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Workforce Therapy Files

Workforce Therapy Files

Hosted by Jim Ray

BusinessManagementInterviews guests

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84

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Aug 2026

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About the show

This podcast is designed for business leaders and human resource professionals who are challenged with expanding their workforce. Workforce Therapy Files, an Employer Solutions Podcast, is hosted by 3 separate business owners who operate in the staffing and human resources space. They'll provide perspectives, tips and advice (along with a little humor) to help you prepare for and manage your workforce challenges. Need Help Supporting Your Company's Recruiting and Staffing Goals? We're here to help. You can contact us via our individual websites, depending on your specific needs or questions: • Jamie Swaim, SPHR – www.ParcelKnows.com • Molley Ricketts – www.IncipioWorks.com • Jason Heflin – www.CrowdSouth.com We hope you find it insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening!

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September 10, 2026Episode 4534 min

$60 Billion Hidden in Plain Sight: How Small Businesses Can Claim Thousands in Tax Credits

File 42: In this episode of the Workforce Therapy Files, hosts Jamie Swaim and Molley Ricketts sit down with Ben Reno-Weber, CEO and Founder of Essential Innovations, to explore how companies can unlock over $60 billion in underutilized federal tax credits and training incentives. Ben explains that while programs like the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) can provide employers with up to $2,400 to $9,600 back per eligible hire, less than 1% of small businesses take advantage due to perceived, administrative friction. Essential Innovations removes this barrier by streamlining workflows to help employers hire and retain essential frontline workers, including veterans, individuals coming off SNAP, and those overcoming past convictions. Beyond hiring incentives, Ben emphasizes the need to solve root workforce barriers such as childcare subsidies, transportation, and long-term career upskilling pathways. When building his own team, he prioritizes curiosity, optimism, and durable skills over simple technical execution. Discussing artificial intelligence, Ben explains how technology itself is a commodity and that real innovation comes from using tools to eliminate human friction rather than replacing human relationships. Key Themes: · Unlocking $60+ Billion: The Hidden Tax Credits Small Businesses Leave Behind · Hiring for Curiosity: Building High-Performing Teams in an Era of Change · Workforce Pell Program: A New Program for Shorter-Term Trainings · Breaking Workforce Barriers: Childcare, Transportation, and Upskilling Pipelines · AI is a Commodity: Why Human-Centered Relationships Still Drive Real Value · Lessons from Microsoft: Data, Automation, and the Shift Toward Durable Skills · Conclusion Episode Transcript Molley Ricketts: Welcome back to this episode of Workforce Therapy Files. Jamie and I are super excited to have an incredible guest with us today. None other than Ben Reno-Weber. Jamie Swaim: Yay. Welcome, Ben. Molley Ricketts: He is the CEO and Founder of Essential Innovations. We are looking forward to this episode and can't wait to get into where you're at with all of the wonderful things and follow up from a previous interview. So I'm going to kick it over to Jamie so she can catch us up to speed on where we are. Jamie Swaim: Perfect. Hi, Ben. Ben Reno-Weber: Howdy. Jamie Swaim: Ben is typing, right? All right, Ben, before we go in and dive into all the amazing stuff that we know we can talk about with you, I'm going to ask you a random question that just gets our juices flowing. But the cool thing about this segment is that we all answer it. Ben Reno-Weber: Okay. Jamie Swaim: Okay. So I want you to imagine that you're stuck in an airport for six hours. Ben Reno-Weber: Okay. Jamie Swaim: Seems like it happens. Your phone is dead. You forgot your charger. Okay. So you cannot use your phone. Ben Reno-Weber: Sounds glorious. Jamie Swaim: So you've got your laptop. What is the non-work thing that you open first? Ben Reno-Weber: It's a non-work thing on my laptop. So, I have been using AI to make art, and so I've been playing around with a couple of different things where something that I'm feeling or something that I'm experiencing, trying to use interesting prompts to make that into fun images or videos. Jamie Swaim: Interesting. I really want to see some of these. Ben Reno-Weber: So that's probably what I would be doing if it were laptop bound. Jamie Swaim: Okay. Molley, what would yours? Molley Ricketts: That's a great question. Golly. Honestly, truly opening my computer, it would be one of the other interests of business that if it weren't Incipio, then it would be one of our other businesses that we have going on probably to check in on them and make sure that we've got notes. Because like we said on a couple of conversations that we've had in the past, there's never a dull moment when it comes to the things that Molley is doing. Jamie Swaim: It also sounds like Molley cannot answer the non-work side of the question. Oh, Molley Ricketts: That's probably. Ben Reno-Weber: So can I offer a though on this? Jamie Swaim: Yes, please. Ben Reno-Weber: I think we make this artificial distinction between work and life that when I talk to my friends who live in Asia, they're like, "That is the dumbest Western concept that exists and that's a statement." Your work is part of your life. Molley Ricketts: For sure. Ben Reno-Weber: And so I think the more interesting thing is does it cost you or does it build you? Molley Ricketts: I'm that writing down. Ben Reno-Weber: Molley, if something that. I love writing pieces for LinkedIn. It gives me joy. Is it work? If you were using an accounting perspective on it, sure. But from a holistic life perspective, no, it brings me joy. Molley Ricketts: I love that. Jamie Swaim: Okay, that's fair. Molley Ricketts: I think too, I have always leaned into what I feel like I'm best at, and I feel like I'm really good at working. Ben Reno-Weber: I agree. My experience of you is that it brings you joy. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Ben Reno-Weber: Not all the time. Every job has dirty diapers, but you're a joyful warrior in my experience. Molley Ricketts: Thank you. Thank you. So thank you for helping me be okay with that and not guilty. Ben Reno-Weber: Or maybe I'm just making excuses for my own workaholism. I'm willing to acknowledge that possibility too. Jamie Swaim: I think the spirit of the question is just trying to understand something about you that's not work- related because we also have multitudes and I know Molley is one of those that contains that. In fact, last night my husband and I were having a conversation about whether or not Molley likes to drive fast cars. Did my face freeze? Molley Ricketts: No. I'm just scared of what you're going to say. Jamie Swaim: No, you're talking about how Molley likes to drive fast cars, right? So it would not surprise me to hear Molley talk about like, "Oh, I would be Googling my next opportunity to go and go to a track and drive a fast car. She also enjoys travel." So it's meant no judgment because I'm so glad that I'm surrounded by people that are doing work that fills their bucket. But I was also just trying to learn those kinds of things. Yes. Molley Ricketts: What about you, Jamie? What's yours? Jamie Swaim: Oh, I do not do things that necessarily build me in my free time, Ben. Sometimes I spend way too much time reading books that offer no intellectual value or for just pure entertainment. And I think it's because the life that I have is serious. There's so much. I guess it does build me because it adds a little levity, a little bit of ridiculousness. So I watch TV and I read books. That's what I would be doing on my laptop. Molley Ricketts: Nice. Unlocking $60+ Billion in Tax Credits and Programs Jamie Swaim: Yeah. Okay. So Ben, the last time you were with us, it was in a loudy conference space. It was a really loud conference space, and we were talking about this company that you established to really solve some problems. So I want to give a couple of highlights and then we're going to dive deeper because we felt like our time together just wasn't long enough. Okay? Cool. So here's the highlights that we captured and you feel free to edit any of them. The first one though is that there is $10 billion hiding in plain sight. That was evident when we met last year. Okay. Ben Reno-Weber: Yes. More than that, but yes. Jamie Swaim: Okay. There's over $10 billion in available tax and training credits like the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) that companies could be claiming for hiring essential workers, yet less than 1% of small businesses take advantage of it. That was something big that we took away from our time together. Number two, that it's not about awareness though, it's about friction . People think about it being this really hard thing to go and get those credits, and the main reason employers leave that money on the table is because they either don't know it exists or that the time commitment and paperwork would be too much to go and get it. Molley Ricketts: Truth. Jamie Swaim: Okay. And then the third piece is that the math is surprisingly good for a surprisingly small lift when a company like Essential Innovation enters the chat . Around 10 to 15% of typical workforce is work opportunity tax credit or WOTC eligible. That includes veterans who can qualify for up to $9,600 and people coming off SNAP or long-term unemployment. Most eligible hires net up to $2,400 back, and the setup takes about an hour, with just one extra form plus your monthly payroll expert. Ben Reno-Weber: You can come do my pitch anytime. Hiring for Curiosity Jamie Swaim: Okay, fantastic. Well, the good thing is we're going to dive a little bit deeper today and ask you a couple of questions that we put together, but we also want to make sure that we close one essential loop from that chat. You left us a question for our next participant. You asked whether or not what the 10 out of 10 hiring attribute that an individual would look for? And now we have to turn it back to you because that feels like fair play. What is it that you look for in building the right team to do all of these amazing things? Ben Reno-Weber: Curiosity. Jamie Swaim: Tell us more. Molley Ricketts: Interesting. Ben Reno-Weber: I think in the innovation ecosystem where we live right now, where what used to be hard in many ways is now easy, the number one thing I look for in people that I want to work with is, are they curious and interested in learning with us around what the next set of things are? I find associated with curiosity is generally an optimism and a positivity, and there's lots that come with that, but beyond the durable skills or whatever we're calling them now of I want to work with you and you're not a jerk and you execute, this idea that we're going to explore new things together is the most important driver for building our company. So within Essential Innovations, we have a super curious group and actually we've got behind us our values. If you go for the base, we're focused on people because what we do is help people, particularly people from difficult spaces, people who have a felony conviction, people who are coming out of a domestic violence situation, veterans who are returning, people who have been long-term unemployed. And when you're working with those populations and with you working with the people who work with those populations, you got to be focused on that individual because you can't mess up. If you're working with somebody and you create a bad experience for them, that's a setback for that segment of the population that it's not for a white-collar tech worker. So for us, we want to be human-focused. We want to be accountable to ourselves. We want to be connected to one another. That's part of the fun. Within our Essential Innovations team, we have a lot of fun and that is one of our values. And then we want to be using all the systems that we can to be flexible and efficient because hey, it's so much easier than it used to be. Workforce Pell Program Jamie Swaim: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Fantastic. Now, when you mentioned in our last time together that the barrier to work opportunity tax credit, that getting that wasn't about awareness though, it was about friction. Now we're a year later. Do you feel like that's gotten better, gotten worse, stayed the same? Ben Reno-Weber: It has not gotten better. I think what we have discovered is that that central insight, these resources exist for employers. We also are piloting right now for workforce nonprofits. They're not net new things that have to be built or policies that have to be changed or a grant that has to be written for. These resources exist. They exist at the hiring process, that's the work opportunity tax credit, but they also exist in the training space and they're increasingly vibrant in the training space. The country has just launched this Workforce Pell Program where all of a sudden Pell grants, which are grants to support low-income students getting degrees, are now you can use them for shorter-term trainings, right? Okay. Well, who's going to figure that out? I know this is relatively new just in the universe. Who's going to figure that out for them? We are. And then also there's programs that are there to support both employers and non-employees and potential employees with subsidizing childcare. Oh, well, we were in E-town a couple months ago with the MI2, the Metals Innovation Initiative, and we were looking, oh, if you make up to, I think it was $50,000 a year, your childcare can get partially subsidized because the state wants you to work. Now, there's a whole bunch of things that have to be true to make that work. And part of what we do is really deep dive into, well, what needs to be true and then what are the workflow pieces that need to happen from a paperwork perspective for you to be able to offer that? And that's what we do. So the central insight, this is a matter of friction, still true. The universe that we're dealing with now, I said more than $10 billion, we're cataloging $60 plus right now, $60+ billion that's just lying on the table and more than lying on the table. It's like bouncing on the table asking for somebody to pick that up. Jamie Swaim: And will likely go away if people don't. Ben Reno-Weber: Maybe. I mean, they're pretty stable programs because for the small group of people that are taking advantage of them, they're incredibly effective. So these work opportunity tax credit's a good example. It's been renewed 16 times. Knock on wood at the time of this recording, we are hoping that it's going to be in the fall continuing resolution that's currently before Congress for its 17th re-up. So there's a broad bipartisan consensus that work is the best social program. Jamie Swaim: Understood. Molley Ricketts: So you've talked a little bit about beyond WOTC and what those underused credits and the incentives are. How is it best to approach an organization that doesn't take advantage of the WOTC form even to start? So you've got a small to medium-sized business and they see that as, oh, great, something else that I have to do, something else that I have to check the box. How might we change the narrative to help organizations understand attracting top talent that may not otherwise be available because of not having resources to go to work? How do you get those leaders comfortable with even filling out the form to be filled out.? Ben Reno-Weber: Yeah, absolutely. Molley Ricketts: Because to me, all I hear from a senior leadership when you're introducing new things oftentimes, not every time, you got to have a curious leader that helps. But oftentimes we'll hear, "We can't add another thing to our onboarding. That's another piece of paper that I have to have my new hire complete, and they're already filling out 50 forms." So talk us through that. How do you overcome those objectives? Ben Reno-Weber: Well, I think like with everything else, and I've heard you say this, you got to start with listening. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Ben Reno-Weber: You've got to understand what their actual pain point is. And no matter how much I know that what we do is good for them, if it's not something that they feel or see, they're not going to act on it. There are two kinds of people in the world. There are people who've done Amy Romine's sales training and people who have not. Molley Ricketts: Amy Rudy . Ben Reno-Weber: Rudy, sorry. Yes. You got to say, "Oh, my pain point is that I'm struggling to attract and retain frontline workers." We don't do generally white-collar work. We do the folks who make stuff, who move stuff, and who serve people who they look in the eye. Those are our people. And we serve the populations of people who want those jobs. And so for an employer, we had our first full circle. We have a really strong partnership with Goodwill, and somebody who had gone through Goodwill's stabilization programs , who had been homeless, then worked in the store, gotten stability, gotten transportation, and was ready to work somewhere else. A client of ours was hiring. We were able to say, "Okay, here's a position. We have vetted the position. The person can get there and they're looking for something else, and they got hired from Goodwill into that organization." Now, what we know is that that organization is going to be able to offset 40% of that person's first set of wages for between three and four months. Awesome. That person is more willing to take a risk because they've got that. Well, they know they're going to be supported by Goodwill, which is more than most of the people they hire can say. Most of the people they hire on a frontline, if their tire breaks or they need something, no one is going to hand them an Uber card, and you get some salary offset. Awesome. So now that person is accumulating credits right now, and hopefully what that leads to is a more active hiring pipeline for that company. Breaking Workforce Barriers Molley Ricketts: So, this is definitely a passion of mine, the essential worker category, and one that I definitely think does not get the credit they deserve. And if we could just go to the past for a minute, I know that COVID was a time that was very stressful for everyone, really in particular outside of the healthcare industry, then I would fall to HR. And the category of worker that makes up almost 65% of workers nationally, were finally lifted to a stature of honor and glorifying their role of keep on keeping on, manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, warehouse, construction, all of those things, all of those roles, they had to stay or we would've crumbled even more. So how do we help get over 105 million people nationally? There's only about 170 million workers nationally, and 105 million of them are this category of worker that we're talking about. Ben Reno-Weber: Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I think that's exactly right. I think we are, one of my friends said so eloquently, we banged pops for them and then we forgot them. Molley Ricketts: Yes. Ben Reno-Weber: So I think to me, there are two parts to that. The first part is how do we really successfully identify the barriers that are actually keeping them from working? Because to me, the metric we should be watching as a country is workforce participation. So unemployment, that's a metric, but that's only of the people who are actively seeking work. What that doesn't capture is the people who've stopped seeking work, who've just given up. And we know intellectually, we know the reasons that they stop. They apply for jobs that they're not eligible for. I have a felony conviction. I can't tell whether or not this employer is going to hire me or not. And it's super discouraging when you do this over and over again. Side note, it's super discouraging for everybody when you've got all these phantom Indeed postings and AI's making the postings and AI is making the applications, and that is super discouraging for everybody, but it's particularly discouraging if you've already got some barriers. Then we know for the workforce age population, many of them have kids. Well, who's going to watch those kids? I remember talking to a huge appliance manufacturer a couple years ago, and their drop-off between they have done the first week of training on site with somebody and then their first day of actual work was something like 40%. Well, why? Well, because the first week you can get your mom to drive you, your buddy to drive you, and a lot of this is third shift work, and your mom will watch your kids, but that's not a sustainable system. Molley Ricketts: Right. Ben Reno-Weber: Okay, so how do we build the sustainable systems? Now, this is where our universe is so interesting is there are resources for this. There are the CCAP programs that are childcare subsidies, the ECAP programs that are sponsored by employers where there's a match. A lot of this is tax deductible. There's programs, but uniting those programs, making them obvious and easy is where the opportunity for innovation to reduce those barriers to hiring on the front-end are. That's the first part, and then there's the second part. You want to talk about the second part? Jamie Swaim: Yeah. Molley Ricketts: I'm leaning on the edge of my seat. Ben Reno-Weber: You are actually leaning forward into the edge. The second part is creating a career path for that person so that it is not, "I get in and what I'm going to do forever is mop the floor in this healthcare facility." What it is is, "Yeah, I'm going to start mopping the floor, but I can see how the employer is creating a space for career development and increased income." Jamie Swaim: Really like the ease of your environment. This is amazing. Ben Reno-Weber: Yeah, the lights. We're shining a light on this important issue. That's right. Molley Ricketts: There you go. Yeah. Ben Reno-Weber: Most people are in the dark metaphorically. No, so I start as a tool runner for a construction company and they say, "Hey, do you want to get certified in this? Are you interested in a path to being an electrician?" Okay, that means this. Well, we have within every state a program for doing that upskilling. We have federal subsidies that exist for the purpose of helping people to get from, "Oh, I start in food safety, but now I get a culinary certification and then I can do this next thing," particularly through the community college systems. But administering those programs both for the individual and for the employer is cumbersome. And that's the other problem we have to solve. We have to solve the "how do we build that upskilling pipeline?" Because the traditional paths to those things are not working. My daughter is doing an aircraft mechanic program at her high school. She might want to be an aircraft mechanic, but I really hope that what she does is explore that, decide whether or not that's a thing she wants to do before she spends four years… Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. Yeah. Ben Reno-Weber: In an electrical or aircraft mechanic apprenticeship program. And that's where I think there's such an opportunity right now. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. My daughter started a program around biomedical, and she wants to be a pediatrician when she grows up. And she's like, "What if I get into this and I hate it?" I'm like, "Then you found that out at 15." That's amazing. Ben Reno-Weber: Yeah! Exactly. You don't want to find it out after med school. And then I think the third prong of this is recognizing that it is, from an economic development perspective, that the jobs that are going to get disrupted are the white-collar jobs that are about essentially protected bodies of knowledge. And where we need to be growing the workforce and the economy is around actually making stuff, moving stuff, and directly serving people in ways that are not going to get AI'd. It is much harder to displace atoms than electrons. Jamie Swaim: Value created by Susie's spreadsheet because she's the only one that knows how to run it. It's just not going to stand. It's not going to stand. Absolutely. Ben Reno-Weber: Yeah. AI Is a Commodity Jamie Swaim: Ben, one of the things that I'm curious about, because I'm hearing this, you've got this giant population that could be served by the work that your team does. You've talked about the lack of information and the amount of friction that's involved. This feels like a giant undertaking. I know you're probably not the only place that's exploring how to help people with this, but you're the one I know. So, my question to you though is how thick is the AI layer now to help you and your team try to cast as wide of a net as possible? How much is AI involved and where do you still have humans in the loop? Ben Reno-Weber: So, this is the most fun thing that I've been able to do over the last year as participate in the Techstars Workforce cohort . This is this national program that supports startups, and this one was entirely geared around workforce. So we got access to these national though leaders and it was just amazing. And what we are increasingly hearing is that this idea that AI per se is the solution is just misplaced. And if you as a company are focused on the technology itself, technology's a commodity. It is as easy to build for anyone who's an expert in the space. Where the real value is going to be created is in solving the problem, which is often going to involve a human. And what I mean by that is this. So many of these federal credits are actually administered at the local level. And when I mean local, I'm talking about county level. There are 10 workforce boards in the state of Kentucky , period. Molley Ricketts: Wow. Ben Reno-Weber: And each one has a set of priorities for the high growth or high demand industries in their area and the populations they're trying to serve, and they get to decide strategically where that money gets distributed and how it gets distributed. Well, you know where that lives? Myra's head, right? Jackie's head. It is not on their website. It's on the minutes of their board meetings, but that's not really how it gets done on the ground. And so part of what we are doing and building is a proprietary database of our human interactions with those people, which then we turn into bits and bytes and feed it into a data system and use an algorithm that helps them. Again, we are human-centric on their business needs. They are trying to connect employers and workforce. If we can be a bridge that makes that easier for them and technology sits underneath that, great. But the technology is not the forward-facing part. The technology is just the tool to solve the problem. Jamie Swaim: Ben, I think we're going to need a third episode at some point. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. I know. I'm looking at the time going, "We haven't even cracked this open." Lessons from Ben's Time at Microsoft Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. All right, so we are going to wrap up with one final question just about Ben Reno-Weber. So you've gone from studying the future of work at Microsoft to living it as a founder. So if you had to hire your past Microsoft self for your current company, would you? Or is there a question that would've trumped up that version of Ben? Ben Reno-Weber: Oh, if I could have a second version of me running around next to me trying to do the same thing? Hell yeah. I'd do that in a heartbeat. Jamie Swaim: No, would you hire your Microsoft version of you, that chapter of your life? Would you hire that person for what you're doing? Ben Reno-Weber: When we were talking about the future of work, what we got right was the universe in which data becomes the capacity to really drive insight and create value. Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. Ben Reno-Weber: We were absolutely right about that. Jamie Swaim: 100% Ben Reno-Weber: A lot of our time was spent being like, "Okay, how do we collect that data in a way that it is useful?" Well, what we learned was to do that, whether you're on the shop floor or in the ambulance or wherever, getting people to have good fidelity around their data meant you had to create value for them in the data. Molley Ricketts: Okay. Ben Reno-Weber: Why is the ambulance driver going to correctly record all the things that they did? Because you provided some sort of value. Ben Reno-Weber: Why is Marcus, the guy who is the Mr. Fix It for machine number 52 on the line, going to spend time training Abdul to be his successor? Because you've made, or train an AI bot to help whoever comes next, you're going to do that because you created value for them. Well, to do that, you got to understand what they value, which is where the human is in this. Oh, what is the biggest pain in the butt for the guy who knows how to fix Machine 56? Workflow. I don't want to order my parts. I don't want to record what I did. If you can tell me that I can talk through what I'm doing on 56 and that will manage all my paperwork, you've created value for me. And by the way, you now have captured good data, you could use that to train either the algorithm or Abdul. Sweet. That's the human-centric part that we got right. We still haven't executed it very well, but we understood that insight. The part we got wrong was this idea of teaching a specific set of skills, particularly electronic skills, was going to create value. We trained thousands of people in coding…Sorry. Jamie Swaim: How could you have known? Ben Reno-Weber: Dangled the promise that these entry-level coding and customer support and all these things were going to be like a family supporting wage. Claude Code enters the chat. So, we got that wrong. Now, the piece that sits with that going forward is these durable skills, this idea of curiosity, but also I know how to show up and my life is not just durable skills, but a stability and durable transferable skills. People will learn and adapt. Jamie Swaim: For sure. Ben Reno-Weber: If… Jamie Swaim: If they can get a brand new cell phone and not have to read the book, I think it tells us everything we need to know about what people are capable of. Ben Reno-Weber: Right. I think that's exactly right. Well, but now cell phones have spent generations making that onboarding process as easy as possible. Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. Absolutely. Ben Reno-Weber: I mean, I think that's actually, Jamie, that's a brilliant analogy. I'm going to credit you and steal it. Jamie Swaim: You can steal it without crediting me. I'm good. Ben Reno-Weber: No, no, because everyone can unpack an iPhone. Jamie Swaim: They can. Ben Reno-Weber: And get themselves to - Jamie Swaim: And transfer their photos and figure it out. Ben Reno-Weber: Right. But in that process, it speaks 200 languages. It's super intuitive. It does a lot of things. And presumably you're not trying to do that while also sitting in a house that's on fire. And that's why you're able to sit and do that and have processing speed. And I think if we take that into the idea of workforce hiring and upskilling, we have made it easy and we have stabilized you or help you to stabilize yourself and your family. Man, now we get to unlock all of these workers. Our website is Essentialinno.com. And what we talk about from the very beginning is unlock resources, unlock potential. Conclusion Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. Well, Ben, thank you so much for joining us today. As always, when we spend time with you, we leave with all kinds of insights and about a million more questions. So, I thank you for the time that you spent with us to deep dive a little further than what we were able to do at the conference. I'm going to look to Jimbo and ask Jimery to close that file. For more Information about Ben and Essential Innovations: Website: www.Essentialinno.com Ben's 2025 KYSHRM Interview: https://www.workforcetherapyfiles.com/kyshrm/kyshrm-2025-ben-reno-weber/ That's where we'll leave the conversation for today. Before we close the file, we invite you to reach out to us with questions, suggestions or other comments. We'd love to hear from you. Did You Enjoy Today's Conversation? Visit WorkforceTherapyFiles.com to listen to additional WTF files or to let us know you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming file. Need Help Supporting Your Company's Recruiting and Staffing Goals? We're here to help. You can contact us via our individual websites, depending on your specific needs or questions: · Jamie Swaim, SPHR – www.ParcelKnows.com · Molley Ricketts – www.IncipioWorks.com We hope you found this file insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening!

