TRANSCRIPT: Why Boards Keep Hiring the Wrong Person for the Top Job
The Michelle Pascoe Hospitality Podcast
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Michelle: Welcome everyone to today's episode. I have been waiting to have these two wonderful gentlemen on my podcast since they purchased White Now. For those of you in the registered club industry, hotel, and the broader hospitality industry in Australia, you know that White Now has been the number one recruitment agency for our industry for decades, and it's lovely that it's now gone into the hands of both Ian and Grant. So I've brought them on today to have a conversation about why they purchased White Now, about how they are passionate about regional clubs, and how they are different from other recruitment agencies. But before we get into those questions, let me read your bios so you know exactly who these two gentlemen are.
Ian brings over 30 years of senior leadership experience across tourism, hospitality, destination marketing, luxury retail, and real estate development across multiple global markets. In 2016, he founded his own consulting business, and in 2019 entered into a partnership with a London-based business specialising in retail strategy, mixed-use development, and placemaking. Since 2018, Ian and his wife have been living in Australia in the small coastal town of Bermagui, on the Sapphire Coast. While maintaining his international business interests, Ian is also deeply involved in the local community. He served for three years on the board of the Bermagui Country Club, two of those as president. This is where Grant and Ian met, and the idea for a business serving the club industry began. Ian was also a board director of Destination Southern New South Wales, the regional tourism authority for the area.
Grant has spent 20 years in clubs and hospitality in regional areas, with some time in a consultancy firm in a senior finance role. He now owns and operates E2E Hospitality, which incorporates White Now Recruitment.
Ian and Grant, thank you so much for joining me today.
Ian: Thanks for having us.
Grant: Thank you, it's going to be great.
Michelle: I've got some formal questions, but as my listeners know, we always go off in lots of little tangents and directions. As I said, Jenny White established White Now Recruitment around the same time as I started OOPS, over three decades ago. So handing over the reins to somebody else was, I think for the industry, a case of, who are these people, how do we get to know them? So I'd love to hear a little bit more about what's behind taking ownership of White Now. What drew you to it, and what felt important about continuing the legacy while also making it your own?
Ian: I'll kick off. As you said in the introduction, Grant and I met working very closely together at Bermagui Country Club. For me, coming from the UK, the club industry is a very new and different setup here in Australia than you'd see pretty much anywhere else in the world. When I sat on the board, and then was president, and Grant came in as general manager, we had the job of turning around a perennially money-losing club. We worked really closely together for those three years, and through those discussions, and through working together, we always felt that at the end of our ten years in those roles there was an opportunity, particularly to help other regional clubs in a not dissimilar position. Financially unstable, small communities, but very important businesses for the community, both in terms of the offer to attract tourists and the employment opportunities they give people in the town.
So we set up our parent company, E2E Hospitality Solutions, with the purpose of focusing on the regional clubs that needed that level of help. Grant's got a really excellent operational background, and mine is more general business. After we'd set the business up, Grant had the idea of having a conversation with Jenny, to see if we could talk about working together, using Jenny's experience and connections in the industry. Long story short, we had two or three conversations, and Jenny said, would you like to buy the business?
We thought long and hard about it, for a couple of reasons. One is that when somebody's had a business for 26 years, and it's a very personal business, sometimes the transition into new ownership isn't easy. People just connect Jenny with White Now, so that's basically glued together. The second consideration, quite honestly, was whether Grant and I wanted to get into recruitment. But I don't think that's so important when you've been in business for a long time and you've hired dozens, if not hundreds, of people. You know the process to go through, you know what you're looking for, you can see cultural fit quite easily. So we took the decision that it would be a very logical end-to-end service for the clubs industry, and not just the clubs industry, hospitality more broadly, to have recruitment through to consultancy, advisory, and redevelopment services. Clubs need that as well. So that's the elevator explanation of why and how we did it.
Michelle: I must be going up the Empire State Building, that was a very big one. It's a long elevator.
Ian: Yeah, somebody hit stop on the way up.
Michelle: Thank you so much for sharing that, because I think that's really important, that we know who you are, and I know the industry, and know you as individuals, particularly Grant, over his time in the club industry. Those regional venues, I love going out into the country, I was born in the country, and it's lovely to get out there. But we saw a massive group of people leave from the city during the Covid years and flock to the country, who then took up a lot of the accommodation. I know with a lot of my clients in regional areas, in Singleton and other areas, they may have had staff who applied for the jobs, but they didn't have anywhere to live. And then there's also bringing teams over, chefs from overseas. Let's look at this regional space, because I know that's a passion of both of yours. Where do you see that, how do we fix it, in the sense that you can recruit, but how are you working with clubs to establish that accommodation piece, what are they actually looking for?
