Founder of Shyft6 and Abra on Creating a Space for Healthcare IT Professionals

Tips for healthcare IT professionals

• If you’re considering freelancing, dip your toe in the water.
  • You don’t have to go all in and go full-time freelance. But figure out how to take on a project and get yourself out there. 
• Develop new skills.
  • Suppose you’re stagnant in the same environment. In that case, you’re going to be limited in the amount of exposure to processes, tools, techniques, and methodologies on how to get better at doing things.
• Become a student in an environment that you are passionate about.
  • There’s a shortage of talent at a high level. You become worth a lot to an organization when you bring valued understanding and expertise into that environment. Specific knowledge can’t be replaced, that will always have value. 

Advice for entrepreneurs

• Be okay with the potential to fail.
  • You have to accept that there is a chance you’re going to fail. And having a risk tolerance is really important. 
• Be honest.
  • With yourself, with your customers, and with your employees. Transparency goes a long way and your reputation matters. Lead by example, and don’t ask anyone to do something you’re unwilling to do yourself. 
• Be a lifelong learner.
  • Read books and listen to podcasts. Expose yourself to as much as you can. You almost have to be obsessed wit

Additional resources

• Current trends and job outlook of IT careers
• Is freelancing worth it? The pros and cons
• The most in-demand skills for IT candidates
• Things to do when starting a new job search checklist

Transcript

Pete Newsome 00:01
You’re listening to the Finding Career Zen Podcast. I’m your host Pete Newsome. And my guest today is Steve Glomski, who is the CEO and founder of Shyft6 and Abra.

Pete Newsome 00:09
Steve, welcome. How are you today?

Steve Glomski 00:11
I’m awesome. Thanks for having me today.

Pete Newsome 00:13
And thank you for joining. I’ve been trying to get you on for quite a while now. You’re a busy guy.

Steve Glomski 00:21
Lots to do.

Pete Newsome 00:21
Well, let’s talk about that. Would you mind, Steve, if we started introducing both Shyft6 and Abra. So we can use that as a basis for conversation, you’ll do a much better job describing, you know who you are and what your businesses are about.

Steve Glomski 00:34
Oh, sure. Yeah, appreciate it.

Steve Glomski 00:37
So I’ve been in the staffing industry for the better part of the last 15 years or so in a very niche market focused on the hospital marketplace, supporting organizations building IT teams to support major initiatives like electronic health record implementations, other enterprise systems, like ERP systems, and so on, and so forth.

Steve Glomski 00:57
And Shyft6 is a service firm supporting building teams just like that. Abra is a technology platform that is basically like an Airbnb, if you will, for healthcare, and IT talent.

Steve Glomski 01:11
And instead of them listing their properties and availability when they can be rented their list their capacity and availability to provide work and services to organizations. So in a nutshell, is Abra and Shyft6.

Pete Newsome 01:26
So Abra is new, how long? Has Abra been out? And how long ago did you launch it?

Steve Glomski 01:32
We launched the platform just over three weeks ago.

Pete Newsome 01:36
So brand new?

Steve Glomski 01:37
Very new to the community.

Steve Glomski 01:39
We founded the organization earlier this year and have had a development team building out the system. And we’re excited to have launched and be able to be downloaded and the growth has been incredible in the first three weeks already.

Pete Newsome 01:52
That’s awesome. The site looks great. I’ve been through it. I mean, kudos to you for putting out something that just looks like it’s just ready to go.

Pete Newsome 02:03
And as nice as anything I’ve seen, what was your what was catalyst for doing a summit? It comes with no small effort. I know that. Where did this idea come from initially?

Steve Glomski 02:17
Well, it’s 15 years of being frustrated with manual processes to make stuff happen.

Steve Glomski 02:24
So so when you’re building teams, flexible, temporary teams, specifically to support big initiatives, like implementing a massive electronic health record, and a hospital, there’s so much work that goes into aligning talent in the marketplace with those needs on a contract bases.

Steve Glomski 02:43
And unfortunately, the tools and databases that are out there online today just don’t have the information that you need to make the decisions of who you should be talking to and when to align talent with projects.

Steve Glomski 02:57
So you look at the tools like CareerBuilder monster, indeed, LinkedIn, for that matter.