September 3, 20263 min

WTF is Back for the 2026 KYSHRM Conference!

The Workforce Therapy Files team attended the 2026 Kentucky SHRM Conference, in Louisville. We took the opportunity to interview over 25 professionals who stopped by our booth. At the 2026 Kentucky SHRM Conference, the Workforce Therapy Files team is broadcasting live as the only podcast at the event. Hosts Jason Heflin (CEO of CrowdSouth), Jamie Swaim (HR Professional at Parcel), and Molley Ricketts (Head Honcho of Incipio Workforce Solutions) are inviting attendees to record quick sessions about the work they do and the problems they solve. This appearance marks the podcast's third year broadcasting from the Kentucky SHRM event. This is the group's 3 rd consecutive KYSHRM conference. Because these live sessions are brief, the hosts remind guests that they can easily schedule longer, more in-depth interviews to elaborate on their ideas. Listeners who want to hear from specific professionals can also suggest future guests by reaching out via the contact details in the show notes. To make participation even easier, the podcast has recently adopted the ability to conduct interviews remotely via Zoom, or in person. The team closes by wishing everyone a great show and expressing their hope that these brief episodes prove helpful to the audience. Finally, be sure to watch or listen to each of this year's interviews at WorkforceTherapyFiles.com , and wherever you go for your favorite podcasts. That's where we'll leave the conversation for today. Before we close the file, we invite you to reach out to us with questions, suggestions or other comments. We'd love to hear from you. We hope you found this file insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening! Need Help Supporting Your Company's Recruiting and Staffing Goals ? We're here to help. You can contact us via our individual websites, depending on your specific needs or questions: · Jamie Swaim, SPHR – www.ParcelKnows.com · Molley Ricketts – www.IncipioWorks.com · Jason Heflin – www.CrowdSouth.com

August 27, 2026Episode 4131 min

The Death of Paper Time Cards | How Agentic AI is Revolutionizing Construction Payroll

File 41: Jamie Swaim and Molley Ricketts sit down with Nigel Coelho, General Manager of Agentic Compliance at Lumber, to discuss how agentic AI is transforming workforce management and compliance in the construction industry. Lumber is a payroll and time-tracking platform purpose-built to handle complex construction rules, such as certified payroll and union reporting. Nigel leads Lumber's agentic AI features, including a "headless" Paper Time Card Agent that digitizes handwritten paper time cards using Google Gemini's multimodal capabilities. This tool meets workers where they are, seamlessly bridging the gap between paper records and digital back-office systems like ADP. The platform also utilizes geo-fencing and biometric facial scans to prevent buddy punching, optimize labor spend, and assist with real-time job costing. Additionally, Lumber's "funding agent" automatically identifies opportunities for tax credits and federal funding by tracking apprentice ratios and prevailing wage compliance. Ultimately, these tools relieve administrative stress so subcontractors can focus on their skilled trades. Core Chapter Themes: What is Lumber? Purpose-Built Software for Skilled Trades Meeting Workers Where They Are: The Paper Time Card Agent Biometrics & Geo-Fencing: Mitigating Compliance & Buddy Punching The Skilled Labor Shortage: Apprenticeships & Infrastructure Navigating Prevailing Wage & Unlocking Tax Credits with the "Funding Agent" The Environmental Cost of AI: Water, Energy, and Task-Specific Models Episode Transcript: Jamie Swaim: Hello friends, and welcome back to the Workforce Therapy Files. We're trying a video podcast approach again for this file, and we are joined by Nigel Coelho. Hi Nigel. Nigel Coelho: Hey, Jamie. Hey, Molley. Thanks for having me on. Really appreciate it. Jamie Swaim: We really appreciate it. Molley Ricketts: Thanks for coming on the show. Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. Nigel, one of the things that you may not know is that Molley and I have both founded companies that have worked with individuals in the construction industry. And you also work for a company that basically exists to support the construction industry, correct? Nigel Coelho: Correct. Exactly. And there's just so much opportunity in construction. It's crazy. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. So the company that you work for, tell us about. Nigel Coelho: Absolutely. So I'm the General Manager for Agentic Compliance at Lumber. Lumber is a workforce management solution. Specifically think of time tracking, payroll, onboarding, scheduling. You name it, we have it. It's purpose-built for the construction industry. And the reason is there's all these nuances for compliance that need to be taken into account, like unique payroll or certified payroll reporting. Nuances, you wouldn't take into account in any other vertical. And so the idea is if there was going to be a payroll module purpose built for this, why not have those compliance rules built in? And that's exactly what Lumber is. But what I lead is a lot of the specific activities that happen outside the payroll module, specifically around the labor of reading long documents, trying to get a lot of information out. Those are perfect use cases for agentic AI. And so how do we apply that and make people do their job faster? That's my job. Jamie Swaim: Well, typically we like to get to know you as well as the company that you work for. So we're going to pivot for a second and do today's random question. Okay? Molley Ricketts: Drum roll? Jamie Swaim: Sure. Wow. I don't know if I'm ever going to ask Molley to do another drum roll. Okay. So let's imagine that you were stranded on a job site and all you have is what's in your vehicle. What would be the most useless thing in your vehicle? And what would be the thing that you would thank "past you" for putting in your vehicle? Nigel Coelho: What was the second part, again? Jamie Swaim: The most useless thing in your vehicle. Like, this isn't going to help me. And then what's the thing that you'd be like, way to go "past me"! Way to think ahead. What's the thing that you'd be most excited that is in your vehicle? Nigel Coelho: For a job site, believe it or not, if you had, for example, your time tracking app, I think that's the thing you got to take on site, partly because the amount of compliance issues we run into where people aren't clocking overtime and tracking their time correctly and how it flows in a payroll and what they get wrong. Oh my God. It's just crazy. And people don't get paid. So if I was on the job site, I wouldn't get paid if I wasn't doing my time tracking correctly, literally. Jamie Swaim: I love that you took a random question and plugged your product. Nigel Coelho: No, I'm serious. Jamie Swaim: Yes. No, I'm proud of you right now, Nigel. Nigel Coelho: It could be that because on the back end, I just see how messy it is if somebody doesn't log their time correctly. So I'm like, put me at the job site. Let me make sure I log it in correctly. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. What's the most useless thing in your car? Nigel Coelho: The most useless thing, I would say probably a wrench, because I'm not the best with the handyman kind of equipment. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. Nigel Coelho: I could do a decent job, but the idea is I'd leave it to the experts. I feel like I'm more of the back office guy getting things done and the messy things organized. But if anything on the, let's just say front lines and front field, if it has to come down to the handyman stuff, I'll leave it to the experts. Jamie Swaim: I love this. Molley, what's your answer? Molley Ricketts: Well, let's see. The most useless thing in my car. Shoestring. Why? Jamie Swaim: It has a large number of applications. Molley Ricketts: It does. But at the same time, in your car? Jamie Swaim: Okay. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: All right. Molley Ricketts: So glad that I did. Let's see. Advil. The little travel Advils. Jamie Swaim: That's fantastic. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: Okay. So I believe that the most useful thing in my car is that I always travel with my soccer mom chair. So I don't know when I might need it, but it's actually come in handy in a number of places I didn't expect to need it. Molley Ricketts: So you really bring to the table, pull up a chair. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. And I have more than one because I'm always around somebody that doesn't have a chair. It Nigel Coelho: Always happens too as on the picnics. We always miss a chair. Now I'm seeing the value. It's high utility, right? Jamie Swaim: That's right. And there's no reason. I mean, it's not like it's taking up that much more space than I had other plans for. Okay. And then the most useless, I also have 17 pairs of sunglasses in my car. I don't know that I need them. Molley Ricketts: Do you have a bus? Do you drive a bus? Is that for all your passengers? You can hand them out. Jamie Swaim: I hand them out as people crawl in. I don't, that would probably be more practical than the way that we're approaching life. Nigel Coelho: 17's a good number. One for each day of the week and just in case kind of a switch out in case. Jamie Swaim: I mean, it's about what I'm wearing. I don't know. Okay. So your product name is Lumberfi. Is that correct? Nigel Coelho: Yeah, that's our domain name, but the actual company's name is Lumber. Jamie Swaim: Lumber. Okay. What an appropriate name. Have you been with the company since its start, Nigel, or how long have you been there? Nigel Coelho: I've been with the company since the beginning of this year in 2026. So the way I joined was through an acquisition they made. So they acquired the company I was running before. And so as a result, that was an AI company that got pulled into Lumber. And so right now I'm leading a lot of the agentic AI capabilities at Lumber. A lot of people think when they hear our name, we're a wood company. We get that a lot at a lot of conferences. We should actually start a house swag, which is like woodblocks. I don't think people could carry it home or fit it in their bag. That would be the issue. Molley Ricketts: You could do little travel Jengas. Nigel Coelho: Travel? I'm getting ideas. This is fun. I like this. I like this. Jamie Swaim: We do this. We solve problems for people on every episode. I don't know. It just randomly happens. Nigel Coelho: And you know what? Now that I'm thinking about it, they would come to our booth just by seeing the Jenga tower. It's just like we'll get a huge line going. It's funny, we tried to do something else. We try to have a open bar and then have drinks that were HR-themed. And guess what the most popular drink was? We named it something. Guess what it was? Jamie Swaim: Was it the Jamie Swamey? Nigel Coelho: That could be the second best. Guess what the first one is? It was called the "HR violation." Molley Ricketts: I like that. Nigel Coelho: People were coming up to the booth. They were like, "Give me an HR violation." I was like, "They're coming right up." And we were filling them drinks. But I think the Jenga tower might be a close second after the open bar we had. Jamie Swaim: Yeah, I don't feel like you have to choose between them. Nigel Coelho: Exactly. Jamie Swaim: I think we just figured out the perfect formula. Nigel Coelho: Yeah. Lumber - Purpose-Built Software for Skilled Trades Jamie Swaim: Okay. So you talked about the messiness of the construction industry. Tell us what problem the company started to solve. Nigel Coelho: Yeah. So we ended up thinking, how can we end up solving specific problems around workforce shortages in the field? The number one problem, and the founder of the company, the CEO is Shreesha Ramdas. He had started and sold several companies. So he was really ambitious with the vision for this one, which is how do I make sure that I can tackle something that's a big problem across America, but more importantly, in the construction industry, how do we really make sure we can solve an issue there? And so we had a contact at DPR Construction, kind of asked him, what is the one thing we could solve across the board? And what came up over and over again is the labor shortage in the workforce staffing and kind of the workforce management piece of construction. So he ran about 200 interviews and then figured out that construction payroll, more of the workforce management on the backend was a consistent theme. And so we started with a core module of payroll and time tracking. Those were probably the two most popular. You have a lot of smaller subcontractors that need to do with this reporting, like certified payroll reporting and so on. So this became a way for them to track time in the field, make sure it flows directly into the payroll module and run that certified payroll. And everything was pretty integrated and made for much more seamless back office operations so people could focus on the bread and butter like HVAC, electrical work, things that they want to do in their business and not have to take care of all the paperwork on the backend. So that's how it started. And then we just got more market pulling in different directions like onboarding, ATS, applicant tracking. You name it, we were able to do it. And then we ended up being able to cross-sell a lot of these products across the portfolio. Now we do almost anything you can think of on the workforce management side on the back office. And it's really paying dividends because it's one single source of truth for anybody to go in and find the stuff. Jamie Swaim: With states growing their privacy expectations as it relates to agentic AI, how does your company navigate all of that? Nigel Coelho: It's funny, the complexity has always been there. We've been through several decades where people have been trying to solve this. I do think the inflection point where things started to make sense was obviously in '23 when AI was really taking off around the flavor of generative AI. And three years in now, agentic AI has come a long way. More importantly on something called multimodal capabilities, which is the idea to read things in the real world. One of the models that's really good at that is Google's Gemini model. And so in the field, if you're taking a picture of something or barcode or kind of paperwork or even time cards, it's able to really ingest a lot of that and get the best specific output from it in terms of taking a lot of values in the real world and digitizing it so it flows seamlessly in the backend. That's just one example, but the idea is agentic AI now lends itself well to really be the bridge between the physical world and kind of the digital world. And that hasn't been as possible before. And I think that's why it's such a special time, but more importantly, why this is such a big opportunity. Meeting Workers Where They Are: The Paper Time Card Agent Molley Ricketts: Nigel, when you think about what it is that the tool is bringing to the table and how it's creating greater efficiencies within the workforce of construction, what is it that gets you most excited about AI in general? What is it that you're like, that's going to be the game changer for all things in construction when it comes to this tool? What are you most excited about? Nigel Coelho: Yeah. Specifically on taking things from the field that weren't able to be captured before. It goes off that theme, like I mentioned, where we're in a once in a lifetime opportunity where you're able to use agentic AI in these models to really take things in the physical world and start to digitize it. But what does that look like? And I'll give you a few examples because then it kind of puts it in a practice to understand that. An example of this is like our paper time card agent. We have people still clocking in on paper, clock in and clock out when they do their shift. The issue is it's really hard for people to switch over to an app sometimes or adopt new things. They're just used to the way they are and they've always been doing things like that. So what we do is we say, how do we use agentic AI to meet you where your process is today? And I think that is really powerful because change management seems to be the hardest thing for any organization. And every firm is at a different point in their journey of digitization. But agentic AI says, don't change your stack, don't change your process. We'll meet you where you are and we'll use the capabilities of the models in AI today to get what we need in order to do the back office processes. So I'll give you an example. For paper time card agent, we're able to take a picture off their paper timecard literally, and it's able to digitize those values. It's able to see. We've tried all different types of handwriting. It's able to figure it out. Molley Ricketts: That is incredible. Especially for construction. Nigel Coelho: Exactly. Molley Ricketts: It's a lot like doctors, the chicken scratch. Nigel Coelho: I know. We're really testing the limits. My handwriting is only so bad, but I'm pushing the AI to its limits. Trust me. We're at a breaking point. Biometrics & Geo-Fencing: Mitigating Compliance & Buddy Punching Jamie Swaim: Nigel, are you guys using geofencing or any type of tracking capabilities as well? Nigel Coelho: Yeah. So that's one more use case of the multimodal capability I was telling you about. So one thing we do is biometrics and then also geofencing. So biometrics as in sometimes a buddy might punch in for you and so on, we want to avoid that. And so the idea is you can do a facial scan and then it can figure out, oh, you're actually the person you say you are. And they can cross-reference it with geofencing to figure out in that specific area, that's the exact coordinates you're in right now. And so you're able to take all these different inputs to really make sure you can streamline and check on everything going according to the plan, but more importantly, the efficiency of how people are doing their job. If you're an HVAC technician, how many houses you're hitting in a short amount of time? How many people and field folks do you need to do a job? Do you need to ramp that up? So the idea is one, you can even take into account your job costing, how you're going to do this job, but then two, how many people it takes to officially do a job end-to-end and then really optimize your workforce labor and spend to make sure you can improve your margins as a business. And it goes all the way from a small HVAC contractor to a general contractor. This problem stays across the board. Jamie Swaim: I'm hearing you talk and I can hear all of the very positive use cases. And then I also hear things like biometrics, surveillance. There's all of these pieces that, especially in unionized environments, have some really hard challenges to overcome in terms of how they get applied. So what do you do to help companies with adoption for their employees? Because I would imagine that this, especially if it was new to a group or to a company, might be a little bit hard to swallow initially. I remember when ADP came out with those Palm scanners that would go on time clocks and nobody saw the wrath of our employee base coming that we received. So I'm just very curious about that. Nigel Coelho: No, that's a really good question. And like I said, it goes back to change management. That's quite hard. And to get people and force them to use this is not the way to go. You kind of have to get buy-in from the end user. So the idea here then is if they have to move to this app or do the stuff that we were talking about, it's going to be a hard pivot. We usually see pilots being really useful. And then we can do a kind of an apples to apples comparison of like, this is how you do time tracking in the field today. This is how it is in the app. And this is how you are seeing the time savings. So usually the pilots are able to really quantify the ROI to them and more importantly, give them a feel of how easier it could make life for them rather than having to do it through pen and paper, have to make sure they're doing it right and then getting paid late. But if everything can be streamlined, that's great. Another is we're taking that approach here of using agentic AI, like I said, to meet the people where they are. So say you do have your time tracking app and you've been always used to it. We actually don't force you to move to our app. We say, you know what? That's totally fine. We'll pull in and usually through APIs we're able to pull in the right information, but also through Agentic AI, like I said, if they were doing paper time card, what we can do is use our paper time card agent, but then make sure that you keep everything the same. So if you do use ADP and you do use some paper timecard in terms of logging your hours, we say, you know what? Don't change anything. Lumber is going to do the hard work of stitching together everything on the back end. So the idea here is we'll do the paper time card agent. We'll extract the values from that paper timecard. It flows over and then we're able to populate it directly into ADP. And so from a user perspective, nothing really changed. Everything was pretty much the same. You just log time the way you do and you do payroll in ADP. But in the backend, we've done more of the orchestration layer to make sure everything's been taken into account, the accuracy and compliance have been taken care of. And then we plug it back into your system so you can run your daily operations. It's kind of a flavor of agentic AI we have today called headless, which is the idea that you don't really see it. It's working in the background. And happy to talk more about that, but that's kind of the trend we're seeing now that's getting a lot of market pull just because people want to use AI, but they don't know how. So this is the best use case right now. Jamie Swaim: Okay. So Nigel. Molley Ricketts: Oh sorry, Jamie. Go ahead. Jamie Swaim: No, Molley, go ahead. I was just reflecting on what you said. Please continue. The Skilled Labor Shortage: Apprenticeships & Infrastructure Molley Ricketts: So Nigel, when you speak about this and the industry and this tool, you can see your passion for it. Why construction? What is it about skilled trades, the construction industry that gets you so psyched up about what it is that this tool could do for the workforce in general? Nigel Coelho: No, 100%. You think about it and very timely for America's 250th year. We've come a long way as a country. Construction's only getting started. We have so much to go. And you just think of the opportunity across the 50 states we have. There's so much getting built. We have the data centers we got to build for actually being able to have AI be able to transform these industries. Energy infrastructure that has to power a lot of what's going on in our economy right now. And so for these infrastructure builds and so on, there's so much to do to actually get more and more built across the 50 states we have. The problem is right now, there's that demand on one side, but there really is that shortage on the other side of enough people feeling empowered to go in and go into the trades and really make sure they can make a dent, but more importantly, fulfill this demand we have. And that's why I'm a big fan of registered apprentice programs, getting apprentices involved. A lot of legislation actually in terms of federal funding for these infrastructure bills, for energy infrastructure, ties to getting apprentices involved on projects. Because we have a shortage of labor, they want to maintain something called a journeyman to apprentice ratio, which is you get a certain number of hours for an apprentice on a project and you will have to basically work with a full-time journeyman. But they're mandating this because they want enough of a pipeline coming into the construction industry to serve our country. And so the way I look at it here is it's a fulfilling field to be in because there's such a big opportunity ahead. And where else do you get to make as big an impact in this country as construction where so much is getting built, but there's so much more to go? And how do we empower people to really pick up the trades, go in and take on a lot of this demand to make sure we can fulfill it? And I think that's where we are. We're at the nexus between the two. The demand, but also supplying a lot of the talent and helping manage the workforce to do it. And where else would you rather be in terms of really making sure this country is set for the next 250 years? Molley Ricketts: Nice. That's exciting. Navigating Prevailing Wage & Unlocking Tax Credits with the "Funding Agent" Jamie Swaim: It is. Nigel, once a company starts seeing the real labor cost and productivity, what do you think is the most uncomfortable truth that your tools reveal? Nigel Coelho: Oh yeah. We see a lot of messy stuff on the back end. So what the tools reveal, and what's really interesting is, and a lot of people don't know this, are you guys familiar with the concept of prevailing wage? Right? Jamie Swaim: Our listeners might not be. Nigel Coelho: Exactly. And I'll just outline it real quickly. Prevailing wage outlines the baseline wage within a state for a specific trade, like an electrician, an HVAC worker or someone. The idea is it keeps changing sometimes and a lot of it is updated online. And so you have to make sure you pay this prevailing wage for that specific state. It's very strict. And any specific construction project that touches public works funding in the sense federal funding or state funding. Think about a public school, a library, a public university. All of them are eligible for state and federal money. But if you do work such as HVAC work or electrical work, you have to do certified payroll. You actually have to be able to pay that and show that you've paid the prevailing wage for that state or for the federal rate. A lot of the time people don't want to go with that. And maybe they're a private shop. And so they're like, "We don't do any public works. And so we're just going to pay them what we want to pay them." And sure, kind of on the micro, it seems like you're saving costs. Okay, I'm saving this much on wages. But now, like I said, with a big amount of funding going into infrastructure, especially the energy infrastructure and the data centers and so on, there's a lot of funding and tax credits tied to making sure you pay the prevailing wage. So even if you're not doing public works, if you just paid a little more to that prevailing wage rate, it unlocks so much more in cost savings that people don't even know about. And it actually introduces what one of our products does, which is called our funding agent. It literally finds the delta in what you're paying and says, "If you end up paying a little bit more, this is how much money in terms of tax credits or federal funding you could be eligible for by just paying prevailing wage." And so I think a lot of people get that wrong and they miss that part. They're like, "Oh, prevailing wage just means I get to work on public works projects." But no, it really unlocks so much more about what you could do for the bottom line for your construction. The Environmental Cost of AI: Water, Energy, and Task-Specific Models Jamie Swaim: Nigel, I feel like I could talk to you for hours, but I have one more question and then I'll stop putting in the hot seat. When we talk about agentic AI and all the infrastructure that it takes to support an environment where agentic AI is getting added to almost every application that we utilize, how do you respond to customers who have some concern about the impact on the communities and environment where those data centers are placed? Nigel Coelho: And that's what I think a lot of people hear about AI and they're like, "Okay, it's using up a lot of energy. It's kind of impactful." Is that the kind of the thought of thinking? Jamie Swaim: Yes. Energy, water, the grid, the power grids in the communities. There's all kinds of things that people have talked about. Sound levels. I'm just going off of the stuff that people. There was a data center that was going to go in our backyard and the reaction was very strong. Not technically in our backyard, but close. And the reaction was very strong from the community. And so I hear all these amazing things that AI can do, and I recognize what's happening in our population that we're declining in terms of our overall population. So we're going to need solutions that help us do this. But I'm curious from a company that's selling an agentic product, how do you feel about the impact on the environment? What are the things that you have to share with individuals that might choose a product like yours? Nigel Coelho: No, 100%. And that's where I think it's unique in the sense that we're in the construction industry. Because a lot of the time it's such a full circle moment where we're using AI, but what's powering that AI is data centers, which we're helping companies build to do that. And so it's like an end-to-end. But the idea here is I do get it. There is a lot of pushback for these data centers and especially for water consumption and so on. The approach I would take there is how do you bring in the community? Especially the fact that you and a lot of people are living close to it. It is driving energy prices up. Water consumption is huge. How does at least the development of it give back to the community and empower the community that they feel that the kind of backyard tax, if I would say myself here, is worth it? And that's where we're trying to actually come up with good playbooks and actually like an ROI calculator where that prevailing wage that I was talking about, that actually feeds into the mechanism of how we can deal with a lot of this. Because if a data center comes into your backyard, the next big thing is, is it doing enough for your community? Sometimes even hiring a lot of people locally and making sure that if it's going to be there, it can be at least benefit from it. And prevailing wage kind of ensures they can get paid enough of a high wage for the job that they're doing with a big amount of investment in data center. But I do get it on the water consumption side, on the energy side, that's a big concern. And we need to keep our eye on that. And so we constantly do a lot of stuff to really optimize the tokens we end up using. In fact, there's this thing to think about here, which is enterprises could use AI themselves and they end up racking a huge bill for Anthropic or OpenAI for how much they're using. Or they can use a third-party vertical AI solution like Lumber that abstracts that bill, because we get more efficient with the models we use for the specific task. So there's this trend now where in an application you can break down the application, but you can choose for that model, sorry, for that use case. Say for example, a paper timecard. Maybe that's using more optical character recognition or more image analysis. And so we can choose a model that is very efficient in terms of energy consumption. So it doesn't burn a lot on the backend, doesn't incur too much cost, but it's saving those kind of like micro-moments in the long term that make a big difference. Same thing for text generation or document analysis. So I think we have a responsibility and obligation to optimize that, but more importantly, the tooling is there to really make sure that we can make sure for the entire workflow, we're choosing the right model for the right task. So it's energy efficient that we don't spend a lot. And in the grand scheme of things, that ends up actually saving a lot more than what organizations themselves would use, just using ChatGPT or Claude. The idea is we're able to optimize that on the backend and make it more industry specific to them because we know the workflows already in construction. And so by even just abstracting this layer for them, we end up doing our part to really save on costs and energy and water consumption at scale in a world where people want to use AI, but they want to be conscious of how much they're using it. Jamie Swaim: And you're also not putting people's personal information into a tool that wasn't created for. Nigel Coelho: No, 100%. And in fact, a lot of the time people are very guarded about doing that with the traditional ChatGPT and Cloud. And so we are able to really have governance and security to make sure how much of what you want is stored in the agent and what is not. We try to make it contextual. Sometimes people are short-staffed and they add a new payroll manager. A person's like, "What were the exceptions again I needed to make for this union and for this electrician?" And so we can turn that on if you need it where the agent's able to say, "Oh, for 9 times out of 10, we see you have to apply this rate for this plumber." So it can be a huge productivity booster for newer employees. Or if you care about security and governance, then we can make sure it doesn't retain anything and just make sure workflow for document processing much easier. Jamie Swaim: Very good. Conclusion Molley Ricketts: Awesome. Well, Nigel, I know that we went back and forth for a few days and times to make this happen. And I'm so glad that we were able to come together this morning and spend some time with you to learn more about you and your company. And I have to say, as an organization like Incipio, to be able to hear about things like this that are on the market to help our clients become better employers and create a workforce that is truly engaged and excited to come to work on Monday morning. So thank you for your commitment and dedication to figuring out new ways to streamline and create efficiencies for employers and the greater benefit of grace to employees. Thanks for coming on the show today. Now, Jim, close that file. That's where we'll leave the conversation for today. Before we close the file, we invite you to reach out to us with questions, suggestions or other comments. We'd love to hear from you. To Learn More about Lumber: Website: www.LumberFi.com Did You Enjoy Today's Conversation? Visit www.WorkforceTherapyFiles.com to listen to additional WTF files or to let us know you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming file. Need Help Supporting Your Company's Recruiting and Staffing Goals? We're here to help. You can contact us via our individual websites, depending on your specific needs or questions: · Jamie Swaim, SPHR - www.ParcelKnows.com · Molley Ricketts - www.IncipioWorks.com We hope you found this file insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening!

