah, I'll give you – look, I'm a technologist at heart, entrepreneur, four different startups.

[00:01:16] I built them all into big businesses, and this is the fourth one.

[00:01:20] And Fountain is all about the frontline worker.

[00:01:23] Some people might call them the hourly worker, the deskless worker.

[00:01:28] We call them the frontline worker.

[00:01:31] These are people that are on the front lines of our economy.

[00:01:34] And that's our single focus as a company is to open opportunities for that population of workers.

[00:01:41] The good news for us is that, you know, for every person that's a, you know, an HR professional who's on Microsoft Teams and Zoom and sitting at their computer working on Excel, you know, there's just a bunch more people who are driving trucks, delivering packages, working in restaurants and hotels and retail stores and call centers and security guards.

[00:02:03] And that's our focus as a company is on those kind of workers that are really powering our economy.

[00:02:10] And we help our customers sort of hire those workers, manage those workers, retain those workers, and really support them from job board to their last day at the company.

[00:02:22] You know, you might say hire to retire.

[00:02:23] We say job board to departure date.

[00:02:25] But that's our focus as a company, these frontline workers that are really mission critical in our economy.

[00:02:32] And we try to center everything we do around with that worker in mind.

[00:02:37] So you could have started any business and you've started businesses before.

[00:02:42] So what did you see in the high volume hourly frontline worker space to make you want to build Fountain?

[00:02:51] Yeah, you know, I would say, look, you know, my first business was in e-commerce.

[00:02:56] Second one was in advertising.

[00:02:57] Third one was an automotive.

[00:02:58] So cars, ads and shopping.

[00:03:02] Those are all amazing industries, by the way.

[00:03:05] Very big industries.

[00:03:07] But there's something, there's something interesting about the world of employment.

[00:03:16] And humans getting jobs.

[00:03:18] You know, I'm really proud this year our customers will hire 4 million plus workers around the world.

[00:03:25] That's a big number.

[00:03:26] Yeah, it's a huge number.

[00:03:28] And what's interesting is, you know, if you show 4 million ads for one brand or another brand, you know, life will go on.

[00:03:35] Life's just going to be all right.

[00:03:37] There's something interesting when, you know, our database goes up by a number.

[00:03:42] Behind that number going up is someone finding the next opportunity for themselves.

[00:03:50] You know, they find the next job, the next way that they're going to, you know, take care of their family or their kids or pay their rent or their mortgage or get a new car or go out to dinner.

[00:04:00] But there's something, there's a human element here that is really, really powerful.

[00:04:05] And frankly, one of the things that I try to always remember is, you know, is when we talk a lot about metrics inside our business.

[00:04:13] And every one of those metrics is a human being who is going about their life.

[00:04:20] You know, they're taking care of their family.

[00:04:21] They're going to school.

[00:04:22] They're trying to buy a car.

[00:04:24] They're going on vacation, whatever they're trying to do.

[00:04:27] And so there's something compelling about that nature of the work we do results in real people getting the next opportunity in their life.

[00:04:40] And you don't get many of those.

[00:04:42] You know, it's not like every company you build delivers that kind of value.

[00:04:49] You know, sometimes it's like, well, we made, you know, we made outbound sales calls for SaaS sales reps 22% more effective.

[00:05:00] That's great, by the way.

[00:05:01] That's a great outcome for many companies.

[00:05:04] But it's different.

[00:05:05] It hits different.

[00:05:06] Right.

[00:05:07] From a people perspective.

[00:05:09] So, okay.

[00:05:11] This podcast is about tech, right?

[00:05:13] But you're making me want to talk about your journey here and learn more.

[00:05:17] So we're going to have you back on Inside the C-Suite because I feel like we're going to have a really good conversation.

[00:05:22] We'll try to stay on point.

[00:05:24] But before we get to the point, I do want to ask a question.

[00:05:28] When you started Fountain, okay, was that, that was the foundation of it.

[00:05:34] But at what point did it take a turn?

[00:05:37] Like, okay, we actually have to really build a solid software here to make this passion, to make this vision work.

[00:05:43] Like, how did you, how did you handle that transition?

[00:05:47] And what did you focus on?

[00:05:48] Yeah.

[00:05:49] Yeah.

[00:05:49] I mean, what's interesting, I was, so my background on this one is interesting.

[00:05:53] I was the first angel investor in the company.

[00:05:55] And I actually was the one of the first customers.

[00:05:58] So actually it was a customer of Fountain before I became an investor.

[00:06:03] I had no idea.

[00:06:03] Yeah.

[00:06:04] Yeah.

[00:06:04] And a board member in the company.

[00:06:06] I would say the thing that was very interesting is we came about at a time when companies were trying to onboard and hire millions of gig economy workers to deliver food and all kinds of things to us over the last 10 years.

[00:06:23] No HR platforms ever contemplated that you might want to hire 40,000 people in a month.

[00:06:33] No HR professional was sitting around in 2015 being like, we're going to onboard 40,000 people this month.

[00:06:38] I mean, there are a few.