Grant: I think that's the first conversation we have with a regional club when they reach out, where are you going to put them, essentially, when you eventually do hire this person. A lot of them do have that solution, whether that's owning their own accommodation, though that's usually only a short-term scenario. One in particular, unfortunately, had a real estate agent sitting on their board, so she was able to shuffle the deck chairs a little bit for a successful candidate. But I don't think there's a silver bullet, to be fair, unless a club is serious about investing in some local real estate so they can house that. I've seen a few solutions locally, where a hospitality business bought out an old motel and now houses all of their transient staff there. I think you've just got to think outside the box, and be aware that it's going to be a problem from minute one, from the moment the outgoing GM, or whatever the role is, says I'm out. Typically it's the GM in regional areas, and as soon as they say I'm out, they're likely retiring, they're likely staying in the town, so they're not giving up a bed.
Michelle: And I was just thinking, Grant, to get people out into a regional area who've perhaps got a young family, we can sell them the idea that this is a beautiful place to bring up your family, but can we also say, we've got this accommodation ready for you? Because I think that's what somebody's concerned about, isn't it, the job sounds fantastic, but they hesitate in applying because, where's my partner and children going to live, or even if it's a single person.
Grant: That's right, and when there's a family involved, other things come into consideration, like schooling, is there good sport, all that sort of stuff. It's a big consideration for people, especially shifting out of the metro area. And I think it's something clubs need to think about in the longer term, because one of the things regional clubs do have, often, is land. That's the one asset a lot of them have, spare land, or land that can be repurposed. I think when redevelopments or repurposing happens, the immediate thought is often housing, because that's obviously something the town needs, and it can also drive different income streams into the club, so they're not reliant on the traditional income streams of a club. But the additional element is, if you do that development, you can have a couple of those properties for yourself and utilise them to bring in staff from outside the area. It's a question we get from candidates immediately, in screening interviews for those roles. One of their first questions isn't about the club, or the business, or how it's trading. It's, will there be accommodation there, is it even worth me going through this process if there's no accommodation at the end of it and I can't move there.
Michelle: So it's really getting clubs to think, as you rightly said, that's part of the promotion, so that before a candidate even asks that question, you've got it organised, big or small. It's those little things the club industry and the board have to think outside the square on, and that diversification piece is so important.
We've talked about that part, but what about recruitment, because there are a lot of recruitment agencies for all different industries, and some of them cross over. You've both had a very diversified background apart from just being in hospitality, and it can be a little bit crowded at times. What do you do differently, and why does that actually matter to a CEO or a board trying to make the right hire? Because that's the biggest thing, are we going to get the right person?
Ian: Speaking for myself, over the years I've dealt with so many recruitment agencies in different spaces, and my frustrations were always the same. They never look outside the box, never think laterally about the type of candidate they put in front of you. You give them a job description and they try to tick all the boxes on it. I've never been asked, when I've been hiring senior people, what would you compromise on if you had to? They just try to tick the boxes, so you always get the same candidates, the same candidates doing the circuit. I used to get very frustrated with that, and also because I never felt the recruitment consultant was trying to sit in my shoes and say, if this was my business, this is who I would hire. That's kind of our message to clubs. We've talked a lot about regional, Grant, and I've been up in Sydney this week meeting with some big clubs in the Sydney metro area as well, and this is our message. We approach any recruitment assignment with the ultimate ambition of getting you the best person for the role, and that person might come from inside the industry or outside the industry. We take that step back and say, if this was my business, who would we hire, not, this is a great assignment, this is what it means in terms of fees, here are the six to ten usual suspects we're going to put in front of the club.
What that means is sometimes the hire takes longer to fill, because we're not just trying to get somebody into those shoes as quickly as possible. In the clubs industry you often hear, we just need to hire somebody really quickly, because notice periods are often two to four weeks. Which I find quite odd, that you wouldn't have a much longer period to get yourself sorted out. So it's not just about the speed of hire, it's about somebody who will fit into that club culturally, the right person, who'll be there for a long period of time.