August 13, 2026Episode 4030 min

The New Era of Workforce Therapy Files: A Strategic Pivot for HR Leaders

File 40: Jamie Swaim and Molley Ricketts announce a strategic pivot for the podcast as Jason Heflin steps back to focus on his agency, though the show will continue to provide "real talk" for HR professionals. A central theme of the episode is Jamie's shift from annual to monthly engagement surveys , which allows for "micro-movements" and real-time agility in responding to employee needs. This approach fosters anonymous, two-way dialogues that help leadership stay informed about the workforce's current mindset during town halls. Molley highlights the challenge of survey exhaustion but agrees that hearing from people, even if they are upset, is better than the silence of disengagement. The hosts also discuss the "three-legged stool" of organizational health, asserting that HR, Finance, and Operations must be equal partners at the leadership table. Molley emphasizes that a top-tier HR leader should be capable of assuming an interim CEO role because they understand the people, compliance, and operational direction. Furthermore, they explore the necessity of tailoring benefits to accommodate five different generations currently in the workforce. The duo looks forward to upcoming live events, including a recording at the Goodwill Opportunity Center on September 16th—which happens to be Jamie's birthday. Core Chapter Themes: · The Pivot: A New Season for Workforce Therapy Files · Agile Culture: Moving from Annual to Monthly Engagement Cycles · Anonymous Magic: Bridging the Communication Gap with Real-Time Data · Generational Gut-Check: Why "One Size Fits All" Benefits are Failing · Leading from the Seat: Why Your HR Leader Should Be CEO-Ready Episode Transcript: Molley Ricketts: Welcome to this episode of Workforce Therapy Files. Jamie and I are excited, disappointed, but looking forward to what it is that we're going to be able to do together. And we have some news for everybody. So, I am not great at drum roll as I've been told, so we're going to mentally think of drum roll, please. Jamie Swaim: Done. Molley Ricketts: Got it. What do you got for us, Jamie? Where are we headed? Jamie Swaim: So excited that we didn't try to generate a drum roll. Molley Ricketts: Do that. Yeah. The Pivot: A New Era for Workforce Therapy Files Jamie Swaim: Well, if we were to go back to the beginning of Workforce Therapy Files, it started when Jason, Molley, and I sat in a room and identified that our three companies were really targeting the same type of partnerships with companies. We were trying to find places where we could be long-term partners, solving problems to help companies thrive. And we were all approaching it from different angles, and we realized there wasn't any competition. If anything, there was a lot of complement in how we work together. So it started as projects that we would co-op for clients. And then we were like, "We should really let people hear the way that this conversation goes because we just enjoyed each other's company so dang much." And that still is true today, but we are making a pivot because of a number of different reasons. But ultimately, Jason will be devoting his time and energy to continuing to grow the amazing services that CrowdSouth provides to its clients. And Molley and I will continue to produce Workforce Therapy Files with the help of none other than Jim Ray. And we are going to highlight things that are still happening in our space. It is a little bit easier for Molley and I to get together because we live in the same community and have an opportunity to do that. But we are also using this type of approach more because Jim added white couches. And so now we are going to be virtual, because I don't think he trusts me to sit on a white couch. And I don't blame him if I'm honest. I don't blame him. Molley Ricketts: Well, when I get on a couch, typically I like to get comfy-cozy, get a little snuggle blanket, watch a good movie. So we want to make sure that we're focused and really generating those right questions to ask our guests. Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. Jamie Swaim: So, our hope is that Jason will continue to come back, from time to time, because I know that our listeners have really appreciated the way that our trio has chatted. But Molley and I believe that with the continued focus on having great interviewees for us to talk to and people who are out here blazing their own trail, we'll continue to have that kind of content. And we also have a couple of opportunities where we will be in person. Molley Ricketts: That's right. So a few things that we're going to be able to do in person. One coming up in particular is the SHRM Kentucky Conference that's going to be held at the Galt House in Louisville, Kentucky. We'll have our booth set up for guests to come and chat with us about who they are, where they are, and the topic of the year. What is really impacting workforce and the development of individuals within their organizations and how do leaders become better guides for individuals in their careers? So really excited about the conference this year and what that can bring. Not only as opportunities for people to talk and listen to the keynotes, which are some great keynotes by the way, we are going to be able to get their time and interview them while we're there at the conference. So looking forward to those opportunities. And I must say really excited about an upcoming partnership with SHRM Kentucky for the year of '27. So thinking about what we're going to be able to do to bring some more excitement and gathering behind all of the wisdom that the SHRM Kentucky brings to all of us HR folks that definitely need help when it comes to all of the regulations and things that change that we may not always have the greatest insight to, but the greatest benefit of being a part of something like SHRM is there's always an expert that you can lean into that can help you find the right answer. So really looking forward to the SHRM conference coming up. And then of course, what it is that we're going to be able to do, Jamie and I, along with the broadcasting wisdom of Jim Ray, we're going to be able to do for the year of '27 with SHRM Kentucky. And then we are looking forward to having a live podcast recording. The Goodwill Opportunity Center here in Louisville, Kentucky. It's an amazing space that they have agreed to let us come in and have some guests. We're looking for about a hundred guests as Jamie, me, and our guest, Gaby Jaggers, where we are going to have Jason come in and support us on that episode. So we're really excited to look forward and look forward to seeing you guys in person at that event. But really just going into the new year and what it is that Jamie and I want to do is continue to bring information to our listeners and the folks that have grown up with us over the last three seasons and learning more and bringing people to the show that you may not otherwise have met given their industry and the support that they can guide. So thank you, Jamie, for continuing on this journey with me. It would've been a different, what some may say easier decision to say, you know what? We're just going to say that this has been a great game and continue on as we have as business colleagues, but sticking together and continuing this into the next season of Workforce Therapy Files, we're looking forward to it. Jamie Swaim: I think collectively, if we were to look retrospectively, we have probably interviewed about 50 people at the SHRM conference. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: And last year we were able to speak to each one of the keynotes. And I'm really excited to continue to grow our footprint at that conference. Excited about the placement of our booth. And if you haven't ever stopped, we're easy to talk to, I think. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: I mean, it's pretty cas. So if you want to come and hop on a mic and tell us about your company, your experiences, the things that keep you up at night, any of those topics are fair game. So we look forward to chatting with folks as you can stop by the booth and share with us. Also, I don't know, I'm a little nervous about the Goodwill experience because we'll have a live audience while doing this is a whole different thing. So I hope that you're able to tune-in for that whenever we launch it. And Molley, I don't know that there's many journeys I wouldn't go on with you. So I'm excited to be able to continue. And if you got one of the OG Workforce Therapy File stickers, that means that you got in early. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: Jason, you've always been one of our favorite people to talk to and will continue to be, and I hope that we have an opportunity to partner with you and more in the future. Molley Ricketts: That's right. Jason's a cool cat. Jamie Swaim: Facts. Facts. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Yeah. Well, before we wrap, I want to make sure, is there an opportunity for you and I just today to wrap up this file and maybe touch on something that is burning for either of us? Jamie Swaim: I have a really random topic. What is the date of the SHRM Conference? Molley Ricketts: Oh yes, sorry. SHRM Kentucky Conference is August 25th and 26th. Jamie Swaim: In? Molley Ricketts: Louisville, Kentucky at the Galt House. Jamie Swaim: At the Galt House. And the Goodwill event is September 16th. Molley Ricketts: Why do you know that date right off the top of your head, Jamie? Jamie Swaim: Because it's Mexican Independence Day. And also my birthday. Molley Ricketts: There you go. Jamie Swaim: But it's also Mexican Independence Day, which I feel like is very impactful. Molley Ricketts: Yeah, it is. Monthly vs. Annual: Moving to Agile Engagement Surveys Jamie Swaim: The thing that I had this aha moment recently and I thought it would be worth bringing up. Okay? So Molley, I'm going to talk about engagement surveys for a second. Molley Ricketts: Okay, let's do it. Jamie Swaim: Every company I've ever worked for has done engagement surveys annually or biannually. Usually the cycle would look like this. We would go prepare our file. We would go out and survey our population. And then we would put it together. We'd put together the results, share them with leaders, and then we'd create a pretty robust action plan based off their results. And we would work on that action plan between the survey completion and the next survey. But sometimes those actions would be a year-long, in terms of how long it would take. So I've been working with a company who recently moved to a new platform, and we are surveying our population monthly. I was so nervous about doing this in the beginning, but what's been very interesting, and I wanted to share this because I am interested in hearing any of the reactions, because monthly sounds like a big ask, especially if you tried to match the same cycle of how you dealt with the data that you received. But what's been interesting is the platform that we've been using has the ability for individuals to add comments, to react to those comments and interact with those comments. And it gives us the ability to gauge how we're performing every month as a point-in-time view. And what we've been using it for is micro movements because there's so many things happening in this environment. So the ability to do one giant robust action plan would not be feasible for the environment that we're in. And I've never seen this type of agility as it relates to the use of employee data. And it felt really bizarre and awkward at first. But now it's become such a regular cycle of communication and touch points and, "Oh my gosh, I didn't know that was happening. Let me get somebody on that immediately." And solving somebody's in-the-moment question or concern or thing, it's just kind of blowing my mind. So I wanted to share that because I've had an opportunity to reflect now a year into using this approach. And I probably spent the first six months asking myself, "Is this the right way to do this?" Molley Ricketts: So Jamie, with the first question, I have a lot of thoughts, so I'm trying to think notes over here. So is this company, is it an established company or is it more of a startup? Jamie Swaim: It's more of a startup. Molley Ricketts: Okay. So that helps. And the reason why I say that that helps is because if it were an established company, and what I mean by that is, I mean, there are some companies that are 10, 15 years in and still behaving like a startup, right?. But let's say that you've got a really solid foundation of the services that you produce and the key things that you provide, whether it be the widget or the service or whatever it is that you're doing as an organization. If you've got that solid foundation, I feel like monthly would be a lot, right? And plus all the data is in HR that you have to deal with that you're getting, especially if you're not doing anything with it. But my original thought, a startup, I totally get that. You want to constantly keep your people engaged and the culture and the environment is still being created at that point. And oftentimes we find that the folks that are helping deliver the startup that are building the foundation and creating those consistencies and compliance are definitely going to be a different season of those 5 to 10 years down the road. So I understand getting a monthly survey for a startup, a company that's evolved and is more a solid foundation and continuing to grow the organization. I feel like that would be tough. Jamie Swaim: I think it's tough regardless. The only thing is that when I look at companies and the way that technology is growing and shifting and changing, there's so much about what makes a startup, like the markers of a traditional startup, that a number of companies are starting to feel like regardless of how long they've been in business or the things they put in practice. Because systems and tools, gosh, generations that are in the workforce, how to engage with folks differently, the type of industry that you might be in terms of how people connect. So if your company is more introverted just by nature of the type of work that you do, is this kind of anonymous platform the better way to engage folks, potentially? I think there's so many things that I don't know that startup and non-startup is the right differentiator. It might be what works for your environment. But I just have never considered doing anything like this with this kind of regularity. And it felt like I would fail the moment that we decided to do it that way. It was like, there's no way I'm going to be able to create an action plan and show people that we want to do something with this data. But what's been really interesting is every town hall is now informed by what's on people's minds. Okay. Gosh, how many times have companies missed the mark with how they communicate with their individuals? A lot. A lot. It's the number one thing that comes up on every engagement survey. Right? Molley Ricketts: And I think to your point, keeping your workforce engaged with the results and letting them know that they're being heard. And not only are they being heard, but you're addressing it in town halls. There's power in that for sure. The thing that would worry me the most is people experience survey apathy or survey exhaustion. It's like, we have to do this again? Jamie Swaim: Same questions? Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: Yes. Molley Ricketts: What are we doing about this again? Because this problem that I've had, because if you get… Jamie Swaim: I agree. I understand. Molley Ricketts: …the volume of people, then they're like, "Well, they're not listening to my concern." Meanwhile, there's this other group that all of their concerns are always addressed. So how do you balance that? I mean, I'm starting to get overwhelmed and we've been talking about it for five minutes, so I can't imagine how you balance all of that. That's like a full-time job. Anonymous Magic: Bridging the Communication Gap with Real-Time Data Jamie Swaim: Yeah. But here's the crazy part. So imagine I've got the capability that somebody has put in a question or concern. I send back a response because I know from the rooms that I'm sitting in that the way that you've read this is not accurate. So I can say, okay, but here's some information. And I can tell you based off of the information that. Sorry, I got distracted. They're asking a question voicing a concern. I'm able to respond to them. Even though I'm identified, they're anonymous. They can respond back to me. So we can have a whole conversation. They remain anonymous because I can't tell who it is. But there have been times I've had multiple conversations that have come out of the survey tool that never would've happened, which is magic to me because there's so many things that by the time I've gotten through, at other companies, the survey cycle and by the time we are doing action planning, it's sometimes two and three months after the survey closed before we are really at a place we're ready to firm up what we're going to do with that information. And that can be really stale. And at times, I feel like unless companies are doing things like focus groups or things like that to really gauge whether or not they're even responding to the data appropriately, sometimes companies put actions in place that completely missed the mark. Hey, you saw this trend and you went and you added Pizza Fridays, but that wasn't what anybody was talking about. Molley Ricketts: Right. And when you think about, I mean, that really empowers the workforce in your organization. So just like how many organizations, while they have amazing founders and the launch of why the company started is fantastic, but when you're really able to empower people to have their voices heard, you get some really cool stuff too. Companies like Ford and what they did originally to empower the people and we want your ideas. We want to hear from you. What is the next thing? The Post-it, right? It was created from somebody that worked at the company and they made this glue and it didn't work the way that they thought it did, but now you have Post-its. Jamie Swaim: I really though you were going to make a reference to Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion with the Post-it reference. And I don't know, this much sad that you didn't. Molley Ricketts: Well, I mean, we could do that. We could go on the road and say… Jamie Swaim: I thought the Post-it was created by Romy and Michelle. I really. No? Molley Ricketts: Yeah, no, it wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. Jamie Swaim: The point is valid. I just got distracted by the Post-it. I apologize. Molley Ricketts: It's okay. They're pretty powerful. Jamie Swaim: They are. And hot on the school back to school supply list. Molley Ricketts: Oh, Interesting. Jamie Swaim: I just wanted to share this with you because I know that is bizarre. And I knew that you would have some sort of reaction of what are you talking about? Because that is not what we ever would've recommended to any company. Molley Ricketts: Never. Jamie Swaim: Doing this regularly. But when I worked with Zappos, Zappos used to do this happiness question of the day. People were surveyed as they were walking through the building, but they would aggregate that information. And so you're talking about answering a question every single day. So I don't know. I think it's something to continue to watch. It's working for us now, and I think there'll be a point where it probably won't because of survey fatigue being a real thing. Molley Ricketts: But we've also eliminated a lot of our other surveys in order to be able to focus and make sure that the questions that we want to ask our employees with some regularity are part of it. But it's interesting, nonetheless. Molley Ricketts: It is. I would definitely want to hold you and me accountable. And I think we should definitely have this conversation in more in-depth planning. I would love to better understand, because we do within Incipio and the clients that we have, when we do just recruiting, we have day one, week one, 30, 60, 90, six months and a year. So those are typical for new hires for both the individual and the leadership. So I always thought that was a little aggressive. But for a new hire, again, trying to make sure that they're familiar and comfortable with the pattern. So I'll be interested to learn more about the consistencies and the concerns that come out of [it]. You want to give people a platform to express themselves, but you don't want it to become that session, right? Jamie Swaim: I don't know that I don't want it to become that. Molley Ricketts: No? Tell me more. Jamie Swaim: Okay. And I guess mainly it's because I have never once been worried about somebody who voiced concerns, even if they did it in a way that I didn't love how it was packaged. I get worried when people stop talking to me Molley Ricketts: Yeah, that's true. Jamie Swaim: I get really worried when people go quiet. I get nervous whenever we're not hearing that this isn't going well. When somebody doesn't feel compelled to be like, "That moment was trash and I need you to know why." Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: That's when I get concerned. And look, if there is a cause to have a session where people are really upset about things, then it probably meant that I should have been listening earlier. So I don't get worked up about those kinds of sessions. I get disappointed because I feel like something missed earlier. Molley Ricketts: And that's why I love you, Jamie. You just look at it in such a different way. And I'm like, oh yeah, that's a face-palm moment. You're great at that. We should hand out Jamie Swain face-palms. Jamie Swaim: Face-palms. Oh, that's the brand I was going for. I want to be the kind of person who makes you feel like smacking your own face. Molley Ricketts: Dang it. Jamie Swaim: Yes. Yes. Molley Ricketts: Well, what is it? One more time. Jamie Swaim: What's on your mind? Generational Gut-Check: Why "One Size Fits All" Benefits are Failing Molley Ricketts: Oh, man. This has been a really game-changing year for me as a human and just the evolution of Incipio. And as we're continuing to evolve and working with organizations and the opportunities that we're hearing about as people want to partner with us to help solve for their workforce alignment, those are the things that I'm having conversations with potential partners about now. And it's funny that you bring it up from a survey perspective because I just had this conversation Tuesday, a couple days ago, and I said, "When was the last time you posted an employee engagement survey?" They were like, "We've never done that. So where are the things that you guys are doing, the add-ons like a discounted cell phone plan or same-day pay cards that you guys are looking to roll out to the organization? How do you know that that's what you need to do?" And the answer was, "Well, that's what everybody else is doing." So going into organizations and having these conversations, it's almost like that's not the right reason. If you're doing it because everybody else is doing it, then scratch that record. Right? You want to be the company that, to your point, people do feel comfortable opening up and expressing their concerns, even if it is what some may consider a session of therapy. But being able to pull it back and really do some self-reflection, that and the amount of emotional intelligence or the lack of emotional intelligence that so many leaders are working through and helping them see, where has that been this last decade? So it's hard to help. It's not hard. It's difficult to help leaders understand that they're working with five different generations and there isn't one generation that communicates the same. So when you have that first generation and the fifth generation, when we look at the differentiators and the demographics of our workforce, then they get frustrated that no one signs up for health insurance. Well, what's that age group? Most individuals up until the age of 26 can still stay on their parents' plan. So that's why that demographic is not going into your insurance plan because they still have insurance and they don't need to go anywhere else. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. Molley Ricketts: And then you have this other demographic of human where they want more insurance and less vacation or less of those things that they're already used to because of where they are in life, the season of life that they're in. And then the groups in the middle that some of them want more vacation and less healthcare because they are healthy people because they're living a sober life and gluten-free and making sure that their diet and exercise is really balanced. So being able to offer your workforce differentiating benefits, you've got to start thinking about that as we're moving into a new season and making sure that you're allowing people to give them an outlet to be heard. And to your point, monthly, annually, however you fill it in the middle, as long as you're hearing from your people is definitely a game changer too. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. It's been interesting too, because it has been a gut check for us about, "Hey, we communicated this and then this is the way it was received." The ability to course correct before it's six months out is amazing. So what you guys can't see is that our producer sometimes gives us notes. So if you see me get stumped, it's usually because Jim has distracted me. This one was "Frigging HR" was what he wrote on his board. Molley Ricketts: And I want to touch on that. HR. Jamie Swaim: That's what he meant. Leading from the Seat: Why Your HR Leader Should Be CEO-Ready Molley Ricketts: I want to say that this year's been eye-opening as well because as more and more organizations that Incipio is talking to and learning more about the workforces and differentiators that they want for themselves, the emphasis that we're walking into oftentimes is HR is a necessary evil. And I know some may say that I'm a little biased, and probably so, but to really think about the person that's leading your HR, the person that's leading and driving forward, if they don't have a seat at the table, even if the table's two people, to make these decisions, if the CHRO and your organization can't quickly assume the role, even if it's interim of CEO, then you don't have the right person. And I say that with confidence because while they don't necessarily have to have the financial or the situational circumstance from a CEO perspective as this, as an interim, they know your people, they know your compliance, they know where you're headed from an operations standpoint. So at least the direction and drive forward can be handled. Many people argue and we get into the discussion and free to do that too, Jamie, and we may need to take that to a whole other episode of - Jamie Swaim: I would like to. I think this would be a good topic. Molley Ricketts: "Well, that should really go to the COO. "No, no, it should be the CFO. And I'm like," Okay, you're going two different sides of the fence on both of those, operations and finance. It's either going to blow up or they're going to tighten the purse strings, right? Jamie Swaim: Or both. Molley Ricketts: Or both. So I definitely think let's put that on the list of an episode. Jamie Swaim: I'd like to call it the three-legged stool, Jim. That's what we're going to call this because I think that it's an opportunity to talk about the people, finance, and operational requirement that those three functions partner heavily regardless. Molley Ricketts: I'm writing it down Jamie Swaim: Yeah, that three-legged stool. Molley Ricketts: Well, Jamie, it's me and you, kid. Jamie Swaim: I can't wait. It's going to be great. Molley Ricketts: It's happening. Jamie Swaim: Yes. Molley Ricketts: Here we go. Jamie Swaim: Are you milking a cow? Molley Ricketts: No, I'm driving. Jamie Swaim: Oh, you're driving. That makes more sense. Molley Ricketts: We had to get off the exit and now we're getting back on. Jamie Swaim: Makes way more sense. All right, Jim, I think now's a great time to close that file. That's where we'll leave the conversation for today. Before we close the file, we invite you to reach out to us with questions, suggestions or other comments. We'd love to hear from you. Did You Enjoy Today's Conversation? Visit www.WorkforceTherapyFiles.com to listen to additional WTF files or to let us know you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming file. Need Help Supporting Your Company's Recruiting and Staffing Goals? We're here to help. You can contact us via our individual websites, depending on your specific needs or questions: · Jamie Swaim, SPHR - www.ParcelKnows.com · Molley Ricketts - www.IncipioWorks.com We hope you found this file insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening!