[00:06:40] That would be crazy.

[00:06:41] Back then the market was so fragmented for solutions for the enterprise, for corporate salaried employees, et cetera.

[00:06:50] It was 90, 10.

[00:06:52] They had, they were swimming in software.

[00:06:54] So if we take ATS as a category, they had a thousand choices.

[00:07:00] Whereas when you talk to somebody in high volume, hourly front line, I'll use all those as synonyms for, for just because they, the technology stack available to them was three, four.

[00:07:16] Like it was maybe not in a single digits, but it was small digits.

[00:07:20] So like at that particular moment, when you came to market, there was plenty of stuff for salaried employees and salary hires, plenty of, probably more technology than now.

[00:07:32] And so going into that market, I could see it being attractive because there's just so much inefficiency.

[00:07:38] People trying to use enterprise salary products in a high volume situation and just seeing the brokenness of like, okay, you're, you're trying to hire a software engineer.

[00:07:50] And it's going to take six weeks or whatever versus somebody at Walmart that you need to actually hire in six hours.

[00:07:58] Yeah.

[00:07:59] It's, it's such a, such an astute observation.

[00:08:02] Like everything about the frontline worker, it's not dramatically different, right?

[00:08:09] As we mentioned earlier, we're all humans.

[00:08:11] We're all trying to do, you know, we're all trying to get by.

[00:08:13] We're all trying to have, have fun.

[00:08:16] We're all trying to do our life the way we want to do it.

[00:08:18] Like, however, there are some fundamental differences between hiring salaried workers who work at a desk all day and frontline workers.

[00:08:28] And I'll give you just kind of one or two tangible examples that like, if you are talking about salary workers, you know, we generally have a couple of sources of truth, which is LinkedIn and resumes.

[00:08:40] I mean, almost every guest that's ever on the pod says, you know, you can find me on LinkedIn.

[00:08:48] Go to your local grocery store and ask the people stocking the shelves what their LinkedIn is.

[00:08:55] Ryan's got a 17 year old, Ryan's got a 17 year old daughter and I want him to ask her about her LinkedIn.

[00:09:01] She wants nothing.

[00:09:02] She doesn't even know what it is.

[00:09:03] She really doesn't.

[00:09:05] It's just not.

[00:09:06] And then the second thing I'd say is, you know, with with most of the people on the podcast, email is a very reliable way of interacting with other salaried workers.

[00:09:16] You know, we have a cadence.

[00:09:18] Some people are in box zero.

[00:09:20] Some people, you know, take a week to get back to you, whatever it is.

[00:09:24] That's right.

[00:09:24] If you email most 17 year olds, good luck.

[00:09:31] You know, it's also sending the adverse message of your, your boomer.

[00:09:37] Yeah.

[00:09:38] Like I am George LaRock and I'm looking forward to exploring the critical trends, shaping the future of work and technology with you over on the work tech podcast.

[00:09:50] Now this podcast is a little different.

[00:09:52] I bring together industry leaders, innovators and investors, and we go deep into market intelligence that matters to HR pros and tech providers alike.

[00:10:02] So give the work tech podcast a listen here on the work to find podcast network.

[00:10:06] And please subscribe if you like it.

[00:10:09] See you there.

[00:10:12] It's not even, it's not even that they won't respond.

[00:10:15] They'll look badly.

[00:10:17] Badly.

[00:10:17] Yeah.

[00:10:18] You send them a text message though.

[00:10:20] All of a sudden they're available.

[00:10:22] They're willing to text right back to you.

[00:10:24] Yeah.

[00:10:24] Right.

[00:10:24] A hundred percent.

[00:10:24] Right.

[00:10:24] A hundred percent.

[00:10:25] It's a, so funny story, Sean.

[00:10:27] So at school, that's how they communicate over email, right?

[00:10:32] That the teachers communicate with the students through the portal, which goes over email.

[00:10:35] They don't see it.

[00:10:37] They really don't see it.

[00:10:38] So I agree.

[00:10:39] But my, my oldest has missing assignments because of it, or she missed an opportunity for extra credit or she didn't do something.

[00:10:45] And like, guys, what's it, well, we can't, we can't text our personal phones and not every, I understand not an easy solution, but you can't.

[00:10:54] Leverage email with a 15, 16 and 17 year old person.

[00:10:58] It doesn't work.

[00:11:00] It doesn't.

[00:11:01] Same.

[00:11:01] No.

[00:11:01] The same.

[00:11:02] Yeah.

[00:11:02] You can't do that.

[00:11:03] So I think this, this point around, you know, using the right tool to accomplish.

[00:11:09] The goal you're trying to accomplish.

[00:11:11] Look, if you're trying to hire an, an AI software engineer to help you build a large language model, that's going to predict something.

[00:11:20] You should really look at a lot of resumes.

[00:11:23] Like you should really do tons and tons of deep interviews and reference checks.

[00:11:28] If you're hiring a thousand people to stock shelves, I'm not sure you should look at their resumes and do three rounds of interviews.

[00:11:36] They won't do it.

