The Future of Recruiting – Creating purposeful work environments with Ryan Rigterink

Imagine this. You've built your company from the ground up, molding it with your passion and sweat.

But now you're facing one of the biggest hurdles yet. Hiring the right people who not only meet the qualifications on paper, but also fit seamlessly into your company's culture and vision for the future. How would you ensure that every new hire isn't just a good fit for the role, but a great fit for your organization long term? Well, today we're diving into the revolutionary approach to hiring and employee alignment that could change the way you think about building your team.

Ryan Rigterink is the founder of workdays, a groundbreaking hiring insights platform designed to add layers of future fit data to your hiring process. Ryan's journey began over a decade ago, driven by a personal quest for purpose and meaning, leading to the creation of tools that promise to enhance both employee and employer satisfaction.

If you've ever struggled with finding meaningful work or ensuring your hires not only meet job requirements, but also thrive within your team, this episode is for you. We'll explore the core pain points of recruitment, Ryan's innovative solution, and how it can be seamlessly integrated into your hiring process to foster a more motivated and productive workforce. As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Beyond Fulfillment podcast. I'm your host, Dave Goulis, and this week my guest is the founder of WorkGaze, Ryan Rigterink. Welcome, Ryan. Thanks for having me. Great to be here. Appreciate you being here. If you could, for everyone. Ryan, can you tell us what WorkGaze is and how it got started?

Yeah. So Workaze is a hiring insights platform that really adds in future present insights into the both the job search as well as on the hiring recruiting side. And so just as a quick thumbnail of kind of what we're adding to that process is, you know, historically recruiting interviewing is done basically on what somebody has done in the past to date. What this does is it really adds in the insights in terms of three different types of fit.

So job seekers can find places that they'll thrive and employers can find employees and job candidates that will. Will thrive and be productive and stick around. And so we're creating the insights for a win win in that.

Okay, so yeah, a lot to get into there because certainly a big pain point for, for many people in our audience who are entrepreneurs is just hiring right and, and just going through the process and, you know, finding good people and finding the right type of people for the position. I mean, can, can you talk more about like, how, what, how your solution works and how it can be implemented.

Yeah, so it's, it's backed by some academic research that looked at three different types of fit that really is the foundation of how intrinsic motivation is formed in people. And so we, we designed from a hiring standpoint, three different types of fit in the data. So you could think of it as like somebody who does a phenomenal job of, by intuition in terms of interviewing and getting some of this just through conversation.

We're front loading this with the science behind that, good intuition when it comes to career growth fit, personal motivation fit, as well as team fit. And so those are the insights we're adding in and we're offering those in both directions to job seekers as well as to employers because it really serves both interests at a higher level when there's that kind of fit. Okay, and so how, how did you get in?

Like, what made you want to really, you know, develop this tool and, and bring this to the market? Yeah, so kind of a very windy, long, long sort of journey to this point. But, you know, my, my life sort of came with a perfect storm a decade and a half ago, kind of came crashing down.

And so I found myself on this journey of, you know, what do I want my own life to look like, what's purposeful and meaningful for myself.

And so that ended up in, into a book that I published back in 2020 and then a conference called Accelerate your purpose, where I really looked at who are we by who are we by design, who are we by experience and who do we want to be by intention and how do we get actually insights around that so we can actually sort of be the captain of our own life and, and have greater intentionality about who we are and what we want to do in this world that we find meaningful and, and brings us joy.

And so that led into a case study with a call center where I was looking at, okay, how, how does transformation happen in an organization and how can this same principle be applied at an organizational level?

So fast forward, I actually guest lecture at a couple different business colleges, pioneered what I called purpose management, which is about how do we manage people from the inside out about what makes them tip tick, what makes them come alive, and what really can we tap into besides just managing the externals about how do we manage people in a very human centered way.

And so from that launched a coaching program which is all centered around how can we build tremendously more value in the employer employee relationship across the whole, whole life cycle of the employee. And then, quite honestly, I didn't set out to make a tool. I set out to have an impact.

And when I started getting feedback from what people saw in a very analog fashion in that coaching program, that's where I kind of had the aha moment that if I build these tools in a digital format that can be done in a much better, more robust way and can be, you know, dynamic and personalized and all of that, that we could really make an impact for not only employers, but for individuals in terms of their career. So that's kind of the.

Maybe a longer story than what you wanted to hear, but that's the. That's the authentic sort of genesis story behind it.

So. Okay. No, absolutely. So that's.

You clearly, like you said about 15 years ago, you started this journey and it was really wanting to have more purposeful and meaningful work and led you to this point and would love to get into some of the feedback you received prior to building this tool because, I mean, I think you touched on such an important issue and so many, or one that so many people can relate to is when you talk about challenges in the workplace, I mean, you hit it right on the head.

