How Skillwork Borrows the Travel Nursing Model to Close the Skilled Trades Gap

All right, here we are. You know, Brett, you and I were chatting. You said you're more of a red wine guy, so you wanted to defer this first question to Tim.

I want to be clear though, I love red wine.

But Tim, let's say we're having today's conversation at a local watering hole, which watering hole, or if you have trouble picking which couple would we be having this discussion at?

Well, I think that's a great question, Chris, and I do have a couple in mind, but I think probably my go-to place is a local place here called Copacabana. It's a cigar bar where I meet with friends and colleagues and a little cigar and what I call brown water. There's beer there as well. Sometimes I go for that, but nothing like cigar and little brown water sitting on a patio with some guys there. So it's a local cigar bar I like a lot called Copacabana. So that's probably where I would be if I had a choice.

All right, so we're having a bourbon or whiskey and cigar conversation today. Well, hey, I want you to answer this first question as if we're having that beverage and that cigar. How is Skillwork different from a typical staffing company? Or to put it in like manufacturing terms, what does Skillwork do as if you're having a drink with someone?

Yeah, so I guess I'll take a whack at that first. You know, really our model is unique. We'll unpack that a little bit. We're different from a normal staffing company. You know, we just have a little different approach. For example, we focus exclusively only on high-end skilled crafts. They're our W-2 employees. We hire them. We travel them around the country to our clients' locations for period of performance, but, you know, it follows a model that was pioneered by the medical industry, specifically the travel nursing model.

But really I think what sets us apart, what I like to talk to people about here, is kind of our culture and the way that we do things, the way we treat what we call our skill workers. When guys come to work for us, we call them skill workers, kind of a take off our name. We give them a different way to look at their trade, at their craft. Give them a lot of opportunity to travel around, see a variety of different places and locations. We treat them as they should be treated, with a lot of respect and dignity, cuz we think they deserve that. What they do, they keep this country running.

All you have to do is look back during the COVID crisis and see how they were identified as critical or essential jobs. They are. We treat them with a lot of respect. We provide them a lot of growth and, you know, opportunity to upskill, and the biggest thing that maybe we'll get to, Chris, is this freedom, this idea that they are the captains of their own ship, that they can travel around, that they can see different places, take on new opportunities. And I think that's something unique in this space and this vertical. So that's how I would describe it in a nutshell. We're different because of the way that we treat our guys and the opportunities we give them.

And you have something like 200 folks across 30 states, correct? Is that kind of the breadth of your operation today? Am I on the right track?

Yep, that's generally correct. You know, we're active in 30-plus states. I think we've been in up to 38. We're in hundreds of locations and, you know, augmenting maintenance teams across the country. So yeah, and we're still young. So, you know, we're just getting started, Chris.

That's what we're here to talk about today. And the other question I think is very appropriate to ask, whether we're having red wine or bourbon: how is Skillwork the future of industrial staffing? I think people might have an inkling of this, Tim, just based on your initial answer, but how is Skillwork the future of industrial staffing in your opinion, Brett?

I think it's... it sounds a bit arrogant, you know, but I think it is a little bit of the reality, or at least the model is. So, I'd narrow it a little bit and just say, you know, the future of industrial skilled trade staffing. You know, when you talk about industrial staffing, I don't want anybody to think that we're going to solve the frontline production worker. We haven't figured that one out.

But I think the undeniable reality is that how companies find talent and how skilled professionals want to work and find great companies has changed. You know, it's a reality. We'll talk a little bit, probably at some point today, about my past or my future or my history. So, you know, I grew up in this space, but the idea of finding skilled talent, especially as the technical requirements expand, the idea that you're going to find that in your local community, which is what we used to do, is just not a reality anymore. So, I think the idea that talent, in addition to that, I think the idea that talent will stay with you 30 years or even 20 years or 10 years, I mean, we could probably take it all the way down to two, is not a reality anymore. So, a model like Skillwork that finds, vets and brings the talent to you for contract periods, we believe is needed.

So, you know, I think, to kind of go with the bold statement we started with, the future of the space, I would say I think the reality is we're experiencing a paradigm shift in our industry in how companies are going to find that talent and how talent's going to go to work. And so, I would say we're excited to be a part of that. If we're more on the leading edge of that, we're okay with that. But I think the fact is we're just addressing an issue that is just a reality.

Well, I remember chatting with both of you almost a year ago. And when you were comparing your model to travel nursing, talking about just the prestige you're treating these roles with, them like, "Gosh, these folks are onto something." So, I really think what you're doing is cool. We're going to dive into more of the details here in a little bit, but Brett, you were just hinting at this. This next question's for you. We want to get a little bit of the Skillwork founding story, if you will. And I think we need to start with your background, because you used to own a food and beverage company, a fully cooked bacon facility, I believe. And you experienced the challenge of finding people firsthand. How did your experience there inspire you to start Skillwork?

