 Welcome everyone good morning to another episode of the nonprofit show. We're really excited to have you here with us today because we have as I was saying in the green room chatter the amazing the wonderful the mysterious all add mysterious Katie Warnick CEO president founder guru of staffing boutique. She's going to talk to us today about hiring Tampa labor and that whole ecosystem of staffing. And so this is going to be a really interesting conversation that you're not going to want to miss because I think this is a new topic or it's a revisited topic for so many of us. Again, I'm Julia Patrick CEO of the American nonprofit Academy, Jared ransom nonprofit nerd is off today traveling. She'll be back with us tomorrow. Again, we have amazing partners that allow us to have these conversations day in and day out. Katie, we just surpassed our 900 and like 60, almost 70 episode, and you are part of that because you were the first person that called us and said hey how do I get involved in the nonprofit show. And so we want to express our gratitude to staffing boutique. Also nonprofit thought leader American nonprofit Academy, Bloomerang fundraising Academy at National University, 180 management group, your part time controller nonprofit tech talk nonprofit nerd and JMT consulting. If you have missed any of our episodes, you know where to find us. We have an app. We have the streaming broadcast platforms and we have podcasts. Kevin pace, our executive producer just told us yesterday before we went live that we just had posted our 500th podcast which is pretty. Wow. So, you know, because we started podcasting after broadcasting so it's really an amazing thing time flies when you're having fun Katie. That's right. Katie Warnick, president founder staffing boutique. Before we get into pepper new all these questions. Tell us where you're from where you're where your base of operation. I know you work throughout the country, but you are based at East and talk to us about what your mojo is like what you do at staffing boutique. Oh, I would love to do that. So I live in New Jersey born and raised I'm about 10 minutes from downtown Manhattan where my office is in Tribeca. We do service the New York tri-state area which is New Jersey, New York, the boroughs, and then Connecticut. We also do business in Southern California as well. We do have a reach in some other areas, but the majority of our network and connections are here in this New York metro area. We do everything from temp, temp to firm and permanent recruitment specifically for the nonprofit sector. That's all we do all day long. All we do. So we're constantly recruiting, talking to people, everyone that works in the sector within Charter We do everything from administrative assistance to executive directors, CFOs, substitute teachers, fundraisers, database support, events coordinators, essentially anything within the sector we handle it. So you really get to see behind the curtain when it comes to what the labor market's doing, what nonprofits want and need. You kind of, I would imagine get a lot of this information to nonprofits before they even understand it, right? They'll be like, we need help, we need help. And then I can imagine you're having to kind of give them a lot more information than maybe they ever even thought they needed. Yeah, it's kind of cool. One of the cool things about my job, and I've been in this industry for almost 20 years at this point, I've had my own business for, I think, 13 or 14. But one of my favorite parts of this job has always been just speaking to my clients, not even filling the jobs, not even the sales, not even the networking, not even the making money, just the talking to the clients. Because I get so many after hours calls, sort of offline calls to hear what's going on, what's going on with the board, what's going on with the donors, what's going on with recruitment. And those things are always sort of trending. So it's like I'm having a confidential conversation with one of my clients, I'm having a very similar conversation next week with another client that's saying the same thing. And that's been through, you know, a recession COVID. Now, you know, so it's kind of really cool. And that is my favorite part. So, yeah, I do, I hear everything. I see everything. I could write a book. You know, at the end of the day, one of the things I always say is, you know, I'm not selling staples, I'm selling people, you know, and people do outlandish things. I have to represent people who are interested in whichever organization, and if they behave poorly or do something, you know, that's out of character, you know, that's, that's my butt on the line. And I have to take accountability for that. I can never predict how people are going to behave. All I can do is put out the fire as quick as possible. And that's why we provide extreme customer service and really stand on that. I've got to ask this question because we have been in such a wackadoo period of time, you know, from, you know, a global pandemic to civil unrest to financial crisis, a shift in demographics, I mean, the aging of our of our population, a new generation that has different needs and wants, all of this confluence funnels into the labor market. Do you see patterns or is this just all been such a free fall that you're kind of having to ping pong? Yeah, I mean, if we're talking about now, I think we're, we've all been sort of sitting on this edge of waiting for a recession, right? For the past, I don't know, 16 months, I've been saying that we're all kind of in this weird holding pattern. I think not just the nonprofit sector, but, you know, it's always trending articles on LinkedIn is, you know, all these huge layoffs that's going on. I was just reading one about Wayfair laying off all their, their remote