Michelle: That brings me to a double-barrelled question. Because I've been in this industry for so long, probably in the next five years, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, we're going to lose a number of our amazing senior leaders who are moving on to retirement, having left a great legacy behind them. The first part is, how are we getting ready to find replacements for them? The second part is, we saw a massive group of middle managers disappear during Covid, and we've battled to find them coming back into the industry. I've always been preaching to the converted here, I'm sure, that we should look at who we've got inside the organisation that we can develop now. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. But I think it's also about recruiting for those senior levels from outside, and giving the board an idea that they don't have to be exactly who you've had before, because we don't have baby boomers coming through any more, they're going to be Gen X, maybe even Gen Y. But also, who have you got in your middle management team, is there somebody there who, in two years' time, when the CEO's going, could be that right person to develop into the role?
Grant: I think you're spot on. Some clubs in that middle management space are doing a really good job, we spoke to one yesterday doing a really good job bringing their own people along and incubating them. But they've also got the infrastructure to do that, typically a larger club. It puts a lot of pressure on smaller or medium club CEOs, who've got to spend their time holding the board's hand, putting out fires left, right and centre, they're probably pretty operational, and then they've also got to spend some time mentoring people up. And I haven't even mentioned compliance.
I wonder whether the compliance piece is a little bit of the fatigue contributing to some of these senior people in the industry thinking, alright, it's probably about enough.
Our role in that is, we'd come in, or we're certainly open to coming in, before a recruitment assignment, and having a look at the org structure, who's actually in there, what skills are there, what are the skills gaps. And then, to your point about potentially bringing someone in from outside the industry into those CEO roles, I think it's a really good thought, and necessary. But it's about the sell to the board, that these skills are transferable. I experienced that myself when I left the club industry and moved into a private consulting firm, I thought, I don't even know whether they'll consider me, because I can pour a good beer, but how do I explain that I've also been right in the guts of a P&L. It's difficult going both ways. I think we've got to think a little more laterally as an industry about what the actual skills are. It's not just customer service, that's relationship management and all that sort of stuff. You've really got to think hard about what those skills mean, and what's missing in your organisation that you need to bring in.
Michelle: And I see it from both perspectives too, because it's educating the board and senior management that we can bring people in from outside the industry, they don't have to be just from the registered club industry. We've got some amazing people, but there's a lot of good people who could also come in. I also see it from the other side, when different roles come up and clubs say to me, do you know anybody? I'll say, I know people outside the industry, and I might mention it to them, and they'll go, oh, I don't know, I've never been to a club, I'm only in this sector or that sector. So how do you sell it to candidates, or people who aren't even candidates yet, that this is an amazing industry to be in?
Ian: What we've observed, in the relatively short time we've owned White Now, is we do get a lot of people applying for senior roles from outside the industry, coming from highly regulated industries like aged care, which is just as highly regulated, if not more so, than the clubs industry. So the people are out there. I think what they're very surprised about is how well compensated they are in the club industry once they start applying for roles. One of the reservations they have isn't that they don't deal with boards in their other jobs, but it's quite a unique industry, where customers of the club are actually on the board making decisions. My analogy is like BP having their board made up of people who buy fuel, who would ever vote for fuel prices to go up? Nobody. So there are some interesting dynamics there. I don't think for one minute that everybody suitable from outside the industry is applying, I think some people look at it and think, do I really want to be in an industry so closely linked with gaming? So there are people who'd be really good in the industry who don't apply. Then we do get the people who apply, and we speak to them almost daily, and they're hugely impressive people. I think we can sell the industry and the job to those people. I do still think the single biggest challenge is getting the board to take that step, to understand that maybe somebody who understands gaming machines isn't the critical piece of running a big organisation. It's about leadership, it's about driving culture, it's about bringing a team together to deliver an exceptional experience for customers every single minute of every single day, and about the financial stability and longevity of clubs. Everything else, I believe you can teach people. Grant, you taught me a lot about stuff I didn't know in the clubs industry, and it's learnable.
But I do also think there's a bit of emphasis needed from the associations surrounding the clubs industry, Clubs New South Wales, CMA and so on, to make the industry more attractive to outsiders, and more welcoming. Make it feel like it's actually possible, if you come from outside the industry and you're a CEO in a major business, that you can make that transition, and help them do it, give them a pathway.
Michelle: I suppose the clubs now are so diversified, like all of hospitality, it's really diversified over the last ten to fifteen years, going into restaurants, gymnasiums, all sorts of things, major hotel complexes, multiple venues, shopping centres. So do you see, when clubs look for a senior manager now, can you give us three top tips for a CEO or board member listening to this podcast, what are the critical things they need to bring to you, what would you love for them to bring to you?