No, that's correct. So, I grew up in the manufacturing space, you know, food specifically, and more specifically bacon. And so, my dad was an ammonia refrigeration specialist, and eventually became a maintenance manager and a GM. And he worked for a large manufacturer of bacon. And so, I came up through that. I eventually started my own manufacturing company, and we built a plant back in 2004 to produce cooked bacon. And so, we sold that business in 2013, and I became part of the executive team of the buyer. And at that point, they had eight manufacturing plants.

And it was really in that time that I had the time to step back and see the growing challenge of finding skilled maintenance techs for our plants. You know, I had responsibility across these broader plants, and to be honest with you, when you're an owner of a facility, you're so caught up in the everyday that, while you know there's a problem, you don't have time to slow down to figure out what the solution is sometimes. So, during that I did. So, like a lot of your audience, being folks in the manufacturing space, I had tried the temp agencies and the headhunters, but just felt it was not the right solution for the problem, or it wasn't the right solution for the problem. So, I know, or we knew, if we could develop a model that could find, vet, deploy the talent to augment these maintenance teams that were literally crying for the help, that we might be able to build a business that we felt could have a positive impact. So, that's how we ended up here.

Tim, can you share your side of the story? You know, how you got involved and what struck you about the business model?

Yeah, so I really think it was kind of more of an epiphany for me, and, you know, Brett and I have a couple of things in common. Not the least of which is our fathers came up through the space. My dad wore a tool belt. He was an industrial electrician. Supported our family, raised our family with that. So, I came up with this high regard and respect for skilled trades guys. So, that was kind of common, and I think the other thing we had in common is that we saw this opportunity as a great idea. In other words, there's something with high demand. We know there's a high and growing demand for the skilled trades guys in the manufacturing space, and a unique way to address it. And we believe that, you know, we're not ashamed of it, we have strong faith as part of our business model and what we pursue, and we felt like we were called into this idea of providing a unique way to address this need, and a lot of different things lined up to open the door and give us that.

So I have a different background than Brett, you know, professionally. I came out of a military background. I was 25 years in the Navy. Finished my Navy career as a naval officer back in '07. Took a couple of corporate jobs with large corporate companies, Fortune 150 companies. So I learned in this background of operational excellence coming out of the military, combined with how they do things at big corporate America, together with Brett's practical background and experience in running a business in manufacturing. It was just a good marriage of our strengths that came together.

Well, clearly you both have some overlap in your backgrounds, but as you were just highlighting, Tim, you both have some different backgrounds as well. So this is a question that I like to ask pretty much any set of co-founders that I have on the show at the same time. What unique strengths do you each bring to the table as partners at Skillwork? Brett, maybe you lead this one off and Tim, you'll go after that.

Sure. Sure. Yeah, you know, like Tim said, I'm a business guy. I tried to follow my dad's path a little bit in fixing stuff in the manufacturing world, and I did okay, but after I got my hand caught in a couple of machines, I thought I better go to the business side. I'm not going to have any fingers left. But at heart I'm an entrepreneur vision guy, you know, from selling candy on the bus to, I owned a food brokerage company, and then, as we talked about earlier, the manufacturing company, and now Skillwork. I always like to point out, I think to be an entrepreneur you just have to be... I just was never smart enough to think I couldn't do it. And so for me, the vision and the drive to try, and then the ability to focus the team on the mission at hand, if God's blessed me with a gift, that's probably where it's at. Outside of that, I'm probably somewhat limited, but that's probably the things that I'm passionate about and what I bring to it.

Okay, so getting the team to focus, aligning folks on that vision. Tim, what would you say your strengths are and what you bring to this?

Yeah, I think probably an executor of a vision. I'm a very action-oriented guy, very task-oriented. I appreciate process and structure, but I'm not tied to it. I'm more how do we integrate that into moving fast with innovation and speed. So my wife says I'm a GSD guy, which is, I'll say, get stuff done.

Right.

I tend to just get stuff done. It's just been something I've done, and mixed with Brett's more vision and deliberate thinking and thinking through things, I think it's a good mix. And I've got this corporate background as well as an operational background. And even though I had a military background, a lot of people that don't know that, especially the branch that I came out of, they think it's kind of very robotic, but I took a lot of different roles, learned a lot of different new things, constantly looking at trying to do different things, getting pushed. So, I think I've got that ability to... I don't mind change. As a matter of fact, I kind of embrace it. So, I think those are the things that I bring to the team.

Yeah, for an operator and an executor, you don't always get someone that's as open to change as well. But, no, just hearing both of you share your experiences, one, you both bring unique perspectives to it. But, hey, having that vision person, having that executor, that operator, I love it. And it's no coincidence that your business is succeeding when you have two folks at the helm that bring different things to the table.