June 8, 2026Episode 3937 min

AI Change Management: A Practical Guide for Modern Organizations

File 39: In this file of Workforce Therapy Files, the hosts sit down with Jenna Ahern, founder of Guardian Owl Digital, to discuss the rapid impact of artificial intelligence on business, leadership, and the future of work. They explore why organizations need intentional AI policies, stronger data governance, and ongoing employee training as AI becomes more integrated into daily operations. Jenna emphasizes that leaders must approach AI as a change-management challenge rather than simply a technology initiative. The group stresses the importance of creating learning environments where employees can safely experiment and build competency. Jenna also shares lessons from her entrepreneurial journey, including the importance of betting on yourself and recognizing that hustle alone does not scale a business. The file encourages leaders to embrace continuous learning and proactively guide their organizations through a rapidly evolving landscape. Key Themes · Meet Jenna Ahern · Entrepreneurship, Resilience and Betting on Yourself · AI is a Leadership Challenge, not Just a Technology Challenge · Why Every Organization Needs an AI Policy · Building AI Skills through Practice and Continuous Learning Episode Transcript Molley Ricketts: Welcome back to the Workforce Therapy Files. We are here today with an amazing guest, Mrs. Jenna Ahern. How are you doing today? Jenna Ahern: Hi, I'm so grateful to be here. Thank you all for having me. Molley Ricketts: Jenna is here with us today. She owns Guardian Owl Digital Agency. Look at me. I remembered. I usually just say Guardian Owl. So, the digital agency is the new part for me. We are excited to have you on the show today. Before we kick off though, Jamie has to ask one of her very unique questions. Drum roll. Jamie Swaim: But today we're going to do something a smidge different. Molley Ricketts: Uh-oh. Jamie Swaim: Because I like to keep it spicy. Okay. Jenna Ahern: Same. Jamie Swaim: Choose between door number one or door number two. Jenna Ahern: Two. Jamie Swaim: Okay, number two, tell us something that you think is ridiculously overrated. Jenna Ahern: Ridiculously overrated? Jason Heflin: Podcasts. Jenna Ahern: Podcasts. I know that's a really good one. I think right now and relevant to this, what's really, really overrated is Sintra.AI. Call it out. Jamie Swaim: Why? Jenna Ahern: Because I think that it has a lot of hype and they have a lot of marketing and they're doing a decent job. But I think that that to me is a very much hyped-up AI tool, just like a lot of the AI tools are. And so I wanted to say AI is overhyped, but I can't say that because it's not. It's real. It's serious. It is definitely here. I'm like, some of the tools are, so I went Sintra. Jamie Swaim: Okay. Jenna Ahern: That's how my brain operated on that question. Jamie Swaim: Alright. Jenna Ahern: Do you want a personal overrated? Jamie Swaim: Sure. You can do it however you want. Jenna Ahern: I don't have one. I need like a cross. Jamie Swaim: You can also point to anybody else here and ask them to popcorn it. Jenna Ahern: Oh, I know those Stanley cups. I think those are overrated. Jamie Swaim: They spill way too easily. Jenna Ahern: I don't have one. I never bought one. I think those are overrated. Jamie Swaim: Tell me, you don't have a teenager at home without telling me you have a teenager. Jenna Ahern: Exactly. I'm like, that's ridiculous. Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. Jenna Ahern: There you go. That's overrated. I probably had made a lot of people angry right there. Jason Heflin: So, what's underrated right now? How about that? Jenna Ahern: Water. Jason Heflin: Water. Jenna Ahern: I think we should be talking more about water and sustainability and ethics. AI is new, sure, but virtues and our environment hasn't really changed. There's still water around hopefully. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. Lots of question marks there though. Jenna Ahern: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. Jenna Ahern: But that's underrated right now. Clean drinking water. Jamie Swaim: Jason, what's overrated for you? Jason Heflin: What's overrated? The McRib. Jamie Swaim: The McRib? Yeah. Jenna Ahern: Overrated or underrated? Jason Heflin: I think it's overrated. I mean, you know. Jenna Ahern: Have you last sampled? Jason Heflin: Oh, it's been years. I don't know. Jim said it. Jim said it. So I'm stealing Jim's answer. Jenna Ahern: Well, I heard they had a reckoning. That's why I was like, oh wow. Jason Heflin: Oh yeah. No, I don't know. Jamie Swaim: Alright. Molley, what do you think? Molley Ricketts: Yeah, and I knew this was coming around and I still can't think of anything. Jenna Ahern: I gave you like three minutes. Molley Ricketts: You did. Jamie Swaim: Want me to go first? Okay, it gives you a little bit more time though. You need to be thinking. Okay. For me, socks. Molley Ricketts: Oh, that's a good one. Jamie Swaim: I think socks are incredibly overrated, except on cold days. I'll give you a caveat there. But the amount of energy it takes to wash them, match them. The number of times you only find one. To me, forget it. I'm just going sockless. I don't want socks. Jason Heflin: What about… Molley, what about washing jeans? Molley Ricketts: That's overrated. Jason Heflin: Some people don't wash their jeans. That's overrated. Molley Ricketts: You're not supposed to wash your jeans. Okay? Jenna Ahern: Agreed. Molley Ricketts: A couple of times a year. Jason Heflin: I over-wash my jeans. Jamie Swaim: Do you have it on your calendar? Is it like today's jean wash day? Molley Ricketts: No, it's just that they're standing up straight. Then you turn them inside out and wash them. Jenna Ahern: And you can smell them. Jamie Swaim: If they're standing up straight? Jenna Ahern: Smell. There's a stop. Gets to a point. Jamie Swaim: It's got food on them. Jenna Ahern: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: Remember earlier when we were talking about values and ethics, the virtues? I don't know. I feel like we're crossing over some weird line here with the jeans conversation. Jenna Ahern: I mean, I think it's right in line with the WTF. Jamie Swaim: Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Molley Ricketts: Okay, so back on track. Agree? Jamie Swaim: Yes. Molley Ricketts: Okay. Ms. Jenna? Jenna Ahern: Yes. Entrepreneurship, Resilience and Betting on Yourself Molley Ricketts: I know that you started Guardian Owl. You've launched it. Jenna Ahern: I did. Molley Ricketts: Got it going. Congratulations. Jenna Ahern: I blacked out. How many years has it been? Molley Ricketts: Having a brown out moment? Yeah. How many years has it been? Jenna Ahern: 12. Jamie Swaim: Congratulations. That's incredible . Jenna Ahern: Wild. Thank you. Wild rollercoaster ride. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Wild one turns upside down goes way far down. Jenna Ahern: I know. But I like rollercoasters. Molley Ricketts: Yeah, I do too. It's the excitement of it, not the fear. Right? Jenna Ahern: Thrill of the ride. Molley Ricketts: So what was the moment? And I feel like as entrepreneurs sitting around the table, we all have this moment where you were just like, I can't keep doing this. I can't do this anymore. And what made you keep doing it? Jenna Ahern: In corporate America or running my business? Molley Ricketts: Running your business. Jenna Ahern: You know, I think that we all, I call it have you ever seen the reds? And so sometimes I think when I get to those states, it's oftentimes a buildup or 10 things went wrong in two days. And it is just usually this small sample size. And when I'm in that moment, that's when I have to work on. And again, this is a learned skillset, breathing and trying to ground myself into a reality that isn't myself. So, really just getting out a little macro because what I'm doing is not that important. I'm not saving lives or anything. So, oftentimes when I get to those points where I want to give up or I want to quit or I want to break, I think I just have to really zoom out. And it starts with just quick breathing. If I have two minutes before I'm going to freak out or if I have more time, I really have gotten into just being more still. I used to be a runner and would burn a lot of my rage, my reds, with training hard, training heavy. And I think that that was great for the season I was in. But one of the things that I've recognized is I am clearer and more steady when I am more still and not moving. And so I think yoga on a weekly basis has helped me with that. Reading. Just taking time away from the screen. Walking for 20 minutes. Standing up. Actually doing those things. I mean, we could talk about it, but getting into a rhythm where I'm doing that every week at least one time a week has just helped my reds go from happening every two weeks on this rollercoaster ride to maybe once every two months. Molley Ricketts: So that's the point of what keeps you going. So why did you even start? What was it that was that trigger that was like, I got this, I can do this. Jenna Ahern: I think that my mom really helped push me over the edge. I was burning the candle from both ends when I was working full-time in corporate America and then also growing the business. And I was trying to do both. And I'm sure a lot of people who've grown business did that for the time period. I really struggled to let go. And what made me choose my business was if I was going to work that hard and pour everything into it, I wanted it to be mine and not for another company. Not at that time, not in that season and not at that period of just the internet and search engine marketing. And so that, betting on myself, that was the moment and that was the bet I took and I'm really glad that I bet on myself. Molley Ricketts: Yeah, you're pretty kickass. I'll give you that. Jamie Swaim: For those of us who aren't as familiar as Molley is to your business, tell us what Guardian Owl does. Jenna Ahern: Guardian Owl is a digital marketing agency. We also have a GO AI division, and we help you be seen and chosen when somebody is searching for your product or service across the internet. Jamie Swaim: Very cool. Jenna Ahern: Yeah. Jason Heflin: And AI is a huge part of that right now. Jenna Ahern: It has and is and is going to be a big part. Yes, absolutely. Whether we like it or not, it's here. AI is a Leadership Challenge, not Just a Technology Challenge Jason Heflin: So that's the topic we want to talk about today. You are an expert and we want to tap into that a little bit. Jenna Ahern: Well, that was like an hour ago. So much has changed. Jason Heflin: Yeah, by the time this airs. Jenna Ahern: Yeah, I'm no longer the expert. Jason Heflin: So like we talked about, this podcast is about the workforce. And so where are you seeing things evolve in the workplace from both an employer's perspective and the employee's perspective with AI? And I know that's a really broad question, but just fire away and let us know kind of what you're seeing out there right now and what needs to be addressed. Jenna Ahern: Well, it's the wild, wild West on both sides I would say. And I think that it's change. We're in a period of change. And I want to make sure too, we're also in an environment that is most would say unstable, more chaotic. We're coming off of COVID. Now we're in an arena that has had a lot of change, not just from a business standpoint, but from our country. And so on top of that, now you are asking humans to make incredible changes in their lifestyle with AI and implementing it just for one and using it. And then two, being able to neurologically change and the way they think about things and the way they work. And to me, that's asking a lot of humans right now. I think to that last part, what do we need to talk more about? We need to just talk more about policies. How are we being intentional about creating these policies for our organization? It doesn't matter if it's an organization of 3, 30, 3000 or 30,000. I think that the leadership needs to understand not just how we're using these tools, but what's the impact of these tools within our organization and how we're deploying. Because bias and certain things can scale just as the good can. So, I think we need to have more of those conversations intentionally at a leadership-level and we need to have more policy and data governance. Jason Heflin: Would you say true or false? Most companies do not have an AI policy. Jenna Ahern: True. Why Every Organization Needs an AI Policy Jason Heflin: True or false? Most companies should have an AI policy. Jenna Ahern: True. Jason Heflin: Okay. How do they get one? Let's say I'm a leader. I know nothing about AI, but I know it's a thing (air quotes) and I need to be addressing it. My team's using it. How do I get started? Jenna Ahern: Don't they just put that into ChatGPT and just say, what's the right policy? Jason Heflin: Should I just put into Chat? Jenna Ahern: And believe it or not, people are doing that. Let's just call that out, right? Jamie Swaim: Got HR policies every day. Jenna Ahern: No, stop doing that. And some people put it on their website in the footers on their privacy policy, like their AI policy. I'm like with the prompt there are hyphens. And oftentimes it's from 2022, 2023. If your AI policy, to your point, if you're not checking that now quarterly, you're behind. And that goes for Guardian Owl, as well. We're actively updating one from July. So that's where we are. And to go back to how should you approach this one, don't go to ChatGPT, but two, when we're talking about change management, I see a lot of managers out there talking about AI and not leaders. And I think we need to be intentional about how we are approaching this conversation with our organizations. If you're automatically going to humans and saying, here's our policy and not giving them a say and how do you think that this should be covered? How do you think that you're a valuable part of our organization? What are your thoughts? And addressing these concerns and the scarcity mindset and everything that comes with change, fears, addressing those and making sure that voices are heard before then you roll out a policy that one, nobody's going to know half of the stuff in there anyway, right? Because we're all learning it together. So, I think the biggest thing is make sure people know that they're seen and their voices are heard. Whether or not they approach you. Everyone's culture is different. But I think allowing, especially your leaders to have a seat in the table with just a conversation before you craft this policy is important. Jamie Swaim: I really like the way that you're heading here sometimes on our podcast, I like to give a little Parcel policy moment, and I've never seen a topic more like AI in the workplace that requires the cooperation of literally every division. So, things that make my chest super tight, for example, is using AI to create harassing images or harassing limericks or something like that to bully an employee. Jenna Ahern: Or for me, uploading financial information of clients to do analysis. Jamie Swaim: Yes. Or for the legal team, they're probably going to have some question marks about whether or not anything that you're uploading to get some insight on releases confidential information or IP. If you were to go over to Finance, they're definitely going to be like, please don't put our financial data out there. And a lot of times people are using these systems without removing names or identifying information. And we definitely see a lot of headlines about how AI can be used for surveillance and be able to be data that can be sold or shared with another company without your permission. So I don't know. I got lots of question marks here and I think it is definitely, I love hearing you say, let's get everybody together to start talking through how we should be managing this stuff so that it is being hit from every angle. Jason Heflin: Let's say I'm that same leader and I go to my team and I say, let's write an AI policy, but we need help. Is that something Digital Owl does? Jenna Ahern: Yes. Guardian Owl, but I love that you call us Digital Owl. Jason Heflin: It's a subdivision. Jenna Ahern: It's a subdivision. It's growing. It's growing. We just launched today. Jason Heflin: It happened just now. Jenna Ahern: We hatched. Now I forget the question. What was it? Jason Heflin: So can Guardian now help with writing the policy? Jenna Ahern: Yes, of course. But I also, I think that too, in organizations that are moving fast, you might even have an AI consultant or you might have, yes, we can help with that and help train, but depending on what your organization does, we might not even be the right fit for you based on your needs or your location or your wants and desires or the problems you're fixing. So I think that's why getting all your leaders together and understanding, okay, do we want in this policy? And then two, yeah, do we need external help? Do we want to bring in, based on these concerns? Because it's something that everyone needs to be on the same page and be really strong in the charge and being on the same page continually, when you're running a company. This is some serious stuff. If you have data leaks or you do have employees that are, it's just a lot of ways that this could go wrong. So, I think that if you're not all on the same page, and yes, we do that, but I think that you can also lean into external sources in your local area, or even if you have a franchise. A great example is Cushman & Wakefield . They have commercial, Kentucky is their separate entity, but Cushman & Wakefield has an overarching policy. Well, they use that to then help craft their own. And we came in and are a part of that as well as the training component. Hey, here are the do's and don'ts, here's how we want to think about how we're rolling it out. Because even in every organization, they probably have 20% of their people that are actually going to be actively using and engaging. And then they're going to have a big chunk of people that are going to need handholding. And this can be a big change. And then they might have people that might not make it. So again, it's like that is something that yes, we like to do and we can do, but I also think that it needs to be a good fit for everybody in the organization because it should be a long ride, long partnership. Building AI Skills through Practice and Continuous Learning Jamie Swaim: I think one of the things that also stands out to me is that this is going to be such a pervasive topic over the next however many years, maybe just the future of work in general. I'm curious how people grow competency, because business leaders are not going to want to outsource a hundred percent of the things they're responsible for. How do people learn what they need to know? Because this is brand new for a lot of people that are in the workforce. Jenna Ahern: And how you learn everything is practice and there becomes the human variable of change. Because if you aren't practicing and you aren't utilizing different models, you're not going to understand the languages and how each one operates. That to me is going to dramatically affect the hiring process because if we operate on Claude and you aren't familiar, you're very familiar with Copilot. Okay, that might be a huge factor for me in the future because it already is now. If you're not using it because we need that as a skillset. But to me, I think if you're not practicing just as an individual, then it's going to be a challenge. And then also I think from a company standpoint, I think giving some time for your team in the work day to actually go play and create and learn. And I almost want to say instead of prompt engineering, context engineering, because that's the real practicing. How do you practice giving the AI models contextual information? And the people that are good at that are going to be the ones that get hired to me. And that's what I foresee. And the people that are good at that are the ones that are just practicing and that's it. It's practice. Jason Heflin: Do you advocate for training? Jenna Ahern: Oh yes. I advocate for training. I'm training. I mean, I go to, gosh, Jermaine Watkins and Dan Murphy actually started just a group of, it was like, Hey, come learn AI. So Tuesdays we'd be building, I started an AI Distilling Co. We host monthly events and we have speakers and just for everybody in the room to learn about a different topic, whether it's legal, whether again HR, so much is changing so fast that not only do we need training, but I think it's just, it's a lot. So we need to hear it a lot. And because we're not going to be able to get all this in one in a six-month time period. Jason Heflin: Well, and when you think about training, how often do you need to renew that training? How often do you need to go back to the well and say, okay, it's changed? I mean, is it just an ongoing thing? Jenna Ahern: I think that this is going to be instead of social networks, learning networks, creating learning networks where people feel safe to grow this skill. I mean think about when computers came out. I remember my mom, she was a guidance counselor and she had to stay after work to get training with the mouse because she didn't know how to use the mouse. Think about that. If I asked you right now, how much training do you need to use the mouse? It's like, well, I don't know. It might take you depending on also on Apple, Microsoft. I don't know how familiar you are with the platform. So to me, I think that we're really going to see a surge in learning networks and collaborative communities where people feel safe to practice and get better and build. And I think that that's where this can be exciting because you think about AI can be really isolating, but if you're creating community around it, I mean, this could be a really, really cool thing too. Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. I think for me, there's also this, everybody learning how to behave in the era of AI. It's not any different in some ways from using Google. If you go to Google and you Google something and you pull data from a not trusted source. So sometimes even in prompt or context, I'll ask for source data so that I can go find the article to make me feel good about what it came back in my AI information. Jenna Ahern: Exactly. Or I'll give you a great example. I had a manager call me and they've been using AI. They embraced it and we've used it in their social media. I mean they're killing it. ChatGPT, it's like, man, don't you just get annoyed that you can't, if I'm on my mobile ChatGPT, and then I go to my desktop that they're not connected? They're not synced. I'm like, well, you can always just share the link, share your chat. How do you do that? And so again, I think getting people together and just practicing and building almost like a sports activity. How do you learn soccer? We get into a group and we practice. I think that's how people are going to learn is we get together and we build. Jamie Swaim: Yes. Jenna Ahern: I think that that is, to me, the oddest thing that's going to hopefully come out of AI is maybe it'll bring people together. Molley Ricketts: I'll never forget when I first started using AI, it was last summer, summer of 2024. So I was the polish or refine or what are some ideas? And then January of 2025, I committed to 31 days of learning different platforms. I went through, is it cursive? Yeah, I think so. I did that and learned so much and within three or four months I was writing what I felt was very close to code, to put into Chat for my prompts. So Sher, my COO, I sent something to her and she was like, where did you get this? How did you do this? And I said, I got it out of Chat. And she goes, Jamie Swaim: I wrote a code. Molley Ricketts: She goes, how did you get this out of Chat? So I sent her the prompt and I mean, it was like a paragraph, right? Because if you do it right, she was like, well, how did you learn how to do that? And Molley Ricketts: And I'm like, remember the 31 days of dedicated learning I got from AI? Now, I say that to say everything that I learned 15 months ago isn't so far beyond now, but it helped me to learn about different inputs to put into my Chat. Like Canva. What is that thing called? Jenna Ahern: The different models. Yeah. Molley Ricketts: Yes. Jenna Ahern: Different ones are different. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. HR business partner is a link that you can put into Chat. So all of these different ones, and as I've learned more, then I can go, okay, I don't want that one in there anymore. I want this one in there. And then I can go to those different categories when I'm doing HR specific policies because I'm so gifted in that area, Jamie, for sure. And just really using it to the benefit of what it's for, not to polish and refine the way an email's getting responded to. That's not what it's for. And I think the, I'm going to say this and it's probably not going to be real popular, so listeners give me some grace. Jamie Swaim: Or plug your ears right now. Molley Ricketts: It's very careless. Jenna Ahern: Yes. Molley Ricketts: The tool is too powerful to use as an elementary adventure. I'm not going to say that you can't learn from that, but there are so many other ways that you can learn, without using the tool itself, about the tool that you should really take advantage of that if you're going to learn to use it, in my opinion. Jason Heflin: AI uses the data it has access to, and that data's not always accurate. Jenna Ahern: You're right. It hallucinates. Jason Heflin: Yes. Jenna Ahern: It's very biased. It lies. Molley Ricketts: Yes. Jenna Ahern: It is a toddler. You have to train it. It is going to lie to you. Jason Heflin: So master prompts. Tell me about that. How can we use master prompts to be better with our AI? Jenna Ahern: Define what is your definition of master prompt? Jason Heflin: Like educating the AI on who you are, what you do, and how you need it to work. Jenna Ahern: I see. So I mean, again, good data in, good data out. So the more, and again, I recommend getting on a paid closed version before you start giving the model all the information about you. But I would give as much as you can data wise. I mean email you can connect, you can upload Google Drive documents, I mean about yourself websites. I think mine, I have little GPTs for different things now and my voice tone. You can also set rules. So, I think over time even went with the master prompt. I guess what I'm saying is I can build different voices of myself based on the data that I have shared and curated and uploaded, specifically. So, I say all that because I think that's important because to your point, that's the data it's going to be working off of. And so then I think from master prompting, I mean to Molley's point about code, I think it just really being intentional, as detailed as you can be about exactly what you want. Demographics, location, giving if it is imagery, giving the actual images as detailed as you can be. And then from a prompt standpoint, I think I don't have a template to say here's the master what you need to do. Jason Heflin: It's probably unique to everybody. Jenna Ahern: Yeah, exactly. But I think that you can then, once information is populated, the one thing that I always like to do is remember it's a toddler trained it. So then give it feedback of no, that's not aligned with who I am. That wasn't correct. And so I think that feedback part is something that also will help your overall prompting. I don't know if you experienced that too with it'll even say, sorry, some of them, they want to be… Molley Ricketts: I'll say, try again. Jenna Ahern: Yeah, exactly. But I think even with your negative, yes, the master prompts, but also your responsing, your responsive feedback in your coaching and your guidance is such a big part too of getting it to understand the context and learn. Jason Heflin: Yes. Jenna Ahern: And I mean, to Molley's point, I'm getting better. I was an expert 30 minutes ago and now I'm not. So I'm like, I'm still trying to get better about how to intentionally write my prompts. Jason Heflin: And you can ask on most language models, you can ask the source. You can ask it, what's your source for that information? Jenna Ahern: Or you can say, always show me the sources. Jason Heflin: Yeah, always show me the source and then don't use this source again or use this source more. Jenna Ahern: That's right. Set the rules. Yep, exactly. And this is where you can go down the rabbit hole of bias because it's like, Hey, this is not accurate, or this is not what I want. So I'm filtering out specifically curating a vacuum for myself. So I think that's something again that you just have to be really careful about. Molley Ricketts: One of the things that I learned too is that you have to tell it to tell you the bad. Jenna Ahern: Yep, exactly. Molley Ricketts: Because what I learned early-on was if you just ask it for the one thing or a specific prompt that isn't detailed enough that's going to give you the good, the bad, and the ugly, then it'll just give you the good. Jenna Ahern: Correct. Yeah. Molley Ricketts: And yes, we're all rock stars a hundred percent, but we still fall. I'll even say make this from human points of view with references or testimonials from sources with those provided in this example of X, Y and Z. Jenna Ahern: Exactly. Molley Ricketts: Because will never tell you that you're wrong. Jenna Ahern: No. Molley Ricketts: Will never tell you that. You need to look at it from a different point of view. And for those that are just using it as a good time and not really learning it, as with everything, don't pretend to be an expert if you're not. And the scary part for me in AI is that there are so many people that are claiming to be experts and there's no one that's an expert. And then to expect to know, just to your point, you were an expert 30 minutes ago. Jenna Ahern: I didn't proclaim that, by the way, just for that. Molley Ricketts: We're giving her that title today. That's the scary part to me, is the people that are misusing it. Jamie Swaim: Even people who graduate with it six months after they graduate, they're done. Jenna Ahern: Correct. Entrepreneurship, Resilience and Betting on Yourself Jamie Swaim: So Jenna, I appreciate the intensity around policy, structure, intentionality, alignment within the organization. There's so many things that we've talked about on this podcast that really lean into those as concepts. But I'm going to make a hard pivot. You ready? I heard something about you before you got here today that I'm going to bring up. Molley Ricketts: Drum roll, please. Jamie Swaim: You have done something that is on my vision board. Jenna Ahern: Oh my gosh! Jamie Swaim: Yes. And it's that you have helped write a book. Jenna Ahern: Yes. Yes. Jamie Swaim: I think that is phenomenal. Jenna Ahern: Thank you. Jamie Swaim: So congratulations. Jenna Ahern: Thank you. Jamie Swaim: So tell us what the name of the book is. Jenna Ahern: So, She Knows Best is the book. And I am very grateful that someone in this room right now, Molley Ricketts, invited me to be a part of the anthropology. Jason Heflin: I wasn't invited by the way. Jamie Swaim: Because she knows best. Jenna Ahern: And that has always been on my vision board too. My mom passed away last January and it was kind of around that time where I made the decision to go forward. And it was really a therapeutic process for me. Being a part of this collective of these powerful women. And then also being able to be the first to read these stories and sharing it with the world has been pretty fun. Jamie Swaim: Well, I have a copy on my desk I think right now. And I'd love to know, are there any highlights that you'd like to share from your chapter? Or you just want to let people go and buy the book? Jenna Ahern: I think one of the highlights, it's a low light actually. It would be that I really thought that I could scale by just hustling and just keep doing it. And I really have a thick skull and I'm probably still doing it. And so I think what I'm going to say is those that are have read the chapter and do read the chapter, I think that that part in it about you just can't scale hustle or hustle doesn't scale. Jamie Swaim: You can't hustle your way to glory. Jenna Ahern: Yeah. I mean I really waved that flag for a while. And so that was really hard for me to say. Okay, no, and especially with AI right now and everything that we're talking about, that's definitely not going to get you there now. That to me is a part that I would want to highlight. Jamie Swaim: Yeah, no, that's great. We have the amazing assistance of Jim Ray in the room Jenna Ahern: Amazing. Jamie Swaim: Yes. And one of the things he does for our podcast is he puts some show notes together that highlight things like where to find your book. So he'll plug the book in the show notes, right, Jim? Yes. He's given me the nod. Jenna Ahern: Thank you, Jim. Jamie Swaim: But he'll also share how people can get in touch with you. So tell us how you'd like people to reach out to you for your services. Jenna Ahern: You can email me directly at jenna@guardianowldigital.com. Our phone number is (502) 822-6695, and our website is GuardianOwlDigital.com. And if you just search Jenna Ahern in an AI model. Sure. I'll populate. Molley Ricketts: I can't wait to try it. Jenna Ahern: Or She knows Best. Molley Ricketts: Yeah, book. Jenna Ahern: She Knows Best book. Sorry. Molley Ricketts: She Knows Best is completely something different. Jenna Ahern: It's a 180. Molley Ricketts: Stick book in there. Jenna Ahern: I'm a little nervous now. Jason Heflin: And what's the one thing you want those listening, let's say leaders in their organization. What's the one thing, the takeaway that they need to take from this, today? Jenna Ahern: That this is change management. And if you're a leader, you're managing change right now. This is your time to lead and that means that you need to practice. And so, if you are leaning away from this, then maybe you shouldn't be in leadership right now. Molley Ricketts: Mic drop. Jamie Swaim: I'd drop the mic, but Jim would get mad. Jenna Ahern: That it. Jason Heflin: I like. Powerful. Jamie Swaim: Thank you so much for joining us today. Jenna Ahern: Thank you for having me. Molley Ricketts: Thanks Jenna. Jason Heflin: Alright, Jimmy, close that file. That's where we'll leave the conversation for today. Before we close the file, we invite you to reach out to us with questions, suggestions or other comments. We'd love to hear from you. To Contact Jenna Ahern: Website: www.GuardianOwlDigital.com Phone: (502) 822-6695 To Purchase a Copy of She Know Best: Amazon Link Did You Enjoy Today's Conversation? Visit www.WorkforceTherapyFiles.com to listen to additional WTF files or to let us know you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming file. Need Help Supporting Your Company's Recruiting and Staffing Goals? We're here to help. You can contact us via our individual websites, depending on your specific needs or questions: · Jamie Swaim, SPHR - www.ParcelKnows.com · Molley Ricketts - www.IncipioWorks.com · Jason Heflin - www.CrowdSouth.com We hope you found this file insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening!

