 to another episode of the nonprofit show. If you joined us in our green room chatter, we have one of our favorite, favorite, favorite guests of all time back with us. It's getting harder and harder to get her on the show because she's so busy and she has so many things. But Katie Warnick has so much insight into, we were talking about this in the green room chatter. Every day on the news, top five stories, one of them guaranteed it's gonna be about labor. And so Katie is CEO of Staffing Boutique has a really interesting lens into this whole ecosystem of labor and how it works and how it sometimes doesn't. So Katie, we are super excited to have you back with us and we're gonna plumb the depths of your great brain to find out what's going on out there. If we haven't met before, I'm Julia Patrick, CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. My interpret co-host is actually on vacation this week in the South visiting her family. So we will see her back shortly. Again, we wanna thank all of our presenting sponsors without them, we would not be here. We're marching towards our 600 episode, which blows my mind. And thanks to these folks that are with us day in and day out, Blue Moran, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, non-profit nerd, fundraising academy at National University, Staffing Boutique and non-profit Thought Later. We have an amazing archive and you can get to our previous episodes on Roku, YouTube, Vimeo, Amazon Fire TV and now in podcast format. So queue us up wherever you get your podcasts. But more importantly, if you wanna go back and see what Katie Warnock has said since day one, I've been thinking about this today, Katie. It's been really interesting when I go back in my mind and think what it was you were saying in the beginning. You know what? It hasn't really changed. Some of the core concepts are still there, but they're amplified. And so I can't wait to really talk to you about this. Katie Warnock comes to us from the New York area. We're super excited to have you back, my friend. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. It's been a roller coaster of emotions for the state of labor. You know, in the green room chatter, for those of you who are with us, I asked Katie how she deals with this personally, you know, in the stress. And she had some really interesting comments and acknowledged that there's stress and you have to manage it. And you are at the center of this because I would imagine, Katie, people don't call you until they have a problem. All the time. People only call me when they have a problem. Non-profits tend to not plan for problems, right? So that's why what I do and what I say is so important, especially from in a sales capacity, when I make connections, I always say, you're not gonna use me now and you're probably gonna say, I can't afford a staffing firm, we're a non-profit. But then, you know, in eight months, when your database manager quits and nobody else knows Razor's Edge or any other software you call me. And you're like, oh no, we don't know how to run reports. Do you have a Razor's Edge database manager that can start tomorrow? Yeah. And you're just like, let me go through my files. Well, let's back up a little bit and talk about just what you are seeing. And I'm gonna call this like the state of the labor market from your view and also recognizing that you're in New York. I think that there are things because of where you are geographically, that's an interesting thing. So I'd love for you to talk about that. I don't know, maybe it's because I live in the West, but I feel like things emanate from New York, you know, things that trends and stuff that we start that we can see it moving across our country. So what are you seeing? So there's, I mean, I feel like I can ramble about this all day, but so the state of the labor market is this. I mean, unemployment rate is still extremely low. You know, I think we're lower than 4%. There are still so many jobs out there. Obviously I'm not just talking about the nonprofit sector and there's not enough talent to fill them. On top of that just sort of generalized statement, there is a whole labor force that just doesn't wanna go back to work. So there are a whole bunch of jobs that are requiring in-person people, but then a whole bunch of people that wanna work, but not in-person. So it's a constant, how are we going to fill this gap? And it's, you know, when I talk to my staffing professional friends that are not in nonprofit, you know, it's just a constant communication where we're trying to keep our head above water, you know, we're staffing for more busier than we've ever been. And, you know, that's so different than what I said, you know, in March of 2020 or April of 2020, right? So, you know, we're doing the best we can to fill the jobs, but a big portion of my role at this point is just education. You know, my clients are reaching out to me, the job boards are filled, and then just having conversations. And I'm having conversations with CEOs or HR directors. And, you know, I think that the number one thing that I'm bringing to light when I'm having these conversations is the bottom line is, there's a XYZ number of jobs open in an organization. Let's just use an example. There might be a major gifts officer, a database manager, and then a development assistant, okay? Three jobs, all different levels, all different pay scales, right? And important jobs. Important jobs. Important jobs. I would say like, wow, those are key