So, let's go into, and this is the topic that the Manufacturing Happy Hour audience is very familiar with, the risks and opportunities surrounding the skills gap. But, based on the business you've created, I want to hear your unique perspective around these. So, our audience is familiar with this topic, right? 2.1 million manufacturing jobs are at risk of going unfilled by 2030. Depending on where you look, you'll hear some variation of that stat, but it's in the millions and it's dire whichever way you look at it. So, can you describe the risk to American manufacturing in your own words, from your unique perspective?

Yep. Yep, I can take a shot at that. You know, there's an Edward Deming quote. You know, Deming was considered, early 1900s, a pioneer in the early industrial management, quality control space. His quote is that it's not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. And so, you know, we all know, in your audience, Chris, when I say we all know, meaning folks in manufacturing, that manufacturing drives off of efficiency. I used to say, when I owned the manufacturing company, that plants are designed to run. And when they don't, they're really expensive. And so the growing challenge, you know, to have the talent to do that consistently, I would present to your audience, at minimum requires us to consider alternative solutions to figuring out the skilled talent gap.

So, back to Deming's quote, you don't have to change. You can continue. If you're that 60-year-old, like me, maintenance leader, and you're just still believing that somehow the talent's going to show up at your door tomorrow because somebody moved into town, you can do that. You don't have to change, but like Deming says, survival's not mandatory. So I think the risk is high. I think you've got to adopt change, not just in the way you're going to find the talent, but the way that talent today wants to go to work. So I think that's it.

Yeah, so let's go... Before we get into the specifics of Skillwork, I've got a two-part question here. What are some underrated ways then manufacturers could be addressing the skills gap? There's a short-term and long-term to this, so let's start with the short-term. What are some underrated ways the manufacturers could be addressing the skills gap in the short-term?

Well, obviously, from our perspective, taking a look at the different tools you have to close those gaps, but I think just if I were advising, and we do, we engage manufacturers a lot of times, I think that some short-term things that I'm seeing more

manufacturers partners in this space do is they're assessing, they're doing a realistic objective assessment of their skills gap, and there's a lot of accessibility to tools and testing that you can do there, that on-site can come into your facility, do a baseline assessment of your skills gap, and then, rather than try to boil the ocean, try to find where the gaps are in your current staff and train for those specific gaps. So I call it gap-specific training.

A lot of partners that we work with have that sort of thing they can come in. I would also say what we've seen be successful, and these things are not one size fits all, but a transition or training program from lower to higher skills within your facility. You know, some take people from the production line, train them to get them on the maintenance team, maybe just starting out doing preventative maintenance tasks, kind of the low-level maintenance tasks, and then eventually to the maintenance team, or short-term classes. We offer classes to our skilled workers and our clients that are designed to be short duration, so they're not gone a long time, they're not gone for a semester, a week at a time to get those short-term training.

So a lot of this you're going to hear has to do with this need to upskill and train. Yeah, the biggest challenge that we hear out there is it's not only we can't find the guys, but the guys we have are finding don't have the skills necessary because of the advancing of technology that you talk about often on this space, Chris. So they've got to look for ways short-term to close the gap by providing these different avenues of training and, you know, obviously looking at partners like us as well.

I think more to longer term, you know, the longer term stuff, Chris, that they can do, and we're seeing more of a pivot to some of these, is manufacturing companies are really beginning to invest with real dollars, real time, real energy in their local high schools. We're seeing a resurgence in things like, back in the day we called shop class, now they're called industrial skills or something along those lines.

A big, you know, partnership in local high schools, community colleges, trade schools, technology schools. So, become a champion of that in your local area and develop this pipeline. We've even seen companies that really are investing and are incentivizing their employees to become mentors of these people coming out of high schools, bring them into the facility, mentor them, provide an opportunity for them to pursue a path towards the trades. And many states, especially when there's a concentration of manufacturing, have some sort of manufacturing alliance where manufacturers are coming together to exchange ideas, promote these ideas.

So, I would say don't be in a vacuum, like Brett acknowledged. The tendency is to be heads down just solving the problem of the day, but pop your head up, take a look around, partner with other people that are working in this space. And here's something I heard, and I don't want anybody to be offended by this, but I heard it actually at a manufacturing alliance that we have here locally. And the gentleman that leads that was talking to manufacturers and he said, "Make sure your jobs don't suck."

And what he meant by that was, you know, this idea that all the manufacturing jobs are dark, dingy, dangerous, and dingy. Call them the 3 Ds. That's not the case. So, make sure that, you know, you market your positions, that your jobs are exciting. They attract technology-minded young people, that there's innovation, there's problem-solving. So there's a need to change the cultural perception of what a career in manufacturing looks like. It's not your father's manufacturing. It is a whole new world, and we need to be better at marketing that. So, those are a couple of things that we would suggest.