Grant: I think we'd like them to step back. We had a great conversation with a club board a couple of days ago about this, and they were very receptive to people from outside the industry, because they have an operational leader who's strong in the industry. What we'd like them to give us is more the leadership style that's needed. Not necessarily what's coming up next year, you might have a renovation plan, that's fine, you could hire a CEO who could get that done, but what do they do for the five years after that? So, what's your ten-year time horizon, what's happening in your minds, have you even got a strategic plan? Maybe that's a different type of candidate.
Michelle: And a third one, Ian?
Ian: There's a few I could think of, but I probably wouldn't say them on the podcast, so maybe with a bit more diplomacy I'll drop a third one in. I think the leadership element is critical. I think there's probably a tradition, historically in the clubs industry, of the general manager or CEO role being seen as somebody out on the floor chatting to members, maybe having a little beer with them at four in the afternoon. For me, when you're getting into those senior roles, it's not about that, it's about leadership, strategic thinking, and critical thinking. I don't want to offend anybody listening, but I think boards have to be a little more in that critical thinking space, not just, we need to hire somebody, we need to fill those shoes. They need to take a step back and ask, do we even need that role filling, can we deploy people in other, better ways for the business? And certainly if you're bringing in a CEO or general manager, that leadership, critical thinking, and strategic thinking, for me those are the three elements, but they're often not at the top of the list. It's more the operational doing, doing the do, as I call it. If you're a CEO, you don't need somebody to do the nitty-gritty work in that sense. Of course, we all say in interviews, oh, I want to lead by example, I don't want to ask the staff to do anything I wouldn't do myself. For me, that's complete nonsense, because you've already done what you're asking them to do earlier in your career, that's why you're the CEO, that's why you've come through the ranks and elevated yourself into a senior management role. If you're 45 years old and being appointed to a CEO role, you don't need to be sweeping the floor, you don't need to be serving a beer, you don't need to be doing all the things members have come to expect from their club leader. So I think another job of the board is to educate members and say, we're bringing in a leader you won't be having a beer with at four o'clock in the afternoon, because they're running a multi-million dollar business, and their job is to lead the club, lead the people, and make sure this club is here in ten, twenty, thirty years.
Michelle: And it's so true, things have changed so much over the years, and it's been nice, particularly in regional clubs, to have somebody, I think you'll always have the CEO walk through and say hello, people know who they are. But I know when I'm running my management programs, I always say you've got to have boundaries in place, and that's actually the biggest thing, where they turn around and say, but Michelle, it's just easier, it's quicker. And I say, I know it's going to be quicker, and it will be done right if you do it, but by you doing it, you're not allowing them to learn. Somebody at some stage trusted you to do that role, to make the mistakes, and if they hadn't, you wouldn't be where you are today.
Ian: I'd actually question that, Michelle. Were they trusted back in the day to do it, or are they doing what they observed from their general manager or CEO back in the day, and they've become control freaks? Not all, but some.
Grant: I think boundaries is the right word. Be present, see the members, we saw a great example of that while we were up there, we won't name the club, but very present management, and they weren't there picking up glasses, they were there to be present for the members, and that was their purpose that evening. And also observing how the team were operating.
Watching but not doing. And it wasn't like they were pulling staff up mid-shift, that was all left for the next morning, the review.
So I think boundaries is a great way to put it, and it's important, because then the frontline team have that greater respect, they understand, and they're learning the new skills that are going to develop them.
Michelle: And we know, you were talking about compliance earlier, they've got so much on in their own headspace, senior managers, if they don't relinquish something and put those boundaries in, their heads are absolutely exploding, they're just spinning plates. And if you're doing that, you're coming in almost anticipating and expecting you're going to do a twelve-hour day every day. And you're not going to get that, as the generations move on, you're not going to get people who'll do that, because they've got family, or they're a single person who just wants a life. I've worked with some beautiful people who are burnt out, and they're only in their mid-thirties, and I'm thinking, we're going to lose some great people because they're just absolutely exhausted.
Grant: So I do think one of the board's responsibilities is to educate members on what's going on, and that means transparency, being open with the membership and saying, this is the path we're on as a business, and this is how it's going to develop. There isn't often that level of communication, and I sometimes understand why, because it can mean uncomfortable conversations.
