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[00:37] SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Canada's podcast, the number one podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs.
[00:44] SPEAKER_05: Hi, this is Angela Favrent, Canada's podcast welcoming Mark Daniel from next work on today's episode.
[00:51] SPEAKER_05: I'm super excited to welcome Mark, who is in Vancouver right now, but you're moving Mark.
[00:57] SPEAKER_05: Where are you moving between?
[00:59] SPEAKER_02: We're moving to Lion's Bay, beautiful Lion's Bay.
[01:03] SPEAKER_02: I've always said that that's kind of put off the suburban move as long as possible,
[01:10] SPEAKER_02: but we finally had to do it in an apartment at the moment in Lanzar.
[01:14] SPEAKER_02: But yeah, we're mid-move, so it's a bit hectic at the moment.
[01:18] SPEAKER_02: And especially in the middle of COVID as well.
[01:20] SPEAKER_02: It's been an interesting experience.
[01:23] SPEAKER_05: What was the trigger to finally go into more regional accommodation?
[01:29] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, especially with our countless bears as well.
[01:32] SPEAKER_02: I've heard in Lion's Bay, there's a Facebook group with every single day,
[01:38] SPEAKER_02: there's some sort of bear spotter who's putting up exactly the location of these bears.
[01:44] SPEAKER_02: So we've had some horror stories, but we're looking for a little bit more space,
[01:49] SPEAKER_02: a little bit more green space, outdoor, a yard, for the little one to pair around in.
[01:56] SPEAKER_02: And yeah, just be a little bit farther away from all the people, I guess.
[02:01] SPEAKER_05: I'm not a metropolis.
[02:03] SPEAKER_05: And yes, your little one's just wee, is that right?
[02:06] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, two years old, keeps us on our toes, and she needs more of a backyard to run around in.
[02:14] SPEAKER_02: And yeah, so we're pretty excited.
[02:17] SPEAKER_02: We moved from London about four years ago, so we've only, we actually haven't owned a backyard in 10 years.
[02:27] SPEAKER_02: And so this is actually pretty exciting for us to get some green space,
[02:32] SPEAKER_02: especially Canada. It's so beautiful here, just being a little bit more outside.
[02:37] SPEAKER_02: And there's great views up in mind space that we're pretty excited.
[02:41] SPEAKER_05: Mark, I'm curious what brought you from the UK to Canada.
[02:45] SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I can say Brexit, but that was a quintessently around the same time.
[02:52] SPEAKER_02: So we moved to the back end of 2016, and we moved over here for my wife's work.
[02:58] SPEAKER_02: She heads up the sustainability department at Eritzia.
[03:01] SPEAKER_02: So that was a great opportunity for us to move over here.
[03:05] SPEAKER_02: And yeah, it's, we're right now given everything that's going on in the world.
[03:10] SPEAKER_02: We're pretty, we feel pretty lucky to be in Canada and have this as our adopted, adopted country.
[03:18] SPEAKER_05: Well, and I'm pretty proud to, that we've adopted you.
[03:21] SPEAKER_05: So welcome to Canada and BC.
[03:24] SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
[03:25] SPEAKER_05: I want to really kind of build a little bit now, get a sense of your entrepreneurial journey.
[03:29] SPEAKER_05: So what has led, what's your career path that's led you to this interview with, with next work?
[03:36] SPEAKER_02: Sure. So the entrepreneurial journey's only been around, I would say, for about a year.
[03:45] SPEAKER_02: So traditional kind of career path, I spent, I studied psychology, I went into business psychology,
[03:51] SPEAKER_02: just being fascinated with organizations and people and how they work and how they tick,
[03:57] SPEAKER_02: and how to get the most out of people.
[03:59] SPEAKER_02: So I've spent my career in the talent space.
[04:01] SPEAKER_02: I've worked for a number of different consulting companies, big consulting firms.
[04:05] SPEAKER_02: So I'm a trained IO psychologist, I guess you guys call it over here.
[04:11] SPEAKER_02: And so that's been my kind of expertise in my background.
[04:15] SPEAKER_02: And then around, I would say about a year ago, I always have always had an itch to scratch with, with trying something else.
[04:22] SPEAKER_02: But I think recently it's, it's been something that more and more people are looking at doing.
[04:29] SPEAKER_02: And instead of taking that linear career track, it's saying, well actually there are more, there's more things out there to try.
[04:34] SPEAKER_02: And I think people are taking a little bit more risks, especially with COVID at the moment.
[04:41] SPEAKER_02: I think that's that's the forcing people or opening up opportunities for people to explore a more entrepreneurial risk,
[04:49] SPEAKER_02: riskier route for them.
[04:51] SPEAKER_02: Which in many ways is, it's obviously not a great situation for a lot of people.
[04:56] SPEAKER_02: But I do think there are, I like to see the positives and a lot of things.
[05:00] SPEAKER_02: And so I think a lot of opportunities for people to do things and try things out that they perhaps otherwise wouldn't have if the opportunity wasn't there.