Yeah, I'm going to do a quick play-by-play, a quick recap, because there was a lot in there. So, we'll kind of just go backwards, right? We'll start with the long-term solutions. I think your quote, "Make sure your jobs don't suck," there's nothing harsh about that, right? I think that's very real advice and a really good way to summarize a lot of the things you said. But, for long-term, you highlighted the alliances, you highlighted incentivizing mentorship to young folks coming out of high school, and I think that's, you know, one that came up on this show recently in the context of, "Hey, when you're at a career fair, you don't just want the HR person talking to the folks. You want the people that a young person could see themself being on the shop floor, you know, 4 years, 8 years down the line, etc." So, great advice. I'm glad you reinforced that. And then, the resurgence of industrial skills classes, shop classes. Great list of long-term solutions.

I have one follow-up question on the short-term solutions, because I like that you mentioned the short classes, lower to higher skill training programs that can get someone, let's say, you know, from the line onto the maintenance team. You talked about gap-specific training. Can you give an example of what gaps you're seeing a lot of these days? Because I think that's a great idea. Assess for what your gaps are. We talk about doing a lot of assessments in manufacturing just to get your baseline. But, is there a common gap you're seeing these days?

Yeah, it's definitely the guy that's been doing it a while that's more mechanically gifted and, you know, maybe an electrician, but less in the PLC space. So, exposure to ladder logic, exposure to the new way of actually changing programmable manufacturing alliance, and the advent of the AI actually makes us less intimidating, where before you almost had to be a software developer or coder to go in and change the logic to be able to adjust or change lines.

So, it's a stepping stone approach where, first of all, it's learning, you know, how to actually troubleshoot and identify what the problem is, but then the ability to go in and make changes to the logic. And with the advent of AI, Chris, some of the cool things are, rather than me having to learn coding, which can take years, anymore the AI is advancing it to where you can say, "Hey, I need the line to be able to do X, Y, or Z. Transition from this to that." And it takes almost like a human language interface and makes those changes. So, getting people exposed to that, and that they don't have to be intimidated by the technology.

So, I think getting them exposed to more of where the technology is going in terms of programmable logic is probably the biggest gap we see, and where our training that we've developed here at Skillwork, we've got a whole class that we developed specifically for our guys. It's 1 week long. It's designed to take them from "Hey, I know what a PLC is. I've seen it," to "I'm not afraid. I can actually understand, you know, where an error is coming from, how to identify it, how to troubleshoot it." So, a week-long training class takes these guys, really doesn't make them experts, but it gives them confidence, and I think that's what they need.

Yeah. Now, I like the specific example there. I think that helps manufacturers maybe get an idea, when they're thinking about what gaps they might have, maybe that's one of the specific ones they're experiencing as well. You know, we've touched on this a little bit, right? In the context of Skillwork specifically right now, can you summarize your approach to addressing the skills gap in the context of what I believe you referred to as your four-legged stool?

Yeah, it's kind of a newer term, Chris, that we've started to adopt, you know, and I appreciate the question. So, you know, kind of what we do today with our travel staffing model, you know, to augment and fill the gap for talent, you know, is what we would call one leg of the stool. You know, so for the past 6 years, you know, we're 6 years old, and so over the past 6 years, it's really been the only leg that we have focused on, because we knew we had to validate that it would work and was required to be part of the overall solution to the skilled trades shortage.

We knew early on, Chris, that if we allowed the clients to dictate the solution, they would naturally go to the solutions that were out there, which was they'd want us to be a headhunter, find them direct hires, and that kind of a thing, just naturally. So we were borderline arrogant on that: this is what we do. It's a travel model. If you don't want to do that, we can't help you. So now, however, you know, we're now beginning this front to at least start the conversation on what it looks like to partner with our clients and the industry as a whole, you know, beyond the immediate solution, which is use a travel model to get me talent, augment my team.

So, that leads us to what we call the four legs of the full skilled trade solution, because ultimately the manufacturing industry, you know, we're looking for a, Tim just talked about it, a more longer term solution to a problem that, you know, we always say it, we didn't get here overnight. We're not going to solve it overnight. And so, it's a long play to bridge this gap. And so, the four legs for us are education, upskilling, direct hire, and then the travel staffing model. So, if you think about those, and some of what Tim just shared, you know, kind of fits into there.

Today we don't, other than from a support side. You know, education means, you know, all the way back to those vocational kids. You know, we're talking about introducing third, fourth, fifth, sixth graders. I was just at a luncheon this week on this exact conversation about how can we get the education system to further embrace that, hey, half the kids are best to go this direction, half the kids are best to go this direction. But if we don't get that in front of them, and we don't paint a picture so that the jobs don't suck, you know, then they're going, "I'm not working in that dark, you know, plant over there." So the education of that, where we do in that is we support. So whether it be financially, whether it be in a variety of different ways, whether that's, you know, the Boy Scouts of America, you know, have some things called Invention Scouts. So they're working hard to introduce this into the schools. So they're coming in and doing programs in the schools to introduce kids through different gaming devices and whatnot to the trades.