employees. So, you know, there are certainly trends within the sector and then there's just trends within the labor force, right? So I'm always seeing them, I'm plugging into them and I'm just trying to work with my clients as best as I can to accommodate each and every one of them because every situation is different. You know, I'm working with organizations that are five on staff and I'm working with organizations, you know, that have 15,000 people. So how it's nothing is cookie cutter at this point. No, and you know, it's going to be really interesting to talk to you like this time next year, because we will have like moved through a general election into it. I can't wait. I'm here in inaugural season. The economy who knows we will have that history behind us. I mean, it's such a flurry of activity. And so I guess that's really leads me to why it's so important for I think us to talk about this whole ecosystem of labor and now looking back into labor. And my first question I think has got to be, how do we determine if we need temp labor and what type versus just saying we got to get a body in here, right? And it seems like it's such a different way to manage your labor force. Yeah, sure. So that's a super duper good question. I would say super duper on the show, but that's a good question. And just to look at what the situation is at hand. You know, if someone is obviously going out on maternity or family leave or disability, anything that you sort of can predict and forecast that's, that's a no brainer to me. I think you should definitely get a temp in there. There is no reason that you should put someone's entire job amongst other staff, right? So I think that that's a no brainer. I think you should definitely hire a temp in that sort of situation. That's the fairly easy fill and especially because you have some, some notice. So you'd be able to even do some cross training if need be with, with that person that's leaving. Okay. The flip side of that is, you know, someone quits all of a sudden. So this is actually where my sweet spot is this is probably where I make the most money. It's when the person in the organization quits unexpectedly, and they were the only person in the organization that did said job. This happens the most, I would say with events and database. Okay. So what happens your database administrator quits on a Friday and tells you they're not giving two weeks notice. What do you do, especially if it's the holiday season, you need to hire a temp. You can't get backed up. You can't. You just need these people. You need these, these gifts entered, right? So I think that that's a no brainer. That's another no brainer situation to me. And then the other side is, you know, when you're starting to look at your year and you're forecasting events, mailings, your grant calendar, sort of those things that happen and need to occur, but don't necessarily happen every day, right? So I think that those are the areas that you should really look and say, Hey, am I wasting money paying an events person for 12 months of the year? Do we really need a full time events person? Now, some organization are events heavy. So yeah, of course, that's, that's, you have an events team, essentially, you're an organization who's maybe only running like two or three events a year. Temp would be great in that situation. It would bring down your costs. The same thing with grant writers. You know, a lot of organizations that we work with rely on government and maybe some corporate support. Yeah. And then they have a foundation, a small foundation portfolio that they just need to keep up with. So, you know, maybe they only need someone to work 10 hours a month or something like that. You don't need to be paying a full time grant writer to do that. So that's another situation that are common temp jobs. So I would say that that copyrighting, marketing, social media, they don't necessarily need to be full time jobs. You know, it's so interesting because it seems to me like a lot of organizations, and maybe this is just human nature, that we come to the point where like, Oh my God, we got to get a temp worker because, you know, Susie just quit at 435 on a Friday. It's not coming back versus looking at the calendar, looking at our process, looking out, you know, forward. And I have to admit, I think I'm in that boat. I always think of temp work as solving a crisis and not necessarily being part of a strategic plan. Yeah, and I can see why you think that way. And that's why, you know, no situation that we're in is that cookie cutter situation, right? Because an organization that maybe doesn't even have an HR department is going to be my ideal client. You know, the ideal client for me is an organization I'm dealing directly with the executive director or the director of finance and administration where there's no HR process. So they're really relying on me for all recruitment needs. And, you know, I might be expensive, but I'm keeping their recruitment numbers down. You know, so they're not paying the overhead for a recruiter or for advertising for jobs. So, you know, it really depends on the budget, the organization and how heavy that full time staff is. So yeah, you're right. It could be a crisis situation, but it could it could be a long term, make the most sense. So let's move into that because, you know, you said, yeah, this can be expensive, but ultimately, you know, it's a it's a better way to manage the cost of this process. So let's get into this because what should we think about when we're looking at partnering with a temporary agency or even saying, okay, we're going to investigate this. What are the costs look like? Yeah, so that's essentially the first question we ask is how many hours do you need this person to work? Is this a full time job or is this a part time job? So