[00:11:37] The candidates have changed.

[00:11:39] Don't find a better.

[00:11:40] Look, the other positive thing I'd say that's, that's really behind the scenes here, right.

[00:11:44] Is, you know, hourly workers, frontline workers in the, in the fountain terminology.

[00:11:50] Right.

[00:11:51] I think are in, let me put it this way.

[00:11:54] We're always advocating on the behalf of that population.

[00:11:58] The other thing I would say is there are, they've never had more opportunities.

[00:12:03] Like the competition is fierce.

[00:12:06] Um, you know, the good news with this device is that I can very easily apply to lots and lots of jobs, which is where most of these frontline workers applies using their, their, their mobile device.

[00:12:20] The bad news is I can apply to lots and lots of jobs.

[00:12:24] That's right.

[00:12:25] And that means if you're the HR manager on the other side, you've got to assume that I'm applying to five other jobs, 10 other jobs.

[00:12:33] Well, there's more kiosk.

[00:12:35] There's more kiosk where you can just go to the kiosk and apply to all the jobs in the mall.

[00:12:42] Which means my, you better be real good if I'm going to choose you.

[00:12:48] Because if you don't, you know, I got, I got two other options down the street.

[00:12:54] And they'll go and they'll leave.

[00:12:56] Yeah.

[00:12:56] And they'll leave for 50 more cents.

[00:12:58] So like in the corporate, a salary, uh, world will say different than frontline is their competitors or what you would think their competitors are.

[00:13:09] Yeah.

[00:13:10] Whereas with frontline employee, uh, employees or candidates, it's about Verizon, a taco bell, you know, you know, a retail store.

[00:13:22] Like all the competitors are not the competitors of each other.

[00:13:25] Exactly.

[00:13:25] Exactly.

[00:13:26] And I can tell you flat out when you use the right tool for simply hiring these workers, just let's just talk about hiring.

[00:13:37] Forget about even retaining these workers.

[00:13:38] If you deploy the right tool versus the wrong tool, you go from, you know, batting two out of a hundred to 10 out of a hundred.

[00:13:50] Right.

[00:13:51] So imagine getting, you know, you a hundred qualified people want to work at your retail store and you get two and you miss out on 98.

[00:14:02] You deploy the right tool like fountain, by the way, shameless plug you to play fountain.

[00:14:08] Never heard of it.

[00:14:09] I had to guys.

[00:14:10] Come on.

[00:14:11] Come on.

[00:14:11] You deploy a podcast.

[00:14:13] This is exactly what you're supposed to use case.

[00:14:15] For hiring frontline workers.

[00:14:19] Maybe fountain.

[00:14:20] You go from 10 out of a, you know, I haven't thought about it until you said that changes the game, but let's go back to the two 98 deal.

[00:14:30] The 98 are also consumers.

[00:14:33] Yes.

[00:14:33] In a lot of cases, not all cases.

[00:14:36] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:14:36] Right.

[00:14:37] With frontline, you've now created a poor experience.

[00:14:41] If you're what a pick a store, we won't use any brand names, but basically you didn't get back to them.

[00:14:46] You didn't get back to them right away or you never got back to them.

[00:14:50] I'm going to think differently about you.

[00:14:52] Yeah, for sure.

[00:14:53] Let me give you some real, real stats on this.

[00:14:55] It's incredible.

[00:14:56] We have a product called fountain pulse.

[00:14:58] It's a, it's a real time survey sentiment analysis tool.

[00:15:03] It's designed to really get at the heart of our frontline workers succeeding, thriving and happy working for you.

[00:15:14] We've had some great innovative customers who said, you know what?

[00:15:17] We love this tool so much.

[00:15:20] We want to find out how our applicants, those 98, how are they liking the application process?

[00:15:29] I said, sure.

[00:15:31] That's very innovative.

[00:15:32] Great idea.

[00:15:33] They could use it for customers too, but.

[00:15:36] They sent it to the people who, you know, sort of quote unquote ghosted them.

[00:15:42] Yeah.

[00:15:43] These are the people they wanted.

[00:15:45] Right.

[00:15:45] Who did not wind up working for them.

[00:15:47] And the survey is pretty simple.

[00:15:49] Right.

[00:15:49] Again, it's over text message.

[00:15:51] So it can't, you know, this isn't like a 30 page qualification with, you know, 20 different multiple choice questions.

[00:15:58] It's three or four questions fast, but their number one question was I'll use Ryan here, but Hey Ryan, we're really sad.

[00:16:07] You chose not to work for us.

[00:16:09] Could you just help us out by telling us why?

[00:16:12] 70% of the people who replied to the survey said, what do you mean?

[00:16:18] I still want to work for you.

[00:16:21] You never got back to me.

[00:16:23] You never got back to me or I'm confused.

[00:16:26] Oh, it's amazing.

[00:16:28] It is what, what they realized was I'll give you one really kind of funny example.

[00:16:33] They had a process where somebody had to sign a PDF.

[00:16:37] What?

[00:16:38] In the, in the, in the application process.