[05:07] SPEAKER_02: And we weren't in the context that we're in.
[05:10] SPEAKER_02: Just in my own entrepreneurial route, I never, I still didn't think of myself as an entrepreneur at all.
[05:15] SPEAKER_02: It seems a little bit weird to say that.
[05:17] SPEAKER_02: But I first came up with this idea, but for next work about a year ago, a year and a half ago,
[05:24] SPEAKER_02: I'm certainly not the first person to focus in on the experience population.
[05:28] SPEAKER_02: So older workers, but with my parents retiring, my parents are both kind of knowledge workers.
[05:34] SPEAKER_02: And my mum's an accountant, my dad's an office manager.
[05:38] SPEAKER_02: And they both were approaching the traditional retirement age and wanting to continue working.
[05:43] SPEAKER_02: They loved what they did. They were great at it.
[05:46] SPEAKER_02: They were great, the great value for their organizations to keep on.
[05:50] SPEAKER_02: And they wanted to continue working, but on a flexible basis.
[05:53] SPEAKER_02: I think that speaks to a lot of people out there globally who want to continue working, want to continue having an impact,
[06:01] SPEAKER_02: having adding value, feeling connected to people.
[06:05] SPEAKER_02: And that is simply the way that we're set up at the moment with fixed retirement, that concept of retirement,
[06:12] SPEAKER_02: it's kind of dying away at the moment.
[06:14] SPEAKER_02: And so what I wanted to do is create a service or a solution to say, I honestly, we've got all this talent that is leaving the talent pool.
[06:22] SPEAKER_02: We've got these companies that are saying they have a huge skill shortage.
[06:26] SPEAKER_02: We have an aging population. People are working and living longer. They're healthier.
[06:31] SPEAKER_02: There's a ton of research to suggest that people actually benefit and live longer if they continue working,
[06:36] SPEAKER_02: and especially if they work, if they continue working as something they're passionate about and they enjoy.
[06:41] SPEAKER_02: So you've got all these kind of trends.
[06:44] SPEAKER_02: And for me, it was, I didn't really have a light bulb moment, more than something needs to be done.
[06:49] SPEAKER_02: And no one seems to be doing anything about it at the moment.
[06:53] SPEAKER_02: And so I said, I look to set up next workers as a solution to that, the under employment and unemployment of older workers,
[07:01] SPEAKER_02: and to connect them with companies that need that experience talent, but in a very kind of on-demand kind of way.
[07:07] SPEAKER_05: I am completely intrigued by the number of companies that I have seen pop up that are on-demand talent platforms.
[07:19] SPEAKER_05: Whether it's specialized lawyers on-demand with CEO Law, who was another interviewer with us,
[07:28] SPEAKER_05: and another group that we did who are sales professionals in niche.
[07:32] SPEAKER_05: And you have niche doubt in the mature professionals side of things.
[07:39] SPEAKER_05: And there's lots of them.
[07:41] SPEAKER_05: And I move with you.
[07:44] SPEAKER_05: My parents are retiring.
[07:46] SPEAKER_05: And once a week, I go into my mom's place and she's brainstorming on what business she could set up or what,
[07:52] SPEAKER_05: and she's 76 and still has a huge amount of energy and passion for work and being connected in the community.
[07:59] SPEAKER_05: So I living and breathing it myself too.
[08:03] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
[08:03] SPEAKER_05: What would be your response to the perception that perhaps this mature audience,
[08:13] SPEAKER_05: or this mature talent school, is disconnected when it comes to what's changed or the technology that is required from companies now?
[08:24] SPEAKER_05: What's your thoughts there?
[08:25] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a good question.
[08:28] SPEAKER_02: So first, on your point around the proliferation of these talent platforms,
[08:33] SPEAKER_02: I do think that is the future.
[08:34] SPEAKER_02: And I do think this concept of open talent is going to be, people need to expect that that's going to be much more available.
[08:44] SPEAKER_02: And simply, I mean, with COVID happening, it makes talent much more accessible.
[08:49] SPEAKER_02: It's more cost effective for organizations.
[08:51] SPEAKER_02: And with the pace of change, so rapid at the moment,
[08:54] SPEAKER_02: and it's probably been accelerated with COVID,
[08:56] SPEAKER_02: the companies having to digitally transform and not understanding what skills they need at the moment,
[09:04] SPEAKER_02: learning what skills they need in six, 12 months, because no one really has an idea of what the world's going to look like in 2021,
[09:10] SPEAKER_02: because no one had an idea of what the world would look like in 2020, at least I didn't.
[09:15] SPEAKER_02: And having access to on-demand expertise is simply a win-win for organizations and for people like,
[09:24] SPEAKER_02: I don't know who said this or who was the original author of this,
[09:28] SPEAKER_02: but I remember coming across a quote that said that our grandparents had one career for life, one job for life.
[09:35] SPEAKER_02: We will have six or seven jobs over our time or a career.
[09:41] SPEAKER_02: Our children on the next generation will have six or seven jobs at the same time.
