ADP: Andrew Dickson & Adam Bowling

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Andrew Dickson and Adam Bowling of ADP join us to discuss the diverse age range of today’s workforce, and how companies can and should adapt accordingly.

Danny:

All right, so let’s jump into today’s episode. We’ve got Andrew Dickson and Adam Bowling from ADP. So a small company, never heard of you guys. Total, totally blank. So thanks so much for joining and before we really jump into everything, if you guys could just kind of introduce yourselves to the audience, tell us a little bit about yourself and this small company called ADP.

Andrew:

Yeah, small, small company, ADP. Adam and I are really appreciative, thankful to be here and have a conversation with you today. So ADP, obviously we’ve been around for a while. Started the payroll industry over 60 years ago and payroll’s what a lot of organizations know us as. It’s come to be only about 20% of our annualized revenue and we’ve become transitioned more to a global leader in HCM, in Human Capital Management, both software and support. So I’m excited to share a little bit about that with you today but from a payroll standpoint, we do pay one in six Americans. We have over 650,000 clients, a seat at the IRS and we do the job support for the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics. So when it comes to data, employee and people records, we truly are the industry leader and I’m excited to share about how we work with manufacturing organizations as well.

Danny:

Awesome, and Adam?

Adam:

Yeah so like Andrew, District Manager with ADP and Andrew said it, our business has transformed as have many people in the marketplace. So today our focus is more on digital flows of information, how we can integrate our systems with other business business systems as well as third party applications out there. So, transitioning away from your traditional desktop computing environment and moving toward more of a digital, flexible workforce.

Danny:

Perfect.

Andrew:

And Adam and I personally cover our major account, mid-market segment if you will, so we focus on organizations between 50 and 1,000 employees but we have partners that focus on organizations both up and downstream, so we can really focus on helping organizations of any size.

Danny:

Thanks so much for coming on the show. One of the things that I want to talk about is we’re seeing this across the board, the changing workforce. There’s a lot of, we’re talking about digital transformation and all these things that are going on. The big bad scary millennials, we hear about about that a lot and really at the end of the day, the face of your new prospect, your customer, your new hire, your new supplier, it’s getting a lot younger and okay, fine, we’ve gone through that but the way that people want to be communicated to, are you guys seeing a change in what that looks like? And what has your experience been in that?

Andrew:

Yeah, we’ve definitely seen a shift in the marketplace from the old way of doing business to the new and really identified four primary factors that have been affecting this change. One, obviously, changing political and economic conditions. A new administration comes new legislation that affects compliance and business owners have to stay on top of that to ensure that they’re within compliance. The digital revolution. Everything is going digital.

Danny:

Yes.

Andrew:

You mentioned millennials have not only a desire but an expectation for the ability to not only attract and go after a new job from a digital format, whether it be the application process, the onboarding process but also given the tools to do their job efficiently.

Danny:

Right.

Andrew:

From a technological standpoint and the other two factors are the augmented workforce and then the changing talent demands. So an augmented workforce, that’s going to be robotics, artificial intelligence, a lot of leading leading technologies that businesses are looking to learn how to harness to continue to grow and achieve their organizational objectives and then last is that changing talent demand where this the first time we’ve ever had five generations in the same workforce at the same time and Gen Z is right there as well. So being able as an organization not only to address the very different expectations of those those generations around compensation and benefits but also to create a culture and an environment that welcomes those different generations and then helps them develop from within and ensure that they have a path to develop within the organization that could set them up for whatever their personal goals are.

Danny:

Right, yeah, so it was interesting. So five generations under one roof, if you will. Obviously we’re seeing and we’re hearing too a lot of challenges between how to communicate and how to to manage all that stuff to everybody there. Maybe if you could give a little bit of a breakdown and a definition of the different generations. I think that’d be helpful, you have Gen Z and sometimes there’s a little bit of well, it’s from 1980 or whatever. What does that look like?

Adam:

So you’ve got baby boomers retiring, 10,000 a day is the stat that we frequently go by. You still have some traditionalists in the workforce where we talk to companies quite often that say “Our 90 year old owner still likes to come in everyday “and check on things and make sure everything’s going well.” So you’ve got end to end varying opinions on different things. On culture, on engagement, on talent and there’s this shift in mindset toward now companies having to appeal to, end to end, your oldest and both youngest employee that’s an eligible hire. And the reason is that statistically, we’re at full employment. So as a company, I can’t only focus on appeasing the workforce that’s driven my business for the last 30 years.

Danny:

Right.

Adam:

It’s now more of a shift toward what are the type of employees that are going to help drive my business forward in the next 30 years?

Adam:

Right.