May 25, 2026Episode 3835 min

Behind the Mic: How Great Podcast Production Builds Strong Brands

File 38: In this episode of Workforce Therapy Files, the hosts turn the tables and interview podcast producer Jim Ray about the growing role of podcasting in business, branding, and thought leadership. Jim explains why authenticity is one of the most important elements of successful business content. The conversation explores why podcasting creates from deeper, more engaging conversations that build long-term brand equity, as compared to traditional blogging and social media. The team validates the coaching and strategic guidance Jim provides clients beyond simply recording audio. This approach helps professionals communicate more effectively and confidently. The group unpacks how podcasting has strengthened their own communication skills, leadership presence, and team collaboration. Listen as the group shares humorous behind-the-scenes stories while also highlighting the discipline and consistency required to build a successful podcast. Today's conversation reinforces podcasting as a powerful platform for education, relationship-building, and business growth. Key Themes: Turning the Tables: Interviewing Podcast Producer Jim Ray The Hidden Work Behind Great Podcast Production What Separates an Average Podcast from a Great One Why Authenticity Matters More Than "Going Viral" From Blogging to Podcasting: The Evolution of Content Marketing How Podcasting Builds Confidence, Communication, and Brand Authority The Future of Podcasting and Why Long-Form Content Still Wins Episode Transcript Jamie Swaim: On this file for workforce therapy files. We are incredibly honored to welcome an amazing guest, and I know I say that often, but today our guest is the person who makes the workforce therapy files possible. Molley Ricketts: Yay. Jamie Swaim: You may have heard him referred to as Jim Jimmy Jumbo. Jason Heflin: I called him Jimothy. Jamie Swaim: Jimothy is one of my personal favorites. Absolutely. The Jumbotron. Molley Ricketts: Did that just happen? Jamie Swaim: It just did. Alright. Jason Heflin: Wow. Jamie Swaim: Yes. Our producer, Jim Ray, welcome to the show, Jim. Jim Ray: Hey, thanks for having me on. Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. Jim Ray: Good to see everybody. Jamie Swaim: So I like to start with the most random of questions. So I'm going to ask you to suspend belief for a second and act like you are a burglar who just does pranks. Okay And you sneak into people's homes just to mildly inconvenience them. Okay. So I'm going to give you some examples like mismatching all of their socks, mild inconveniences. What would be the signature prank for Jim Ray? Jim Ray: Throw pillows in the refrigerator because they have to wonder, how did I do that? Why did I do that? Jamie Swaim: He did that that so fast! He was like, I thought about, I've been waiting for the day that someone would ask me. Jim Ray: This was yesterday. What are you talking about? Jamie Swaim: Yes. I love this. I kind of want to round robin this for a second, Jim, because there's a lot of questions we want to ask you, but I'm also curious about the answers of other folks that are on this amazing file. Heflin, what's your prank? Jason Heflin: Oh my gosh. I would probably put different drinks in different bottles so they kind of see what… Jamie Swaim: Yes. Jason Heflin: Milk is in the orange juice and, you know. Jamie Swaim: Yeah, I like it. Molley? Molley Ricketts: I would probably do random things like put an egg in the mayonnaise or put the ketchup in the mustard. Kind of like your drink thing. Just everyday things. And you're going to do it and be like, what the, why is there an egg in the mayonnaise? Jason Heflin: Yeah. What I really like to do is I usually go over to Jamie's house and a hide her keys somewhere. Jamie Swaim: That's you that's doing that? All this time, I thought I was disorganized, you know what I mean? Jason Heflin: No. I sneak in on the weekends and before Monday. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. Molley Ricketts: So what about you? Jamie Swaim: I think I'd break in and leave stuff I no longer need from my house and people would be like, where did this come from? That is what I would like to do to people. Molley Ricketts: It'd be a great way to get rid of stuff. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. Because I know I need to declutter. And this would be like two birds, one stone . Yeah. Jason Heflin: I've got a cat. I'll drop off. Jamie Swaim: You'd be like, this dog really gets on my nerves. Jason Heflin: Yeah, yeah. Jamie Swaim: Yes. Jason Heflin: We've got two cats. One of them I like a little. Jamie Swaim: I do have a second alternative and we can put this up to a vote and that would be just in honor of my husband is to go in and just turn all the lights on or put the thermostat to the actual comfortable that everybody's got their degrees. They put it on in the winter. Jim Ray: 68 degrees. Jamie Swaim: 68 in the winter? So then I would go in the winter. Jim Ray: Well, 67 winter. It's an ambient temperature. Jamie Swaim: Oh. I would go in and put Jim's on 70 and just see what happens. You know what I mean? Because the kind of stuff that just… Jim Ray: Next thing you're going to be adjusting my mics and everything else. I get you. Be that person. Jason Heflin: We have one of those thermostats you can control from your phone. Jim Ray: Oh, wow. Jason Heflin: And it is constantly changing. It's probably going to go out within the first year because I'll be like, why is it this temperature? And my wife will be like, why is it this temperature? I'm like, what? I don't know. I didn't touch it. Jamie Swaim: That's when you change it from your phone phone and you're like, it wasn't on there. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you. Good to know what kind of prankster you'd be. Jim Ray: Well, that and leaving random Post-It notes. "Hey, thanks again. Really appreciate it." Jamie Swaim: Who wrote this? Jim Ray: Who wrote that? What is this? Jamie Swaim: I'm not losing my mind. Molley Ricketts: Nice flush. Jamie Swaim: Yeah, nice flush. Wash your hands. Jason Heflin: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: Good reminders. Molley Ricketts: That's great. So today we're interviewing Jim Ray, our producer, and can't wait to learn more about what he does behind the scenes. We get to come into the room and he's got us all set up and ready to go and we crack jokes and he records and then the magic happens. Jim Ray: That's called massive editing. Molley Ricketts: Massive editing. So most people hear the final product, right? They hear us and they see us online producing everything, but we never see what it takes to create it. So today we're flipping the mic. So what does a podcast producer actually do, Jim? Jamie Swaim: Yeah. What do you do? Jason Heflin: What do I do? I've been wondering. Jim Ray: Let me justify myself. No, I think a lot of it really, you guys actually came up with a concept. I mean, you all called me. We literally recorded episode number one in Molley's office just on a, Hey, come out, come over and let's just see if we can figure this out. We went from title, to concept, to what are we going to talk about, to episode one being recorded in about two hours. That's probably the fastest implementation plan ever. Molley Ricketts: So you're saying we're easy to work with? Jim Ray: Well, yeah. It helps when you guys really know why you want to do this. Jamie Swaim : Yeah, I heard "decisive." Molley Ricketts: That's what I heard. Jamie Swaim: Action-oriented. Organized. Jim Ray: Results oriented. Yeah, that's what I heard. No, but you guys all get along and that helps tremendously. You guys feed off of each other so well, and I think that comes through in the content, right? So that makes the editing a lot easier. There's not a lot of times where you guys get stuck when you're doing multiple people on the mic at the same time, somebody else can step right in. So there's not any dead air in there. It's just a great conversation. You guys each have your respective competencies. So from that standpoint, you're constantly, okay, here's the next level, the next level, whether it's going deeper or just going further in the conversation. That makes it easy because I don't have to pull you along and try to help you guys come up with the messaging. You have it and it's just a matter of delivery. My job is just to make sure that one, we sound as good as we can on the mics, which is fantastic for you guys, in terms of what we're able to do with the mic quality. Beyond that, you guys just keep bringing guests. You guys keep bringing ideas, your ability to kind of walk into the room and sometimes the episodes are really well planned out. Other times it's, Hey, okay, let's come up with something on the fly. And actually some of those are the better episodes just because it's organic and it's right there and you guys just play off each other. So the big part of my stuff is making sure that the sound is good, making sure the distribution is ready to go, and then kicking it over to Jason's team for uploading to the website and social media. But you guys execute and that makes it fun. Molley Ricketts: So what do you think separates a good podcast from a great one? Jim Ray: Interesting. I think knowing the purpose of the podcast. So many times I'll have somebody who's interested in doing a podcast and they walk in and they think they're going to be the next Joe Rogan, and it's just not going to happen. Molley Ricketts: What? It's not going to happen? Maybe in the next year. Jim Ray: You guys are on your way. But you haven't arrived, but it's keeping you enthusiastic along the way. No, you guys understand the "why" each of you work in the HR space. Each of you work in staffing and workforce development, so that helps. Even from the marketing standpoint, a lot of your clients, Jason, are large hirers who need help. And so you're in this game as well. And so again, you guys all have a common mission and that works well. What's interesting about you guys is you're actually three unique businesses and you guys are coming together as a collaborative podcast, which I think is a great way to do it. But you're coming at it with different perspectives. You're not getting the same sheet of music, you're not getting the same lines that are inside. So the fact is you guys know what you're looking at and what you're trying to accomplish, and I think that makes you much better than average. Great? We're still going. I think eventually if we can get into video, I think that takes it to another level. But right now, I mean you guys are overperforming, you're always enthusiastic and you've got really good content. Jason Heflin: So this is the Jim Ray way, by the way. We're asking him questions about himself and he just turns and starts talking about us because he's a complimenter. He brings other people up. That's what he does. Molley Ricketts: And he does. Jason Heflin: And I think that's what makes, I mean, I'm going to go ahead and put it out there, but I think that's what makes you such a great producer is you're constantly, you're part of the process too. We're in here doing this, but you're that other voice of reason and you check us. Well, what if you tried it this way? What if you tried it that way? What if you started this way? So you are a bit of a director as well. It's not like we're in here just talking. I mean, before we get started, we map everything out on the board. You help us do that. You kind of check some of the things we say. You think about it from the audience perspective versus just us. Here's what we want to say. And you talk about how it's going to be received. So I think there's a lot of directing too, not just producing in it. What do you think about that? Jim Ray: No, that's a real good point. And I think that's more and more you're seeing little podcast studios pop up and people going, Hey, come on in. We'll do a podcast. And really what it seems to be is more of I've got a mic and the software, you bring your voice and talk. Here's your recording. And that's only going to go so far. That's why a lot of people burn out. The majority of podcasts never reach 10 episodes. They literally never reach 10 episodes. I just think it's different. I think it's more involved than what people think. A big, coming back to your point, Jason, a big part of this is the coaching aspect is being able to watch outside of the bubble saying, okay, here's what you guys are doing. Does that make sense? Hey, what if you tilted it this way? Some of what we do process-wise was because early on, you guys let me become a little bit more involved in the origination and how are we going to set up this process? And now you guys have got it. You run with it. This is what you do when you come in. So yeah, I think the coaching aspect is my differentiator rather than, Hey, I've got a place you can come in and talk on the mic. That gets boring real quickly. Jason Heflin: You work with a lot of podcasters or professionals that are starting podcasts. Do they all come in with a fully formed idea? Jim Ray: Not really. Some of them know they want to do it. Some of them are unaware that podcasting might be a marketing option for them. They're thinking blogs. They're thinking social media. They're thinking, I got to buy a Google pay-per-click ad or something like that. They haven't really thought about podcasting because they're thinking more of the Joe Rogan's, the Martha Stewarts, the true crime novels. They haven't really seen it as business content. But very quickly, I can kind of take that kernel and turn it on its side and go, no, this is why this would be more important to you and the organization at large. And then when I can get a group of professionals who are talking, that becomes a lot more interesting because it's not just one person droning on and on and on like I'm doing in this very answer, but it's more that feedback and that playing off of each other that it just adds to the conversation. Jason Heflin: And I think a lot of people come in thinking, I am going to be the next big podcast star. I think one misconception that I see is that those people that are really successful at podcasting typically have stardom to begin with. The Martha Stewarts, the Joe Rogans. Jamie Swaim: Don't forget Amy Pohler. Jason Heflin: Yeah, Amy Pohler. Jason Bateman, all the big podcasts out there right now. Jim Ray: They're playing off of a foundation. Jamie Swaim: Yeah, they've already got that. I think for us, it took a while to get some steam in the engine and we're at several thousand listeners downloads whatever now. And you've got several podcasts that are in that bucket, right? I mean, among all your podcasts, you probably have tens and tens of thousands of listeners. So I mean, that's a testament to creating good content. And I think if anyone out there is thinking about creating a podcast, Jim's the perfect person to talk to because he's going to coach you through it. He's going to question some of the things that you're doing so that you can make it better. Any idea that comes out of your head's not going to be fully-formed, so it needs a little bit of massaging. And Jim's a great masseuse . He's a great podcast masseuse. Jim Ray: There you go. Molley Ricketts: Podcast masseuse. Jim Ray: Podcast masseuse. I'll put that my business card. Jamie Swaim: I don't why it wasn't already. Jim Ray: Well, Molley's got head honcho on hers, so maybe podcast masseuse. There you go. Jason, Jason actually runs, owns and runs a marketing agency down in Bowling Green. And so you kind see some of this, and I really appreciate the fact that you're pointing some of that out because I think, again, a lot of people just don't know what to do with this medium. They like the idea, but what am I going to talk about? Who's going to listen? It's about consistency. It's really about consistency. You guys have gone several seasons now. There are things that you guys are doing. We've been to the Kentucky SHRM conference a couple of times now. There's just a rhythm and it becomes, I think, a little bit easier, but it also builds up that audience expectation, which is, again, that's fun when you're getting feedback, when you're getting other guests coming on going, oh, I really like this. It's just some validation for the people who are actually trying to do it. So it's not always, Hey, I got this new client. Some of it's just the brand positioning and each of you have your own respective brands, but I think this combined conversation actually helps with that. Jamie Swaim: I think it feels way less intimidating now, too. I don't know about you guys, but whenever we first got started in my head, I was picturing the tens of thousands of people that were going to be listening to us (side eye), but I didn't know how comfortable I'd feel, and it felt very much like a public speaking experience versus now, it feels very much like we're hanging out in an office together and talking about something that we all feel really excited to talk about. I'm curious though, Jim, because I'm a people person, so I want to know your hero origin story. Is this the career you thought you would have whenever you graduated from college, or how did you get here? Jim Ray: Absolutely not. This is not at all what I thought. I grew up with my grandmother. My grandmother was actually blind, so the way I communicated with my grandmother, even as a small child, had to be much more descriptive. So verbally, I was always pretty good. I ended up in sales. I did sales and sales management for 20, 30 years now, and then eventually in my own company when I was doing things such as web development and coaching and things like that, that was fine, but that became commoditized. When Google finally blessed podcasting is a legit form of content for search and everything else that made perfect sense. Within three months, I had a product and a service on the street and did very well that first year. And you learn as you iterate, you just get better and better and better, and you learn ways to improve the quality. Ways to improve the efficiency, and ways to talk a little bit differently with different groups of clients. This is what I do. This is the majority of my revenue stream now as a business. It's just fun. I mean, it is really fun. You guys had asked when you first came in this morning about something that I'm excited about. We just launched a podcast for a different organization, but it's a nonprofit that I got to have a hand in and we hit the deadline, we got everything going. We went from concept to delivery, and it's been a great journey. So that kind of stuff, I like when the light bulbs go off and you're helping somebody. I don't have to be in the spotlight. That's why I don't mind being the producer. I don't need to be in the spotlight, but I get a tremendous amount of joy on watching you guys have a great time and knowing that we're putting something else out there in the ethos that's actually going to help promote your respective brands. I love that stuff. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. I would imagine also that being in the seat that you get to sit in, that you've learned all kinds of amazing things that you had no idea you even wanted to learn about. So what was the topic that you were like, I get to know that information today, or I learned something new and you were super excited to learn it? Jim Ray: Well, I think as we started looking more at video podcasting, I was a purist, right? The reason I like podcasts is because I think I can put my earbuds in and I can multi-task. I can do other things, but I'll still listen to that content. As someone who was a content creator, I used to write a tremendous amount of blogs for law firms all over the state of Kentucky. I used to do a lot of video work, and I really liked those media, those formats. But when you're doing this and you know it's a podcast, I always thought, well, the reason it works is because I'm not competing for your attention. I'm going to ride along with you. I'm going to go with you while you're shopping, exercising, whatever, driving the kids to school, whatever you're doing. I held back on video for a long time, but now it's becoming more and more prevalent, and now I'm able to step in. I'm going, you know what? I'm actually beginning to pull that off, that it's actually looking better and better. I've got a long way to go. I am not a videographer, I'm not a video producer, but I understand the reason for the media format and how to put it to work, and if I can continue to do that on a bigger scale, so much the better. Yeah. Jason Heflin: This is a business question, how much bandwidth do you have for those listening? If they're like, I want to start a podcast, but this guy sounds like he's busy or expensive, or maybe he's a little bit more advanced than what I'm capable of, maybe I'm not ready. Dor those listening that are thinking those thoughts. What would you say? Jim Ray: Well, let me start with this because I think this is one of the more important impediments there. If you have headphones or earbuds and an iPhone, you could do conceivably a podcast, whether it's effective or not, or the quality that represents your brand best, that's up to you. That's personal interpretation. As far as what I do is I give you guys back something you don't have enough of, and that's time. I tell my clients, look, I need you for about an hour and a half, once a month. Come on in. We'll do a couple of episodes back to back. I'll fully produce them. I'll edit them and I'll dose them out. Usually every other week, a new episode goes live. So my bandwidth demands are not that much in terms of, oh my gosh, I'm just totally swamped right now, because I can choose when I decide to edit that episode. If I know you've come in and you've put several episodes together, I've already got them recorded. I don't need to chase you down. I can wake up early on a Saturday morning and knock out an episode. I can stay up late on a Wednesday night and just take care of some other finder points on the editing process. It's not all that, I won't say it's not taxing, but I've got a lot more bandwidth because again, as a solo, I choose when I want to do this. If I want to stay at work, because I love what I'm doing, for a couple of extra hours, I get to do that. All I have to worry about really is hitting the deadline. When does this have to go live? And for most of my clients, we have a scheduled go-live date. It's usually in the morning and it's a certain day of the week. So once we have that scheduled out, I've got time to get there, and it's just a matter of how I want to actually get there. I get to do all the sausage-making that you guys don't have to see. That was the theme of this episode, I guess. But yeah, the bandwidth is there. Will it get tighter and tighter? Yeah, it's supposed to, but that doesn't mean I can't bring on somebody else to help out with some of it. And there are ways, there are just things I'm learning to do now that I didn't know three and four or five years ago that make me a little bit more efficient today. Jason Heflin: Yeah. What do you think the future of podcasting is? Jim Ray: I think this becomes the predominant medium, and I'm not just saying that because, hey, Jim has a hammer, so every problem starts to look like a nail Jamie Swaim: Well, when Netflix started to add podcast as something that's on their streaming platform, I felt really surprised by that because it's not normally considered a visual medium, but it's become a lot more than that. Jim Ray: This is what blogging was 10, 15 years ago, and if you were in content production or content development or any kind of marketing, you understood the impact that blogs were having. This is just a different format of blog. I think people are getting so tired of the short form, the TikTok oriented format where, okay, it's entertainment value, but you can't really get substance out there. Whereas in a podcast, you can do a deep dive. You can really explore a topic, and this may be an episode that I later on forward to a prospective client to give them some more insights into how I think about a certain topic, or maybe we had a great conversation, I can record it one time and distribute it to 300 different clients if I were a larger organization, had the need to do so. It's evergreen. It lives forever. Even if you stop producing new episodes, it's still out there as long as you're paying the hosting fee, it's still out there. So again, you've got residual equity. I've always told people, look, if you're going to do any kind of marketing, make sure you're building equity so that if you stop, it's still producing for you. It's not a pay-per-click ad or a television commercial, a radio commercial, a billboard. Once I stop, it goes away and nobody ever knew it was there to begin with. Something like a podcast, which is a deep dive discussion, actually has residual value day after day, week after week, quarter after quarter, year after year. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. So Jim, when you hear ideas that people may bring you, what do you think that business leaders should really understand about podcasting as a platform? So you said this is the new blog. What are some things to consider when you're talking to a business leader about considering a podcast? Jim Ray: I think you've got to be willing to be authentic. I mean, if you come in with a mask, over time, people are going to see that mask slip. You're going to make a comment that doesn't align with that image you were trying to convey. If you're just yourself, most of the time, that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for authenticity because I get sales pitches every day. We all do. If you own or run a business, you're inundated with sales pitches, and some of them are pretty daggone good. But I don't know, okay, once I buy it, is it going to deliver? Is it going to meet the expectations? The same goes for you if you're doing a podcast, depending on what the idea here is. I want to have thought leaders who want to come in and share their knowledge, and that's what the three of you guys do. You're not actively hard selling. You're providing terrific information in an entertaining format that makes me want to align more closely with your brand. You heighten my curiosity. Jamie Swaim: You actually remind us to, don't forget, say your company's name from time to time. Jim Ray: Yeah. We put that in all the show notes, links out to everything. I mean, yeah, sometimes you get wrapped up into it. Again, because I'm outside of the bubble, I get to look at the other little aspects that are actually critically important. Oh, by the way, here's how you get ahold of me. Things like that. But once you kind of get that down again, for somebody that's thinking about doing this, especially a C-level executive, do I have the time? You don't have the time not to do this, because if I'm going to hire the company, I want to know what the leadership thinks. I want to know how you think. I want to know why I should be considering that. And wow, okay. So now you're conveying it at a time where I can consume it when it's most convenient to me. Now that shows that you're putting me first as a client. Now I'm more interested because you're more aligned with my value system, ideally. I mean, we're not selling retail products. These are corporate strategies. These are important topics. It's a different way to go to market Jamie Swaim: For leaders that are listening right now. One of the things I'd like to highlight that I don't know that I've ever told you this, Jim, but since starting this podcast, one of the things I've gotten more comfortable with is those moments where you're in ad hoc conversation with somebody that doesn't know you very well, and finding new ways to communicate that resemble more clearly my tone and voice. It's one of the reasons, for example, why blogs are starting to feel stale to me because of how many creators are using AI as their content source. Right? But whenever I feel like whenever we get on a microphone and we're able to have a conversation and be ourselves, that has now translated into my work life. So I will make small videos for my team, giving them updates, answering questions that have been posed, rather than just responding in the written way or doing something that's more stale. It's in the moment, and my team loves it. Absolutely loves it. So to me, this is skill-building. And with your tutelage, That's a thing, right? Yeah. Did I make that word up? That's a great word. Molley Ricketts: This just came from nowhere, but I'm impressed. Jamie Swaim: We're growing skills because of the opportunity to be able to do this with you. Jason Heflin: And vocabulary. Jamie Swaim: Vocabulary and vocabulary. Yes. Jim Ray: No, I think when you're on the mic, even though we're not live at any given time, we still have room to edit. It brings out your truest sense of self. I mean, if you've ever written a blog post, how many times have you gone back and self-edited? Okay, wait a minute. That doesn't sound right. No. What are people going to think? You put all these friction points in the process, which is why they take longer, and they usually don't get done consistently. Whereas when you're talking, you're just having a conversation about something you already know with people whom you like. And I think that's what your truest sense of self actually comes out, and that comes back to the authenticity, which is really what the market wants most. And so, yeah, no, I appreciate you saying that. It's a confidence-builder for all the other things that you're doing. Jamie Swaim: It's a comfort builder as well, just to be who you are and to lean into what are the things that you know about a particular topic, because that shows up in a lot of different ways, whether or not you have it or you don't. Jim Ray: Well, what's funny is if you go back and you go back to episode one, file number one for Workforce Therapy Files… Jamie Swaim: I don't know if I ever want to do that. Jim Ray: Well, no. Listen to the first two episodes and ask yourself, wow, how much different do they sound now? The flow is there. I mean, you guys are on lock and it, it's not really work. It's not, oh my gosh. We have had times where we come in and said, okay, what are we going to talk about today? And we put the outline on the board and went, and it actually turned out great, because again, you guys have the process down. This is about reps and muscle memory. Once you get that down, you're already subject matter experts. So you just allow that to come out. Again, let's get the friction out of the way and let the knowledge flow, and that's what you guys do. Jason Heflin: And I'm going to connect a few dots really quick because it was kind of under an undertone, but we talked about blogs and how I think a lot of people are still like, well, I'm a blogger. I'm blogging. Blogging is how I get my content out. But then you mentioned show notes earlier, and it made me think, one thing that I think folks don't think about who are currently blogging and using that as their content medium, is that Jim produces a transcript of every episode. It's chock-full of keywords and things that we talked about and the topics, and that all goes into blog posts. So if you're concerned about, let's say, your website's SEO, and oh, but my blogs really contribute to my SEO because they're continually feeding the algorithm. Well, this is just more content. So you can continue to blog and supplement with podcasting at first, and then at some point, some people just say, I'm just going to do more podcasting and just upload that content. So it's a new way of thinking, and sometimes it's hard, but it still ties back to all the old platforms we use. Jim Ray: And again, you run a marketing agency, so you guys blog. You guys produce a tremendous amount of content for your own clients, I would imagine. So I look at it this way. I used to get paid a decent amount of money to actually sit down and write a six paragraph blog post for, say a law firm, on a consistent basis. And I know how much time it took me to come up with a title, come up with some subtitles, maybe a nice image, some bullet points, and some pithy content ultimately to get down to the call to action. Molley Ricketts: So we're just Webster here today. Jim Ray: Pithy you like that? You like, okay, great. So I knew what it would take to do that, and they'd get six, seven paragraphs maybe. If we have a 15 minute conversation, how many paragraphs did we just create? It's infinitely more. It's infinite. So much less time to create and much more in terms of context, content and just overall quality of experience for the listener. Now you start looking at derivative products. Now, okay, so I've got that. I've got the blog post and I've got this say, audio podcast. Now I can splice that up into outtakes snippets, if you will. That can go on the social media. I can take the transcript and now I can convert that over into a separate blog post from the transcript or the audio. I've got that. And then I can break that down even further for additional social media. And oh, by the way, the whole time linking it back and forth to previous and related pages and websites. It's just so much more effective. Jason Heflin: The mileage you get out of it is incredible. Jim Ray: Exactly. Jamie Swaim: I also really appreciate that the show notes, and Jason mentioned this, but you're very careful not just to provide a transcript, but you get a link to each of us in the bottom of the show notes. Jim Ray: To your guests as well Jamie Swaim: To our guests. We've used it as an opportunity to plug books that were mentioned from previous guests. And I don't know that every podcast provides that level of content to serve as supporting information if somebody wanted to go and reference it quickly, instead of having to go back and try to be like, was that at minute 20 or 21? And I really appreciate the production of those show notes. It's been very helpful for me in figuring out which episode I wanted to refer back to for different engagements. Jim Ray: Well, yeah, and there's always going to be a key phrase in there that might relate to a previous episode or something like that. But again, that comes back to that coaching mentality, those competitive advantages that I think I bring as a podcast producer is I'm not just saying here, just talking to the mic and I'll give you a recording. I'm going to do all these follow on assets that make it more powerful, that make it much more effective, and that serve additional purposes. All of this should be weaving together a constant theme based on what you do. You guys are in HR, okay, great. You're in marketing, so it should be doing all of those different things together so that you're just pounding your website and all these other social media platforms with great on-point, consistent, authoritative content. That's why I think podcasting, when you ask, where's it going? I think podcasts becomes the preferred medium. Molley Ricketts: Okay. I've got a very important question to ask Jim. Jim Ray: Five seven. Molley Ricketts: I thought it was 6 7. No, thank you, Jim. Jamie Swaim: Jim, starting a new trend. Molley Ricketts: HR nightmare. So Jim, what do you think is the best episode for Workforce Therapy Files? So far? Jamie Swaim: Putting you on the spot. Wow. Molley Ricketts: Your favorite the best? Jason Heflin: This one. Jim Ray: The ones that talk about me. Let's see. You guys did a Halloween themed one , which was kind of interesting. That was creative. That was good. Jamie Swaim: Spooky recruiting stories. Jim Ray: Yeah. Early on, you guys were bringing in much more data. I think you were bringing in Bureau of Labor Statistics data , and that was informative. Jamie Swaim: That one was one of my favorites too, though. We went through the Workforce Report. Molley Ricketts: That was two episodes, wasn't it? Yeah. Jim Ray: You guys have brought in other, just thought leaders. You brought in Dr. Deborah Clary , who really is doing her own thing after just a terrific executive career, and now she's off into coaching and it launched a new book and things like that. What I love is the miniseries. The miniseries that we do from SHRM where we'll go do a popup podcast there for two days and we'll come back and we'll get 20-30 podcast episodes, mini-interviews, out of that. And it keeps producing for you all. But at the same time, just the tone of those many impromptu discussions are just fun. I mean, watching you guys just be in the moment and just having fun at a conference, a trade show, whatever. Molley Ricketts: I mean, we're a pretty good time. Jamie Swaim: Yeah, that's true. Jim Ray: You guys are a good time. Jamie Swaim: You should hear us when we don't talk about work. Jim Ray: No. So to come back to say just one, no, there are different styles and formats that you guys have done that I think each have their own benefits and they're going to resonate with different types of audience members, right? Not everybody wants the casual, they want the more authoritative data-specific. You guys deliver that as well. Jamie Swaim: I think I'm hearing Jim say it's hard to choose which one says favorite. Molley Ricketts: That's what I think too. Jim Ray: The answer is D, all of the above. Yeah, there we go. Jason Heflin: Which one of your kids do you love the most? Molley Ricketts: So do you think of a conversation and think, man, Workforce Therapy Files needs to talk about that? Jim Ray: Yeah. I think from time to time, I'll send you guys an email with just a, Hey, here's a video that I saw, or here's an article, or, Hey, this is interesting. You guys could develop something off of that. And I think, again, having something that's also looking to promote your authoritative information. Sometimes you just don't think, we all kind of get in our own silos and we're thinking, well, this is what I usually talk about. And then somebody throws something over the wall and you're like, oh, that's cool. Let me see where that goes. I try to do that as well. I think that, again, it is part of the coaching. How can I make you guys more successful at what you're doing? Sometimes it's topic selection. Some topics just seem to resonate and everybody's in it. Sometimes not as much, but it's still good information, right? So if we can start to look at different sources of information for a potential topic, I like doing that. It just keeps it fresh, keeps it fun. Not that you guys have the problem with keeping it fun. Jamie Swaim: Jim. So the listeners are saying, I can do it. I can do a podcast. I know I can. Now I feel confident. What's the first step? How do they get in touch with you? How do they get started? Jim Ray: I appreciate you saying that. I think the easiest thing is let's have a conversation to make sure that your expectations are realistic from the outset. Not that they can't evolve into something even bigger, but let's have a conversation. There are a number of different ways to get to me. My website is JimRayConsultingServices.com. You can just call me here at the office, (502) 208-9639. Probably the easiest way to grab me, just say, Hey, send me a text to that number. Actually, Hey, I heard you on the podcast thinking about doing my own. Can we chat? Easy, easy, easy, easy peasy. Jamie Swaim: Jim, will you put that in the show notes? Jim Ray: Yeah, great idea. Okay, great idea. Yeah, I'll put links to all that. Jamie Swaim: And if Jim doesn't answer the phone, he's probably recording an amazing podcast, so he will call you back ASAP. Jim Ray: Or a podcast that features me. But yeah, so it'll all be good. No, but guys, I appreciate it. This is kind of fun to turn the tables a little bit and actually be on the mic with you. So I really appreciate the opportunity here. Jamie Swaim: I think you were just as good on this side of the mic. Jim Ray: What? I mean, I've done this a couple of times, just once or twice. But no, I appreciate you guys saying that. But thanks for the opportunity. And the fact is you guys are producing just different types of content at a higher-level one than when you originally started. It's just come that much further, but it's just fun watching you guys in your zone. Anytime I can watch a group of high-performers just actually get together and actually do what they do best, it's just fun. I mean, it's literally fun. Jamie Swaim: Well, thank you for agreeing to get on this side of the table and Jim Ray of Jim Ray Consulting Services. Close that file, close that file. That's where we'll leave the conversation for today. Before we close the file, we invite you to reach out to us with questions, suggestions or other comments. We'd love to hear from you. To Contact Podcast Producer Jim Ray: Website: www.JimRayConsultingServices.com Phone: (502) 208-9639 Did You Enjoy Today's Conversation? Visit www.WorkforceTherapyFiles.com to listen to additional WTF files or to let us know you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming file. Need Help Supporting Your Company's Recruiting and Staffing Goals? We're here to help. You can contact us via our individual websites, depending on your specific needs or questions: · Jamie Swaim, SPHR - www.ParcelKnows.com · Molley Ricketts - www.IncipioWorks.com · Jason Heflin - www.CrowdSouth.com We hope you found this file insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening!