you really need to look at that first. And just keep in mind that someone who wants part time work isn't necessarily going to be the person that's wants full time work and vice versa, right? So you need to think your candidate pool is going to be different for someone who only wants part time hours. Maybe they're getting a master's or something like that. Maybe they're returning back to the workforce after having babies, whatever it might be. So you need to really square down how many hours a week you want this person to be working. Once you have that, obviously it depends on the skill set. So, you know, if we're looking at just to give you an example, seasoned grant writer, bill rate for someone like that could be $100 an hour. So that would include what we're paying them, our fee, unemployment costs, payroll costs, the costs, all advertising, all the recruitment, general liability, disability, and then that person is essentially sitting on our unemployment when and if that project ends or they leave that organization. So that's sort of how it works. Obviously, I can't, you know, an admin assistant could be $25 an hour. It really kind of depends on the skill set, but we are taking on the full burden of the employee. So when you say you're taking, I have so many questions, when you say you're taking on the full burden of the employee, that means that your company, and I'm assuming this is across the sector of staffing, you know, companies, you are in essence, paying that, that you're processing that payroll, you're taking care of all of those administrative aspects of that employee. Correct. So we've recruited the employee, you like them, they're starting, essentially what happens is they come to you with a time sheet, you sign off on it, they sign off on it, we pay them, we've collected all their tax information, pay them and bill you. So we've really kind of made it seamless. It's, it's pretty easy to work to get an attempt, you know, started quickly, because there are some organizations that we work with, you know, that it might take them a month to onboard people, and they don't have that time, you know, larger hospitals, larger universities. So they would prefer to bring a temp on. I can have someone start basically in 24 hours if I really needed to. Okay, so then let's talk about another cost. And you mentioned this, training, is this part of, like, the system whereby you know what somebody does and you can, you've like pre-qualified them. So you know, let's say you brought up the data entry folks, you know, they know certain products, they know certain software, you can navigate them in more quickly. How does that work? Yeah, so essentially when my clients call me, they're calling me because they need someone that doesn't need to be trained, right? So a lot of times the call is, hey, we need someone who knows razor's edge, or they know donor perfect, or they know fund easy. So we then have to go into our database, look at all those people with those specific skill sets, look to see who can start immediately, look to see who's only wants part-time hours, sort of work through all of those logistics. Let's just say we have three people left over after we've done that whole search, we send those three people over to the client, they look at three resumes and then they decide who they want to go with. So the person will already know the skill set at hand. Now, if we're talking about training, they might have them come in and sit with that person who's going on leave or whatever just to get them equipped on their other, you know, internal systems, but they shouldn't have to be trained on razor's edge. You know, there are sometimes circumstances where the person, you know, doesn't know a specific module and razor's edge. So maybe they'll just sit on a tutorial or something like that. But for the most part, everyone has the skill set. So they're ready to go. Day one. Ready to go. Hit the ground running. Hit the ground running. Another piece of this before I move on to the next thing, and again, you know, this, I would say this is a cost associated with temp labor is the management of that staff member. Everything from showing up on time to are they dressed appropriately to are they logging in on time, letting them go, adding hours. Who does that work? So essentially the hiring manager would do that work, right? We've had nightmare situations where the person was just always late or the person didn't dress appropriately. So then the organization comes back to me. I have a conversation with them. I have some organizations that won't tolerate that at all. So it's like, okay, you're done for the day and you're gone. It's not the favorite part of my job, but that's also what happens when you're a temp employee. You know, we're basically working for the client. We have to do what they say, you know, some clients feel bad and are like, oh, I want to give them another chance. Personally, I'd rather just replace the person, you know, they've already sort of left a bad taste in the mouth of the organization. So I'd rather just get them a new person and start fresh. So to answer your question, the hiring manager does oversee them, but anything that's difficult or challenging they're going to call me and I'm going to have a conversation with the temp. Wow. It's such a fascinating, I almost want to say way to think about it, right? You know, because I was just talking with a COO of a very large, very, very large $50 million organization. And then we just ended up talking about labor and that person was saying that they're trying to retrain their brains, that when an opportunity comes up or a situation comes up that they're just not like, well, we need to hire somebody. Versus looking at, okay, well, how do we, you know, create our own floaters within our organization