Adam:

Andrew said it as well. I’d be hard-pressed to say he and I aren’t millennials. Maybe all of us.

Danny:

Yeah. I think we all fall in that category.

Adam:

Yeah, so now we’re looking not just at millennials but Generation Z and the fact that, like my son for example, he’ll only know digital. He won’t know what a computer is and there was recently I think a commercial about that and somebody said, “Get off your computer” and the person said, “What’s a computer?” They’re sitting there on a tablet.

Danny:

Yeah.

Adam:

So there’s this big shift.

Danny:

Absolutely.

Adam:

We’re just trying to make sure that the companies that we provide solutions for have the ability to provide solutions across the board.

Danny:

Yeah, that makes sense. And so, I saw an interesting stat. They were talking about the different sizes of the generations. So the baby boomers being, they’re retiring at 10,000 a day but Gen X after that is like half the size of the boomers and then underneath that, what is it, the millennials?

Adam:

Next, yeah.

Danny:

But they’re like twice the size. So what’s going on? Because of all that, because we’ve got these numbers that are like this, what’s the consequences of that?

Adam:

I would say the biggest gap is that you’ve got employees now, or really we’ll call ’em workers, seeking different alternatives to traditional employment. Gone are the days of folks entering the workforce looking for a 9:00 to 5:00 that I can work until I retire at 65.

Danny:

Right.

Adam:

So now you’ve got so many options in the workforce, you have people opting out of traditional employment and looking to multiple sources of income as they can in various part-time roles.

Danny:

Roll over to the gig economy.

Adam:

Or as contractors, yeah. There’s, I mean I don’t need to go through ’em but 100 different ways that somebody can earn an income outside of being a W-2 employee. So with that, as that group of baby boomers is retiring and to your point, half again as many Gen X-ers back-filling those roles.

Danny:

Right.

Adam:

You’ve got this big area of opportunity in millennials and Gen Z who are choosing rather to enter those roles, to opt out and work nontraditional methods.

Danny:

Right.

Adam:

So that’s where we help companies really get strategic as far as aligning their business goals with their people goals and strategy behind them. We like to take a longer view when we sit down and talk to groups to really identify how they can target better candidates, onboard them faster and get them up to speed more quickly.

Danny:

Right. As you’ve mentioned, there’s that big gap there. What are some of those key differences, I guess what we’re getting at essentially is that like we talked about maybe a little at the beginning, the face of your customer, your prospect, your next hire, your supplier basically is getting younger. All right, fine. But what does that mean in terms of messaging and how to communicate? What are some of those big differences that companies really should be looking at and saying “Hey, we need to be communicating this way versus that way?” Are you seeing any big differences?

Andrew:

Specifically within that digital revolution it is mobile. Everything has to be mobile. If you don’t have the ability for candidates to apply for a job within your organization via their mobile device, chances are you’re going to lose a lot of those candidates that aren’t willing to take that extra step and find a desktop and go or even companies that are a step further back than that with the paper application.

Danny:

Sure.

Andrew:

Things that were the norm now can be a deal breaker for a millennial looking for an organization that’s going to provide them the tools not only to be efficient at their job but if you have millennials that have more power and technology in their pocket and at home than they do within their own employer, it says a lot and will result in them looking for those organizations that are trying to get ahead of the curve and create an atmosphere that can leverage the millennials’ ability to leverage technology. And again, a millennial speaking for millennials, we’re a wide group, so it’s tough to pinpoint something that’s going to affect all millennials just as it would with any other generation. But there are some non-negotiables that organizations have identified you have to have if you’re looking to attract top talent, especially with the unemployment all-time lows that we have right now.

Danny:

Sure, yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. You had something to add there?

Adam:

Well I was going to say to your early point about how it affects end-to-end the organization, this same group are also consumers.

Danny:

Yeah.

Adam:

So it may also change their perspective on that company that they once thought maybe hey, this is a great place where I would love to work.

Danny:

Right.

Adam:

And then they go through it from a candidate perspective to find out it’s not the same as it is when I am a consumer purchasing from them directly.

Danny:

Right, yeah.

Adam:

We’re looking at, you’ve probably heard of gamification.

Danny:

Absolutely, yeah.

Adam:

But ways to appeal to the candidate the same way they would as a consumer.

Danny:

Right.

Adam:

If I can shop online, can I apply for a job there? If the answer is no or there’s a big disconnect in their ability to do that, it might, to Andrew’s point, shift them away and make them look elsewhere for employment.

Danny:

Right, so I would imagine we could take those same lessons and apply that on a sales and marketing front.

Adam:

Absolutely.