jobs. Those aren't just, oh, get your cousin's ex-wife's nephew. Now, so we look at the specs of the job, right? And what is important? The fundraiser is the most important, but your database person is the most important, and a development assistant is most important. Like, it depends who we're asking. But again, all different pay scales, right? So, when you say to the hiring manager, I have all three of these types of people, but here's the thing. They want flexibility with their schedule. They say, okay, the major gifts officer can come in one day a week or a hybrid, whatever they want, that's completely fine, as long as they're hitting their meetings or Zooms or whatever, whatever. Database, fully remote, okay? Development assistant and administrative job, we want in the office every day or at least four days for sure. That person needs to make sure that the mail is open, you know, whatever. But guess which job pays the least, right? The development assistant. So now we're in a position where, and now from a perspective of New York City, and I would say up until, you know, 2021, we would pay development assistants, maybe recent college grads or something like that, coming out of a fundraising office from their college, something like that. You know, anything between $15 and $17 an hour, which is minimum of wage to a little bit above that. And to be honest with you, we've been paying that for development assistance in New York City since I got into this profession for the past 15 years. So there really hasn't been a raise in our bottom line development assistant pay rates. So now we're in a position from a staffing perspective where to get someone to go to work, get on a subway and go to an office and actually want them to show up and not ghost us, we're probably gonna have to pay them between 22 and 25 an hour. Now I say that to people and they like spit their coffee on me, you know? They're like, well, look, I can send you someone and I'll pay them 17 an hour. But the chances of them showing up, of them being good are pretty much slim tonight. So now I have this conversation with whoever, HR, ED, and now they have to go back to their board and they have to have this conversation and they have to say something has to change. Are we increasing our budgets? Are we being flexible with the salaries that we need to be flexible with? You know, the development assistant, that person should be able to work from home or we need to pay them more. What are we doing here? So we really do need to reevaluate from the nonprofit sector, you know, inflation and what we're requiring. And in New York, you know, a lot of people are still remote but it seems to be that where the most vacancies are are the positions that are fully in office. Okay. So I'm fascinated by so many of the things that you said. I mean, right off the bat, I'm stunned that that pay rate has been languishing there for so long. And especially in a city where and not even just the city but a part of the nation that's expensive to live in. I know. So that to me is somewhat shocking. I'm gonna ask you this question. What happens when you go back to that hiring manager or that executive director and you're challenging them to reassert or reformulate their notion or their expectation? What happens? I mean, well, that's a big thing, right? It's like, I say that to them and they're like, oh, well, I guess we can't afford that. You know, we're a nonprofit and I'm like, I know. You know, my whole business is nonprofits. Some of them say, okay, we can go up on pay rate. I've had smart people do that. You know, you know, we have to push the budget. This is the time to do it with the new fiscal year. I've had other people say, we're gonna continue to look. And here we are four months out and those jobs are still vacant. And then I've had other organizations say, okay, we're gonna be a little bit more flexible about the schedule. Keeping in mind, you know, I do work with organizations that are direct care, direct response. For instance, would be like a Ronald McDonald house where it's very important to have the house manager there. That position cannot be remote, you know? Where they just increased rate. You know, they heard what I was saying and they increased rate, they had to do it. So it really kind of depends. But a big portion and one of my favorite portions of my job is education and saying what's out there. So, you know, it's still a moving wheel at this point, but that's where I'm at. And I have this conversation with my mother all the time where I'm like, don't use me. I don't care, go find what you think you're looking for. And then they come back and they're like, you were right 90 days later. And that's always been sort of how I've represented myself. You know, I have a lot of clients right now. I don't do sales, you know? And a lot of my staffing firm friends that don't even do nonprofits are saying the same thing, you know, go try to find what you think you're looking for on your own and then give me a call back and let me know if your position is still open because your position is still open. So, Katie, one of the things that you touched on very lightly and I'd love to drill down a little bit is you made the comment, yeah, if you find somebody at this lower rate, basically they're not gonna be a good investment and they're not gonna show up, they're not gonna be diligent. How do you have that conversation and get people to look beyond that dollar sign or that rate and look at the actual performance