[00:16:42] Many people were confused.

[00:16:44] They thought that the PDF was the end of the process.

[00:16:48] And so they were like, look, I've done.

[00:16:51] I signed the PDF.

[00:16:52] I thought I, you know.

[00:16:54] When do I start?

[00:16:55] Yeah.

[00:16:56] Nope.

[00:16:57] That was only one step.

[00:16:59] Then the workers had to do more things.

[00:17:01] And so obviously what the good news is they very quickly using fountain.

[00:17:04] You can fix that.

[00:17:05] Change their application process.

[00:17:06] And what's also amazing is those people who wrote back.

[00:17:11] Many of them actually wound up coming to join the team.

[00:17:15] One of the things I think it's funny that you, you bring up about consumers, right?

[00:17:18] But talk about even some of those people that didn't wind up joining the company.

[00:17:23] They've had a good experience.

[00:17:25] Like they were taken care of.

[00:17:27] Their point of view was listened to.

[00:17:29] I'm not saying they're going to, you know, come work for you, but, but they ain't leaving saying that is a bad company.

[00:17:35] The same thing happens obviously after you join the company.

[00:17:38] So let's say I joined the company.

[00:17:41] It's going okay.

[00:17:44] I get to my first day.

[00:17:46] I get my survey and I'm like, I am completely overwhelmed.

[00:17:51] But by day 15, I get a second survey and I am, I'm in the groove.

[00:17:57] What the company can do is then go back into the onboarding process and say, okay, how do we make it less overwhelming for Sean on the first day?

[00:18:06] And it could be very simple.

[00:18:07] Send me a text message on the first morning that says, Hey, we know it's going to be a crazy first day.

[00:18:14] You're not alone.

[00:18:15] Everyone has a crazy first day.

[00:18:18] Hang in there.

[00:18:19] You'll get the hang of it.

[00:18:21] Could be something very simple.

[00:18:23] Obviously you can use fountain to do that.

[00:18:24] Many of our customers do.

[00:18:26] The other great thing you see that we see is, you know, even sending that survey where our customers can do is do things like send a, um, you had a good first month at the company.

[00:18:39] Hey, William, who, who in your phone would be a good person to join the team?

[00:18:45] Ask you for a referral, which is great.

[00:18:48] It's one of our products.

[00:18:49] What we find that's really interesting is even if you don't refer anyone.

[00:18:54] You still feel pretty good because the company essentially said, Hey, Ryan, you're great.

[00:19:04] We want more people like you.

[00:19:07] Even if you don't wind up referring anyone.

[00:19:09] That's a great, that's a great ego boost.

[00:19:12] Yeah.

[00:19:12] That.

[00:19:12] And it's also now in the back of my mind.

[00:19:15] Yes.

[00:19:15] It's in the back of my mind.

[00:19:16] So when I do come across a friend at the bar who's like, Hey, I've had a really shitty day.

[00:19:21] Hey, check, check these guys out.

[00:19:23] Yeah.

[00:19:23] The other, the other one thing about referrals that we think is really important is tying the closing the loop.

[00:19:29] Because what so often happens is, you know, I refer somebody.

[00:19:34] First question I have is, did they actually engage?

[00:19:37] Did they try to get an interview?

[00:19:39] Did they try to come to the company?

[00:19:41] Yes or no.

[00:19:41] So our product actually says, Hey, Ryan, that friend you referred, they, they applied to this job at this store.

[00:19:50] And here's where they are in the process.

[00:19:53] They're, they're about to be interviewed or something like that.

[00:19:55] And then really important is if they get hired and let's say there's a little bonus for you, I don't know, $50 or something, $100.

[00:20:05] The worst thing in the world I can do is mess up that bonus to you.

[00:20:11] Because you took the risk.

[00:20:13] You referred a friend or a family member to the company.

[00:20:16] Yeah.

[00:20:17] If I mess up the bonus and I forget to pay you.

[00:20:20] You can't, you can't mess up people's money.

[00:20:22] You can't mess up people's money.

[00:20:23] You can't mess up people's money.

[00:20:24] You can't make it this day.

[00:20:26] Anyway, those are new, little nuances about how our technology works in order to keep people.

[00:20:33] One is to get the people you want, but then to keep them engaged and retain them over the list.

[00:20:38] Question about customers that you're onboarding.

[00:20:42] What do you find most of them are coming from?

[00:20:45] Are they coming from, I guess it depends on the, on the company.

[00:20:47] Sticky notes.

[00:20:48] Yeah.

[00:20:48] They're coming from like Excel sheets, sticky notes, Google sheets, or are they coming into, I mean, I'm coming up in the world.

[00:20:54] I'm saying Google sheets, not Excel.

[00:20:56] Yeah.

[00:20:56] We're giving them a little credit.

[00:20:58] Or are they coming from, you know, multiple disparate systems and you're now bringing them into something that's.

[00:21:03] Mostly multiple disparate systems.

[00:21:05] Yeah.

[00:21:06] I could see that.

