Welcome to A Leadership Beyond, where we explore business challenges through a people-centered lens. In today's episode, we sit down with Ryan Englin, author of "Hire Better People Faster" and founder of Core Matters, who brings a fresh perspective to recruiting and retention in the trades and service industries. Drawing from his personal experience growing up in a blue-collar household, Ryan watched his father - a successful business owner - spend countless hours on hiring and managing his team. This inspired Ryan's passion to find a better way.

After founding his own marketing company, he discovered that effective recruiting was fundamentally a marketing challenge, leading him to develop streamlined processes and automation tools that help businesses hire and retain the right people. Today, he shares transformative insights about building successful teams.

Key takeaways from our conversation:

• Recruiting is fundamentally a marketing activity, not an HR function - organizations need to become attractive to potential employees just as they work to attract customers

• The trades don't have a labor shortage, they have a retention crisis - the challenge isn't finding people, it's creating an environment where they want to stay

• Successful hiring requires a holistic approach - from clear definition of what "good" looks like, to proper assessment tools, and comprehensive onboarding that shows you have your act together

Thank you for joining us for this enlightening conversation with Ryan Englin.

His practical insights about treating employees as whole human beings and building systems that support both hiring and retention remind us that great leadership starts with how we view and value our people. Join us next time as we continue exploring leadership perspectives that challenge conventional wisdom and offer fresh solutions to today's business challenges.

We’d love to hear from you and encourage you to take advantage of our People Strategy Hour. This is a no obligation way to look at your business challenges through the lens of People strategy using data on YOUR people. Raise your hand to learn more about this complementary conversation and reach out to us at https://aleadershipbeyond.com.

See you next time!

A Leadership Beyond exists to support the alignment between the business strategy and people strategy - to drive results with people not at the expense of people (Talent Optimization).

Subscribe to our podcast to join the Leadership Beyond Community of Conversation and hear insights from thought leaders and human development experts leading the way in the field of Talent Optimization.

We are grateful to you and always eager to hear from you!

To learn more visit https://aleadershipbeyond.com

To connect with Ryan Englin:

Facebook: https://facebook.com/thecorematters
LinkedIn Company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/corematters
LinkedIn Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanenglin
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@corefithiring
https://x.com/corematters

As the year winds down, the holiday season's chaos often drowns out critical reflection.

To grow as leaders, we must intentionally create space for thoughtful review—pausing the reactive frenzy to revisit values, acknowledge missteps, reconnect with relationships, and reignite aspirations before diving into next year's goals and plans.

This deliberate pause provides an opportunity to transform end-of-year busyness from a distraction to a time of meaningful personal and professional renewal.

As co-founders of A Leadership Beyond, Adrienne and Tom are practicing what we teach: taking a purposeful pause to reflect before rushing into action. While we're excited about an upcoming year filled with panel discussions, new services, and leadership strategies, we're first taking time to thoughtfully review, learn, and realign.

This approach embodies the essence of our podcast—demonstrating that true leadership begins with intentional reflection.

This episode is an invitation to all leaders to step back, breathe, and create space for meaningful reflection before diving into the river of reactivity. We explore the power of pausing, examining our accomplishments, learning from challenges, and realigning with our core values as we prepare for the coming year.

Highlights of the conversation:

• Importance of carving space for personal reflection, even amidst the busy holiday season.

• Practical strategies for taking 10-15 minutes to reconnect to core values and assess what you accomplished and what may need refinement.

• How personal touches can increase engagement through deeper connection.

• Understanding the power of M2 in your S.M.A.R.T goal setting. Effective goals must be meaningful, motivating and measurable.

• Importance of finding trusted partners to provide objective feedback. Sometimes a partner with no skin in that game can shed valuable light on your dilemma.

The overall message is that taking a purposeful pause for reflection and renewal can transform the end-of-year chaos into a meaningful time of personal and professional growth for leaders.

We’d love to hear about your success (and challenges) with leadership beyond the lines.

A Leadership Beyond exists to support the alignment between the business strategy and people strategy - to drive results with people not at the expense of people (Talent Optimization).

Subscribe to our podcast to join the Leadership Beyond Community of Conversation and hear insights from thought leaders and human development experts leading the way in the field of Talent Optimization.

We are grateful to you and always eager to hear from you!

To learn more visit https://aleadershipbeyond.com.

For this week’s episode, we're revisiting a clip from a fascinating panel discussion from our vault that explores how HR professionals can become true strategic partners in their organizations. But before we jump in, let's frame the conversation through the lens of Talent Optimization, a critical framework that many organizations are missing.

Adrienne and I work together to help organizations leverage people data to drive success in their business strategy. Think of Talent Optimization as the strategic alignment of your people strategy with your business objectives. It's like a well choreographed dance where your workforce capability, team dynamics and organizational culture move in perfect sync with your business goals. When this alignment is off, the consequences can be severe.

And that's exactly what we'll hear about in this clip from our conversation with Matt Poepsel, often referred to as the “Godfather of Talent Optimization”. Matt talks about the real business costs of misalignment. And it turns out that most business problems are people problems in disguise.

Tune in to learn about the damage that's done when we don't align our people strategy and our business strategy -and what you can do to bring your people and business goals back into sync.

Listen now and start transforming your people strategy into a powerful lever for success.

A Leadership Beyond exists to support the alignment between the business strategy and people strategy - to drive results with people not at the expense of people (Talent Optimization).

Subscribe to our podcast to join the Leadership Beyond Community of Conversation and hear insights from thought leaders and human development experts leading the way in the field of Talent Optimization.

As always, we’d love to hear from you about your insights, challenges, and successes around leading (self and others) through transitions.

To learn more visit https://aleadershipbeyond.com.