issue? How do you get your clients to understand that? I mean, I'm honest, I say exactly that. I can find you someone and I can work within the budget that you're giving me right now. Are they gonna show up on day one? I have no idea. So, if you wanna waste my time and your time, I'm cool with that. You know, if we need to play this out and go through this together, I'm good. But I've done this enough in the past eight months where I have been able to pay people $20, $22 an hour which is actually a really good rate for people that don't even have bachelor's degrees and the chances of them are not showing up at $20 or $22 an hour is very high. You know, I'm having it with receptionist jobs where I'm not requiring bachelor's degrees. So, you know, the number really at this point to pay people has to be above $22, $23 an hour. And then you have to understand that that's what I'm paying them. And then my fees and unemployment costs and payroll costs all on top of that, it's expensive. But inflation is high, you know? I have candidates that can't afford, you know, they can't buy a metro card where I'm in a situation where literally they're crying to me that they can't, you know, that they need the work but they can't pay for a metro card. So I've been mowing the money to get them a metro card. Like inflation is high, it's expensive to live in New York City. It's a constant moving and shaking and rolling with my candidate base and being good to my temps that have been with me a long time to get them work. So I'm fascinated by this because one of the things that you're talking about what I'm hearing you say are the things that really make us have longer relationships with the people that we work with. We talk about this in the nonprofit sector with about our donors. It's all about the relationship for some reason. We don't talk about this with our staff which is like beyond me, why we can't get there. In the green room chatter you talked to me about I was raving about one of your associates that we've had the pleasure to have on the show. And you said, well, you know, I've known her for years she's been with me for years. So I feel like you know how we can be keeping our team members longer term. And I'm wondering if you could kind of share some of that because while the money is a foundational aspect it's gotta be more than just that paycheck. Yeah, well, I mean, I'm from Jersey. So in Jersey we're big on loyalty, right? And if there's one person that or anyone that knows me they say Katie is an extremely loyal person. So yeah, you are talking about Dana who's been on the show for me. She's actually like my right hands. I've known her since 2005. We've had a working relationship. I've worked with her in three different places and then I took her to work with me in 2015. So she at this point, like I said to you is basically family, you know, I'm extremely loyal to her and vice versa. She is a part-time actress on the side. And one of the things that I said to her when she came to work for me is go on auditions, do your thing as long as you work. I don't care the hours that you're working. I don't need you nine to five. I need you to work hard when we have work, right? And that's it. And that has worked. I did that pre-pandemic. I did that in 2015 and our working relationship is strong. I trust her more than anything and that's it. So building loyalty is just huge. So I understand that we're in a situation where it's hard to find talent. It's really hard to find good talent, but always thinking in mind like, how am I building loyalty with my staff? At this point, you're at a place where you cannot afford to have talent that you really do value, leave you for another job that pays more or another job that's gonna allow them to work from home. So I think that I'm not even talking about negotiating new hires. I'm talking about existing hires. I think it makes a lot of sense to have a conversation where you're saying to them, are you happy in your job? Not even an employer review or anything like that. Just an informal, are you happy? Do you like what you're doing? Tell me, compare this to what you were previously doing. Does this make you happier? Hear their feedback, understand that, write some notes on it and make sure you verbalize to them. If you ever feel bored, if you ever feel like your job is monotonous, if you ever feel like you wanna leave or venture out, please talk to me. Please talk to me before you're even having those conversations because I wanna know how I can keep you because you are a value to my organization and I would hate to see you leave. I would rather make you comfortable and happy here. How do we do that? And how do we, I know it's so easy for me to say but I've learned so many times that I say it's my staff. I say it's my attempts to support me that work for me. It makes a big difference and everybody's needs are so different. Commute, flexibility, benefits, hours, whatever it is, make them on a set, job title, responsibilities, things like that. How do you make them stay? You know, it's really an interesting, I'm like thinking back across the trajectory of my career, how many times have I said that to team members and how many times has somebody said that to me and shamefully not enough? I mean, it's an interesting thing that you bring up because it's almost like we don't think about this until it's too late. I was just gonna say the conversation happens when you get a counter-offer and recruiting 101 and I've been doing that you never accept