And then a variety of other, you know, ways for us to all continue to do that. There was just an announcement of a school district out in western Nebraska that's building a new vocational high school, you know. So we're seeing some of that. You know, Tim and I are older than you, Chris, and I know that shocks you that I had to tell you that, but Tim and I grew up when, when you were a junior in high school, you made the decision whether you were going to stay at the traditional high school or you were going to go to the vocational high school, you know, type thing.

So we're starting to see a little bit of that. The upskilling piece is that other leg. We do get the other three; over time we're going to get more and more involved in beyond just our travel staffing. So the upskilling, you know, as Tim just indicated, we do it now. We do it for our skilled workers. We think that will continue to grow and expand, because we have to elevate. I mean, it's a lot easier to take somebody who's a good mechanic but has a good... They've already embraced working in the manufacturing space. And so introducing them to higher technical skills is easier than taking somebody that's currently working for Google, and now we're going to try to get them to come into the manufacturing space to do some of this higher level automation.

And then the direct hire. So what we believe now is that if there's a secret sauce, Chris, other than just recognizing that we need a new solution to this problem, if there's a secret sauce in what we do, it's our vetting process. We call it our eight-gate vetting process. So, we have an extensive vetting process. For easy math, you know, just say that, and this is roughly true, but we look at about a thousand. I know that is shocking to people when they can't find two people, but we look at roughly a thousand resumes a week. And out of that, though, our vetting process then whittles that down to a hundred or less. And so, our job, as opposed to that maintenance manager who's trying to take that, he doesn't have a hundred showing up at his door. He wishes he did, but even if he did, trying to whittle through that to find the talent, you know, he just doesn't have the time to even think about it.

And so our ability to do that, you know, I'll talk about it in a minute here a little bit more, but in this vein, we believe we can take that vetting process and apply it to a direct hire as easy as we can to a travel. We just have to attract a different candidate. Then the fourth being the travel. What we would say is, definitely the last two, the direct hire and the travel, we would really say all of them. If you want to solve this problem, we've got to embrace them all.

You know, and so, if we go to a client and they say, "Well, we only want direct hire," we have to be honest with them. You know, Dave Ramsey says, you know, it's unkind to be unclear. And the reality is that I might find you a couple, but you need 10. So, for me to sit here and tell you that I can solve your situation if you narrow my options is just not true. And so, little by little, as we're going to roll out over the next, you know, year or two and begin to embrace this broader solution to meet the needs of our clients specifically, but then the industry as a whole, as we all want to move forward on solving the skilled trade gap.

Yeah, so I'll do another one of my quick recaps. So, the four legs of the four-legged stool. You've got investing in junior high education. You talked about the new vocational school. You talked about, you know, I'm an Eagle Scout and I've never heard of Invention Scouts. I've got to ask an aside here. Is that a new thing?

It's, you know, there's like a Midwest Council.

Which I think makes up like Nebraska, Oklahoma, something something something. And I think the Invention Scouts formed out of there. And I don't know if it's nationwide yet. I think it probably has the potential to become that. And I know here there's a fellow who's been on our podcast, you know, you can go to our website and watch it. His name's Dan Mallin. And he had a background in education and a background in robotics and training, you know, kids, like a robotics program in high school. And then here locally he leads that, and they're growing like gangbusters because schools are recognizing, yeah, come and expose our kids to these types of things. So, yeah, you have to check it out. But I don't know how broad; we have to ask Dan that question. I don't know how many chapters are now doing the Invention Scouts.

Yeah, I mean, I've got a grandson in Scouts here locally, and he's definitely geared that way. So, he's pursuing that, and it's really STEM focused, but it's not just STEM to get to a, you know, four-year college education program, although we're not opposed to that. But it's STEM as applied to practical things that is available to anyone. So, that's a pretty good program Brett alluded to.

Yeah, I'm going to take a look at that, and once I find some info, I'll include it in the show notes page over at manufacturinghappyhour.com.

But I interrupted myself. So I'm going to get through that recap. So, investing in junior high education, that's one leg. You've got upskilling, that's a second leg. And then the last two legs are your vetting process for traveling talent as well as direct hire talent. Did I get that correct?

Yep, you did. You did.

Well, the only other question I have in this segment of the interview then is something you said, Brett. It's what is your secret to getting a thousand resumes a week? I'm sure manufacturing leaders listening to this are hearing that and they're like, "Gosh, like I would take 10 or 100 resumes a week." What are you guys doing to get those type of results?

Yeah, I'll give you my stab at it. Tim can weigh in on this, too. But yeah, I could try to make it sound more mysterious than it is. But, you know, the truth—we use a variety of platforms to attract the talent to what we're doing. But the truth is the reason we get so many more than, say, the facility in Des Moines, Iowa, is, one, I'm recruiting nationwide. And two, I'm not trying to sell them on just a job in Des Moines, Iowa.