Is so many people, I think the problems they experience and the problems some of these companies experience are from the root cause that people aren't doing what they would call meaningful, purposeful work. I mean. But based on you studying this, how much of an issue is that in the market today? Well, I mean, I think it's. It's kind of a silent epidemic, really. I mean, we have. I. Unfortunately, it's more the norm and, and finding really meaningful, purposeful work is the exception.

And so, you know, some of that, I think, is rooted in some of the leadership models that exist which pretty much put this, you know, motivation on just the individual.

But some of the leadership things that are taught more in Europe and, And the interactionist model, which, which looks at, okay, motivation and performance isn't just a function of an individual, but it's an individual with a leader and the interactions that happen between those and across the team that, you know, performance is actually a team sport.

We all know, and maybe we've experienced ourself where we perform really great for somebody or on a particular team and, you know, a new manager comes in or a different manager is switched out, and all of a sudden their performance changes dramatically. Well, did all of those people just lose their capacity for motivation or did the environment change and the leadership mindsets and approaches change that creates that environment that led to that impact.

And so we're really talking about shared leadership and shared responsibility when it comes to managing people and leading ourselves. And it's. So it's kind of a, it's a two sided challenge and it's, there's plenty of responsibility to go around in terms of solving it.

But that's, you know, it's the, the real, the reality is, is that if people can't find work that they enjoy or that serves their future and employers can't find people to do the work at a high level or with the, of the level of excellence that they want, then, you know, both sides of this equation in my opinion, seem to need to almost look out for what's in the other person's or other entity's best interest. And when we do that, it's kind of like the golden rule, right?

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And you've gone on this journey and you've, you've been presenting this not only to job seekers but also to companies like what's, what's been the response out there? Yeah, so, so we are pre launch on the platform itself. We've launched this in an analog fashion and have really mapped out the, the processes and the impact that that's possible. Even if you just want to put in all the busyness and the work on spreadsheets on this thing.

But, but we're launching the job seeker side of this next month. It's, it's scheduled to be released and so we're currently, we have gotten a ton of feedback on, on the prototypes that we have developed and it's, it seems to be very well received and pretty much unilaterally it, people understand that this is a problem and it's a challenge and there doesn't seem to be a lot of solutions that have tremendous impact.

And so we're hoping to fill that space and, and really ultimately serve humanity at a higher level, both the individual and organizations. So you know, I think, I think it's yet to be seen in terms of how much impact this has across different organizations and industries.

And I think that while the impact has been proven out in a case study, I do think some of this will boil down to a tool at the end of the day is a tool and it's still in the hands of the users in terms of how well they use it and how well they adapt their own approach in terms of people leadership.

And so it's, I'm very, I'm very curious to see how it gets used because anybody who's developed a tool, it's, it's always, it's always a little different between, you've probably seen the famous user experience things where there's a paved path and then a worn pathway through the grass, right? What people actually do versus what it's designed to do is sometimes slightly different.

And so we are going to try and fill that, that space as well as we can and, and really help serve both sides at eye level. And so we're, yeah, that's a roundabout way of me answering that question. But it's, you know, people are very problem aware on this and are looking for a solution. It's, it's a matter of, of are they looking for a tool or insight tool to fill that gap.

And so that's, that's going to be up to us to introduce that and, and position that in a way that they can integrate it well. And, and we're certainly doing our best to, to make that happen. So. Okay, and so you're pre launch right now. What, what is the launch strategy? Are you mainly going to like corporate, like starting there in terms of, you know, how you're rolling this out or what, what's the strategy?

Yeah, so the strategy is to, to actually stand up the job seeker side first and, and really help help job seekers both find careers that serve their, their future, that they want to create and apply and get that data in front of all the decision makers in terms of on the organizational side. So whatever, whoever's a part of that hiring team changes from organization to organization, whether that's talent attraction, hiring manager, field manager, regional manager, whatever that group looks like.

And so we'll be, we'll be introducing work gaze in the second, the second part of this to the corporations and to the hiring organizations. So, okay, and so this tool, is this something that basically is going to maybe add, I'm just trying to understand this, is it going to add these insights almost like another section of a resume, so to speak? Yeah, it's going to be a digital equivalent of what's missing currently from a resume.

So a resume currently has a list of experiences and skills that are already attained. Saying what we're going to be adding into that is where what are the transferable skills, knowledge and abilities that serve a future career path that you want to grow and develop towards as well as how are you motivated? What's meaningful to you in work? Is that, is that, you know, physical rewards? Is that, is that connection, is that having an impact in the world or in the organization?