Danny:

In other words, you mentioned, we hear this a lot as you’re seeing a lot of e-commerce and stuff coming in is that the expectation, well, the way that we buy is dramatically different and that’s across the board. I don’t care whether you’re necessarily a boomer, gen X, millennial, Z. There’s a thing called Amazon out there. Everyone is a lot more accustomed to quickly getting the access to their information and being able to, in two days, boom, I’ve got products. So I imagine there’s that expectation saying we need to have that even in a B2B environment where, maybe not necessarily buying toilet paper but if we’re buying O-rings and gaskets, why don’t we have that same experience?

Adam:

Right and it’s only, the expectation is that that end-to-end time from add to cart to that product or service being executed, it’s only getting shorter.

Adam:

Exactly.

Adam:

Companies only have less time to execute.

Andrew:

Walmart just rolled out that they’re going to offer two day delivering in an effort to compete with an Amazon. Otherwise if you don’t continue to evolve and compete, you’re going to get left behind.

Danny:

Yeah.

Adam:

And from the sales and marketing side too, we talk about it from a consumer perspective. Internally, the culture of that company ends up being externally the brand, right?

Danny:

Yeah.

Adam:

So if you’ve got a great brand but then you look internally and the culture of that organization because of gaps either in their workforce, maybe I’ve gotten top-heavy with a lot of older workers and I don’t have enough backfill there, that transition could really disrupt the culture which ultimately you get a bunch of disengaged folks that aren’t excited to show up to work with somebody that’s twice their age or for somebody else, working with somebody half their age.

Danny:

Yeah.

Adam:

It could be detrimental to the culture, which ultimately could impact the brand and sales marketing efforts as a result. It’s pretty important that companies really start now before it’s too late because the gap’s only growing between business potential and technology available and it’s overwhelming.

Danny:

Yeah.

Adam:

So we want to be there to be able to advise and present options so that companies can solve for it the way they want to.

Dannt:

Absolutely, Andrew, you had a great little worksheet or I guess a document there, a one pager that broke down the different generations there. I love it, could you maybe walk through that a little bit?

Andrew:

Yeah, and I don’t know if the camera will see it too well but it’s different strokes for different folks. It talks about the changing expectations around compensation and benefits. Both when you’re looking at a new job, compensation and benefits, it’s always the top two things that you focus on but it’s really interesting that as you go from baby boomers to gen X to millennials and now to gen Z, the compensation is becoming less important and the benefits is becoming more important. How much you get paid is still incredibly impactful in the decision to look at a new organization. But the younger the generation, the more that work-life balance, the more the benefits around things even as seemingly small as pet insurance can be such a big factor when a younger generation is looking for a company that meets their ideals and their values.

Danny:

Yeah.

Andrew:

And so it is very interesting what the different generations weigh in terms of most important verse least important when they’re looking at new opportunities.

Danny:

So I think the takeaway from the sales and marketing standpoint is that we’re seeing, and we’re seeing this in a lot of case studies too. Big Caterpillar had a great one based on a survey that Google put out some stats. This was back in 2015 and they came out and they said nearly, at that time, nearly 50% of your B2B buyers are millennial. Now that was three, four years ago depending on, we’re at the tail end of 2018 here. Imagine what that is now and Caterpillar took it and said “That’s really interesting. “Maybe we need to flip this a little bit more.” So even though I know we’re talking about compensation and benefits and all that, I think part of the big message is you’re talking about is a little bit more purpose. I think that maybe buying, the millennial is a little bit more buying into what’s in it for me, what’s the purpose? And it’s little bit more story-driven. A little bit more this feeling that I get. I think that that really needs to be translated and transmitted and communicated as such, versus dollars and cents. Does that make make any sense at all?

Andrew:

Yes it does, it does.

Danny:

So let’s talk a little bit about this, we were talking a little bit about this earlier. I can’t talk now, it’s a Monday.

Adam:

Right.

Danny:

The transfer of knowledge. I know that’s a big thing that is affecting a lot of people where you’ve got people that have been in your organization for 30, 40 years and there’s a little bit of a labor gap. There’s an issue with with getting the right talent into your plan and into your organization and attracting them and then also again, to that marketing aspect, we talked about some solutions there a little bit. You had a prequel thing, maybe we can talk about that.