[09:46] SPEAKER_02: So that just gives you a little bit of an understanding in terms of what the future is going to look like,
[09:53] SPEAKER_02: which is why these talent platforms have just been popping up,
[09:56] SPEAKER_02: and I expect more and more to continue to do that as it becomes easier for people to kind of access that talent.
[10:04] SPEAKER_02: On your point on experienced workers, what we're saying is,
[10:09] SPEAKER_02: we're not saying that experienced workers are the solution to everyone's problems,
[10:14] SPEAKER_02: and they can be used to tackle every single business issue.
[10:18] SPEAKER_02: What we're saying is there is a ton of research to suggest that multi-generational workforces,
[10:24] SPEAKER_02: diverse and inclusive workforces are much more creative,
[10:29] SPEAKER_02: are much more productive, companies that really live and breathe that diversity,
[10:34] SPEAKER_02: and it's age diversity, racial diversity, religious diversity, you name it.
[10:42] SPEAKER_02: As our society becomes more and more diverse, then you have to have a company
[10:46] SPEAKER_02: and decision makers that reflect that customer base.
[10:51] SPEAKER_02: And therefore, what we're saying is that as we become older as a society,
[10:56] SPEAKER_02: your consumers are older, this huge economic purchasing power with the 50 plus population,
[11:02] SPEAKER_02: and you are going to need to have older workers and age diversity to be an effective organization in the future
[11:11] SPEAKER_02: and to reflect your customers and to reflect your stakeholder as well.
[11:15] SPEAKER_02: You need diverse decision makers to operate in the future.
[11:20] SPEAKER_02: So yes, skills become, the skill half life is getting shorter and shorter,
[11:25] SPEAKER_02: but we absolutely see a value for companies to have experienced work as part of a diverse workforce.
[11:37] SPEAKER_05: Mark, what about just because I want to tap into your expertise working in the big enterprise companies,
[11:44] SPEAKER_05: and consulting with them or working within them, is there a roadblock or is there a perception
[11:53] SPEAKER_05: that we need to overcome in order to get companies to adopt this idea faster,
[12:00] SPEAKER_05: as far as how on-demand talent fits within their organizational structure?
[12:08] SPEAKER_02: Great question. I think there are two big barriers, and one you've touched on is the direction of travel for the future of work,
[12:18] SPEAKER_02: which is, you've heard a lot about the gig economy, and it has some negative connotations.
[12:24] SPEAKER_02: But really what it is, is that more and more people are projected to replace full-time employees.
[12:31] SPEAKER_02: I think one statistic coming out of one of the big consulting firms said that by 2025, just over four years time,
[12:38] SPEAKER_02: there will be more freelance independent contractors in the workplace and full-time employees.
[12:44] SPEAKER_02: So essentially full-time employees will read the critical mass work, full-time employees, the minority.
[12:51] SPEAKER_02: So just to show that as this blended workforce, hybrid workforce, kind of freelancer, better talent-ports,
[13:00] SPEAKER_02: whatever you want to call it, having a pool of talent that's been bettered that you can tap into,
[13:07] SPEAKER_02: on the one is a very attractive proposition for organizations, and I think more and more organizations are adopting it.
[13:12] SPEAKER_02: Now, some have their own talent pools, some industries are much better at using freelance talent,
[13:19] SPEAKER_02: a tech or a big, big consumer of freelance talent.
[13:23] SPEAKER_02: So I think that's a barrier, but it's like anything.
[13:27] SPEAKER_02: People have perceptions and perpetuate myths, and I think there are some kind of process issues with incorporating that as an organization.
[13:38] SPEAKER_02: And so I think those will just die away. So you're seeing with COVID impacting organizations overnight,
[13:43] SPEAKER_02: companies will have to just get on board with the program, and because it will be the only way that talent will be sourced in the future.
[13:51] SPEAKER_02: The other issue, which you mentioned, is around experienced work is unfortunately,
[13:55] SPEAKER_02: ageism is still anism, and it's one of the isms that I think will become more prominent.
[14:04] SPEAKER_02: Now, if you look to an organization's diversity and inclusion strategy,
[14:08] SPEAKER_02: obviously with the Black Lives Matter movement, racism is huge, and gender diversity is at the forefront of most strategies.
[14:17] SPEAKER_02: I think ageism isn't as prevalent as it should be in their strategies, and it definitely will be going forward as people get older and live longer.
[14:26] SPEAKER_02: So I think there are two barriers. One is on the future of work and embracing it,
[14:31] SPEAKER_02: and the other barrier is around the value add the experience talent can bring to your organization,
[14:39] SPEAKER_02: and that's where our vision of recurring retirement comes from.
[14:43] SPEAKER_05: So what if we were to wave a magic one and create the future, or at least create pathway for the future, right?
[14:51] SPEAKER_05: I'm sort of imagining ageism is the perceived roadblock, I'm not going to say it,
[14:57] SPEAKER_05: or it's just the perception that we need to accelerate, and we can either make like the 10% improvement on this,
[15:06] SPEAKER_05: or we can go, boom, what's the 10 times impact if we were to just recreate that concept?