[00:21:07] Typically, you know, in the smaller side customers, you know, people that have a thousand employees, you may have some digital transformation work where the customer is really trying to engage a new technology paradigm for the first time.

[00:21:21] Many times you get larger.

[00:21:24] They've got a suite of tools.

[00:21:27] But the tools just don't do a great job of meeting these applicants and workers where they are.

[00:21:36] Like, I'll give you another one that is, we were talking a little bit about email earlier today.

[00:21:41] You know, it is sort of standard operating procedure in the salary work world that on your first day, you know, you get issued a laptop or a, you know, laptop most cases now.

[00:21:53] And you get an email, you know, an email address at whatever.

[00:21:57] Business cards, name badge.

[00:21:59] It's a whole bit.

[00:22:01] Brian remembers.

[00:22:02] In the frontline worker world, in many cases, they don't give you an email address.

[00:22:09] Like, you don't get an email address on the first day.

[00:22:13] You know, like, that is not a, that's not something that's provided to you.

[00:22:20] And so even communicating with this worker has a different level of complexity.

[00:22:26] And, you know, what typically happens, right, is if the three of us are in the headquarters and we want to push a message to the stores, what we do is HR drafts a memo.

[00:22:40] We give it to the vice presidents.

[00:22:42] The vice presidents call the store managers to a conference call.

[00:22:47] Then the store managers call a store meeting.

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[00:23:49] Die Akkulaufzeit variiert je nach Nutzung und Einstellungen.

[00:23:51] And then some of the people don't come to the meeting because they're not on the shift schedule that day.

[00:23:56] And so they hear about it from a friend.

[00:23:59] By the time that worker...

[00:24:02] It's the telephone game.

[00:24:03] It's the telephone game.

[00:24:05] Like the company is like, hey, we're really investing in...

[00:24:09] Let's say, a really great benefit.

[00:24:11] Hey, we have a new benefit that provides tuition assistance reimbursement for our hourly frontline workers.

[00:24:17] Amazing benefit.

[00:24:19] By the time it gets to the person, it's like, yeah, I think they said something about school.

[00:24:24] You've got to go to school.

[00:24:26] You've got to go to school.

[00:24:27] What?

[00:24:27] I'm out of here.

[00:24:28] No school.

[00:24:29] Like, you know, and so being able to directly communicate, imagine being able to send a targeted message to all your workers saying, hey, you may have been at the store meeting.

[00:24:40] We hope you were.

[00:24:41] But if you're not, here's a message the company is investing in you.

[00:24:46] There's a tuition reimbursement program.

[00:24:48] You have to be employed for more than a year to participate in it.

[00:24:52] We hope you'll consider this benefit.

[00:24:54] If you have questions on it, click this link.

[00:24:56] Boom.

[00:24:56] You hit your marketing.

[00:24:58] You hit your market directly with the message you want to hit.

[00:25:01] The other cool thing about Fountain, right, is...

[00:25:04] Let's say you send that message out.

[00:25:07] A couple of things you'll know.

[00:25:08] So, number one, who got the message and who didn't?

[00:25:14] Because sometimes you send that message, even via text message, and it bounces.

[00:25:19] Well, then we know we didn't communicate to Sean at all.

[00:25:23] And then number two is, of the people at store, you know, 1411 or whatever, how many at 1411 replied to the text message or engaged with the link?

[00:25:36] Versus people at store 1412.

[00:25:39] How many people at that store engaged with the link?

[00:25:43] Now, if you take this all the way to its natural conclusion, right, is you're starting to see about a worker.

[00:25:49] Okay, let's pretend Ryan is our hypothetical worker here.

[00:25:53] As we mentioned, he got a survey on the first day.

[00:25:55] He was pretty overwhelmed, kind of drinking from the fire hose on day one.

[00:26:00] But day 15, he felt like he was in the groove.

[00:26:04] On day 30, he referred one of his friends that he met at a bar.

[00:26:10] And that guy got hired.

[00:26:13] And then on day 40, he got a text message about the tuition reimbursement program.

[00:26:18] He actually clicked the link and said he wanted more information.

[00:26:21] I don't know for sure.

[00:26:23] But Ryan feels like a really engaged, pretty happy, liking the job, liking the company at that point.

[00:26:33] Taking the other example, someone who is overwhelmed on day one, hated it on day 15, didn't refer any friends, and also, you know, failed to respond to any of our text messages.

[00:26:46] Not saying they're going to quit for sure, but it's tracking.

[00:26:51] It's tracking that way.

[00:26:53] Sean, are you seeing any, and this might be outside the purview of what, obviously, what Fountain does, but are you seeing any clients that are customers that are in that scenario or running that scenario that you just described?

[00:27:06] And then tracking that back into mid-level management at the store level because of disengagement of employees not clicking?

[00:27:14] Yeah.

[00:27:15] You see two things that happen.

[00:27:17] One is seeing stores realize, hey, these managers, these mid-level managers, these store managers are the ones where we're seeing high, high, high engagement.

[00:27:28] Here's where we're seeing lower engagement.