Steve Glomski 03:03
And they’ve got some valuable information about skills. You know, that’s all on the keyword-based formats, you have to be really good at formal formulating, like complex Boolean queries.

Steve Glomski 03:14
As a recruiter cast your right net and talk to the right audience, you can post jobs and wait till people respond. But you know, you have to actually go out and hunt and find those people and the process of getting those people on the phones and trying to verify if are they available?

Steve Glomski 03:28
Are they interested, are they willing to travel to a certain part of the country for a certain amount of time, all those other data points are completely missing out there.

Steve Glomski 03:36
And so that’s what Abra aims to solve for, is to collect all the right information about that community, to make sure recruiters are able to focus in on exactly who they need to be building a relationship with, and when so drive some major efficiency in that process, which will then pass on value to the talent pool.

Steve Glomski 03:55
Because the extra costs that went into trying to find them are being charged to the end organization that’s purchasing their services, which is an opportunity cost for their wages if you think about that.

Steve Glomski 04:05
And then the firms that are doing all that work and heavy, you know, manual outreach, and, you know, to me wasted efforts in my mind.

Steve Glomski 04:15
All that is translated to more operating costs and gets passed on to the organization purchasing services, so Avars, aiming to drive more efficient communication between talent, break down those barriers, create some transparency in the marketplace, and ultimately allow organizations to have a more flexible workforce engaged when they need them.

Pete Newsome 04:34
Are you suggesting that our system is antiquated? Is that what you’re saying here?

Steve Glomski 04:39
It has been for some time, and you’ve seen some progress with some other gig economy-type platforms out there upward because I built some tools.

Steve Glomski 04:50
Over a decade ago, hiring developers in Pakistan and I had an executive assistant in the Philippines using labor arbitrage you could get some really cost-effective have support for different initiatives.

Steve Glomski 05:02
But Charles was some of those platforms are too generic, too broad. They’re entirely focused on only remote work, they’re missing a lot of information necessary.

Steve Glomski 05:11
And so as we progress into these new, more niche talent communities, there’s more information that’s necessary, we’re bridging that gap.

Pete Newsome 05:18
Well, I said that somewhat tongue-in-cheek because of course, it is antiquated. And resumes. And job descriptions really haven’t evolved much in 50-plus years, it sort of follows the same format.

Pete Newsome 05:31
So they may be emailed or uploaded today versus delivered by hand or by mail. But they look the same. And you have to almost be willing to play in that, you know, play by those rules.

Pete Newsome 05:44
Today, if you want to upload a resume on the site, you mentioned CareerBuilder, whoever it is, you have to fill in the blanks as they prescribe them. And I can say definitively, I’ve had this, this thought for many, many years now, as a recruiter, I don’t recruit that way.

Pete Newsome 06:03
I don’t I don’t fill jobs that way. When I take it, I’ll just start with a job description itself, and I’ll let you weigh in on this. The first thing I did, I sold staffing services for years, I don’t get to do that anymore. But I’m stuck behind a desk like I am now.

Pete Newsome 06:17
But when I did, the first thing I would do with the job description is put it aside and say now you say to the manager I was working with or the HR person if that too was alright, now tell me who you need, describe who you need.

Pete Newsome 06:31
And rarely, if ever, would it resemble what was on an HR-approved job description that followed a certain formula.

Pete Newsome 06:39
So talk about that for a minute. I mean, when it comes to hiring, what would you What are you doing differently to set the stage for you for the need to more closely resemble, you know what, what reality is?

Steve Glomski 06:55
I think you make a great point, Pete, job descriptions themselves are antiquated. Your job description to me is, it’s really a marketing tool to attract talent, the right talent to your organization.

Steve Glomski 07:09
And you almost need to tell a story about why they want to come work in that environment on that team, for that organization for the mission that it’s about. And job seekers often lack that type of information. But, you know, abra doesn’t solve for that. That’s more on the interview process.

Steve Glomski 07:27
And once they’ve identified and aligned the person’s skills, interests and availability with the opportunity that the more soft skills story and selling of actually closing a deal happen on the back end.

Steve Glomski 07:40
Abra doesn’t close the deal averages and brings the right talent with the opportunities together. But I do think that you know, one of the things that we’re doing that’s a lot more progressive in terms of job descriptions, and aligning and matching talent with opportunities is around a very structured skill taxonomy.