[15:12] SPEAKER_05: What's your thoughts on what it could be?
[15:17] SPEAKER_02: I'll keep it to just what we're talking about, and not what's happening elsewhere.
[15:23] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's a good wine craft beer discussion.
[15:25] SPEAKER_02: Exactly. I would say that all talent had the opportunity and access to work opportunities regardless of age, race, gender,
[15:39] SPEAKER_02: and we're basically saying an equal and fair kind of society, but in the future, I don't think it's going to be a lot.
[15:47] SPEAKER_02: It's not going to be a necessity to have older talent on your book, because the portion of the working population is shrinking as people get older,
[16:00] SPEAKER_02: and are not being replaced fast enough by younger workers.
[16:06] SPEAKER_02: It's an inevitability, but in an ideal world, companies would have unmitigated, open access to all of that talent that has been forced out of the Labour pool,
[16:18] SPEAKER_02: or voluntarily it's left the Labour pool, but wants to continue working on a part-time basis.
[16:23] SPEAKER_02: Companies, companies, worldwide, could just tap into that talent.
[16:28] SPEAKER_02: It's great for organisations, it's great for people as well.
[16:31] SPEAKER_02: It's a win-win situation.
[16:34] SPEAKER_05: When I'm going to pull up on your comment, because you already said it earlier, so I'm just going to bring it up and ingested into this part of the conversation,
[16:39] SPEAKER_05: which is there's longevity there, right?
[16:42] SPEAKER_05: The people will live longer when they're more active and engaged in the community, and they want to work.
[16:48] SPEAKER_05: Retirement was a construct of the future, or of the past, and our age of retirement was based on a light spam that has changed so dramatically.
[16:59] SPEAKER_05: I'm imagining ageism to be replaced by, I don't know if it's going to flow properly, but wisdom is the thing.
[17:07] SPEAKER_05: You can create that as a thing.
[17:10] SPEAKER_05: There are wise, they have that history that they can bring in as sort of that solid foundation, that essence of being a rock, when younger generation,
[17:24] SPEAKER_05: like you said, is so accustomed to the pace of change happening so rapidly.
[17:31] SPEAKER_05: They're almost like a necessary pause, like a stop and think, and strategize before we race ahead.
[17:40] SPEAKER_05: That's how imagine that mature population could add value as well as the actual hard skills.
[17:47] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you bring up a good point about the concept of retirement.
[17:52] SPEAKER_02: I think that's something that's going away.
[17:54] SPEAKER_02: More and more people are choosing to work, whether it's as part of the gig economy, or setting up their own business,
[18:02] SPEAKER_02: as statistics somewhere around some of the best entrepreneurs, or more over 40 entrepreneurs than under 40.
[18:11] SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of opportunity in that ideal world situation.
[18:16] SPEAKER_02: I think retirement will have gone away.
[18:19] SPEAKER_02: This whole concept of retirement, which as you mentioned was developed in the 19th century, in 1860 something.
[18:28] SPEAKER_02: The German Chancellor of Prussia came up with this concept of, there's a little bit cheeky because the life expectancy was 65 at the time.
[18:37] SPEAKER_02: He set the cut of at 65, so not expecting people to actually be around to benefit from the program.
[18:45] SPEAKER_02: But you fast forward 140 years, and we're still saying to people, especially when knowledge work is so prevalent at the moment,
[18:51] SPEAKER_02: and it's growing with the digital revolution, it's saying, this is not relevant anymore.
[19:00] SPEAKER_02: People don't, why are we saying to people you have to leave a talent pool at 65 years old?
[19:06] SPEAKER_02: People can continue contributing their entire lives.
[19:10] SPEAKER_02: What I want to see is a lifelong contribution if people choose to.
[19:14] SPEAKER_02: So that we're actually salvaging talent in a sustainable way.
[19:19] SPEAKER_02: So longevity is a great word you use, and that's what I would look to do by connecting on-demand work and talent.
[19:25] SPEAKER_02: You're helping longevity cycle, right?
[19:30] SPEAKER_00: This podcast is sponsored by eBay Canada.
[19:32] SPEAKER_00: eBay Canada is powering Canadian small businesses.
[19:36] SPEAKER_00: Go to eBay.ca forward slash up and running, chopen your new global e-commerce business.
[19:42] SPEAKER_05: Now I want to touch on a word you use about relevancy.
[19:46] SPEAKER_05: Let's just touch on the concept of, you know, your the on-demand talent platforms.
[19:53] SPEAKER_05: And I just want to talk about the systems behind next first for a second, but next.
[20:00] SPEAKER_05: What about the relevancy of the HR profession?
[20:03] SPEAKER_05: How would you see it being remaining relevant?
[20:08] SPEAKER_05: Do you see, you know, maybe a central coordinator that has like a sales force CEO law, you know,
[20:17] SPEAKER_05: that the HR departments become really just somebody brokering contacts with next work or some of the other platforms?
[20:25] SPEAKER_05: Where do you see it in the future?