And so, by nature, where an HR individual in a plant that's, you know, the maintenance manager is knocking on the door, and probably at this point they've quit knocking on the door cuz they know there's not a solution coming, is that it's not their fault. Their hands are tied. And so, by us being able to go nationwide and then basically go, "Hey, I don't need you to move to Des Moines or to Omaha or to wherever, name whatever you want, but I have an opportunity for you to take your talent and go and get exposure to a facility there." So, really a lot of it is we're just able to offer something that they can't offer them.

Then from that, we get to look at a lot of talent. Now, in fairness, like I told you, 90% of what we look at isn't qualified to do it. But that's also because we have a high level of... Clients don't come to us to find them somebody they can find walking down their sidewalk. We always say, "Do you have a people problem or do you have a talent problem?" And then when you really get to the core of it, you really have a talent problem. Right.

Yeah, and I would just add that it wasn't always that way, the challenge to find—in other words, the success we're having in getting quality candidates. There's a lot of factors that drive that that are just economically driven. But as we've gained exposure in the space, and our skill workers, again, our guys that we deploy, the reputation is growing. We try to highlight their stories and what they do and what we do here. We try to get out there a lot. And so it's beginning to have this replicating effect where now people are coming to us that have heard about Skillwork. Their buddies have told them, referrals are happening. So a lot of it comes that way.

And the fact of the matter is that sometimes our guys that go and talk to our manufacturing partners get asked, "Well, we have talent acquisition, too. We have those same job boards. How come we can't?" Well, I have a team here that is really good, that's 100% professional and 100% focused on skilled trades guys 24/7, 365. They're constantly looking. Again, we reward innovation and creativity, technology. So we are constantly looking at new ways to attract, to bring in, to vet, and to move faster through the pipeline. We get a qualified candidate in the door today, we can get them in front of a candidate through our vetting process in 2 or 3 days, highly vetted and skilled and meeting exactly what the client's looking for. You do something all day, every day, over time you get pretty good at it. And so I would say that as well.

Well, as we get to the final segment of our conversation today, we got to go to kind of the namesake of this episode. And a lot of things we've talked about a little bit, I think, lead to all this. So I'm just going to ask the question directly, even though we've discussed this in little elements throughout the interview. How is Skillwork like travel nursing for manufacturing talent?

Yep, it's a good question. And so, kind of back to the beginning of our conversation, Chris, when I said we recognized a need, but from experience knew the traditional staffing models couldn't address the need. The travel nursing model, which I'll share just a little bit on here, the travel nursing model is what we started to study. So, basically, said differently, I knew from experience the temp agency—I don't want to sound derogatory toward it. It has its place. It absolutely is highly successful in certain areas. It just isn't highly successful in this area because you've got to vet the skills. And every maintenance manager just said amen. And then the headhunter model just doesn't work for maintenance, you know, that's for a different model as well.

So, 35 years ago, the healthcare industry had a big problem: not enough nurses to provide the needed care. And so from that the travel nursing model was birthed. I always say, because people ask us, as you just did, how do you find them, well, go back to the travel nursing model. They didn't create the travel nursing model because there were too many nurses and they needed to create an industry to find a place for them to go. They created an industry to try to figure out how to get the talent where it was needed, when it was needed. And also, in the process of doing that, to attract more people, in this case nurses, or people who thought they might want to, to attract more people to the nursing space as a career, because now there was something different, a different way to go to work.

And I think 35 years ago, to be honest with you, that probably had a little less appeal than it does today, because now, because of just the whole gig economy mindset, the idea of that is a lot different. There wasn't nobody taking an Uber or staying in an Airbnb 35 years ago. So today, that industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, with well over 500 travel nursing companies, and they make up roughly about 10% of the healthcare workforce.

So, to answer your question, basically, we took that model, which basically they go out, they recruit nationwide, they offer positions to nurses on a contract basis for a period of time as W-2 employees with all the benefits, and then they deploy them into those hospital locations to meet the need that is there. That said, just change the name nurse to skilled maintenance technician, and that's what we do, versus a temp agency or a headhunter. So, hopefully that answers it.

Absolutely. I mean, I remember when we first spoke a long time ago, I thought it was just genius. And I think you bringing up the gig economy, in a world where people are used to Airbnb and Uber, this just makes sense in this day and age. And let's have some fun with this one, right? There's a lifestyle perspective to this. Can you describe how Skillwork is redefining what it means to be a skilled worker? Cuz your team members, you've highlighted this, freedom is a word you've used, they're really combining work and freedom in a way that I think people typically associate with someone that maybe is a graphic designer, a job that they can do on their laptop from Medellín, Colombia, Tokyo, Japan, or Nebraska, right? I don't think people have this same mindset around manufacturing yet. So, talk about the lifestyle a little bit.

