Ep. 11: Workplace Misconduct: The DHL-FedEx Blunder & Lessons in Brand Awareness with Doug Shonrock from Joveo

[00:00:00] This is a limited series powered by the Work Defined Podcast Network. What is going on? This is Ryan Leary from Work Defined. Have you ever wondered what really goes down behind the cubicles? This is Workplace Misconduct, the limited series based on FAMA's 9 to 5 Nightmares podcast where workplace misconduct gets unpacked.

[00:00:21] Raw stories, real consequences and frankly lessons we all need to hear. This series is brought to you by FAMA helping companies scream for misconduct before it's a headline. Check them out at FAMA.io.

[00:00:44] This is William Tincup and Ryan Leary. We are recording from FAMA's booth at HR Tech and we are here with Jovio, our friends at Jovio.

[00:00:55] We did Jovio a couple years ago. We did. The wands. He talks about that wand. I have it on my desk. The last one. I still have it on my desk. I still literally when people are like, what should we do in a trade show? I'm like, this. Not this, but do something as cool as this. Yeah. Well Doug, do this forever and introduce yourself first before we get into it. Sure. Doug Shonrock, Jovio.

[00:01:22] Jovio. But for decades, I go back to Mad Men. So you want inappropriate stories, I got a billion of them. Love it. We've got plenty of time. Not going there today. No, no. Today I've got workplace stupidity. Good. Tell us a little bit about Jovio real quick. What do y'all do?

[00:01:40] Jovio is core business is programmatic and optimized spend. Right. Isn't expanding into the full candidate funnel. Oh, cool. Optimize your spend, then optimize your conversions, optimize your data, and then re-engage. Oh, I love all that. That's where y'all needed to be. I mean, it's natural progression. Natural progression. That's excellent. All right. So give us our workplace stupidity story. All right. What do you got?

[00:02:11] This is before the digital age. Yes. Where we all have stories where they do an email blasted out and, oh, the client was on the email list. Right, right, right, right. This is before the digital age. Doing a huge presentation. Huge. DHO. We've got creative people. We've got everybody involved. Strategists. Get the whole thing done. Pack it up. Give it to the account coordinator. It's due tomorrow. This is going to be perfect.

[00:02:42] It came back to us unopened in a DHL package because we sent it to DHL. UPS. In a FedEx package. Oh, yeah, that's basic. That's pretty funny. Well, that's basic. But again, to think that thought and just go down to the mail room or go wherever Kinko's or whatever the bit was and go, yeah, I need to get this. Yeah, it's got to be there overnight. Oh, yeah.

[00:03:09] And not think about who's the brand. What do they care about? And we unzipped the FedEx. I mean, the DHL package. Yeah. And there was the FedEx envelope unopened with. Yeah. Know thy audience. Wow. Wow. Yeah. And it was probably a perfect pitch. You probably would have won the business, right? Or at least had a fair chance. Yeah. It was JWT at the time. Yeah. And we had a fair shot. I worked at JWT.

[00:03:39] This is, you've, we've talked, you've talked about this. If you work for a makeup company, wear their makeup. If you work for Nike, don't wear Adidas. And if you go into seven copiers, don't tell them you brought Xerox copiers. That's right. Right. Situational ethics, situational lying. People will say, no, you should never lie. It's like, actually, you know, there's a case where when your wife says, does these jeans make my ass look fat? No. No, you look fantastic. Never look better.

[00:04:08] Never look better. Never look better. That's one of those bits with, you don't send DHL a FedEx. Correct. So there's my workplace stupidity story for the day. That is a great story. Is there anything outside of, like, teaching the account coordinator? Is there anything that we could have done differently?

[00:04:28] The answer, well, yes. The takeaway that we had at the time is, we get a group of people who are so wrapped up in the pitch, in the presentation, in the strategy. And there's a periphery of people that are supporting. Right. Maybe making copies. Maybe getting coffee. And you don't bring them in, and then you turn over what is a very mundane task to someone who's going like, yeah, I do this all the time.

[00:04:55] So I think the learning is, bring the entire team in so that everyone understands this could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. At least. So what you do, even if it's just to send something overnight, is the impact. You've got to live and breathe. Yeah. Okay, what are we doing? It's DHL. What do they care about? What are their values? What is their brand? What are their colors? All that stuff. Like, all of it is important. Yeah.

[00:05:21] And don't assume all the sweat and blood and tears that you've put into it for three weeks has translated down to anybody else. That's right. Yeah. That's wonderful. So what are you trying to get out of HR Tech? What's your goal here? Well, this is my 25th straight except for COVID year. COVID, yeah. And it's changed a ton. Yes. It has, yeah. So it used to be a lot of VPs of HR, managers of HR, direct buyers.

[00:05:49] Now it's who do I want to partner with? Who wants to partner with me? So I think we've transitioned from more of a direct sales kind of thing. Yes, if there are direct employers out there, come on over to the booth. 100%. 100%. But it's become a partnership thing and understanding roadmaps and who's doing what. Right. So that's kind of what we hope to get out of it is some partners. I love it. I love it. What type of partners do you look for? Are you looking for CRMs and ATSs and some of those? No, we've got that.

[00:06:19] It's still probably more in supply. Got it. We met a really interesting firm over there that's doing a lot of nice work in state employment services and DE&I. Okay. Everybody's looking for DE&I. But I think probably more on the supply side, both from the candidate supply as well as the media supply. Right. Thank you so much for carving out time for us. Love it.

[00:06:49] We appreciate you.