[20:28] SPEAKER_02: It's a really good question. I think we could probably spend a good half an hour on the future of HR.
[20:35] SPEAKER_02: HR is at a critical jumpshark thing in terms of relevance and impact.
[20:40] SPEAKER_02: And what we've seen over the last decade or so is HR really moved from more of a policy shop to a strategic influencer.
[20:49] SPEAKER_02: Having a seat at the table and having strategic influence and companies recognizing, you know, you're familiar with the.
[20:57] SPEAKER_02: Lots of companies saying our most important asset is our people, right?
[21:00] SPEAKER_02: And lots of companies say that, but they don't actually mean it and live and breathe it.
[21:04] SPEAKER_02: But we've seen HR become much more strategic business partner and having a seat at the table.
[21:08] SPEAKER_02: And we've seen that for a lot of functions like sustainability, for example, it's critical to how companies are run.
[21:15] SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, having a seat at the table is really important.
[21:18] SPEAKER_02: I think at the moment, HR have to be really bold. I think there's so many issues with mental health at the moment.
[21:25] SPEAKER_02: And so looking after and shaping the employee experience, one thing that we've seen is, you know, with the tech companies,
[21:32] SPEAKER_02: is shining a spotlight on employee, sorry, customer experience and user experience.
[21:38] SPEAKER_02: We're seeing HR much more going to the direction of actually what's the employee experience.
[21:44] SPEAKER_02: And so I think I think with the future of work, with more and more contractors, HR's job is going to become even more difficult because you're not managing a fixed workforce.
[21:55] SPEAKER_02: You're managing a fluid hybrid workforce. Some people in the office, some people will be at home, some people will be working on a laptop.
[22:02] SPEAKER_02: And apart from bench somewhere, it's being able to reach people as well.
[22:08] SPEAKER_02: I mean, the whole concept of leadership becomes more difficult when you, especially as you abruptly change from managing a central workforce to managing a disparate workforce,
[22:17] SPEAKER_02: and the first workforce. And so I think HR's role is become a lot more complex overnight.
[22:24] SPEAKER_02: And just picking up on your point around how do you manage that, how do you manage that that workforce?
[22:30] SPEAKER_02: I think a lot of it's going to be cutting through red tape and enabling change.
[22:36] SPEAKER_02: And I think HR is a really important point in terms of what's going on in the world and reflecting the need and the crying out for more equality and justice.
[22:46] SPEAKER_02: HR is probably one of the best placed functions and partners to enact change around that.
[22:56] SPEAKER_02: People ask me, who are your main clients? Who are you reaching out to?
[22:59] SPEAKER_02: And we do reach out to human resource functions and people functions, as well as executives as well, because HR can be their own worst enemy.
[23:09] SPEAKER_02: And it's bouncing change and saying, we need more diverse talent.
[23:15] SPEAKER_02: But then you go to them and say, hey, look, I put a bunch of people with tons and tons of experience that can literally come in and do the job.
[23:24] SPEAKER_02: They'll need any training, have done it a million times. They'll need any training, really cost effective.
[23:31] SPEAKER_02: And there's still that kind of barrier to, well, we haven't done it before.
[23:36] SPEAKER_02: So I think, yeah, that it's an interesting time for each other and certainly lots of change ahead.
[23:44] SPEAKER_05: Are there any particular trends of either sectors or size of company or any particular consistencies on who is, you know, uptaking with next work quickly?
[24:00] SPEAKER_05: Who are the early adopters for you?
[24:02] SPEAKER_02: So we're focusing on startups and small SMEs.
[24:09] SPEAKER_02: Okay.
[24:10] SPEAKER_02: Basically, we're starting across North America.
[24:14] SPEAKER_02: We are focusing on Western Canada and Canada at the moment.
[24:18] SPEAKER_02: Although we see, I mean, this is a global platform. There's no reason why we can't expand to the UK, Japan, for example.
[24:26] SPEAKER_02: There's a huge ageing population in Japan and other kind of more developed nations with the same sorts of issues around experience talent.
[24:35] SPEAKER_02: So in terms of industries, there are some industries that are a little bit more traditional versus progressive tech gets a bad rep for quite overlooking experience talent.
[24:48] SPEAKER_03: Okay.
[24:49] SPEAKER_02: That's a way of putting it.
[24:52] SPEAKER_02: And so I think there are different industries that are different levels of maturity.
[24:57] SPEAKER_02: And so you have financial services which are going for a lot of change at the moment and becoming more digitally focused.
[25:04] SPEAKER_02: And so what we're doing is we're focusing on the startups and SMEs because that's where on demand talent is most important and most accessible at the moment.
[25:17] SPEAKER_05: Just picking up on an earlier, you comment, you said when there are more sort of startups and SMEs in the aging population even.
[25:26] SPEAKER_05: Are you right in the plus there's a big group. I'm just curious like on your, you know, on your, your, your indeed or your digital ads or as you're finding companies to use your services.
[25:37] SPEAKER_05: Are you going after that market? Sort of the startups SMEs in the 3540 plus age demographic.