Steve Glomski 07:57
I mentioned earlier, the use of Boolean, complex Boolean searches, and keyword-based engines for finding folks, when you publish a resume online, you have the tool that you publish that in and try to index all the keywords, right?

Steve Glomski 08:14
And then the way people find you is by typing in keywords. And unfortunately, there’s like, sometimes there are 50 different ways to say the same thing.

Steve Glomski 08:23
And if you didn’t type your keyword, the same way that the person who’s trying to find you is thinking about that same idea, it’s sometimes going to be a scenario where they miss you, and you don’t show up in their search result.

Steve Glomski 08:34
And they don’t reach out to you about a relevant opportunity when you’re perfectly aligned for it.

Steve Glomski 08:38
And so one of the things that average doing in a very sophisticated way is building out and managing and maintaining a very complex structured skill taxonomy like your own school biology, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, species if you recall.

Pete Newsome 08:53
I don’t recall, but you clearly do.

Steve Glomski 08:57
So you know, classification of the plant and animal kingdom.

Pete Newsome 09:02
Sure.

Steve Glomski 09:03
Falls into a certain hierarchical structure. And the same thing goes for skills. If you think about skills in a hospital IT environment, you’ve got a role that you play, are you an advisor, or are you an application analyst support?

Steve Glomski 09:16
You know, then what products do you have experience with within those products? Which modules and functional areas do you support, and so on, and so forth. And that taxonomy can be infinitely complex.

Steve Glomski 09:29
And so we started the Abra with a base taxonomy, but then we’re crowdsourcing additional inputs and entries into that taxonomy and have an Administrative Approval management system on the back end, that we’re constantly growing that skill architecture.

Steve Glomski 09:43
So by doing so, we’re basically removing the complexities of keyword searching and Boolean searching, making it really easy for managers even not necessarily just recruiters to go in and find exactly what they’re looking for without missing the talent pool. We’re looking to talking to you.

Steve Glomski 10:01
So it’s a much more efficient, structured way to align talent with opportunities in the market.

Pete Newsome 10:06
You mentioned that it’s growing, it sounds like it’s from your user base who gets to contribute. How does that work? Exactly?

Pete Newsome 10:12
Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because that’s unique. I mean, that is no one’s doing anything like that, as far as I know.

Steve Glomski 10:18
Yeah, the market we’re, we’re spending our time in right now is a pretty contained market. But it’s growing. It’s a small world, everybody knows everybody, for the most part, or is at least two degrees away from everyone else.

Steve Glomski 10:33
We have an aggressive, you know, outreach campaign through emails and text messages and posting on the online channels that are very relevant to our community to get our initial user base growth happening.

Steve Glomski 10:43
But then within the application, we have social features and connections and reasons to collaborate within the application inviting others to join, provide feedback, and so on and so forth.

Steve Glomski 10:53
So it’s getting to be kind of the point where it’s growing on its own, just from the engagement and opportunity to leverage the value of being connected within the application.

Pete Newsome 11:04
Very nice. You mentioned a staffing company. So let’s talk about that for a few minutes. You own a staffing company, I own a staffing company, but you’re creating a scenario where in many, in some cases that may not be necessary. So just talk about that.

Pete Newsome 11:22
Just for a minute on, how can you that you’re creating efficiencies, right, I want to make sure I understand this by just connecting the true need, right, the client side has with the true capability of the individual, how do they ultimately find each other in on Abra?

Pete Newsome 11:43
How does one side indicate that they’re looking at the other side indicates that they’re available? How does that work? Exactly?

Steve Glomski 11:52
Yeah, that’s, I think, one of the things that we’re doing that’s really unique as well, within the average platform is it’s not shoppable.

Steve Glomski 11:58
And what I mean by that on both sides, as an employer, you can’t just go in and then like, use customized filters to find how many people have that, you know, matching what they’re looking for, with, you know, let’s say one or two filters, and on the talent side, you can’t go in there and browse a list of jobs.

Steve Glomski 12:14
The way Abra works is it’s sophisticated in that you list out exactly what you have to offer the market and what your preferences and availability are as a talent provider. And on the employer side, I have to list out all the criteria around my engagement of what I need, when I need it, and how I need it.