[00:27:29] What do we do to coach those managers and those store leaders and warehouse leaders and call center operators, whatever the case may be?

[00:27:38] We also see things where you bring it actually into the recruiting process.

[00:27:43] So let's, I'll give you the reverse example.

[00:27:46] Let's say someone says, my first day was amazing.

[00:27:50] But by day 21, we're seeing a consistent theme that people feel tired, burnt out, down.

[00:27:59] The excitement has worn off.

[00:28:01] The excitement has worn off.

[00:28:03] And what we're seeing is people go back into, and I'll give you an example.

[00:28:09] Maybe the job requires you to lift 35 pounds.

[00:28:12] Obviously, we all can lift 35 pounds, but most of us, you know, I think most of us can try it at least once.

[00:28:19] That's fine.

[00:28:21] It's easy to say yes.

[00:28:23] As he should.

[00:28:25] I technically can't, but all right, go ahead.

[00:28:28] But if you.

[00:28:29] Not above my head.

[00:28:30] If the job says you have to lift 35 pounds, what sometimes people feel like is, okay, it's not too bad.

[00:28:36] And after the first day, they're like, fine.

[00:28:39] But after day 21.

[00:28:41] Yeah.

[00:28:41] Wait a second.

[00:28:42] I'm lifting 35 pounds 200 times a day.

[00:28:47] My arms are sore.

[00:28:48] My legs are sore.

[00:28:49] Yeah.

[00:28:50] Yeah.

[00:28:51] This job is way harder than I thought.

[00:28:54] Yeah.

[00:28:55] You're not built for warehouse work, homie.

[00:28:56] Right.

[00:28:56] Now, what's cool here is what the company can then do is go into the recruiting process and have a question that says, hey, we just want you to know this job.

[00:29:08] I know it pays more, which is amazing.

[00:29:10] And this is a great company.

[00:29:13] But this job is extremely physically active.

[00:29:17] Your arms will be sore.

[00:29:20] Your legs will be sore.

[00:29:22] If you don't like the gym, you're not going to like this job.

[00:29:26] Please don't apply.

[00:29:28] I mean, I'm being hyperbolic here.

[00:29:30] No, no, no.

[00:29:30] It's actually an employer brand should repel and attract.

[00:29:35] Correct.

[00:29:35] And at the same time, if you tell someone, hey, can you lift 35 pounds?

[00:29:40] Most people will think once.

[00:29:43] Yeah, sure.

[00:29:45] Yeah.

[00:29:45] I can lift 35 pounds.

[00:29:46] If you ask me occasionally to lift 35 pounds, of course I can.

[00:29:50] And I'll get the energy to do that.

[00:29:52] Yeah, of course.

[00:29:53] We don't have our muscles.

[00:29:54] But if you tell me, hey, you're going to lift 35 pounds at least 150 times a day, that's a different bit.

[00:30:02] A different bit.

[00:30:03] I can't apply to that job.

[00:30:05] I shouldn't apply to that job, which is – that takes some of the noise out of recruiting.

[00:30:11] Yeah.

[00:30:12] Because candidates aren't applying to those jobs because they're like, okay, cool.

[00:30:16] That's not – that's a cool job.

[00:30:18] Just not a cool job for me.

[00:30:19] Can you lift 7,000 pounds 200 times a day?

[00:30:22] Yeah, exactly.

[00:30:23] You know, in 35-pound increasing.

[00:30:25] Five minutes, yeah.

[00:30:26] That's a lot.

[00:30:26] That's a lot.

[00:30:27] One thing, William, that's interesting that you said, right, is a good employer brand attracts and repels.

[00:30:34] Kind of does both.

[00:30:36] One thing that we also see in the frontline universe that we think is interesting is you've definitely got the people that you don't want, right?

[00:30:44] You want to sort of – if they're 14 years old and they want to drive a truck.

[00:30:50] I don't know if there are places in America where you can drive a truck at 14.

[00:30:54] I hope not.

[00:30:55] I should be driving a truck at 14.

[00:30:58] Texas.

[00:30:58] And then you've got people who you should hire for sure, right?

[00:31:03] And then you've got the middle.

[00:31:05] And one of the things that we find interesting and one of the benefits of Fountain, right, is what some of our customers see is they'll post a job and they'll get a deluge of applications.

[00:31:19] A thousand applications to be the manager of something.

[00:31:25] Right.

[00:31:27] 98% of those people are not qualified to be a manager of that thing.

[00:31:33] We have a restaurant brand.

[00:31:34] You think managing a restaurant.

[00:31:36] Some of these restaurants are doing like $5 million of revenue.

[00:31:41] Running them is – it's a big business.

[00:31:43] It's a hard job.

[00:31:45] What happens is they get a lot of applications because it pays a lot of money.

[00:31:51] What our system does is not only does it repel the people that should not be a fit and really fast track the people that are a good fit, but the people that are not a good fit to run the restaurant, it dynamically suggests a better opportunity for them.

[00:32:08] So, hey, you're not actually a great fit for our manager job today, but you're a really good fit to run our hostess stand or our frontline cook stands or to be an assistant manager.