[25:45] SPEAKER_02: We're not, but I think it's, it's, it's a good point in that there are, there are more and more 45 plus 40 plus entrepreneurs who have always wanted to sell their own business and are really successful at it because they have all the experience and some of that.
[26:00] SPEAKER_02: And so, and I think, I think going out today's organizations will be beneficial because they understand they get it right.
[26:07] SPEAKER_02: I think there's something that the ARP, the retired persons, the association with persons in the US said that I can't remember the statistic, but the majority of people over the age of 40 or 45 have experienced some level of ageism.
[26:24] SPEAKER_02: And so it happens as early as 40 years old.
[26:27] SPEAKER_02: And so I think with, with that kind of demographic, there will definitely be more recognition of of that and probably more openness to embracing that kind of that talent group for sure.
[26:40] SPEAKER_05: What kind of volume of talent are you working with right now? Do we have five accountants in your portfolio or 50 or what kind of numbers?
[26:51] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we've obviously, so just to give you a little bit of an idea, we started six months ago, platform development, on, on COVID, COVID day, if that was mid-March or whenever the, the bigger that was.
[27:05] SPEAKER_05: I am not laughing because it's funny, I'm laughing because it's quite sad, sorry.
[27:10] SPEAKER_02: But it has presented a lot of opportunity actually. There is unfortunately, there is a lot of people that have been let go and followed and this is a, if you look on the positive side, there's a lot of supply of talent who are absolutely open to, I mean everyone we've reached out to has, has been really, really supportive and encouraging around the model, the concept, what we're trying to do.
[27:38] SPEAKER_02: So people would definitely buy into the business and the branding and what we're trying to do.
[27:43] SPEAKER_02: We have just over 100 consultants at the moment independent professionals across Canada and the US.
[27:50] SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
[27:50] SPEAKER_02: And that's been steadily growing over the last couple of months and that's spread across finance and accounting, admin support, human resources and business consulting as well.
[28:03] SPEAKER_02: The only reason why we're starting in to develop the different verticals is just purely because we don't want to be a mass market with quite thin talent.
[28:13] SPEAKER_02: We want to really build up the accountants, build up the CFO.
[28:17] SPEAKER_02: So I don't know how many accountants we've got off the top of my head but we have a good number of accountants.
[28:22] SPEAKER_02: We have a lot of CFOs, CEOs, bookkeepers, chief people offices, people that have helped multinational organizations through huge transformation efforts to, you know, XEO of one of the biggest corporations in Canada.
[28:40] SPEAKER_02: So there's a real breadth of talent and what we're trying to do is build a depth as well in each of those verticals.
[28:45] SPEAKER_02: Right.
[28:45] SPEAKER_02: There's no reason why we can't have, we're going to open up into marketing and IT soon.
[28:52] SPEAKER_02: We have a couple of professionals on the books but that's something that we just once we get to a critical mass will then open it up a little bit more broadly.
[29:00] SPEAKER_02: Another thing, just if I can touch on what we're looking to do kind of over next kind of six, six months is this concept of alumni talent.
[29:09] SPEAKER_02: So these are people that are basically working an organization and have left the organization, whatever reason, typically retirement.
[29:17] SPEAKER_02: And what we want to do is go to organizations and say look, share with us the people that are retiring.
[29:24] SPEAKER_02: And so we can get them onto the platform and then you can essentially have your own better proven on demand talent or who can come back and consult with you and fill in any skill gaps you need.
[29:36] SPEAKER_02: They don't need any training. They can come in and have a huge impact. They can mentor. They can take on special projects throughout the organization.
[29:47] SPEAKER_02: So helping companies build their own kind of alumni talent pools and also they can benefit from peer or competitor talent pools as well.
[29:54] SPEAKER_02: So if you think about progaryng gamble and union leave, for example, being able to access those those retired talent pools and then tap in them on demand.
[30:04] SPEAKER_02: And so that people are able to contribute over over a lifetime and we get to keep the talent pool.
[30:11] SPEAKER_02: Get that talent in the talent pool.
[30:13] SPEAKER_05: How are you positioning yourself with companies themselves? Is it through traditional advertising? I mean, obviously a little bit of storytelling like this.
[30:21] SPEAKER_05: But is there any other ways that you're trying to reach out and penetrate into communities?
[30:30] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it's a little bit of a little bit of everything. Social media, cold calling, outreach programs through our own network as well.
[30:40] SPEAKER_02: So I built a pretty good network just from working in consulting for a while.
[30:46] SPEAKER_02: And also just reaching out through LinkedIn and other kind of platforms to if companies are hiring, you know, look this way as well.
[30:56] SPEAKER_02: So it's it's it's almost saying, look, you need a bookkeeper. We have 20 bookkeepers dotted around Canada or the US.
[31:04] SPEAKER_02: And because we're fully digital, our our fee that we charge is significantly lower than than what would be charged by traditional 10-page and see or or other agency that that's trying to connect talent to organizations.
[31:19] SPEAKER_02: So really it's it's there are a lot of positives and quick wins for organizations.