Michelle: But you have to do it, and they don't have to be uncomfortable, we all know when we've had one of those conversations, it's this big relief off our shoulders, and you think, why does it have to be uncomfortable if you've aligned it with your values as an organisation? Then the conversation is a lot easier, because it's not, this is what I think about you, it's, this isn't aligned with our values. We see clubs doing that more, connecting to community as well as their values within.
Gentlemen, we could talk all day, but I think what's most important is, how do people get in contact with you, what's the breadth of where you actually go to, tell us a little more about that, because I know there'll be people listening who'd love to learn more and get in touch.
Ian: We're the easiest people to contact, Michelle. Our direct phone numbers are on the website, we're on LinkedIn, we're everywhere, people can find us super easily. Since we took over the business, the website's had a big upgrade, and we've also brought back the job board.
Michelle: Oh, perfect. Can you tell the listeners about the job board, because I talk about it when I'm training them, and a lot of them weren't around when it was there before.
Grant: So the job board, as you know, Michelle, I was on it once a week just having a look, everyone was there having a bit of a play on it, and then around Covid it sort of stopped, so we've brought that back, with a bit more self-service functionality. You can upload the details of your job, place an ad direct, and pay direct on the website. Or, if you prefer that personal touch, reach out to us, our emails are on the website, and we'll draft the ad before we post it, send it to you to have a look and make sure you're happy with it, because we want it to reflect the club. So that's back up and running. A future development will be, a lot of clubs are using things like UKG and Tanda for their candidate management, so we're developing an API where you'll be able to plug directly into our website, so posting to your own networks and your own website, but also to the White Now website directly. We find a lot of big clubs do their own advertising and don't come to us until they haven't found someone, so we're trying to make that a bit more accessible and convenient. And then of course we've got our other products on the website, the shortlisting service, which is great for those middle management roles, where we produce a list of six to eight people for you to interview after we've done some screening, and then we've got full recruitment as well, where we take you all the way through.
Michelle: That's excellent, and it's whitenow.com.au, I'll certainly put that in the show notes, as well as your individual LinkedIn, so people know it's right to request a connection.
Ian: Sounds good. We've tried to uplift the social media side of things, specifically through LinkedIn, which I think is actually quite a weak area of the industry broadly. There are even senior people who don't have LinkedIn profiles, and certainly once you get down the hierarchy, very few people have LinkedIn profiles, so it's interesting to see that. There was also the Facebook element of White Now previously, we haven't lost any of that, but what we've tried to do is bring a bit more control to it, because one of the things we found was there were a lot of jobs going on there that weren't even related to the industry, and it was driving a lot of applicants who weren't relevant. What we're trying to do, when we're thinking about this, is make the club's life, who's ultimately the client, as easy as possible. You'll never do it perfectly, but we're trying to make sure that the majority of candidates who go directly to the club aren't getting ninety percent rubbish. So it's driving the right, relevant candidates, and allowing them to have the best view of who's out there looking for the work they're looking to fill.
Michelle: Just connecting the right people for the right role at the right time.
Ian: Spot on. It's absolutely key.
Michelle: Thank you so much, Ian and Grant, for spending your time with me today, I know my listeners will have gotten a lot from our conversation. Is there one thing I haven't asked you about your business, or about recruitment in the hospitality industry at the moment, that you'd like to share?
Grant: I think, just keep an eye on us, we've got a couple of things in the fire that probably aren't quite announceable yet, but keep an eye on our socials and our web page, there are a couple of things we're ready to release in the next few months. And I guess the other thing is, if you're a candidate looking for a new role and there's not something in the market, just reach out, we're pretty good at scheduling a time to have a chat with you even if there aren't roles available, we like to get to know what people are looking for so we can add them into a role, or touch them on the shoulder when we have an appropriate one.
Ian: And we'll be exhibiting this year, Michelle, at the AGE, we'll be attending the RSL SC conference, we're really trying to get out there.
Michelle: Well, I will definitely see you at the AGE, this is my ninth year being the MC for all the seminars, and we're actually down on the floor this year, for all the previous years we've always been upstairs, so we're in the far left-hand corner this year, so I'm sure we'll see you. And of course, I've been a long-term corporate partner with the RSL, so I look forward to meeting you both in person then, instead of via Zoom. Thank you once again, Ian and Grant, for joining me today, and I wish you all the very best. I love that little teaser about coming soon, so watch this space.
Ian: Thank you so much.
Grant: Thanks, Michelle. Thank you.
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