There's a number of factors that, you know, are different from people person to person in terms of what really drives them and makes things meaningful. And then thirdly, how do you fit with the team? We've got some insights, we're introducing to that as well, which, which is a underlying factor that drives job satisfaction. So we're adding in some of the employee experience and the, the future growth opportunity data alongside of a resume that, that really gives a fuller picture of.

Instead of just hiring for the past, you can hire for, with insights for future alignment. Okay, yeah, that's a great point too because, you know, one thing I hear from people and clearly, right, we know about the challenges, you know, at a macro level with the economy over the last, you know, year, two years.

And you hear about the corporate layoffs, you hear recruiters talking about there's more competition than ever for maybe some of these, these higher positions or these, you know, higher level positions. And one thing I've heard even from job seekers that are out there is it's, it's the challenge of getting, of just like trans, you know, translating how valuable they are to the people that are making those decisions.

And how do you stand out from the crowd when there's so much more competition than ever? Right, so, yeah, absolutely sounds like that you've, you've got a way to basically, you know, add value there in terms of this, this whole other section of the value that the candidate could provide to the company and how you're displaying that. Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. To your point. It's, this is a challenge on both the job seeker side as well as the employer side.

It's, it's difficult for a job seeker in the current infrastructure that exists to really display their value fully to an employer. And likewise, on the employer side, they might get, you know, a stack of a couple hundred up to, you know, maybe several thousand applications and, and, and shut down the job posting because there's not a great way to see who, who is best qualitatively within that stack in terms of what they're hiring for.

And so, you know, it's, it's a, you know, as great as AI is in so many other ways, it's, it's actually, you know, causing this particular system to break and in greater ways than it has before. So we're, we're hoping to help job seekers really stand out and display their value and, and their level of engagement with both their own career and development, as well as the value they bring to the current position, as well as, you know, solving that challenge from the, from the hiring side.

So. Okay, and when you first made the decision to do this and build this product and bring it out there, I mean, how is the, the journey been like, compared to your expectations? Has it been more challenging than you thought it would to, to bring this to market? I mean, yeah, I mean, everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much. Right? That's, you be. If you're an entrepreneur, you kind of need to set yourself up for that a little bit.

So I've, I've learned to adjust my expectations, but I'm, you know, I have a very strong bias to action and, and always want things done, you know, a couple months faster than what reality is. So, yeah, it's, it's taken longer, but we're what we have done. Right. I will say this. We have, we have gotten a lot of different stakeholder input on the prototypes and the designs, and that has elongated this step of the process.

But I'm glad we did it because ultimately what we, what we are creating in terms of coding and development is much better off because of it, because it's, it's a lot more effective to get that, that input in the, in the prototyping design phase than it is, you know, post production of the, of the development. So. Okay, and, you know, another question. So the job search industry, right, is, is massive, right? And there's, there's some big, big players out there, you know, as we all know.

And this, just hearing you describe this tool sounds like a lot of value, but it sounds, sounds disruptive to, to a certain degree to the norm. I mean, have you seen any, any backlash from maybe established players when you're trying to bring this tool in? That maybe is so, so Radically different than, than the status quo. You know, I, I've seen maybe a little of that if, if, if like a recruiting agency has some of their own tech that they've homegrown.

But, but honestly I've been most surprised. The, the, I had some concerns about how we would be perceived in terms of sort of, you know, collaborative or competitive. And, and mostly the staffing and recruiting companies are, are interested in it because they're, they're competing like everybody else to put their candidate forward and, and get those placements and to stand out and make their candidates stand out. And so, you know, there's been, it's been pretty well received in that space.

At the end of the day, it's, it's, you know, how can we serve both sides of this equation at a higher level? And those who have the highest vested interest to do that are looking for advantages to how to do that better. And so I, I think we can provide a competitive advantage for, you know, third party, you know, staffing recruiting companies. And I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that they are much more collaborative than viewing this as competition, which originally I thought.

So, you know, that's experience on these things is, is, is valuable because you know, entrepreneurship is a string of hypothesis. And, and that was one of my hypothesis that I was very grateful to see disproven. So.

Excellent. Okay. And like you mentioned, you're launching next month which will be December of 2024. And so what, what where can people go to to find this digital tool and, and begin using it once it's out there? Yeah, you can already go there and you can, you can sign up ahead of time.

You can, there's@workgaze.com to answer your question, there's also we're offering turnover cost calculator so you can actually drill down into what's the potential impact of, of changing the way you do hiring and people leadership in terms of specific to your company. And yeah, we're, we're going to be launching with some private beta and then we will be expanding from there. So if anybody's interested in being a part of that, they can reach out to me directly through the workgaze.com platform.

Okay. And we'll link all that in the show notes for everyone. Excellent. Well Ryan, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and tell us about your new product. We certainly appreciate it and yeah, we wish you much success in your launch. Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for having me. All right. And that is all the time we have for now. We will see you next time.