May 11, 2026Episode 3726 min

Why HR Is Still Misunderstood in Business Leadership?

File 37: In this file of Workforce Therapy Files, the hosts turn the spotlight on Jamie Swaim to explore her journey into human resources and leadership strategy. Jamie discusses why HR is often misunderstood in executive spaces and explains the difference between reactive HR support and proactive people strategy. They explore workforce planning, compliance challenges, and the growing complexity of managing people across multiple states and industries. The discussion highlights the importance of ambiguity management, resourcefulness, and cross-functional thinking for modern HR leaders. The group reflects on how meaningful relationships, mentorship, and practical experience have shaped Jamie's approach to leadership. The conversation reinforces the idea that strong HR strategy is deeply connected to business success and organizational trust. Key Themes: · Beyond the Support Desk: Why Executives Misunderstand HR · Proactive Workforce Planning: Scaling Without Surprises · The State-Line Trap: Navigating Multi-State Compliance Risks · From Middle School Passion to HR "Encyclopedia" · The Three Pillars of Modern HR: Ambiguity, Resourcefulness, and Empathy · Real Talk Over Theory: The Inspiration Behind Parcel Episode Transcript Jason Heflin: Welcome back to the Workforce therapy files. Today we're doing something really fun. It's the final in our series of interviewing the founders of our podcast. And we got Jamie Swain, one of my favorite people. Jamie Swaim: CEO. Jason Heflin: CEO. President. Supreme Leader. Molley Ricketts: Grand Poo-bah. Jason Heflin: Grand Poo-bah. Jamie Swaim: That's my personal preference. I'm just kidding. Jason Heflin: So thanks for being here today and taking some time out of your busy schedule. Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. Thank you for having me. Jason Heflin: Absolutely. I'm going to kick it off with some questions for your if you're ready. Jamie Swaim: I'm ready. Jason Heflin: Okay. So this is us interviewing Jamie as if we just didn't even know her. Molley Ricketts: Okay. Beyond the Support Desk: Why Executives Misunderstand HR Jason Heflin: So we may know some of the answers to these, but going to, I bet we're going to be surprised. Jamie, why is HR still misunderstood in the executive room? Jamie Swaim: I think it's because the day-to-day interactions before you become an executive with HR are support focused. They're compliance focused, and the further the individuals go in the HR space, the more it's strategy focused. And sometimes people ascend to the executive space before they've ever seen HR as a strategy. I think that's the biggest issue. And so they still want to interact as like, Hey, can you pull this report for me? Can you file this for me? Instead of, can you help me think through how our people will be impacted by this business need or this projected route that my company is going to go down? I think that's the biggest area that's misunderstood. Jason Heflin: Yeah, that's good. And it's true. I mean, it's easy to get disconnected or not be connected in the first place. Well, what's the difference between HR support and people strategy? Jamie Swaim: Yeah. I think the biggest difference is that support's in the moment largely it is reacting to what the challenges of right now and appropriate behavior, performance concern bubbled up. How do I help you through this navigate this tricky water moment that you're experiencing right now? Strategy to me is how do I make sure that the things we're putting in place right now align to where you want the company to go, but it takes being partners in that and understanding where companies want to go to be able to put strategies in place. Jason Heflin: Would you say it's proactive thinking over reactive thinking? Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. Jason Heflin: So I'm going to go off script a little bit. Jamie Swaim: That's fine. Proactive Workforce Planning: Scaling Without Surprises Jason Heflin: What's a quick thing that people can do to be better at that, to be better at that strategic long-term planning and thinking. Jamie Swaim: In terms of people? Jason Heflin: In terms of their people, in terms of talent. Jamie Swaim: I think the biggest one for me is really creating a workforce plan. Every year, companies get together and they say, what are the goals that we're going to have for this year? What are the budgets we're going to have for this year? And sometimes those are the only two things that leaders will do together to plan for their company. And they're not thinking through what that means from a people perspective. So you get surprised things like, we need to hire 45 people because we're supposed to start this on Tuesday. You're like, gosh, I wish I'd known that whenever I was putting together my team for this year. And those kinds of things can't continue to happen. If you want a seamless execution, if you don't want to do things like we've cautioned on this podcast, like hiring quick or not building intentionality in how you scale and grow or contract. Even having conversations of like, I'm not really sure that based on our sales forecast that we're going to be able to sustain this workforce. Okay, well, here's our turnover number. Do we want to just let natural attrition happen and not backfill it? Or are there other things that we'd like to do? We can have conversations about that upfront that save you some of the things that you sacrifice and the trust that you have with the people that work there. The State-Line Trap: Navigating Multi-State Compliance Risks Jason Heflin: Yeah. Good. I'm going to use a scary word in this next one called compliance. We've been talking in my company a lot about compliance. There's a new Americans with Disabilities Act law coming into effect in April. All websites, government, healthcare, all the major service websites have to be ADA compliant. Molley Ricketts: How? Jamie Swaim: There's a lot of things. Molley Ricketts: How will they be ADA compliant? Jason Heflin: ADA compliance for websites is visual and audio. So if somebody has a visual disability or can't hear, and there's audio or video on the site. Jamie Swaim: Also color considerations. Jason Heflin: You have two similar colors of blue are sitting next to each other that are too close. People can't tell the difference. Different fonts, the readers can't read them to people. So anyway, that's a side journey. Molley Ricketts: Sorry, didn't know. Jamie Swaim: But we're all learning. Jason Heflin: But I've been talking about compliance half the day every day for the last few weeks. So it's scary. People are like, what comply I have to comply? Yes, yes. It's a minimum of $115,000 fine. So now are they going to, who knows if these compliances are going to be enforced or not? Somebody's going to have to call you out. Probably won't. But compliance is scary when people bring it up. So what's the biggest compliance risk companies are ignoring in the space of hiring and people and talent? Jamie Swaim: I think the biggest one from my perspective is when we're thinking about scaling and growth and ignoring the fact that compliance is bigger than just federal law. So every state in our country has a different set of requirements. And so, choosing to scale might also mean that you need to choose how you're going to support your organization with additional requirements. And it can't always be absorbed by the two people you gave to the HR team. So, you're in 45 states. Well, that might mean that I have two more people that are necessary just to be able to do the basics. And that's not counting the other meaningful things that the function can offer. And it's not just in HR. That's true for safety. It's true for finance requirements, tax laws, how the unemployment's set up, how workers' comp is set up. All of it is down to the state line. And I don't think companies always think about that, especially if founders or growing company CEOs have not worked in that space before. If they haven't hired an HR expert that they're spending time with, it may not be something that they pay attention to. The second one though, that is also something I stay with my head on pivot right now is immigration laws. It's a growing space, and for some industries, you got to stay really connected to it, especially in rural medical settings, agriculture, people with highly-skilled workforces where you've got individuals on a lot of visas. Paying attention to where we are from an immigration standpoint is going to be really important to make sure you have the right budgets and support to navigate it. Jason Heflin: And it doesn't have to be scary. Right? Jamie Swaim: It doesn't have to be scary. But here's the thing. We need to all accept the fact that the people that write these laws are not people that are executing the work. So they don't always write them in ways that are so clear that you're like, oh, okay, well that's step one. I understand that. And they don't always provide the tools to help you do it well. So finding someone who understands the ways that companies have bumped their heads on this is it's worth the time and it's worth the investment to have somebody that you can trust to help you navigate it. Molley Ricketts: Can I get an amen? Jamie Swaim: Thank you. From Middle School Passion to HR "Encyclopedia" Jason Heflin: Can I ask you another off-script question? I'm going to start with a compliment. So you are probably the most knowledgeable person when it comes to these type of topics, like the technicality of human resources. Jamie Swaim: That Jason knows. Jason Heflin: Yeah. So I don't know many, but no, but seriously, you really are. And whenever you dive into these things, it's like you could just keep going and keep going because you've seen so much. How did you learn all this? You're an encyclopedia. What's your backstory? This is about getting to know Jamie. So what's your backstory? How'd you get here? How did you become such a brainiac? Jamie Swaim: Actually, I think part of it is because I was born that way. No, I'm just kidding. I decided I was going to be in HR in middle school, which I know is not when a lot of people make those choices. Molley Ricketts: You were 12? Jamie Swaim: Yes. And I had a situation where one of my family members had applied for a position that they were already doing and had been doing it for six months and they didn't get the job. And then the person that was hired, they were asked to train. Molley Ricketts: Oh. Jamie Swaim: For months. For months. It was a promotion. And then the hiring manager asked that person if they ever planned on losing weight? And I don't know whether or not the decision to do that was connected, but there's no way that you would disconnect it, if you were somebody who was on the receiving end of that. And I remember being in middle school and being like, what a dumb way to make business decisions. So, when I got to high school, I had a whole conversation with my guidance counselor, because this is pre-internet, just so we're clear. I had a conversation with my guidance counselor and I said, I just want to be part of how do you influence these kinds of decisions so that they're not made based on things that don't actually drive value. And for some reason, this was very interesting to me. It's like I grew a passion about it. So, I got really involved in things like Junior Achievement and those kinds of things, and I just enjoyed learning about it. So then I was looking at a college, my guidance counselor said, there's two that we could find in Kentucky that had an HR track. It was just at the beginning of no longer calling it Personnel. And so we were moving into this HR space and here was the outlook. And I knew I wanted to affect business, but I didn't want to be an accountant and I didn't want to work in finance. And this really spoke to me because I really, I'm going to give you the generic thing that everybody who first gets started in HR says is I love people, but sorry, it gets on my nerves now. But at the beginning, that was how I felt too. I felt like, how can I help people? But then this is in the early parts of the internet to get started. I had this crazy CEO, and if you're listening to this, you know exactly who you are. Crazy CEO, who promoted me before I was ready. And he said, I'm going to give you two things. I'm going to give you an attorney that you can call. Shout out to Jim Smith, and I'm going to give you a consultant that you can use because I think you have the right heart and I think you have the right mind for things. But I know that there are going to be things that we're going to come across that you don't have experience to tackle. And I used those relationships in every possible way. I read every SHRM magazine. I dove into every piece of content that I could get to try to learn these things. I actually read the Family Medical Leave Act. My gosh, I ordered that. Jason Heflin: Nerd. Jamie Swaim: Right? Molley Ricketts: Totally. Jamie Swaim: I ordered it and the Fair Labor Standards Act, and I read it word for word because I thought I needed to. Okay. Which I don't know that you need to. Molley Ricketts: Not word for word. Jamie Swaim: There's stuff in there you don't even come across. But that's how I grew my knowledge around these things because I thought that's what it meant to be in HR. And this was before I started learning other things. Long answer, I think Jason, but… Jason Heflin: Good answer. Jamie Swaim: Thank you. I'm a nerd. I guess is if you wanted to underline something twice what the answer is. Molley Ricketts: But I love that nerdiness about you. Jamie Swaim: Thank you. Molley Ricketts: Because that means that someone like me, I can lean into you the same way that you leaned into those two people because I know you're going to be the best. Jamie Swaim: Thank you. Gosh. Molley Ricketts: So when you think about how far you've come and everything that you've experienced, and I know that I get to talk to you sometimes when I'm like, I don't know what the heck I'm supposed to be doing right now. And you're like, you know what? Let's talk through it. And I always love that about you. You give me the grace when sometimes you know that I know the answer, but you need to help me walk through it to find it together. Jamie Swaim: By the way, one of the biggest privileges I have in my life is to be behind the curtain with people before they take it and deliver it to someone else. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: It took me a while to get my head around it that way. So thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be with you behind the curtain. Molley Ricketts: Yeah, always. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. The Three Pillars of Modern HR: Ambiguity, Resourcefulness, and Empathy Molley Ricketts: So you've come through the ranks. You've lived like me through different seasons of what it means to be in HR. Started out as Personnel and HR and human capital. I think we went through a phase of that and gosh, I don't even know what else. Jamie Swaim: People. Now we're just a people. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. So, what capabilities do you think HR has to have now that maybe you didn't have to have 10 years ago? What capabilities must HR leaders have now or learn now, build now that you didn't have to 10 years ago, 5 years ago? Jamie Swaim: I'm going to say this because some of it is that I didn't know I needed it 10 years ago, but it probably was true then too. Jason Heflin: Okay. Jamie Swaim: I think the first is the ability to deal with ambiguity. And it's because nothing is predictable when you're dealing with people. Molley Ricketts: Never. Jamie Swaim: You can't judge somebody correctly just because you interviewed them for two hours. You can't judge somebody quickly because you worked with them for five years. When life circumstances shifted and you've never seen them through that season. You got to be real comfortable to be like, I have no idea how we're going to get through this and rely on the fact that, but you have before gotten through other things that you had no idea how you're going to get through that ability to deal with ambiguity, to say I don't know what I'm talking about right now, but I have the tools to learn more about it so that I can show up appropriately. I think that really matters. The second thing is I really lean into resourcefulness. And if I'm adding anybody on my team as a leader or a team member, I need to know that when you don't know something that you won't automatically fizzle, that you'll continue to be like, I am committed to figuring it out. Right? Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: I'm going to make a phone call. I'm going to look something up. I'm going, I'm not going to wait for somebody to be the authority on the topic. Right? I would rather you give me something to react to than to rely on me wholly to create it. That's what I look for. And the third is the ability to think in terms of the other person's seat as it relates to cross-functional capability. Molley Ricketts: That's deep. Jamie Swaim: I'm not a finance person, but I should care about what finance has to control. I should understand my impact on their work. I should care about how I manage my budget. I should be clear about what my needs are. I should understand why priorities are selected that aren't mine, but advocate for them effectively. I feel like it's appropriate for me to understand the challenges that my operational partners are up against, so that whenever I'm like, okay, but tomorrow we're going to start our performance review cycle and it's going to take you 15 hours to get stuff done in two days, well, that's not reflective of the life they're living. And I think there's a lot of ways that HR does that, where they put timelines or deadlines out there that, because the work is important, but it almost gets lost because it's impossible to execute. So I think you got to be thinking about how you're affecting other people and how you all have to work together in order to make great things happen. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. So you've been in corporate, you've been in small, you've been a medium… Jamie Swaim: Fortune 5. Molley Ricketts: Fortune 5. You've been a solopreneur. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. Molley Ricketts: In that experience that you've had, what are the greatest relationships that you feel like you have to have for your position to make a move to be respected? So often the HR is the, oh, you have to go to the principal's office kind of thing. From your experience and where you sit, looking back on your knowledge, what has been the greatest relationship that you know have to have as soon as you go into an organization? Jamie Swaim: It depends on the industry, but finance and IT are the two places that I really care about building some connection because whether or not I have the funds to execute something, whether or not I fully understand the impact of my decisions on the business output and whether or not I have the right systems or tools to navigate it most efficiently, those relationships to me are really key, really key. But I think the biggest one is the leaders that are on my team. I need to know that we're walking right foot, left foot together, and that we're sharing a brand, that we are building something together that we could speak for each other in a way of like, no, I know that's what you heard, but I know that person so well that I'm wondering if we're missing a sliver. Because like I said, we're dealing with ambiguity every day. So I think having people that you know can trust is super important. Molley Ricketts: And what two great positions to acknowledge that you have to align with and get to know for your impact to be meaningful the way that you want it to throughout the organization. So, one of the things that I love to hear from other leaders like yourself, that started at the age of 12, what value do you think HR brings to the table and how do you bring that value in a way that helps everyone else see it? So it's not just HR and compliance and almost like you're the person that puts up the guardrails and tells me what I can't do. Jamie Swaim: That's right. Well, I think one of the values is almost every compliance expectation was created because companies were jerks. Okay> Molley Ricketts: Shout out to Eric Williamson there. Jamie Swaim: That's right. Shout out, Eric. And the big thing is, is that if I can understand the spirit and intent of why the law exists or why the regulation is required, and I can make sure that we are doing that compliance effectively, HR is already paid for itself because the risks, like the one that Jason talked about, is probably more than what it would take to navigate that. And that's true across the board. Everything else that we do is icing for the company Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: So if we are contributing new strategic thoughts, ways to approach something, ways to focus on things like transferable skills or that we know the people that work there so well that we're like, you've got that problem. Have you talked to so-and-so? Because we're connectors and the organization that get to know people, what makes their blood pump and what they like to work on and where their talents lie. There's magic that starts to happen there when that is cranking out, right? Which is why I think HR business partners that just that job title has grown so significantly. When I started, it was HR Generalist only, and that just meant they weren't going to staff a full HR team. So you were going to do all the things. Molley Ricketts: Jack of all trades. Jamie Swaim: Yes, that's right. But business partners that understand why those performance expectations matter, how that translates to your outcomes, understand the return on investment of the development activities they're suggesting because they understand where your team's going. Gosh, that's where absolute incredible work happens. Molley Ricketts: Yeah, that's great. So you told us a little bit about the reason why you started, and you've talked a lot about what you've learned and how you've grown within your position. So what advice would you give someone in middle school or maybe a little older that is considering the work that you do? What would you tell them today that you wish someone would've told you then? Jamie Swaim: I had no idea the steps I was going to have to take to be able to reasonably affect the things that were the inspiration behind me starting in this career. And I remember the first several years, the shock that when I got my first HR job that I wasn't even doing the stuff I did when I had an internship, I was doing data entry, I was tracking attendance. I was filing. There's nothing, not a moment when I was deciding what I was going to major in and go into debt for in college, where I was like, I sure hope I file. Molley Ricketts: And track attendance. Jamie Swaim: And track attendance. But the biggest thing for me is I've always told people that you got to lean into the relationships network gain sponsors, people that would say your name in rooms you aren't in. You got to care about that. And every single file that I would work within, I read it, all of it. I got to see examples of how the work was done to see, I got to see other people that work there to see whether or not the things they put on their performance improvement plan, did it actually improve performance. Because I cared about stuff like that. So take every grain of what's offered you in terms of a requirement and see what it turns into in terms of nuggets that lay a foundation that allow somebody you respect to say, you know more than anybody I know about this topic. It's because I've cared about every detail that's come across my desk. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. I mean, you read the FMLA. Jamie Swaim: I did. Which I wouldn't advise, by the way. Google helped a lot of things. Molley Ricketts: Well, I want to tell you that I appreciate you and the commitment that you go to finding the right answer, and I say the right answer because we all have opinions. Jamie Swaim: Oh, absolutely. Molley Ricketts: And being able to discern when you know that you need to find the right answer and not just your opinion, that takes a big person and someone that's very self-aware. And I thank you for that. Jamie Swaim: Thank you. Real Talk Over Theory: The Inspiration Behind Parcel Molley Ricketts: So I think that you're closing out this chapter of files that we've committed to here at WTF, Workforce Therapy Files. You're the last one wrapping us up. So is there anything you want to close us out on that you think people need to know about Jamie Swaim? Jamie Swaim: The only thing I would like to put a pen in, if you don't mind, is that there's an inspiration story behind why I created Parcel. And part of it was because I worked in all of these corporate settings, and there would be times where I didn't have enough people on my team to do the things that were being asked and the time I was given to do it. And then for the moments where I needed to go and find someone, I kept running into consultants that all they had ever done was lived in the theoretical. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: I knew that I was not going to hire those consultants. I was not going to partner with people who were using theory and textbook to drive meaningful outcomes for companies, especially small and medium businesses. And I'm really proud of the people that we brought into the Parcel fold over the years because they've all been individuals that I know have walked the walk and that are not living in the utopian version of how you should be doing this, which is my biggest pet peeve about HR conferences. So I just want to say that because if you're in a situation where you don't know how to navigate something and you want somebody who's going to be real talk with you, I'm proud of what Parcel has done in that space. Molley Ricketts: Yeah, that's great. And I'll attest to the work effort. Thanks for being on the show. Jamie Swaim: Thanks for having me. Molley Ricketts: All right, Jim, close that file. That's where we'll leave the conversation for today. Before we close the file, we invite you to reach out to us with questions, suggestions or other comments. We'd love to hear from you. Did You Enjoy Today's Conversation? Visit www.WorkforceTherapyFiles.com to listen to additional WTF files or to let us know you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming file. Need Help Supporting Your Company's Recruiting and Staffing Goals? We're here to help. You can contact us via our individual websites, depending on your specific needs or questions: · Jamie Swaim, SPHR - www.ParcelKnows.com · Molley Ricketts - www.IncipioWorks.com · Jason Heflin - www.CrowdSouth.com We hope you found this file insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening!