a counter-offer and people always say why and there's a number of reasons and I think I've talked about this on the show which is at that point, it's almost like a level of trust is broken and even if you choose to stay it's never gonna come back. It might be good for another year but the original reason you were looking for a job will still always be there and your boss will be mad at you. So there's gonna be, and then your coworkers are gonna resent you because they know that you worked out a better deal. So it's just like you have to always be proactive in what your wants are in your career and I think that that's extremely important. You know, Katie, you have said that and I have taken that to heart because I think that it's the human condition and you can intellectualize this and think, okay, well, here it is, here's one offer on paper and here's another offer but the reality is you got a factor in that human condition and to your point, it goes south quickly. I gotta ask you this question, pardon me, when you're looking at your team members that you're bringing on, how have you seen their minds and their mindset change? Are they more thinking this is temporary or are they looking for the long-term situation or is it more the employer that's looking for the long-term situation? How do you see that lining up? I think that the employer is looking for a long-term situation where in a situation, a turnover is high, people aren't loyal, people have no idea how to communicate anymore. It's very, very easy for employees if there's no connection to just quit, not show up, not go back. If they feel discomfort, then it's kind of on them. So at this point, yeah, our employers want long-term hires, are they getting it? I don't know. I think that there has been and believe me, I'm no psychologist but sometimes I think that I am. You know, I think that, yeah, I think that there is a disconnect in communication of this post-pandemic generation that the idea of work ethic is gone. And while some people might say it's generational or it's an age thing, it isn't. You know, we have across the board at all ages at this point I've witnessed a number of people just not show up, not go back, not call back, ghost, block where I've never seen this before. Work really means nothing. And you know, I was getting a pedicure the other day and someone, an older woman who I guess her family business is construction, we're talking about the workforce and there's just not enough employees for her family business. And I'm like, no one wants to work. And then the response that when I say that to people is well, how are people getting money? Right? Like no one wants to work. How are they getting back? What I have witnessed, and this is a whole nother thing what I have witnessed is everyone has kind of a side hustle at this point whether it's trading, whether it's crypto whether it's Poshmark, whether it's Etsy people have learned that they've been able to bring in some sort of income. They've also learned that living at home or, you know, doing sort of the less has made their life a lot better whether it's walking dogs and the idea of a full-time job with salary it's just not enticing anymore after what we've witnessed over the past two years. Wow, that is a fascinating comment because you have said that in the beginning you started saying, well, people just don't want to work. And I thought that was abrupt and I thought that was, I was like, well, that's not possible. I'm abrupt, yeah. Unless you're in a lottery, unless you won a lottery, everybody's got to work. I mean, and so I really love you framing this up with the side hustle and lowering individual needs. Yeah, lowering of financial living standards whether it's people moving back at home getting rid of their cars, relying on Uber whatever it is, they've learned a different way. Interesting. Now, I got to, you know, move along on that same thought and it's kind of a big thing, but I've got to get you to share with us your crystal ball forecast. Like, what do you see? I mean, is this going to be something that is a generational thing that it's going to take us 10 years to get out of or do you, because this is a pretty fundamental shift on both the worker and the labor. Sort of stuck here. You know, I don't know what's going to happen because I read a lot of articles on LinkedIn about staffing, the labor market, et cetera, but then I'm also specific to the nonprofit sector. So it's like, I feel like I'm in the middle here. You know, we see what Elon Musk did saying that all of his staff had to return to the office or you don't have a job, but that's also very corporate, very A-type personality, Elon Musk. And here I am dealing with nonprofits where it's, what are your needs? What are your feelings, empathy, and all of this stuff? So I don't know, you know, like, there's more and more people. You know, I went out for a walk this morning. I live by the path train, which is how people get to work. There's more and more people. I see commuting into New York City every day. People are getting back to work. I don't know. I don't know how much resistance there can be before things take a hard turn. I just don't know. I'm not saying that we need to have it go back to our typical American way of work, work, work, nine to five Monday through Friday. I'm not saying that, but I do forecast that at some point I think a four day work week is going to be standard here. So, you know, that, I've been reading and seeing more discussion about the