[00:32:22] And guess what?

[00:32:23] We've got open jobs not only at this store, but we've got a few open jobs about a couple miles away if you're interested as well.

[00:32:31] And so if you do that, you really engage with this frontline workforce in a very unique and innovative way.

[00:32:38] What's interesting, what I love about this, Sean, is people will apply, like you said, for money.

[00:32:44] It pays well.

[00:32:45] It's a manager title.

[00:32:46] It pays really well.

[00:32:47] I'm going to apply.

[00:32:48] But then I'll never hear back because I know I'm not qualified.

[00:32:52] I know I'm not qualified.

[00:32:53] I will never hear back from the restaurant, and I go on about my merry way, and I apply to 27 other jobs elsewhere in the universe.

[00:33:01] That you're not qualified for.

[00:33:02] That I'm not qualified for, right?

[00:33:04] But what you're doing is now saying, hey, look, Ryan, appreciate the application.

[00:33:08] There's a path to get here.

[00:33:10] Not today.

[00:33:12] But here's what we have today in five different locations within a commutable distance, et cetera.

[00:33:17] I immediately say to myself, I knew I wasn't qualified.

[00:33:21] Took a shot.

[00:33:22] Took a shot.

[00:33:23] But I do need a job, and I do want to get there.

[00:33:26] And so I can take an assistant job.

[00:33:27] I like the brand.

[00:33:28] I like the restaurant.

[00:33:29] I eat there all the time.

[00:33:30] This is where I really want to work.

[00:33:31] Heck, I didn't even know there was an assistant manager job.

[00:33:35] I'm a better fit for that?

[00:33:36] Sounds good.

[00:33:36] I am interested.

[00:33:38] I'll put my hat in the ring.

[00:33:39] The other cool thing, if you tie it back to that, let's say you do join.

[00:33:44] You join as the assistant manager or the front of staff manager, whatever you want to call it.

[00:33:51] Because you applied through the system, maybe in six months, I'm opening a new restaurant.

[00:33:58] And I'm looking for people who I can go into the fountain system and I can say, you know what?

[00:34:03] Show me everybody who lives in the Austin, Texas area, who has worked for me for more than a year, who originally applied to be a store manager, but got the assistant manager job.

[00:34:19] Show me those people.

[00:34:20] Wow.

[00:34:21] There's 13 of those people in my system.

[00:34:25] First 13 people I'm interviewing.

[00:34:27] Those are my go-to interviews.

[00:34:29] And I send them a message that says, hey, you've been identified as somebody who could potentially manage a restaurant.

[00:34:35] We have an opening.

[00:34:37] You know, it's 25 minutes away, so it's a little bit of a commute.

[00:34:39] But it's a good opportunity.

[00:34:41] If you're interested, click this link, put your hat back in the ring, and the district manager will be following up with you.

[00:34:50] Something like that.

[00:34:51] And that creates a very loyal, trusting relationship as well with the employee.

[00:34:57] 100%.

[00:34:57] Knowing that I applied for this role, I was told no.

[00:35:00] I took this job.

[00:35:01] And even though I took that job, in the back of my message is me being jaded.

[00:35:07] Am I really ever going to get considered for a store manager?

[00:35:10] I'm going to have to fight and claw and climb my way.

[00:35:13] But if you're proactively reaching out because the system's now saying, hey, look, these 13 people previously applied.

[00:35:19] They were not qualified.

[00:35:20] Maybe they are.

[00:35:21] Now they've been here for a year.

[00:35:23] If we're doing our job as the restaurant, they should do that.

[00:35:26] See, Ryan, what you're explaining, though, is in those disparate systems,

[00:35:29] people have always, I speak from a retail background, you've always wanted to do that.

[00:35:36] You didn't.

[00:35:37] The technology didn't support you.

[00:35:39] Right, right.

[00:35:40] Because it was trapped in a system.

[00:35:42] It was trapped in a person, you know, whatever, some memory or whatever.

[00:35:46] And so the system is the one that's reminding you and remembering for you.

[00:35:52] And again, if the systems aren't there, then you still have the best intentions.

[00:35:57] You want to do that.

[00:35:59] You just don't ever get around to it because systems don't talk to one another.

[00:36:05] It's another one of those places where even, again, let's say, you know, we applied and we didn't get the job as a store manager.

[00:36:11] We got the assistant manager job.

[00:36:12] And it turns out, because of our life right now, it's just not going to work to drive 25 minutes to be a store manager.

[00:36:21] It's just not the right fit for me right now.

[00:36:23] Now, the fact that you remembered that I applied to be a manager, even if I don't actually apply for the opportunity.

[00:36:34] Right.

[00:36:34] I feel like...

[00:36:36] You had the first right of refusal.

[00:36:37] Yeah, you gave me a shot.

[00:36:40] Yeah.

[00:36:40] It didn't work for me.

[00:36:41] But you just, you know, you put another, what do you call it?

[00:36:44] You put another tip in the tip jar.

[00:36:46] Mm-hmm.