April 27, 2026Episode 3626 min

Why Hiring Is Broken: Moving Beyond "Check-the-Box" Recruiting

File 36: In this file of Workforce Therapy Files, the hosts spotlight Molley Ricketts, founder and CEO of Incipio Workforce Solutions, and explore her journey building a people-first recruiting firm. Molley shares how her early experiences shaped her belief that hiring should be intentional rather than transactional. The conversation dives into common hiring mistakes, including reactive recruiting and outdated job descriptions. They also unpack the real cost of bad hires and why culture alignment matters more than filling a seat quickly. Molley highlights the overlooked value of essential workers and the importance of recognizing their contributions beyond moments of crisis. The group discusses leadership growth, the difference between founder and CEO roles, and how to scale a business while maintaining culture. Practical insights around networking, strategy, and long-term talent development are woven throughout. The file ultimately challenges leaders to rethink how they approach hiring, culture, and workforce strategy. Key Themes: Molley Ricketts' Origin Story: From Corporate to Entrepreneur Reactive Hiring vs. Strategic Talent Planning The Real Cost of a Bad Hire vs. an Open Position Essential Workers: Why Their Value Is Still Overlooked Scaling a Business Without Losing Culture and Leadership Identity File Transcript: Jamie Swaim: Welcome back to another amazing episode of the Workforce Therapy Files. Today we are continuing a theme where we're getting to know the hosts of Workforce Therapy Files, and today we are dedicating our time completely to the one, the only, the incredible, the author… Molley Ricketts: International bestseller. Jamie Swaim: The international bestseller. You're not supposed to do your own intro, but dang it, Molley Ricketts: I didn't want you to miss it. Jamie Swaim: I'm not going to ask Jim to redo it because… Jason Heflin: A quick plug, but international best seller for what? Molley Ricketts: She Knows Best. Jamie Swaim: Author of international bestselling book, She Knows Best , Molley Ricketts. Molley Ricketts: Thanks. Thanks for having me on the show. Jamie Swaim: Very good. Molley Ricketts: Thanks. Jamie Swaim: Molley. I know we'll give you some questions and you prepared some things that you definitely want to talk about today, but you're not prepared. Jason Heflin: We're not going to ask you any of those questions. Jamie Swaim: We're not going to ask you any of them. We've got a whole list. Molley Ricketts: I feel so unprepared now. Jamie Swaim: All right. If you had to teach a master class tomorrow about something that has nothing to do with your business or your job, what would it be on? Molley Ricketts: Boating. Jamie Swaim: Boating. Jason Heflin: That's Boating with a B, not voting with a V. Molley Ricketts: Oh no. You don't want me to teach that class! Jamie Swaim: How'd you get into boating? Molley Ricketts: Grew up around it. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. Molley Ricketts: I was driving a boat before I was driving a car. Jamie Swaim: So now we'll also call you Captain Molley Ricketts. Jason Heflin: She's been a captain for us lately, like getting some of this content ready and stuff. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. I don't know if you guys know this, but our podcast wouldn't happen if it wasn't for Molley Ricketts. Molley Ricketts: Oh, stop. Jamie Swaim: She gets us together. She tells us what we're going to talk about. She gets us guests. She found Jim. Yeah. Your face should be bigger on our sticker. Molley Ricketts: I like that. Jamie Swaim: But you're already in the middle, so I guess there's that. Okay. Molley Ricketts: The Red glasses. Jamie Swaim: So let's just like every hero or villain in a story. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Molley Ricketts' Origin Story: From Corporate to Entrepreneur Jamie Swaim: They all have a good origin story. Let's talk about yours. Molley Ricketts: Okay. Jamie Swaim: What problem in the workforce space frustrated you so much that you were like, nobody else is doing this, so I'm going to build a company and I'm going to be the one to do it? Molley Ricketts: It stemmed from working with organizations that continue to look at recruiting as a transaction and checking a box to fill a seat. The opportunities that come with an organization that are intentional about the people that they're putting in those seats and that are intentional about the knowledge, skills, and abilities that they're bringing into the company. When you really think about it and make that decision based on growth and succession, instead of checking-the-box, you change the game. And for so long, the companies that I was working with, that's all they wanted to do. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. I got you. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: Your company's name is Incipio. We didn't mention that in the intro. Jason Heflin: Incipio Works. Jamie Swaim: Incipio Workforce Solutions. Yep. So was Incipio the first company you started? Molley Ricketts: It was not. Jamie Swaim: What? There's another story here. I did not know this. Molley Ricketts: So I worked with a corporate organization for almost 12 years and learned a lot. It was a great experience. It was also one of those great golden handcuff companies where you've got the great pay, great benefits, great PTO. Jamie Swaim: Did you have a pension? Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: What? Molley Ricketts: Can you believe it? Jamie Swaim: No. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. So there were other plans for me. I was part of the second wave of layoffs that banking institution had, and I thought, you know what? I can do this. I can do this on my own. But I had two small kids and didn't think that I could lean into myself enough to financially support the family. My husband was working, he had a stable job, still does, and it was all great, but taking that leap of faith on myself was a little too scary. So I went out and I said, okay, if anybody was going to hire me to solve their recruiting problems, and all I have on my resume is 12 years of a corporate job, they're going to look at me and think, no. Jamie Swaim: That's not going to work over here in my widget-making. Molley Ricketts: So, I went to work for a small company here in Louisville. Architects and engineers, Luckett and Farley. I'm a history nerd. So they were the official architects of the Twin Spires at Churchill Downs from 18, whatever that year was, sorry, I don't remember. So I thought, how cool would that be? And learned a lot from there. And then I was tapped to work a contract position with GE through YO Corporation out of northern, the New England area, and learned a lot there, especially working as a third party for a corporate company like GE. Learned a lot. And through that, a lot of the managers and leaders that I had worked with in the past at Citigroup said, Hey, the person that I'm working with now, I don't like them recruiting for me. Can you help me? So my first company started itself basically, because people that I had worked with in the past reached out and I thought, I can do this. I can work full-time job and come home and work again. Sorry, Chad. And that's what I did. So my first company was Starting Line Staffing Consultants. Jamie Swaim: Starting line? Molley Ricketts: Starting line. Jamie Swaim: Because you love the track. Molley Ricketts: Yes. Jamie Swaim: Yes. That's a great name for your company. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. And it was a starting line for new employees, for new companies. Right? Jamie Swaim: For sure. Molley Ricketts: So I did that. So I worked full-time as a contractor through YO at GE, and I had my own business on the side, and the business started to grow and I had to make a decision. I was like, I don't have that real third-party experience. So, I went to work for a temporary agency and continued to affirm that that's not the business that I wanted. Through that education and learning really took my Starting Line business and pulled it into that temporary agency and learned a lot after two and a half years and discovered that wasn't a good fit for me and decided to leave there and took on the adventure of giving myself a few months of a break to get my stuff together. Did you like that? I said stuff I didn't. Jason Heflin: Very well done. Yeah. Molley Ricketts: Thank you. Thank you. Jamie Swaim: Such growth, really. Molley Ricketts: Right, right. So I took a few months and really got a plan together. And Jason, to your point on a previous episode of really understanding what it was at the minimum expectations I had to set for myself, that was hard because I'd had so much responsibility in leadership opportunities in the previous positions, and I missed that, because now I'm the only one. And when I started Incipio and the frustration that I had seen with other organizations that I'd been a part of that we were working with, I just saw that real lack of focus and the transactional filling of seats that companies were used to, and there's got to be more than this. The satisfaction that I felt early on in my career, why can't other people feel that? And they should. Why has it become acceptable that they don't have to? So Starting Line was then dissolved, worked for the third party, and Incipio was born, which is Latin for new beginnings. Jamie Swaim: Look at all this intentionality. Jason Heflin: I know. Jamie Swaim: I know. Jason Heflin: I just start on a whim and she's over here thinking about it. Jamie Swaim: I love it. So if you were to think about the thing that you have changed your mind on in the past 10 years as it relates to talent, what's the thing that you believed 10 years ago that you no longer believe? Molley Ricketts: Everything's on a resume. Jamie Swaim: Oh yeah. Molley Ricketts: Maybe it used to be that way. Jamie Swaim: No, I think it was probably wrong then too. Molley Ricketts: You think? Jamie Swaim: Well, I think it's because you have to decide what you are hiring for. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: Are you hiring a resume writer? And if your job is not to be a resume writer, then it's probably not going to be a perfect resume. Molley Ricketts: Fair. Jamie Swaim: That's my take on it. Yeah. Jason Heflin: Alright. I'm going to ask some questions now. Jamie Swaim: That's good. I'm going to shut up now. Jason Heflin: Or don't. Please don't. Jamie Swaim: Okay, good Reactive Hiring vs. Strategic Talent Planning Jason Heflin: What are employers still getting wrong about hiring all this time? Molley Ricketts: Just one thing? Jason Heflin: Yeah. Molley Ricketts: I believe that employers are still getting wrong just in hiring and recruiting, that they're reactive. That because a person leaves or a position goes unfilled, that that position has to be filled. It's this job, it's no other job. And instead of taking a step back and really evaluating the landscape and understanding what position is missing, they're just reactive hiring. And this crazy thing happens when you really look at the job descriptions that you're hiring against when you're frustrated because the talent that's walking in the door that you want to hire to isn't the person that you want to fill the job. And the amount of times that I will ask a leader, well, did you read the job description? Jason Heflin: Yeah. Molley Ricketts: Well, recently? Yeah, before you posted it. Well, no, because the job that I need to fill. For the person that was here two years ago? You don't think that job has evolved at all, even in the smallest skillset? Jason Heflin: Oh yeah. Molley Ricketts: Oh, well, I guess. Jamie Swaim: You change systems. Molley Ricketts: You're not even on the same tech stack. Jamie Swaim: You all don't even produce that anymore. Jason Heflin: We're still recruiting for it. You had new responsibilities to that role. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Well, I wonder why I wasn't getting the talent I was still looking for. It's like stop reactive hiring. Jason Heflin: Yeah. And rewrite that job description, please. Sounds like. Well, we're leaders confusing activity and with strategy that seems very common and we all do it, but the activity isn't always strategy. Where do they get that message up? Molley Ricketts: Post and pray. Jason Heflin: I say that all the time. Molley Ricketts: The post and pray mentality. I know that you guys know what that is, but for those listeners that may not, it's when you post a job and you pray that candidates come into play, especially in today's day and age. Let's even go back to rewriting a job description that's relevant to the position that you want to fill. But thinking that people are just going to apply to a job that you've posted. If you don't have a brand that's nationally recognized, that's probably not going to happen. And even if you do have a brand that's nationally recognized, the talent that you're wanting, they're not applying to jobs. They're working. Not saying that the demographic of human that isn't working right now they're not quality talent. I'm not saying that. Please don't confuse the note of, you have to be intentional about the position that you want to fill. Jamie Swaim: Agreed. The Real Cost of a Bad Hire vs. an Open Position Jason Heflin: Yeah. I think networking too. Networking has gone out the window. It's like, well, you may know someone, you may be working with someone at another institution that could be a good fit. Let's talk about that. What's the real cost of a bad hire that most executives… Jamie Swaim: Oh no. Is she going to tell us about soft dollars? Molley Ricketts: Here we go. I asked someone recently, I said, so do you think that having a position go unfilled is more costly than that of a bad hire? And they said, absolutely. I said, really? Tell me more. Well, because you've got the position. It's unfilled. They're not, no one's doing the job. I said, so you're telling me that that costs you more as an organization than filling the position with someone who is not a good fit? And everything that you have to go through in that experience to then get rid of them costs less than having the position vancant? Jason Heflin: And the cultural repercussions, because others have to fill that role for that. Not just fill an empty seat, but come back behind someone and clean things up and try to educate and try to train while doing the job and all those things. Molley Ricketts: And as a leader, if you're acknowledging that that person isn't the right fit, everyone that's around that person that knows that you know that they're not the right fit, they're like, well hell, if they're going to put up with this person, then why am I busting my butt to make it happen? Jamie Swaim: Especially if that hire was in a spot that is at a higher-level than that person that is doing the work. Molley Ricketts: Tight spot. Jamie Swaim: Really tight. Yeah. Essential Workers: Why Their Value Is Still Overlooked Jason Heflin: Wow. Alright. I got a question about essential workers. A lot about essential workers. Molley Ricketts: Yes, they're my jam. Jason Heflin: Yes, they're your jam. What's happening with essential workers that the media isn't talking about that people should be talking about? Molley Ricketts: So does everybody remember what happened back in 2020? Jamie Swaim: With painful clarity. Molley Ricketts: Do you remember the people that, I believe the federal government issued a thing that people were supposed to print out to put on their dashboards if they were an essential worker so that they could be on the road so that they could be parked in a parking lot so that they could be actually going to work? Do you guys remember that? Jamie Swaim: I don't know if it was federal, but yes, I remember the parking passes. Yeah. I remember having to make sure that people across straight, the state lines especially had something explaining why they had to cross the state lines and stuff like that. Jason Heflin: Yeah. There were privileges around it. Jamie Swaim: Privilege. Molley Ricketts: Essential workers were privileged, in that category. Jason Heflin: Valued. Molley Ricketts: I mean, revered. These are the people going to work every day, making it happen. Lifting them up! Jason Heflin: Utility workers, nurses, yeah. Molley Ricketts: Manufacturing. I mean, it's crazy, right? Jamie Swaim: Yeah absolutely. Molley Ricketts: And then what? Jamie Swaim: The world opened back up. Jason Heflin: Back to reality. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. So they weren't special anymore. Do you guys know that over 70% of the nation's workers is an essential worker? Jamie Swaim: 70%? Molley Ricketts: 70%? Jamie Swaim: I did not know that. Molley Ricketts: 70%. Jamie Swaim: That number surprises me for some reason, and I don't know why. Molley Ricketts: It did me too. Jamie Swaim: I guess when you think about all the things that prop up a community, essential workers are a large part of that. Molley Ricketts: So the ones that are actually doing the thing, doing the work. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. Molley Ricketts: It's so disheartening that individuals in that category of worker are no longer lifted up the way that they were. I really thought that that was going to help make a change and people would admire and look at those committed individuals in manufacturing, in long-term care, in the hospital environment Jamie Swaim: And logistics, Molley Ricketts: All of that. And it just went away. Jamie Swaim: And you feel like the media is not talking about that enough. How would you expect, if we were to keep the lessons of 2020, how would you expect to see those things show up now, if we learned from it and did something different? Molley Ricketts: I think acknowledging the power of their work, the influence of their work, instead of, it feels less than. If you have a blue collar job, if you have an entry-level to mid-level manager position in your community, in your home, it almost feels like they belittled. That their job isn't a value because I'm the vice president of whatever, so I'm greater than, and that hurts my heart. Jason Heflin: So if I get pulled over by a police officer and I say, look, I'm a podcaster. I really got to get where I'm going. Oh sir, please. Yeah, go right on. Yeah. Yeah. Jamie Swaim: Sad note. I got pulled over recently in the great state of Indiana, and I would just like to thank the nice trooper for being the nicest person that's ever pulled me over. He was really kind - little side note. Molley Ricketts: Did he give you a ticket? Jamie Swaim: 100%. He absolutely gave me a ticket. Jason Heflin: Do you listen to the Workforce Therapy Files? Jamie Swaim: Do you know who I am? Is what I said. That didn't get me any clout. So yeah, no, he was like, did you know that you were speeding? And I said, oh, I just got off the interstate, so I guess I'm still an interstate mind. And he goes, you are going fast for the interstate. So I had to slow it down. Molley Ricketts: But just to wrap the essential worker category up, loyalty isn't something that is assumed it's earned. And in that category of worker, it's earned every day. Jamie Swaim: And obviously we need those or they wouldn't have been deemed essential. So how we treat those individuals in our community matters. Molley Ricketts: Hundred percent. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. I'm picking a bunch, putting down. Molley Ricketts: Thanks. Scaling a Business Without Losing Culture and Leadership Identity Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. Okay. So Molley, you're going to switch gears a smidge. In your career, and especially with Incipio, you have scaled a business, your second business, and you've done that. And we spent so much time talking about culture and it's importance. So I want to ask you some questions specific to what it means to scale a business without losing sight of culture. What do you think intentional growth has looked like in your business? Molley Ricketts: Understanding that the next thing is going to happen, whether or not you plan for it. So having the ability to ask, so what are you seeing? What's happening? And not being afraid to listen to that response and hear it, because you want to do the next thing that you think is best. Learning through those mistakes and not having people around you to truth-tell with you, that's huge. It can make or break your business. Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. I think that that is one of the biggest things that I've learned from you. I feel like you do a nice job of building community around you with people who are subject matter experts in a lot of different areas. And you can tell how you lean into that advice and that connection and make some adjustments to how you're doing things. Molley Ricketts: Yes. Jamie Swaim: It's been really cool to watch that. Molley Ricketts: Thanks. Jamie Swaim: And as somebody who you got to experience at the very beginning of my journey, I just want you to know that I carry that with me. It's good to know sometimes when you leave a mark. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: How do you decide which clients are aligned to your culture versus just being helpful for revenue? Gosh, firing a client, that's the hardest thing, right? Molley Ricketts: Oh, it, it's not fun at all. And I think that over the last 10 years with Incipio, now being in a place where you can really align with organizations and grow together, we have several clients that they're going into their, they too are going to their 11th year in partnership with Incipio, which is really cool to say that we have clients that we started with that we're still with today. And the evolution of those organizations, as Incipio has evolved, and those fellow CEOs or key decision makers in a company that acknowledge that growth with you, that's huge. And now in a position of clearly defining the culture and environment of Incipio and being able to look at another organization, even when you're in that first discovery meeting and say, they're not ready for us. They're not ready for Incipio, with confidence instead of fear, that's been great. Jason Heflin: Not everybody's right to ready to take action. Molley Ricketts: No. Jason Heflin: We've been on the theme of checking boxes. Some people are just in the business of checking a box. Molley Ricketts: And that's fine, but that's not who Incipio is. Jamie Swaim: Right? So when people start a business, you see them use any number of job titles, by the way, on their socials, how they market themselves. You call yourself CEO, correct? Molley Ricketts: That's right. Jamie Swaim: Right. So what do you consider the primary difference between founder and CEO and what adjustments have you needed to make? Molley Ricketts: Wow. Thanks for that. Jason Heflin: That's really good. Jamie Swaim: Thank you. Jason Heflin: Can I say something really quick while you're thinking about it? Yeah. I'm kind of shifting personally from CEO to founder, so I'm taking that. So I'm really interested in what you have to say because I'm, and titles are whatever. Molley Ricketts: Yeah, they're really for everybody else. Jason Heflin: For everybody else, it's clout. It's, he is trying to get in the door and say, look, I'm an important person you should be talking to. But yeah, Mrs. CEO tell us about it. Molley Ricketts: I think CEO to me means actively engaged and pursuing excellence. And founder to me means more of taking a backseat and letting everyone else do the day-to-day. Not in a bad way. Just the active engagement of a founder is completely different to me than a CEO. Now, I've also seen titles of entrepreneurs that start a business, and they've been in it for a while, that they have the Founder/CEO/President. What was that horrible boss's movie, the guy that took on four different titles from the character Jason Bateman played? Jason Heflin: Can I say that's like a huge pet peeve of mine. When a leader, when a top-level leader, we know you do a lot of jobs. We know you wear a lot of hats. Don't put seven titles on there. I get it. You do a lot of stuff. You're frustrated, but just pick one. Molley Ricketts: You don't need a 5x7 business card size to take all of your titles. Jason Heflin: I want to know when I've ended the body of the email and I've started the signature, and usually it's like the signature is longer than the body. Don't do that people. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. No. And I often think too, that the title is really, of CEO, is really more used for the outward for the people that we're working with as opposed to internal. At least I hope that that's what my partners, my internal partners think, because we have individuals within Incipio that we work with that are smarter than me, in ways that I know that I also have gifts that they don't. And being able to balance that out and honor each other and lift each other up to do that. That's what a CEO is to me. Someone that can discern the difference between, Jamie, what you're great at, Jason, what you're great at, and honoring what I'm great at, that you guys are not, and how we can pull that up together. The game has changed. Jason Heflin: Oh yeah. Molley Ricketts: But it takes a lot for somebody to get that, in my opinion. Jamie Swaim: Agreed. Alright, Molley, as always, we learned a lot from you today. Remind people how they can get in touch with Incipio. Molley Ricketts: Incipioworks.com. Like Jason said, that's a shorter version. Jason Heflin: This is a great tagline. Because you do work. You work hard . Molley Ricketts: Yeah, that's right. Or let's see. Oh no. Yeah, LinkedIn, Molley Ricketts. That's with an "ey". Jamie Swaim: Love that. And if they wanted to get a copy of, what was the name of that book again? Molley Ricketts: She knows Best. Jamie Swaim: She knows Best. Where would they go to get that? Anywhere they get books? Molley Ricketts: Amazon . Yeah. Bargain Price of $14.95. Jamie Swaim: How much would it cost to get your signature and set book? Molley Ricketts: Depends on how well I know you, like you, love you. Jamie Swaim: Okay. Well, I meant to bring mine today to see if I can negotiate that, but… Molley Ricketts: I might give it to you. Jamie Swaim: Oh, thanks. Well, I bought a copy because that's what friends do. Molley Ricketts: Thank you. Jason Heflin: Well, thank you for all your insights. I respect you a lot. I think a lot about you and what you've done through your career, and we all have our own unique path. But you've just done a great job getting to where you are and I can't wait to see what's next. Alright, James. Close that file. That's where we'll leave the conversation for today. Before we close the file, we invite you to reach out to us with questions, suggestions or other comments. We'd love to hear from you. Did You Enjoy Today's Conversation? Visit www.WorkforceTherapyFiles.com to listen to additional WTF files or to let us know you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming file. Need Help Supporting Your Company's Recruiting and Staffing Goals? We're here to help. You can contact us via our individual websites, depending on your specific needs or questions: · Jamie Swaim, SPHR - www.ParcelKnows.com · Molley Ricketts - www.IncipioWorks.com · Jason Heflin - www.CrowdSouth.com We hope you found this file insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening!