or do we contract with the temp company? How do we look at labor in a different way? And this is an organization who's never looked at labor in a different way. And I got to thinking, I mean, knew you were coming on to the nonprofit show today, but I got to thinking this must be a conversation that more people are having. Yeah, I mean, I have, I have thoughts on that because I do feel like larger organizations are more often going to say let's hire someone, let's hire someone. They also have the resources at hand to have more people already working there to give them more responsibilities, right? Sure. A smaller organization who is maybe more hesitant because of budget size to hire a temp probably already has their staff with, you know, running, running pretty thin and it would be, I don't know, not advantageous for them to then give their current staff more work. It kind of leads to burnout. So again, there's no cookie cutter approach to that. It's such an interesting conversation and I think from the way we started our conversation is that it's a changing time. And so labor across the board is just a topic that we're going to be talking about more and more, right? Yeah, but I always lead with, you know, if you don't have a retention strategy, your recruitment strategy is basically nothing. So it's like, what are you doing by giving your current workers more work? That's going to lead to them to probably exit. So you have to also think about that. Yeah, and I appreciate that conversation because that's something we don't have enough. I want to move on and kind of pick your brain a little bit more about this. I mean, you talked to us so beautifully about where you work and how you are navigating different parts of the country. But let's say you're sitting in, you know, Middle America or the Deep South. How would you as a nonprofit go about finding this type of service and forging a partnership with somebody? Yeah, I would say Google temp agencies in my area and then call three or four of them and see how many nonprofits they service. Okay. Working in an organization where I was the only person that did nonprofits within a much larger staffing firm in New York. I learned that pretty quick. They would always say, oh, we do nonprofits, we do nonprofits, but they really didn't have their finger on the pulse of the sector until I came in, right? So you want to make sure that that staffing firm is actually or that temp agency is actually equipped to understand the needs of the sector. Again, so many staffing firms are just so sales minded that they're just going to be like, oh, we can fill that, we can fill that, but they really don't understand. They don't know annual giving. They don't know what fundraising is. They don't understand the different, you know, just job titles within the sector. So you really just need to ask that local agency how often they're working with nonprofits. I love it. I think that's incredibly wise advice because I think you're right. You just, you know, you look at a company and you're like, okay, well, they're going to have to help us. And generally from what I hear you saying, you're calling kind of in a crisis, like stressful moment anyway. You're just like, help me, help me versus stepping back, right? Yeah, yeah. And you know, one thing that I'll say about us, you know, again, our database is only filled with nonprofit candidates. You know, we don't have people from other sectors in our database. So we have an equipped database just for your needs specifically. One of my favorite conversations with clients is when an organization reaches out to me and they say they're about to do a search. Yada, yada, yada, can you help? We're calling a few other firms. And then I go over my spiel, have a great call. I do a follow up. And then they say, well, my board member who works at this company has a relationship with this staffing firm. XYZ. Now I know the staffing firm in New York. They don't do nonprofits. They do for, and that's great. They're great at what they do. They do finance. They do accounting. They do Wall Street jobs. That's great. They do not do anything. So then I'm like, all right, good luck. And then in three months, they call me back and they're like, you were right. That firm didn't produce what we needed. They were giving us candidates that had this background and this background. And I'm like, yeah, I know this is actually my favorite phone call. I'll work with you now, you know, but it's, it's like, you just wasted time. Right. Well, and you know, Katie, I think we see that in so many ways. And you mentioned, you know, accounting and finance. People that are like, oh yeah, you know, an accountant, a bookkeeper can do anything. It's numbers. And it's like, yeah, not really. The nonprofit sector is different. We have different vocabulary. We have different processes. I mean, there's a lot to be thinking about. And of course we see that with staffing and temp work. You know, this has been an amazing conversation and we don't have that much time left. But I wanted to kind of delve into the time spectrum. Now you started our conversation talking about the changes that we've had because of time and because of the spectrum of change and all the things that we've been going on. They have been going on in our country. But what's the benefit of temp labor long term versus short term? Because is that something that we should be thinking about or just trying to be in the moment and solve the problem? Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. I think that when the economy is sort of uncertain, which I feel like we are now, it's always a good idea to hire temps first to get the work done. Not have to pay these people benefits, not have to pay, you know, 401ks, et cetera, whatever it is, get them working, get the work done. And then if you like them, go ahead and hire them or keep them on as, you know, who knows through election here, whatever you need to do that makes sense for your organization. So I think that long term could be a good idea. The only bad thing about keeping someone on long term is if someone is really good, they're actively looking for a full time job with benefits. So if you're not committed to them, they're really not committing to you. So, you know, while temp to perm is great, I preach that through and through, especially with the nonprofit sector. If you're saying like, I'm not going to consider this person until next year. Well, that person might get a good job offer in three months and they're going to leave, you know, there's really no marriage there. So it kind of depends on how you look at it. Some organizations will just say, listen, we need to get through this fiscal year. Do I have a commitment that you're going to stay on board through this fiscal year as a temp? And then we can look at a proper offer when we hit the new fiscal year. And a lot of, you know, candidates respects that transparency, they will commit they won't look for other jobs and they'll stay on with the organization. But again, every case is different. Every person situation is different. What is the average length of time that an organization in your experience works with a temp? I would say three to six months. Really? Okay. Yeah, because the way that most staff agencies work and certainly how mine is is essentially after six months of time. The organization has essentially worked the full amount as a temp where they're at that point able to go on to that for that organization's payroll for free. So they wouldn't owe us a conversion fair finders fee at that point. Pre six months, they would owe us a percentage of the salary. So a lot of organizations will take advantage of doing that. Now, when you look at the numbers from a finance perspective, it is more expensive to do it that way because you're paying our fees over a longer period of time. Most good nonprofit accountants will be like, let's take this person right away. But sometimes the numbers don't work that way and they do have to wait for the new fiscal year. So again, every organization is different. Do you see more organizations saying this is a good way for us to ease somebody in to see if they're going to be a good fit for us or if we need them and we need their labor? That's always been. That's across the board. It's never been really a question. It's been since I've entered this sector. Interesting. But what I think that most people don't understand is, especially here in New York, our offices are extremely small. So when you're looking at, you know, who's working next to you in a cubicle, do you want, you want to really make sure that you like that person. So this is a great way to trial someone, you know, we don't have a huge amount of space in our organization's offices. You want to make sure that that person isn't heating up tuna in the microwave every day at noon, you know, you want to make sure that you really like the person, not because of their skill set, but just because of their office manners, if you will. So there's so many times that we place temps where the organization has said this is just going to be a temp job, you know, there's no room and then someone, you know, quits or gets fired in another department and they just were like, oh, we love this person and they kind of move them, you know, they're working in development and they move them to programs or, you know, really within they just really like the fit. Interesting. It's such a fascinating thing and I always, always love talking to you because I feel like you're one of our consistent guests who comes on, and that the environment is always different, right. Things are changing so much. And so it's never a broken record with you. It's always something new and different in relationship to what is going on in our marketplace. And so I really appreciate your wisdom and your willingness to share with us and our viewers. Again, Katie Warnock, president and founder of staffing boutique, staffing boutique.org. Check out their website. It's just great. There's a rock and picture of Katie on there and it talks about her and you're, I think you're in the city. It seems it looks like. Yes, I'm in Soho. That's good. Yeah, it's a great image and it's a great story. But it's just been such a pleasure to work with you and get your wisdom. As you, like I said, as you share with us, it's just a remarkable thing because I think a lot of people, especially in such a competitive environment, they're hesitant to share their secrets because they feel like they're going to lose business. And with you, you're always very open and transparent. So we recognize that and we appreciate it. Yeah, I'm certainly a voice in the sector. It's crazy. So I'm happy to share my stories. It's a great thing. It's a great thing. And like I said, you know, both Jared and I see the changes and so it's never, it's never a dull moment with you or something new and different. Another thing that is amazing in our world is the support that we have from our presenting sponsors and they include Bloomerang American Nonprofit Academy, Nonprofit Thought Leader, Staffing Boutique with Katie Warnick, Your Part-Time Controller, 180 Management Group, Fundraising Academy at National University, JMT Consulting, Nonprofit Nerd and Nonprofit Tech Talk. These are the folks that are with us day in and day out. Katie, as we end every episode, we like to say this message and I know you're getting on a plane traveling across country shortly, but we want to share this message with you as well. And that says to stay well so you can do well. My friend, thank you very, very much. Always a pleasure.