Adam:

So one thing we talk to a lot of companies about is just that how did you get to where you are today? And out of a need over time, companies end up swapping out solutions, products, services, technology to help them get through their day to day and what we’ve found is that oftentimes they can get so wrapped up in what is going on right in front of them operationally that they don’t have the ability sometimes to step back and really look at it from an outside perspective. So when we discuss with groups things like this, how are we addressing addressing this gap in talent, We bring solutions to the table that they might not otherwise have thought of. Nothing new that’s not been done before but the example I have most recently is a group that’s looking to make their production-type work more attractive. How can we attract attract younger employees? How can we transfer knowledge from someone who is that 30 year old veteran who shows up and does this job in their sleep? And we provided a few examples. One of them being a career progression for that new hire to give them a next step in their career path and just knowing that they have something to work toward could be the thing that determines whether or not they stay another six months or another eight months. But then for that older employee that is nearing retirement, they’re probably closer to the end of their career and you’ve got these younger workers coming in. On the other side, structure it in a way that now they are the mentor and that there’s maybe an incentive for them compensation-wise or some other bonus to transfer that knowledge and to bring that employee up to speed faster. So there’s a way to it smartly on both ends to one, make the young worker feel like there’s progression here, this company cares about my development and by the way, I’m going to be learning from one of their top performers and at the same time that top performer gets the recognition and maybe gets the compensation or, I don’t want to speak for somebody making that decision but there’s an ability to do it and appeal to everyone and make everyone happy and really ultimately close that gap in skills.

Danny:

Thanks a lot, excellent. I’m going to ask you, I did not prep this question to ask, I’m just curious.

Andrew:

No worries.

Danny:

What advice would you give to somebody saying from a sales and marketing front, knowing millennials and what’s important to them, what would you say are the top let’s say three ways of communicating that manufacturers really need to be thinking? Whether that’s style or the way they transmit or what are you guys saying?

Adam:

I mean we’ve probably all heard it, a picture’s worth 1,000 words.

Danny:

Yeah.

Adam:

Many a time I’ve looked to do research on a company to find one, a very antiquated website.

Danny:

Right.

Adam:

Maybe with some broken links or bad information. I would say that in an era where I can ask Alexa quickly to give me feedback or information, everything’s out there on the web for somebody to find and that millennial is going to be doing research. I would look at it from that perspective. Research your own company and see what you find and if you don’t like what you find, it’s worth a conversation with somebody like Andrew or myself to bring a new perspective and really to update you on what the rest of your industry or the rest of the marketplace is doing because whether that company chooses to make any changes or not, their peers are evaluating ways to lean into more of the new technology that manufacturers and really anybody in commercial and industrial wants to which would be our internet of things, robotics, machine learning.

Danny:

Right.

Adam:

Without a basis for just a general system of record, if everything is spreadsheets and paper and in somebody’s head, how do I report on that? How do I use that data to make business decisions?

Danny:

Right.

Adam:

For us, it’s really about I think probably establishing that flexible foundation first with a company. That’s the easiest way to really start evaluating ways to go forward and really to appeal to the next generation client, consumer. Buyer.

Danny:

Yeah.

Adam:

But also workers, sales force, who’s going to execute for them and who’s going to be a good enough brand ambassador externally and culturally a fit internally? So there’s a lot of things at play but I will say that the companies that are taking the longer view and that are putting things in place now for later are getting a competitive edge.

Andrew:

Just to give a tangible example, I would look at a company that has automated their onboarding process. So electronic onboarding where the employee accepts the job, they’re sent a link where they can go in and fill out all their new hire paperwork, look at a video on a company that shows a little bit about the culture, shows them their team, who’s going to be their manager, who are their direct reports. Gives them stuff to get them excited about the organization before you start versus a company who makes an offer, brings you in day one and gives you a big stack of paper to fill out your new hire paperwork and that’s your first day.

Danny:

Yeah.

Andrew:

So when you’re looking at the onboarding experience of those companies that understand that that first experience is the brand, is the image of your company and then ensuring that your job board, your website and the process of bringing on new employees reflects that.

Danny:

Right.

Andrew:

It’s a disconnect that some organizations are on top of and really making great strides while others don’t see it as impactful and they’re losing talented people.

Danny:

Wow, that’s such great advice. Really at the end of the day, and that can go really across the board, I mean at the end of the day, if you really want to attract millennials and the younger workforce, this is where you need to be thinking. So I love your idea of saying look at your website, if it’s super antiquated and it looks like, that first starting point.

Adam:

You want to ask yourself, would you buy? If you buy.

Danny:

Right.

Adam:

Right if, when you buy.

Danny:

What are you seeing? Yeah.

Adam:

Yeah. Who do you buy from? Do you buy the cheapest product with the lowest review or do you buy the most expensive product with the highest reviews?

Danny:

Right.

Adam:

Do you look for that option in the middle?

Danny:

Yeah.

Adam:

Or any combination. So where is the company default, right?

Danny:

Yeah.