Yeah, I mean, obviously guys in a manufacturing facility, especially the skilled trades guys, they are not going to have the ability to work from their basement and do remote work necessarily, although some remote troubleshooting is there. They are going to have to be in place, but this idea of embracing the gig economy—and for those that don't know, that is not like data gig. It's like, I got a short-term job. I got a gig playing guitar tonight. Gig, I've got that.

So, we believe we've enabled—and we hear blue collar a lot, and I heard recently, I'm starting to use, I'm calling them the muscle class, the muscle class of workers, and I mean that as meaning they use their hands, they use their tools, they use their mind combined to deploy, to install, to troubleshoot, to fix, to repair things to keep the engine of America running. So, we've enabled these guys to be released from traditional—and growing up with a father who worked this, it almost seemed like indentured servitude at times. They had the plant they had to go to at a certain time, they had to be there, they never took a day off, they worked, and that was just part of who they were.

So, we've released those that desire something different—it's not for everybody—to take on new challenges, see new places, explore technologies. We took some testimonials from four or five of our skilled workers recently for our year-end Christmas party and just let them talk in their own words, Chris, and the things they said about, "Hey, I've been to four different locations, four different states. I've learned all kinds of new stuff, met new people, saw parts of the country I hadn't seen before. I'm really excited about this. Now, my goal is to become a supervisor, engineering supervisor, at some point when I want to settle down." So, there's this freedom that comes, and the energy is released when you allow people to have freedom.

So, they've got this great opportunity. I call it the golden age of skilled workers. I believe if you have a skilled trade, you have tons of opportunity out there. So, the average age of a skilled worker that we have right now is 41 years old. I just got an update. A 41-year-old experienced guy or gal, they know exactly what they're doing. Many of them are RVers, you know, they got an RV, so they just travel the country. They're empty nesters. There are some full families we have that have their kids that are homeschooled, and they park at a state park, and they explore the area. Dad goes to work, and it's an amazing whole new lifestyle that our brand of skilled worker is really embracing.

Yeah, I remember you gave me that RV example when we were first having this conversation, and it just made a lot of sense, right? Maybe there is a couple in their 40s, and they're about to become empty nesters, and they're like, "Hey, we've been settled in one spot for a while. Now, we're going to take the RV, and we're going to work this gig out in, I don't know, maybe it's a plant in California. Could be a plant in Philadelphia. Who knows where this facility is, right?" Yeah, you've created so many options that just open up the lifestyle of what a skilled worker can have. And I have to ask you, you hinted at this, Tim: how are Skillwork team members able to become full-time employees for the companies that they work for, right? Because it sounds like they can move around for a while, and then maybe they end up at a location they really like, a factory they really like. Tell us a bit more about that.

I'm glad you brought that up, cuz as I was saying those words to you, I thought there's going to be maintenance managers out there going like, "Ah, we want guys who are going to come here. We're going to invest time and energy. We don't want them leaving after 6 months." So, one thing I'll say to that is our guys, because they're highly vetted and we also vet them for personality and aptitude, even if they're at a location for 6 months or a year, the value they provide with a new perspective to that maintenance team is invaluable. It's like a new set of eyes.

But oftentimes, we'll have a skilled worker go to a plant location, and sometimes they would have never ever looked at that facility in Des Moines, Iowa, to borrow Brett's example. Had no inkling of what Iowa's like. They go to Des Moines, Iowa, they get into a plant, they're appreciated, they like the culture, and some of our guys, speaking to the guys, they might find somebody there that they want to do life with long-term, like a relationship blossoms, and they decide they're a great fit, the company really likes them. And here's where it's really beneficial to a company. You have the opportunity to, I don't know, do a little bit of dating with that individual to find out, are they really a good fit?

Cuz here's the situation, to Brett's point: there needs to be a new mindset, because the idea that we're only going to invest in permanent employees, and we're going to get them on board, we're going to convince them to come to our facility, we're going to train them—you can't keep them there if they decide to move, and most people are feeling that now. So, you may invest all this time and energy, and they could leave in 6 months as well. So, we take on board all that risk. We take that opportunity cost, if you will, and we apply that to our model.

And again, to your question, sometimes it's a really good fit for both. If it's a good fit for our employee—we want what's best for them always. If it's best for you, if this is what you want, we will make a way for that, if it's best for our client, if it's what they want. But both people have a vote in this. And so we're like the dating service. We just provide the way for them to get together.

So I know we're coming up towards the end of this discussion today. I've got two questions related to culture, something that's come up a couple times during the discussion today. And I wouldn't be surprised if we've covered a lot of this one. How do you determine if someone is the right fit for Skillwork's culture, right? Because you've got your eight-gate vetting process. You're getting a thousand resumes, you're whittling that down to a hundred. What is maybe the one thing that stands out to help determine if someone's the right fit?