[00:36:47] And every time you do one of these things, you're putting another dollar in my tip jar of like, you know, I'm not using money here, in the good karma tip jar.

[00:36:56] Why would I leave this company?

[00:36:58] Why would I leave this company?

[00:36:59] Now, at some point I might.

[00:37:00] Right.

[00:37:01] I might say, look, I'm moving, I'm going back to school, or I'm moving to a new town, or my family relative is sick, and I got to take care of them.

[00:37:09] But I'm not going to be leaving this job saying this place sucks, and I'm opening up my app to figure out where I should go next.

[00:37:20] I'm just not doing that.

[00:37:21] You were proud to be an employee.

[00:37:23] The experience was fantastic.

[00:37:25] Yeah.

[00:37:25] No, definitely.

[00:37:26] Two things.

[00:37:27] Two questions for me.

[00:37:29] Take them any way you'd like.

[00:37:31] First, I hate software categories, but I realize that a lot of HR and recruiting budgets are built in Excel or Google Sheets, as Ryan likes to say.

[00:37:43] Boomer.

[00:37:44] What do your prospects and customers consider you as?

[00:37:50] That's one question.

[00:37:52] And the second time, give us some insight into response times and how important that is to front-line customers.

[00:37:58] Yeah, yeah.

[00:37:59] Yeah, I'll take the second one first.

[00:38:01] Response times are just critical in everything.

[00:38:05] I don't want to date myself, but as we've been talking about younger generation of workers,

[00:38:16] their expectations on response times move at the speed of SMS, not email.

[00:38:24] What used to be okay was to say, listen, I'm going to review your application and get back to you in two or three days.

[00:38:33] For most workers that are now applying, that's a lifetime.

[00:38:36] I mean, you might as well not bother following up in three days because somebody else will be responding to me today.

[00:38:46] Response times in everything have gone...

[00:38:51] I want to say response times.

[00:38:53] The expectation of response time has grown dramatically.

[00:38:58] Such to the fact that you just can't brute force this.

[00:39:02] You can't...

[00:39:03] It used to be that maybe you could hire enough recruiters or you could have enough store managers spend enough time

[00:39:10] that they could get back to everybody within 48 hours.

[00:39:14] You cannot do this with humans.

[00:39:15] You need a system to do it.

[00:39:18] Obviously, there are others.

[00:39:20] You know, there are other solutions that do this.

[00:39:22] But Fountain, I think, is the only one that does it from job board to departure date.

[00:39:28] So response times.

[00:39:30] If you're listening to this podcast and you're not a Fountain customer

[00:39:33] and you don't have any plans to be a Fountain customer,

[00:39:36] if I could give you any piece of unsolicited advice, it would be

[00:39:40] look at response times across everything you're doing.

[00:39:44] And if you can make them 20% faster, you'll see it in the data.

[00:39:47] So that's a free piece of advice, which I say take with a grain of salt.

[00:39:53] The second part.

[00:39:55] Look, the category we believe that we're in is the frontline HCM world.

[00:40:00] We are a human capital management solution for the frontline.

[00:40:05] Now, obviously, we work very closely with the large HCM players.

[00:40:09] Right.

[00:40:10] But we believe we are a valuable addition to that HCM suite.

[00:40:16] If frontline work is important to your business, you know,

[00:40:19] my guess is given the breadth of your, you know, your audience,

[00:40:24] there are some people who work at, you know, investment banks and law firms

[00:40:29] that are listening to us right now.

[00:40:31] And I hope they learned something and found the conversation interesting.

[00:40:34] They don't hire a lot of frontline workers.

[00:40:36] You know, they're hiring mostly lawyers and bankers.

[00:40:39] Who we need as well.

[00:40:40] They're very important people in our economy.

[00:40:43] Do we?

[00:40:43] But to the extent, if your company is powered by those frontline workers,

[00:40:48] hey, even lawyers, we love lawyers.

[00:40:51] Yeah.

[00:40:52] You don't up until the point where you need one.

[00:40:56] And I tried to say that without my lips probably didn't do so well.

[00:41:00] But if frontline workers are important, having the right HCM tool sets

[00:41:06] to support those workers is just, it will make a massive difference for your business.

[00:41:11] Right.

[00:41:11] Got anything?

[00:41:12] No, Sean, I've been, I've been learned on this one.

[00:41:15] I've been schooled.

[00:41:16] This is wonderful.

[00:41:18] Always fun to be here.

[00:41:20] Thank you so much for carving out time for us in the audience.

[00:41:23] This is wonderful.

[00:41:24] Absolutely.

[00:41:25] Huge fountain fan.

[00:41:27] Also, Sean fan.

[00:41:29] So just thank you for carving out time for us, bro.

[00:41:32] Absolutely.

[00:41:32] Let's do it again, guys.

[00:41:33] Really appreciate it.

[00:41:34] Always fun to be with you.

[00:41:35] Yeah.

[00:41:35] Thank you.

[00:41:35] Thank you.

[00:41:35] Thank you.

[00:41:35] Thank you.