[31:24] SPEAKER_02: So we we're just using that you say storytelling and repaying that message through a number of different channels.
[31:31] SPEAKER_05: Well, and I'm always fascinated by the basic business model of companies that something that's fine completely entering.
[31:38] SPEAKER_05: So just can you give us a snapshot of how you work as far as do you take a percentage? Do you?
[31:46] SPEAKER_05: Membership fee? What's your what's your revenue source?
[31:49] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so the best way to explain it is Airbnb, which I'm pretty much people are familiar with instead of connecting hosts and travelers.
[31:57] SPEAKER_02: We're connecting talent and businesses. And so what we do is we provide the consultant fees directly to them.
[32:06] SPEAKER_02: And we add a set percentage on on top of that.
[32:10] SPEAKER_02: And the client pays so we originally had 15% so call it a service fee. It's it's fixed. It's transparent.
[32:18] SPEAKER_02: We add that. So if you were if you we connected you with an organization, you you were paid $100 with the client would pay $115.
[32:25] SPEAKER_02: And the $100 would go to you as a freelancer. And recently we've actually reduced that by 50% as part of COVID-19 and the impact and to help to help companies and and experience talent connects a little bit more easier.
[32:38] SPEAKER_02: We've reduced that to 7.5%. So for an organization coming on and tapping into a CFO and you're paying 7.5%. That's a significant cost saving.
[32:51] SPEAKER_02: And if you think about the process of going through 10 pageant season and other types of agencies, you can have someone within within 24 hours of coming on to the platform and finding someone.
[33:01] SPEAKER_02: So and you can message them directly and negotiate with them directly. People can pay either a fixed price.
[33:09] SPEAKER_02: So I could say to you, you know, can you do this for $1,000 and then you could say I could do it for 900 or 1100 or you can pay an hourly an hourly rate.
[33:18] SPEAKER_02: So your hourly rate is posted on your profile. And so if you're hiring a CFO, you could say, look, I need you for two months. Can you just fill out these time sheets and you can send that directly to the client.
[33:28] SPEAKER_02: They can review it, approve it and pay you to all through the platform. So the payment is for all of its fully digital, invoicing, contracting, messaging, sharing files.
[33:40] SPEAKER_02: It's all online and that enables us to offer a much much more cost effective service fee than the others.
[33:47] SPEAKER_05: And your system behind the scenes helps administer all of those steps that you just refer to, right? The payment, the.
[33:55] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So I said that we've been operating for six months, but we've actually been the platform development took about nine months.
[34:05] SPEAKER_02: Sure.
[34:06] SPEAKER_02: And it's all custom built. So it's all tailored clients can come on. We recommend talent. If we fill in a few questions, these are the skills we're looking for.
[34:17] SPEAKER_02: We need someone within two months. We need an executive level position. And we need to start immediately and yes, they can work remotely.
[34:25] SPEAKER_02: We'll then say, well, look, here's five people that we've got on our books that you can you can speak to and engage straight away.
[34:32] SPEAKER_02: And we can do that within a day or two of turning around. Or you can actually search ton database yourself. If you want to search and see what's out there, you can actually actually do it yourself.
[34:42] SPEAKER_02: So what we want to do is just make it more accessible and more transparent and more open for organizations. And as I said before, as we as we move into cramies alumni talent boards for organizations, I'll be able to go in and just see their own organizations.
[34:58] SPEAKER_02: And other should they wish to.
[35:02] SPEAKER_05: Well, not something that was that kind of addresses a question for me, which was some that we that you and I talked about earlier, but the fear of the attrition, right.
[35:12] SPEAKER_05: Once somebody is connected to a company, why would they continue using next work, right. What would with the value proposition of staying with you.
[35:21] SPEAKER_05: And the alumni is one, right. I mean, that's a fantastic response to that. Are there any other key value propositions that address the potential for attrition.
[35:33] SPEAKER_02: So typically talent platforms or digital talent platforms, well, in a terms condition, they'll have something in there, which says there's a there's a feat to pay.
[35:43] SPEAKER_02: Usually it's something it's an absolute figure or it could be relative and it's typically the same as the service fee and you pay it up to it, you know, what you pay that person in it in a years.
[35:55] SPEAKER_02: A kind of compensation.
[35:57] SPEAKER_02: There's that mechanism to say, look, it's not in your best interest to circumvent the platform. But I mean, those are really enforceable.
[36:06] SPEAKER_02: What I like to think is that you're creating enough of a value proposition through the brand, through the social purpose, through the community aspect of it.
[36:18] SPEAKER_02: And that's something that a lot of platforms are addressing now, which is creating a community around next work. So we've got a lot of talent that are all at similar life stages.
[36:28] SPEAKER_02: They're probably no similar people. They may have even worked at the same organization. So creating much more stickiness around on the talent side and building that community.
[36:38] SPEAKER_02: And then it's not in their interest to circumvent the platform because they're really not sure what they're saying is, but they're kind of destroying their own home.