Steve Glomski 12:33
And the system only exposes talent with opportunities that are relevant. And that’s actually a common complaint we hear from talent providers in the market is that they’re getting bombarded by Talent Acquisition team members and managers about opportunities that are not relevant to them.

Steve Glomski 12:48
And that’s a lot of time and energy that goes into that to say, I went down this whole process, I went through three interviews to find out at the very end that my compensation expectation was too high, or that they needed me to be on-site in Washington and I live in Florida, I’m not interested in traveling there every other week.

Steve Glomski 13:05
So you know, we get up, get rid of all that mess and wasted time and energy through only aligning talent and opportunities that are relevant to each other. That’s one thing that’s really unique about what we’re doing on our platform.

Pete Newsome 13:20
How many, how many points of criteria are applied to make that match?

Steve Glomski 13:26
By doing this It’s at least 20 can actually be much more sophisticated than that, based on how complex the skill taxonomy is defined in the need.

Steve Glomski 13:38
And in that talent profile.

Pete Newsome 13:39
Okay.

Steve Glomski 13:42
It can get much larger than that too.

Pete Newsome 13:43
It can? Okay.

Steve Glomski 13:44
So there are scenarios where there’s just not a match. And you know, that’s a real scenario in the world today, where there’s just not a match. And, you know, how do we address that in the marketplace?

Steve Glomski 13:56
We are tickling talent providers and employers, with very close matches as well on the side to say, hey, what you’re looking for, is not something that’s available in the market today.

Steve Glomski 14:08
However, if you then have some flexibility on these criteria, you might be able to get something done, where you can still get value out of the market circumstances today. So that’s one thing that’s really interesting that comes back to your question around, you know, recruiting teams and, you know, is it making it not necessary anymore? Not at all.

Steve Glomski 14:27
I mean, recruiters are always going to be necessary and relevant for a lot of reasons. Number one, technology can’t replace a relationship or trust ever.

Steve Glomski 14:37
I know that for a fact. It’s an efficient tool to allow recruiters to build relationships with the talent that they should be spending their time building a relationship with.

Steve Glomski 14:47
Sure, as opposed to you hearing people online complaining about being ghosted by recruiters or, you know, not hearing follow-up about their application.

Steve Glomski 14:57
It’s because of this antiquated system that we’re in that requires recruiters to do this massive spread attack. And then they just they can’t stay at Pacific very difficult to stay organized as a recruiter today because you’re gauged on how many placements you make.

Steve Glomski 15:10
And if I spend time circling back with everyone, I’m losing the traction that I have to go and produce more as a recruiter in the marketplace.

Steve Glomski 15:20
So the other other comment that I’d like to comment around in recruiter specifically, and how Abra doesn’t solve for it is Abra is a marketplace that aligns people that have set their specific preferences and needs and availability and capacity network.

Steve Glomski 15:36
Recruiter recruiters aren’t necessarily to go out and do the true plucking headhunting and pulling P that people out of an opportunity that is passive job seekers.

Steve Glomski 15:44
Abra doesn’t do that. That is not whatever does. And you’ve sold staffing services.

Steve Glomski 15:49
With your business Pete You know full well that there’s a sales component to recruiting and going out and finding someone and convincing them to make, get, make a big difference in their life, change their careers, that’s a big decision to make. That takes effort and human interaction no matter what

Pete Newsome 16:07
I love what you’re describing in terms of letting it if I’m looking at this incorrectly tell me but almost letting the data speak for itself.

Pete Newsome 16:17
So when we get calls from companies who need to hire, usually, it’s a problem I can’t solve, right? It’s a k, we, we can’t find anyone in it, here’s a position here’s the salary, here’s what it’s paying, and we spend a little bit of time on it and quickly conclude, well, you’re paying 40% under the market value. We’re not magicians, that’s a problem we can’t solve.

Pete Newsome 16:43
But it would be nice to have a system. And I think this is in large part where you’re describing where the data speaks for itself to some degree where you put in, you can write whatever you want in terms of requirements, you can make it as narrow as you possibly want.

Pete Newsome 16:59
And if you need 100 things, you can make all 100 things critical. But there’s no one who can do the job didn’t each match that criteria at the rate you’re paying.