April 10, 2026Episode 3522 min

The Real Cost of Winning: Why Jason Heflin Exchanged Toxic Growth for Time and Family Empowerment

File 35: Jason Heflin sits in the "hot seat" to share insights from his entrepreneurial journey, which began after he realized he was not wired for the repetitive nature of a corporate cubicle. The interview explores his core business philosophy of avoiding commoditization by prioritizing deep, long-term strategic partnerships over one-off product services. When asked about scaling a business, Jason highlights the importance of "stick-to-itiveness" and the risk-taking necessary to overcome the fear of failure. He admits that his greatest operational challenge was learning to embrace standardized processes, a discipline that often feels restrictive to his "free spirit" nature. Regarding team management, Jason emphasizes accountability through ownership and the difficult but necessary decision to let go of talented individuals who are not a cultural fit. Reflecting on his diverse past ventures—ranging from a diaper bag company to a brewery—he cautions against chasing every "shiny object" without a clear plan or genuine passion. Having once prioritized "winning" at the cost of his personal life, he has since redefined success to focus on family and empowering others to lead. Finally, he identifies his company's differentiator as a results-driven culture where team members genuinely care about outcomes and are not afraid to pivot when strategies fail. Key Themes: Breaking Free from the Gray Cubicle The Partnership Obsession The "Stick-to-itiveness" of Scaling The Copper Touch: Lessons from Diaper Bags to Breweries Ownership and the Hard Truths of Leadership Redefining the Win: From Toxic Growth to Time Well Spent Episode Transcript: Jamie Swaim: Today on the Workforce Therapy files. We'd like to welcome you back and also tell you that we have a special guest that is in the hot seat. Molley Ricketts: Who? Jamie Swaim: It's none other than your favorite. Jason Heflin. Yes. Molley Ricketts: And the crowd goes wild! Jamie Swaim: So, Mr. Heflin, we have a number of questions that we'd like to just pick your brain on in this episode, in this file. Jason Heflin: I'm turning my hat around backwards for this. Molley Ricketts: Uh-oh. Jamie Swaim: Is that straight up? Out of over the top. Are you Lincoln Hawk? Jason Heflin: Whoa. Jamie Swaim: Yes. Might've been one of my favorite movies. I'm not going to lie. Molley Ricketts: He trembled a little bit. Jamie Swaim: I know. And I'm ready to arm wrestle him just to see what happens. So Jason, I want to start off with, if you were a professional athlete and you had walk-in music, what would be the theme song you would choose? Jason Heflin: The Final Countdown. Jamie Swaim: Oh, there was a little harmony there. I like it. Final Countdown. Gosh, I do feel like that's a song I haven't heard recent enough. Jason Heflin: Yeah. There was a show 20 years ago called Arrested Development. Jamie Swaim: Yes, Jason Heflin: It was great, and one of the characters would always come out to that song. He was a magician, and that's how he would come out. He would do a little dance. Molley Ricketts: It's a great show. Jason Heflin: It's a great show. Jamie Swaim: Jason Bateman, right? Molley Ricketts: Yeah, Jason Bateman. Molley Ricketts: In the early years. Jamie Swaim: He's one of my favorites. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: Okay. Now we're going to get more serious, but it's helpful to know because I feel like when I see people and I know that about them, immediately this song pops in my head. Jason Heflin: Maybe it should be the intro, Jim, to this episode. Jamie Swaim: He said you can't afford that. Yeah. Jason Heflin: We'll just have to sing it! Jamie Swaim: That public domain? Is that how it works? Molley Ricketts: Copyright laws. Jamie Swaim: I dunno. Alright. So, Jason, what was the first moment that you realized you were wired for entrepreneurship? Jason Heflin: About six or seven years into sitting in a gray cubicle in a corporate office. Jamie Swaim: You're like, this is not for me. Jason Heflin: Doing TPS reports. Jamie Swaim: You've been missing a lot of work, Jason. Jason Heflin: I said 'm going to do something else and it's not going to be for someone else. I need to exercise that muscle. Jamie Swaim: How long did that take you? Jason Heflin: Oh, like I said, six or seven years. Jamie Swaim: Six or seven years. Jason Heflin: 6-7. Jamie Swaim: Okay. What problem are you most obsessed with solving right now? Jason Heflin: Not being a commodity. Jamie Swaim: Tell me more. Jason Heflin: So I don't want our services to be commoditized. And I think often that's the way we're approached initially is, Hey, we need a website, or we need ads for hiring, or we want to attract talent through digital advertising, blah, blah. Whatever the thing is. And they're just looking at it like a commodity. Jamie Swaim: Dollar. Product. Jason Heflin: Yeah. Do you do it? We're going to ask 12 other people the same thing. And then whoever has the cheapest prices who we're going to pick. I want to build long-term partnerships. I mean, that's what I've always wanted. That's what we strive to do. And so it's really hard for me when someone enters our funnel as looking at us as a commodity. And then you have to kind of flip that and say, no, I want to go to lunch and get to know you and your team and what we're trying to do here, and let's build a strategy around it. I don't want to just do the thing. And then you're disappointed in six months. I want to really dig into what the true issues are. Jamie Swaim: I would imagine what the kind of work that you do, the longer-term relationships create better outputs any way. Jason Heflin: Oh yeah. Jamie Swaim: It's not like, oh, let me put together your whole employment brand because I've known you for two seconds. Jason Heflin: We've had clients for 12 plus years and they're the best. I love 'em. They're friends, they're partners. Partners is overused, but it's true. They're real partners. We're in their business. We go in their office and the admins know us and just shoo us on back to the conference room and no security and just, yeah. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. Molley Ricketts: It makes a difference. Jamie Swaim: I'm assuming, because you've been in business now for 72 years? Jason Heflin: 73. Jamie Swaim: 73, okay. I don't want to undersell your knowledge, but I'm curious, how has your definition of success evolved across that 73-year spectrum? Jason Heflin: Well, in the year 1 through 50, I was really more focused on winning. So it was more toxic culture, toxic growth for the sake of growth. But yeah, so I'm more focused on time with my family, treating people really well, building partnerships, long-term partnerships I want to be in for years with somebody. I don't want to waste anybody's time. So yeah, less winning, more hanging. Jamie Swaim: Well, as someone who's known you for at least 30 of those 73 years, I think it's a solid choice. People should do it. Jason Heflin: Thanks. Jamie Swaim: Yeah, for sure. Molley Ricketts: All right, Jason, so what do you think separates entrepreneurs who scale from the ones who stall? Jason Heflin: Sticktoitiveness. Is that a word? Jamie Swaim: It is now. Jason Heflin: Okay. Webster's definition of sticktoitiveness is staying the course. Go. I mean, I think the ones that don't scale are maybe fearful. Being an entrepreneur is about risk, and you have to be willing to take those risks. And if you're not, it's going to be a very slow process. So don't expect it to be a quick run. If you're not willing to lose and lose multiple times. Molley Ricketts: You definitely have to be okay with the word no, a lot. Jason Heflin: I've started and sold at least four businesses in my life, and I made that mistake many times over in the past. Molley Ricketts: So what operational discipline do you think takes founders way too long to execute, to learn? What do they avoid for too long? Jason Heflin: In my experience, this is self-reflection, but it was process, building processes around commonly common tasks. Jamie Swaim: Standard work. Jason Heflin: Yep. Things that we do over and over again. We know how to do. Somebody's already figured out step one through six, just put it down, this is it. These are the rules. We can change the rules anytime if things in the environment change. But yeah, and I resist process because I'm a free spirit. I just want to operate. I'm a cowboy. I don't want to be pinned down. So that's tough for me. And my business partner's really good at it. So we have complimented each other in that way over the years. Molley Ricketts: I agree. It's definitely as a fellow free spirit, seeing things on paper with process and 1, 2, 3, A, B, C, and it's like, really? You couldn't just do it? Jason Heflin: I get itchy. I feel pinned in. Jamie Swaim: I know this isn't something that you said, but I'm curious around the same question because I know we're interviewing Jason, but we like to have a little chitchat. I feel like the founder relationship with cash also is something that might get in the way of people scaling. And I don't know how you guys have done that or whether or not that's a challenge that you had, but for the bootstrappers or the individuals who are getting started with some sort of investment cash, figuring out how to leverage debt, figuring out how to budget for the down months, figuring out how to do that and not be, I don't know, discouraged from continuing. I know you guys have had nothing but green, gold star months in your careers as entrepreneurs, but I'm curious what you might advise for the people who are doing those entrepreneur journeys, anew. Jason Heflin: I think prepare for the downtimes. The thing that you think, oh, if this happened, that would be bad. Well get ready for it. It's going to happen eventually. Just get ready, build a plan around it. If this, then this, if this, then that. And sometimes it's even helpful to kind of draw that out like a little tree. Just like, okay, if this happens, I'm going to do this and just be ready. And that way when it happens, you're much more at ease. You can say, okay, I have a plan. I can follow it. I don't know if it's going to work, but I have alternate routes I can take. Jamie Swaim: Name it and claim it. Jason Heflin: Yep. Molley Ricketts: For me, it was business debt is completely different than personal debt, but personal debt for me was always, you don't have that. That's how you freedom and survive and live. But business debt, I went in with that same mentality, but learned that it's not the same at all. So when you think about looking at a business and you want to scale, you want to grow, where do you see businesses overcomplicating that growth? Jason Heflin: Well, on the topic of hiring, I think it's quick fix hiring. And I've been guilty of that many times. Just like, oh, this person has the credentials. Let's go hire them and let's just move. And we talked about that in a previous episode recently. It's just it does not work. It won't ever work. You might get lucky and their resume is everything about them, but most often it's not so quick. Jamie Swaim: Especially with AI, right? Yeah. Jamie Swaim: People are putting resumes together because they think that's what you want to see sometimes. Jason Heflin: Yeah, yeah. Lean into the interview. Don't be afraid to have a long interview. Don't be afraid to talk about culture. Don't be afraid to talk about the times in the past when they've had a conflict with fellow employees because those could bubble back up in your environment and come back to haunt you. Jamie Swaim: Absolutely. Jason Heflin: And it's better for them too. They don't need to be in a place that's not good for them. Molley Ricketts: They human behind the paper. So what do you think real accountability looks like in your organization at CrowdSouth? Jason Heflin: Ownership of your area of expertise. That's really what it is. And we did talk again in a recent episode about this, but letting them own it. Allowing them as an entrepreneur to own their area, getting in and being helpful by guiding the work and steering the work and kind and productive corrections are probably welcomed and should be welcomed, but not hovering over people. So I think them owning their area and then the entrepreneur allowing them to own their area. Jamie Swaim: As an entrepreneur, you have become no stranger to mitigating and navigating risks and learning how to make decisions that are right for you and your company. So I have a couple of questions as it relates to these things. What is a decision that you made that felt uncomfortable but was necessary? Jason Heflin: I'll tie it back to a previous answer a couple of questions ago. Letting people go that are not a good cultural fit. It's hard to do. Maybe they have all the talent, maybe have more than the talent, and you can see them fitting in a role somewhere else or even fitting in a role in your company, but just culturally they do not fit. And your team will let you know. Molley Ricketts: Pretty quick. Jason Heflin: Yep. Molley Ricketts: I agree with you on that. Jason Heflin: But it's still really hard. They're a good person. You're like, gosh, they could do so much. Jamie Swaim: Especially if you're doing any of the tips that we talk about around leadership and getting to know people and you learn their family, the impact of a job loss, those things start to hit really hard. Jason Heflin: Yeah. Oh yeah. Jamie Swaim: But your company's better for it. Jason Heflin: A hundred percent. Jamie Swaim: All right. I'm curious of the risk reward methodology you have in your own head. How do you measure and evaluate risk versus opportunity? Jason Heflin: I struggle with it personally. I like to keep the gas pedal down all the time. So I'm very comfortable with risk and I will go a little too far with it. Molley Ricketts: Do you have an example? Jason Heflin: Oh gosh. Do I have examples? Yeah. I mean, it's good for a business to be able to niche into things. These are the things we're good at. But then sometimes an opportunity will come up to take on a new thing and start to think we can do that. We'd be great at that. But it's a big risk to try something. You're going to probably fail a few times. And especially if it's a new client or someone you're interacting with as an entrepreneur, you could really flub it up. Think in terms of the big picture, go back to the plan for the year or the three-year plan or whatever it is, and say, does this really fit into what we're trying to do and be okay not taking this work or this big chunk of money because it's this shiny object or this brand that you wanted to work with. Or, Ooh, that would be great in our portfolio to say, I worked with this Fortune 100 company. Just be careful, evaluate it. Really sit back before you just take it. Jamie Swaim: And I don't know that our listeners know this about you, and so hopefully I'm not going too far, but blink twice if I say something you don't want me to say, okay, that's my safe word. But prior to CrowdSouth and building this marketing conglomerate that you guys have gone and built. Jason Heflin: Conglomerate, I like that. Jamie Swaim: That sounds big. Jason Heflin: Sure. Jamie Swaim: But prior to that, you were not new to the entrepreneur journey. I mean, you started companies and if you were to go through them, they don't all have something in common. Jason Heflin: Yeah. Jamie Swaim: You were in various industries and approaching it from different ways, but using key things that led to CrowdSouth. Do you want to talk about that at all? Because I think when people call you, they might be thinking about you through your marketing lens, but I used to refer to you as the person with the Midas touch. Everything you touch seemed to turn to gold. Jason Heflin: Maybe Copper. Jamie Swaim: Copper. The copper touch. Jason Heflin: Yeah, the copper touch. All Jamie Swaim: Right. Jason Heflin: Yeah. So a good example is I started a business once and it was fully because it was a good idea, but I wasn't super, super interested in it. So that kind of bit me. Later I started an online, an e-commerce business. And of all things, we were selling diaper bags. Jamie Swaim: Before you even had a child. Jason Heflin: Oh yeah, I had no interest. Jamie Swaim: You even know any kids? Jason Heflin: Yeah. What's a kid? I don't know. What's a diaper? Jamie Swaim: Why do you need a whole bag? Jason Heflin: Yeah, why do you a whole bag for these things? But it was a vacuum in the market, and my partner at the time and I went into it and it did really well. It just took off. And suddenly we were selling diaper bags and I turned a whole bedroom in my house into a warehouse. We had boxes stacked to the ceiling, and my wife and I were working on weekends shipping these things out and taking them to UPS, and it was exciting until it wasn't. And so we ended up selling that business to a company called Hayneedle, which owned like 50 different e-commerce businesses. It was just better. They had all the things they needed to really take it and run with it. And I could go do a different idea. So I think my unique ability as an entrepreneur is knowing when to leave, knowing when to get out of the way. Jamie Swaim: But you've also been a travel blogger. You owned a microbrewery slash restaurant, and now are in the marketing business. None of those things have automatic ties to each other. Definitely using your marketing expertise to do that. Jason Heflin: And real estate business and bourbon and all kinds of stuff. Jamie Swaim: I don't remember the bourbon. Jason Heflin: Most of them are opportunities. They're like, I see an opportunity and so I can't stop myself sometimes. So I do think it's important because entrepreneurs have that same gene where they see an opportunity whether it's a good fit or not, and they just chase it. And so be cautious of that. Make sure you don't have to be something you're just in love with, but at least have some sort of passion for it and know where it's going to go. Don't just start it because it's a good idea and then not know what you're going to do with it later. Jamie Swaim: Yeah. Jason Heflin: Have an exit plan or have a plan where you're going to step to the side and let somebody else take this thing over somebody that's more better suited , like, Hayneedle was. Molley Ricketts: Yeah. So Jason, when you think about your life as an entrepreneur and knowing that you've been with CrowdSouth for, what is it now 12, 13 years? Jason Heflin: Yep. Wow. Molley Ricketts: What does entrepreneurship cost you? Jason Heflin: Yeah, so I think it's cost me time. Time and money you exchange. So for many years, the brewery you mentioned, I owned the brewery at the same time, I own CrowdSouth. And I would go in the morning and I would work all day at CrowdSouth and I would drive immediately over to the brewery and I would work till one in the morning. And I did that for two and a half years. Jamie Swaim: Which means the MVP is also Jason's wife. Jason Heflin: Shout out. And during that time, had a baby. Molley Ricketts: Oh my gosh. Jason Heflin: And so it was just rough. And I realized I was exchanging too much the money for the time or the growth for the time, because it wasn't a lot of money then. It was just, okay, we're just growing this thing. So yeah, time. So that's really more what I'm trying to get back to focusing on. I'm going to start exchanging it the other way and I'll make less and I'll do less and I'll be less successful in terms of the typical definition of success, but I'm going to have more time. And it's probably an age thing too. I hit 50 this year. Jamie Swaim: Happy birthday. Jason Heflin: So it's like, okay, well I'm kind of waking up to, okay, it's time to slow down. Jamie Swaim: Success redefined? Jason Heflin: Yep. Yep. And just my son's getting older and it's a ticking, as they say. Molley Ricketts: So what would you tell your younger entrepreneurial self? Jason Heflin: Slow down. Think about these decisions. Don't jump into every thing that looks good. That's not always, like I said earlier, I just chased everything that was an opportunity. And I think that's fine when you're young and single or you don't have a lot of obligations, but as those obligations increase and compound, you got to take a step back and say, again, back to where I said, let other people do it, empower them. Start empowering people and start getting yourself out of the way. Because especially as you age, you can't keep up with everything. You can't keep up with all the technology and the trends. So let somebody else help you there. Molley Ricketts: So last question before we close our file. What is it about CrowdSouth that's different than all of your competitors? Jason Heflin: I can say, I mean, there are a thousand agencies across the country, marketing agencies, so I'm sure there are plenty that are like us. But I can say that we have developed a culture. One thing we've done right is we have a culture where people care. People care about the clients that care about the results. Sometimes a client will come in and they just want a brand project. We want to be seen more, or we want our employee brand just to be out there. And we're very results driven. So I think it's, it's a superpower, but it also gets in the way because we'll drive the client, we'll be like, Hey, no, we need to be doing better and these are the things we need and this is what we're going to do next. And sometimes they're slow down. We just got our heads around doing something basic and we're like, yeah, but we see so much back to the entrepreneurial kind of spirit and go, let's do this. I think we're really good at results driven work and we like to set smart goals early and have numbers behind everything. And that's what we're going to target every time we're going to drive toward that. So I'm very proud of the people that have gathered around us to do that. They all care too, and it hurts them when we don't do well. And I think a lot of companies don't admit when they don't do well, but we like to say, Hey, look, that didn't work, but we've got four new ideas to try. Molley Ricketts: Sure. Jason Heflin: So, come back to the table with that. That's what I'm proud of. Molley Ricketts: Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on the show and letting us bend your ear and twist your arm on all the questions. Jamie Swaim: It's good to have you. Jason Heflin: Yeah. Thank you. I'd love to come back sometime. Molley Ricketts: We'd love to have maybe next file. Jason Heflin: Okay. Molley Ricketts: Alright, Jim, close that file. That's where we'll leave the conversation for today. Before we close the file, weinvite you toreach out to us with questions, suggestions or other comments. We'd love to hear from you. Did You Enjoy Today's Conversation? Visit www.WorkforceTherapyFiles.com to listen to additional WTF files or to let us know you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming file. Need Help SupportingYour Company's Recruiting and Staffing Goals? We're here to help. You can contact us via our individual websites, depending on your specific needs or questions: · Jamie Swaim, SPHR - www.ParcelKnows.com · Molley Ricketts - www.IncipioWorks.com · Jason Heflin - www.CrowdSouth.com We hope you found this file insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening!

March 30, 2026Episode 3430 min

Rapid Therapy Round: Leadership, Culture, and Workplace Truths Leaders Need to Hear

File 34: In this episode of Workforce Therapy Files, Jamie Swaim, Molley Ricketts, and Jason Heflin take a rapid-fire approach to leadership and workplace culture, tackling common myths, hiring mistakes, and behaviors that quietly damage teams. The conversation highlights the importance of intentional leadership, emotional intelligence, and clear communication in building strong workplace cultures. From employer branding and onboarding gaps to AI in recruiting and CEO-level concerns, this episode delivers practical, real-world insights for leaders navigating today's evolving workplace environment. Topics Workforce Myths That Hold Organizations Back Leadership Behaviors That Quietly Destroy Culture Hiring Mistakes and Candidate Experience Gaps AI in the Workplace: Opportunity vs. Risk What's Keeping CEOs Up at Night? What Should Be Keeping Leaders Up at Night? Discussion Highlights Molley Ricketts: And welcome back to Workforce Therapy Files. Today, we've got a treat for you. We're calling this the rapid therapy round. Jamie, Jason, are you guys in? Jason Heflin: I'm in. Jamie Swaim: It's been a while since we didn't have a guest. Molley Ricketts: It has been. Jamie Swaim: I'm excited to spend some quality time with you guys. Molley Ricketts: We are guests with each other today. Jamie Swaim: That's right . I'm pretty excited. Jason Heflin: Yeah, we'll get to know each other a little better. Molley Ricketts: Okay, so there's seven questions. Rapid fire. Jason, one workforce myth you want to kill. Workforce Myths That Hold Organizations Back Jason Heflin: Employer branding doesn't need attention. Companies spend time branding to customers but not enough to employees. Jamie Swaim: Mine is that leaders will lead. That is a myth. Jason Heflin: It takes time and effort to become a good leader. Molley Ricketts: Mine is HR being responsible for turnover. Leaders own that. Leadership Behaviors That Quietly Destroy Culture Jason Heflin: One leadership behavior that quietly destroys culture? Jamie Swaim: Being outcomes-focused above everything else. Molley Ricketts: Sarcasm can damage culture. Jason Heflin: Not letting go and micromanaging. Hiring Mistakes and Candidate Experience Gaps Jamie Swaim: One hiring mistake you see every week? Molley Ricketts: Silence after offer acceptance until day one. Jamie Swaim: That gap is a missed opportunity. Jason Heflin: Employer branding plays into that. Jamie Swaim: Hiring too quickly without development support. AI in the Workplace: Opportunity vs. Risk Molley Ricketts: A trend you're bullish on? Jason Heflin: Using AI as a starting point, not as a full solution or to replace people. Jamie Swaim: Organizations need AI policies. But my trend is radical candor. Molley Ricketts: AI recruiting needs human judgment. What's Keeping CEOs Up at Night Jamie Swaim: Talent availability is a concern. Jason Heflin: Market instability. Molley Ricketts: Service levels and accountability. What Should Be Keeping Leaders Up at Night Jamie Swaim: What should be keeping leaders up at night? Molley Ricketts: Company culture should keep leaders up at night. Jamie Swaim: External stress impacts employees. Jason Heflin: Leaders must prepare for what's next. Conclusion Molley Ricketts: Well, I think this was great. Jason Heflin: Rapid this time. Jamie Swaim: It was definitely a therapy round. Jason Heflin: If you have opinions, let us know. That's where we'll leave the conversation for today. Before we close the file, we invite you to reach out to us with questions, suggestions or other comments. We'd love to hear from you. Did You Enjoy Today's Conversation? Visit WorkforceTherapyFiles.com to listen to additional WTF files or to let us know you'd like to be a guest on an upcoming file. Need Help Supporting Your Company's Recruiting and Staffing Goals? We're here to help. You can contact us via our individual websites, depending on your specific needs or questions: · Jamie Swaim, SPHR – www.ParcelKnows.com · Molley Ricketts – www.IncipioWorks.com · Jason Heflin – www.CrowdSouth.com We hope you found this file insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening!

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