[36:46] SPEAKER_02: If they did that, so that's what we want to that's what we want to be and create a little bit more kind of value and stickiness around around the brand and the community of what we're trying to build there.
[36:56] SPEAKER_05: When I love, I mean, I know that's part of the thing is, you know, behind you is keep doing what you love on your own terms, right? Is it kind of yeah exactly which I think is fantastic. I know, I'm probably going to be in your alumni at some
[37:13] SPEAKER_02: Well, that's the thing. I mean, speaking about age is immense. I mean, it's age is the only is them where all of us are going to be if we live long healthy life. We're all going to be older at some point.
[37:26] SPEAKER_02: So it's all it's the only isn't that all of us are impacted by.
[37:31] SPEAKER_05: We've already talked about, you know, kind of living and hearing BC and why why you came, but is there anything else that you'd like to share as far as Canada is a destination or BC or even Vancouver as a destination for doing work and what opportunities there are or challenges that you see in the work that you do.
[37:54] SPEAKER_02: I can't speak high enough on Canada as I said, very grateful for being adopted by this lovely country and I'm actually going to be a citizen or potentially if I pass the test in a couple of months hopefully from a well perspective, there's a really vibrant startup community here.
[38:09] SPEAKER_02: I think the tech industry is is really flourishing and blossoming. And so I think it's a it's a really good destination for and also from a long term perspective.
[38:21] SPEAKER_02: I think it's a very attractive destination for talent and I mean people like myself coming from the UK, but just knowing the people that we know here have all come from other countries, other industries and you know end up loving it here because of what it what it can offer.
[38:39] SPEAKER_02: But you know, most places it's not there's no one place that's absolutely perfect, but I think it takes a lot of boxes for a lot of people. And I think it's going to become even even more popular once, but kind of hopefully the COVID pandemic unfolds.
[38:56] SPEAKER_05: Are there any mentors or professional associations or mediums that are a big influence of you that for you that you can recommend to others.
[39:06] SPEAKER_02: Start up Vancouver and start up network for entrepreneurs. I think I think the biggest thing I could advise other entrepreneurs out there is to to build a network around yourself and build a network of smart people and build a network of connected people and reach out.
[39:24] SPEAKER_02: And because I feel like everyone is in this together and there's a real sense of camaraderie around around being an entrepreneur and I think with COVID especially more and more people have like I said earlier been forced to become entrepreneurs.
[39:40] SPEAKER_02: And so now's really the time to rally around each other and support each other and I think these networks like start up Vancouver can really help.
[39:47] SPEAKER_02: So no one's alone in this and I'd really encourage everyone to reach out to this network and just attend or even I didn't know if they're even holding physical meetups anymore.
[39:59] SPEAKER_02: So it's so much easier on digital right and you have digital Friday happy hours. So depending on your drink persuasion, you can you can just join those and they're pretty inclusive.
[40:10] SPEAKER_02: So I really recommend people join those networks, which are even more accessible now that people doing virtual zooming.
[40:18] SPEAKER_05: Well, and it's lovely to have you in our network here. It kind of is podcast and I look forward to hopefully meeting you in person. Let me know if you're ever coming over to Vancouver. I'll end up all by the way.
[40:27] SPEAKER_05: We'll have to have a happier on my back deck that would be fabulous.
[40:32] SPEAKER_02: Absolutely. And I think I think we're actually facing each other from Lines Day or kind of looking towards each other.
[40:40] SPEAKER_05: Light source code.
[40:41] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
[40:43] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we love you to meet you and thanks so much for your time and having me on the show. It's been great.
[40:48] SPEAKER_05: Well, I'm going to leave with a last sort of Angie vision for next work is to be, you know, definitely Canada's number one platform for mature talent, brokering.
[41:00] SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
[41:00] SPEAKER_05: You know, within five years.
[41:02] SPEAKER_05: So all power just conjuring that up for you.
[41:06] SPEAKER_02: I like it. I like it.
[41:07] SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's one one one last thing to say is that we do just to kind of encourage networking. We we actually have something on the platform where people can refer their friends and clients as well.
[41:18] SPEAKER_02: And we actually give them back 1% of the project fees to say thank you for for growing the community. So yeah.
[41:26] SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean, I guess I almost failed, but I'll say now how what's the best way to get a hold of you post podcast mark?
[41:32] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so drop me an email at mark at nextwork.com. So that's M-A-R-C at next work with the next and an ED on the end.
[41:43] SPEAKER_02: All linked in. That's probably the best way and please do reach out and I'd love to connect and I've got a lot of time to to speak for the people on the on the journey as well.
[41:53] SPEAKER_05: Thanks Mark.
[41:54] SPEAKER_02: Cheers.
[41:55] SPEAKER_00: This podcast is sponsored by eBay Canada.
[41:58] SPEAKER_00: eBay Canada is here to help. They've been supporting Canadian small business retailers for 25 years and their up and running program is getting Canadian businesses online today.
[42:09] SPEAKER_00: Visit ebay.ca forward slash up and running. Stay local and sell global with eBay.