four day work week, undoubtedly. But let me ask you this. Do you think that the nonprofit sector has that aspect of attraction because it is mission focused? That maybe, like if you and I were in the, let's say the construction trade to bring back your conversation earlier, I can see would be super hard. But we have that, that wonderful thing that we can beckon people into our missions, into our causes. Or is that not even really a factor? Oh my God, I love this idea so much because, you know, it's one of those things where me who's always been doing this, I get, I would get so many calls from people from other sectors that want to go into nonprofits. And, you know, it's one of those things that I educate them. I tell them how to make a change, volunteer, whatever it is, schmooze, learning organization that you like and try to do it that way. But one of the things that for me as a staffing firm, I would always say pretty much scripted at this point. I place nonprofit professionals in other nonprofit jobs. So as a career changer, I, Katie, cannot help you, right? Interesting. My answer now hasn't changed. However, my answer now to my clients would be to say, listen, you want X, Y and Z. You've had this job open for three months because you can't find any of these things. It might be in your best interest at this point to take a step back, to look at what your needs are and to really evaluate if you could potentially take someone who has no experience or someone coming from a different area that is open to coming into your office five days a week. They don't care, they want to learn. You can pay them what's in your budget and take them. And that's where my client coaching has sort of shifted. And that way that eventually, I keep saying that to my clients, I'll be able to now change my answer to my candidates and say, I can help you make a career change into nonprofits because we're going to have to do that. There's a shortage, there's a labor shortage. Yeah, and I think this kind of dovetails what you were saying earlier about people in the labor market, individuals and normal Americans across this country saying, I've reevaluated. I don't need that expensive car. I don't need those expensive clothes or I want to live closer to family or with family. Or, I mean, I can see how a job in the nonprofit sector might become more realistic folks than it had to be. Yeah, another thing too, a lot of people don't even want to travel yet. I know that traveling is up, but it's expensive. And at this point with vaccine requirements, a lot of people aren't taking that huge vacation that maybe they were planning for. So there's also savings there. So yeah, I mean, there's so many different things and caveats and components to why people would want to maybe work as a nonprofit. You know, I mean, you're always somebody who I could just spend a day with talking. And as our time ends up, we've got a viewer that's written in, love this discussion. Loyalty is a two-way street. I would argue most corporations and large nonprofits are not loyal. How do we start to change that? Yeah, your employees are just numbers. You're not loyal. And that starts within, that's a cultural shift that needs to happen with operations, with HR, and with the hiring managers and just sort of being direct with their new hires and cultivating new relationships. And one of those people that communication is huge no matter what, you know, who you talk to with the nail salon, who you talk to on the subway, who you talk to at the bar, like always informing people because people don't know what they don't know. So always just having really important conversations and connections goes a long way. And if you could take that into your corporate nonprofit, I think that that will work. It won't work overnight, but it will work eventually. Well, we always love communicating with you, Katie Warnick, CEO founder of Staffing Boutique, such an interesting lens into the entire ecosystem of the nonprofit sector from coast to coast. Katie Warnick, we've come back to you time and time again with questions, you know, really getting you to drill down and share your wisdom with us. It's so powerful. And we have really, really enjoyed this relationship with you because you have helped us learn, but you've also, I think, been able to reflect and articulate maybe kind of like what we're feeling or seeing, but we don't have it, we can't drill it down. And you bring that to us every time you're on the nonprofit show. So Katie Warnick, check out StaffingBoutique.org such an interesting, interesting field that you serve. And boy, are we ever grateful because as we know and as we talk about Staffing is a huge issue. And if we don't have our people, we can't serve our people. And so amazing, amazing opportunity to have spent some time with you today. We wanna make sure that you join us back here for another episode of the nonprofit show. Again, I'm Julia Patrick-Cher. At Ransom, we'll be back shortly. We wanna thank our presenting sponsors, Blue Morang, American Nonprofit Academy, your part-time controller, nonprofit nerd, Fundraising Academy at National University, StaffingBoutique, EA team, and the nonprofit thought leader. Thank you so much. Katie, have a marvelous rest of your week. You too. Always a pleasure. I'll see you soon. Absolutely. Hey everybody, we like to remind ourselves and our viewers and our listeners, our daily mantra that we close every show with. And that is, stay well, so you can do well. We'll see you back here.