You know, as you would expect, we have a really good vetting process, and I would say we rarely miss on skills. But skills are a little easier to assess through a variety of different ways, and we have proprietary testing that we've built based around the industrial space and so forth. But like every maintenance manager or HR manager that listens to this, at the end of the day, we're dealing with people just like they are. So the hardest part is trying to determine, is this person going to be a good fit for that?

Part of our vetting process is a variety of things. We do some testing on personality and that type of thing, and we think that's helpful and it helps us learn some things. But a lot of it is, by the time a candidate gets through to become a skill worker, there's about four different interviews. And so we're very relational. Like Tim said, while we embrace technology to make us faster and better and to take some of the heavy lifting out, at the end of the day we're still a relational-based company. And our team, our recruiters and whatnot, they have to determine, is this the right...

fit, and so there's no secret, you know, do check these five boxes and it's guaranteed. If we miss, if we put somebody in a plant location and we miss, which of course we always stand behind and then we get them somebody else type of thing, it's almost always, you know, it's just not a cultural fit for that facility.

So if you think about the best way, I think, to detect a counterfeit, it's like bank tellers. Good bank tellers, you know, you don't teach them to identify every form of counterfeit that's out there. They just handle the real thing every day, all day, and so they can't tell you specifically why that counterfeit is wrong, but they know it's not the real thing.

And I would say that we do a variety of testing as far as both aptitude and personality, but they're not perfect, and we have what we think is the best in the industry. But I believe it's our people that we have here who have bought into our culture, and our culture is basically three core values. We try to honor God, we're not perfect, we try to honor God in what we do, treat people right with respect and dignity, honesty; we respect and value skilled tradesmen; and we look for opportunity every day to impact somebody's life in a positive way. Everybody here at Skillwork is totally bought into that, or they're not going to stay here very long because they won't be very comfortable.

So, people that are in that every day, all day, every time they assess a potential Skillworker, that's the lens they're looking at, and so they know when they see authentic. They know when they see somebody that fits. And we do a lot of practical things like spend time at the facility, know what they're looking for, what are their must-haves, what are their ideal candidate, but really it's that I believe in our people here that look at these candidates, and we trust them to make the right decision, because they have a lot of ownership in the process and they care a lot about our clients, our locations, as well as our Skillworkers, and we try to do the best for both.

So, I think that's how we go about it. So, we're not a volume... even though we see a thousand candidates, you know, sometimes we'll see 600 to 800 a day. At the volume, but by the time it gets to our client location, we are more in quality over quantity, I would say.

I'm going to ask kind of the flip side of this question as our last question of the conversation. How have you seen Skillwork, the skilled workers you have that are part of your team, impact the culture at the places they go?

Yeah, I mean, Tim can add his piece. Like you said, I know we're wrapping up, but you know, every month we have a Skillworker of the month that we recognize, and there's a variety of things they get with that, but pretty much all of those, you know, are because of feedback that we get from our clients, who basically say the impact. You know, our goal is for our skilled workers to show up at a... So, we're not the hero. We're not showing up on a white horse. You know, we're there to become part of their team, to make a difference both in skills but also in attitude. And so, when we can do that, I mean, we've had skilled workers who have become the employee of the month for our clients. You know, and that's when we know, you know, we have hit the mark, you know, kind of thing.

So, you know, there's of course, you know, Chris, there's the aspect, when we talk about our third value being, you know, to positively impact, you know, measure success by the people we positively impact, there's the aspect of getting them the help so that that local team there has the ability to kind of get back to a healthy lifestyle. You know, we talk about it here: if by us putting five skilled workers who are having an impact in a plant allows the maintenance manager or Joe, you know, the maintenance guy, to make it home for dinner that night or to get to his kids' baseball game for the first time in 6 months, that's what we're really all about.

And so, when we can do that, and we do it, we see it. I mean, we get letters or notes from, you know, typically from a wife who's gone, you know, "I don't know what you did, but I got my husband back." And so, those are good days, you know, for us when we can do that. And so, it does happen.

These plants are under... These folks in these plants, they're just hard workers. They're going to figure out a way to get it done, and sometimes that just comes at a really high level of burnout, because they're not the type of people that are just going to say, you know, "I'm done," you know, kind of thing, typically. And so us being able to get there and provide them that help is that. So hopefully I kind of sort of answered your question.

I appreciate all the thorough answers you've each given today. You've clearly been in this industry for a long time, reflected on this industry, the type of people that are here and what makes them stand out. So Brett, Tim, I just want to thank you for taking the time to be on Manufacturing Happy Hour today. All the spots to connect with you and work with you will be in the show notes. So with that, cheers. I think it's time for another cigar and another bourbon here.

Thanks, Chris. We appreciate what you do.

Thanks, Chris. Cheers.