Adam:

It’s a direct reflection of what your consumer says. Why is it any different than what your employees reflect? So we look to that data all the time, whether that’s, it could be from a variety of sources. Things we see on Indeed, Glassdoor, there’s tons of resources. A company’s Google Review.

Danny:

Yeah.

Adam:

Facebook. How many stars do you have?

Danny:

Yeah.

Adam:

I know that for me, if I’m a leader of an organization, my initiative should not be status quo if those rankings and ratings are any less than stellar. Otherwise I’ve just become complacent and I’ve recognized that despite knowing there’s an issue, I’m willing to do nothing to fix it. So the companies that are not okay with status quo that want to push that three star to a four or five star or better across whatever platform, those are the companies that are going to come out comparatively winners.

Andrew:

And even the ones that know there’s improvements that could be made but don’t really know where to start or think they’re on the right track but aren’t sure, you’ve got to find a way to benchmark your organization against those organizations you’re looking to compete with. Personally from an ADP standpoint, the data that we touched on at the beginning allows us to work with organizations and benchmark them against other similar organizations. Whether it be the size, the industry, the location and from that data, we can pull information on compensation to ensure that organizations are competitive when it comes to pay.

Danny:

Sure.

Andrew:

When you’re looking to make a new hire and you want to make sure that your benefits package at least meets the industry standard or maybe you want to be the leader in the industry and you want to attract the best of the best. You have to find ways to use the data and the analytics to benchmark your organization against other organizations to confirm you’re on the right path or maybe to see the road on the path that you want to take.

Danny:

Yeah absolutely, no, it totally makes sense. Jumping back actually to when you were talking about onboarding, I thought you kind of struck a cord with me on that as well. I think it’s great and super important to be able to have to create that experience there and again, that’s something that we should be thinking about even in the post-sales process. I mean you think about it, you’re still selling, even if you’re recruiting new talent to come internally, you are selling, right? If we’re selling a product or service to somebody, obviously it’s sales there and having that onboarding experience to create a good experience. Actually just last week, I stayed at a Ritz-Carlton with a client and I don’t stay there a whole lot and I was very wowed by the whole experience. They were very attentive and all these different things, the kinds of things you were talking about. Not necessarily super technology driven, some of ’em were but I just thought wow, that is a really great experience to continue on. That’s something we need to bring, I think I might actually even do a blog article about it.

Adam:

You want to create a raving customer, right?

Danny:

Yes, absolutely.

Adam:

Because then that same message transcends down into employee and then you’ve got employees that are doing the same, bragging on their–

Danny:

Exactly.

Adam:

Their company. So.

Danny:

I’m a firm believer that everybody, and it doesn’t matter what role you’re in, that everybody’s selling. Sales and marketing touches all these different areas. To your point, in your workforce, if your workforce is engaged and are excited and they have purpose and there’s a mission, then they’re going to be the best advocate. “Oh, you’ve got to buy from us. “We’ve got the best best products, we’ve got this.” And that goes downstream and upstream. It’s across the board, so it’s super important. Well, listen guys, thank you so much for coming on. There’s a lot of great insights that we were able to take away from this and I thank you for your time. If anybody has any questions on the show they’d love to reach out to you, what’s the best way of getting in touch?

Andrew:

Yes, the best way to get in touch with me, ultimately you can email me, [email protected] or my cellphone’s on my business card. I’ll give you a stack of those as well.

Danny:

Okay.

Adam:

Same. Adam.Bowling, so just our name @adp.com.

Danny:

Perfect, all right, well great, thanks guys.

Andrew:

Thanks Danny, appreciate it.

Danny:

Hey listen, another great episode here. A lot of key takeaways. Some of the keys things that I was thinking about is like Adam was mentioning ways to start, ways that you can be thinking about this is just doing a self-evaluation. Go look at your website, see what you find. Go look at how you buy products and measure that against the experience that your company has versus the experience that you’ve had with others. It’s a great starting point, you’ve got to be visual, you’ve got to bring in technology and a really big thing is that I kept hearing is that things are changing. It’s not working the way that it used to and we’re seeing that across the board. Same reason why you’re feeling maybe that trade shows aren’t effective as they used to be or that the marketing messaging tab, “We’re the best and the biggest,” it’s not working, why? Because that workforce is dramatically changing and now is the time to make that change. Anyways, so a couple great takeaways. Thanks again for listening. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. We’d love to answer them on the show. IndustrialSage.com/questions. If you’re listening on iTunes, we’d love a review. If you’re on social media, hey, share our stuff. We’d love the love. So thanks for watching and we’ll be back next week with another awesome episode of IndustrialSage.

 

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