Pete Newsome 17:08
So I think it’s brilliant to let that speak for itself, right? Like, let’s cut any emotion, a verbal interaction out of that equation. And lets because I look, there’s always going to be a huge need for recruiters for the reasons you said. But we waste a lot of time on the back and forth.

Pete Newsome 17:28
And so we ended up disqualifying most of the calls that come our way. Because like I said, we’re just it’s a problem, we can’t solve you lower your requirements, be more flexible on the criteria or raise your comp. Those are generally the things that could solve most hiring problems. Right?

Steve Glomski 17:48
Yeah, I mean, staffing firms, their brokers, and they have to get both sides of that equation to come closer together to make a deal work.

Steve Glomski 17:56
And let’s just create some transparency around the data. You know, the problem is that data isn’t published anywhere, it’s not accessible anywhere. And I’m exposing that in a niche market, and then we’re expanding horizontally to other skill domains.

Pete Newsome 18:10
That’s great. Um, you mentioned the freelance economy. So talk about that a little bit about how you see that coming into play with Abra.

Pete Newsome 18:20
And what you’re doing versus the traditional employee-employer relationship. I’ll weigh in on that, you know, along the way, too, because I think that’s something that also needs significant improvement. And the freelance economy in many respects solves that.

Pete Newsome 18:35
So how does Abra address that particular issue?

Steve Glomski 18:39
Well, fortunately, for the market that I spend most of my time in provider technology, the debt freelance marketplace has already been very progressive.

Steve Glomski 18:53
Folks that understand the skills and expertise they bring to the market are highly coveted and needed, and they’re very good at what they do. They’ve empowered themselves very quickly and early on as early as 15 years ago started working as independents.

Steve Glomski 19:07
And they’re leveraging the consulting staffing firm organizations to get exposure to the opportunities, that’s the way that they find and engage in work opportunities for them. So there hasn’t been a platform to this point yet. That enabled that in an efficient way until Abra.

Steve Glomski 19:26
But it’s already happening. And you know, I’ve talked to some employers, some hospital executives that have asked, well, is this going to make more of the workforce, leave some job security and become a gig worker and all that?

Steve Glomski 19:41
The answer is probably a small percentage of them, but certainly not the whole group of them, and there are a number of reasons why I suspect that people are comfortable with sustainability and comfort of the cultures of their teams and the family work environment that they have full-time employment benefits, festivals have some of the best benefits any employee can ever get.

Steve Glomski 20:05
So some people are just really comfortable with consistency.

Steve Glomski 20:09
And what’s really exciting about what Abra is doing is it’s allowing employees of organizations like that, to still get access to some fractional work opportunities, some moonlighting opportunities.

Steve Glomski 20:20
As long as their employer is willing to allow that to happen through the Uber platform, they want to make some extra money for the holidays, they can sign up fill out capacity on nights and weekends to take on a very specialized project.

Steve Glomski 20:33
There are very few people in this community that can do but they’re willing to put in an extra 20 hours a week for the next six months.

Steve Glomski 20:40
Why not empower that talent provider to do that? So that’s something that doesn’t get brokered at all today, that night, Moonlight, weekend hours, there is some of that happening, but it’s under the table, and it’s frowned upon.

Steve Glomski 20:54
But if we create an environment that allows transparency and the employer know it, and can manage it, we’re anticipating we’re gonna see a lot more of that happening.

Pete Newsome 21:02
We you just said in what you just said, in the end, is key to that working effectively. And working well, which is, to be open don’t sneak around if you’re going to do that.

Pete Newsome 21:13
You don’t want to be caught with your hand in the cookie jar in that scenario. And it is a small world, as we know. And those things do tend to come to the surface eventually.

Pete Newsome 21:23
But I am really glad you made the point about Moonlighting, I just wrote an article two weeks ago on passive job seeking and it was recruiters, you know, as well as I do, we call people and they say, Hey, I’m good, I’m not interested in another opportunity.

Pete Newsome 21:38
And you would probably say what I say over the years, which is you should always be on the market, right?

Pete Newsome 21:44
I mean, if I get a call, right now to go play quarterback for the bucks, if Tom Brady decides he wants to move on, I’m doing it right, forget that I run two businesses and am otherwise satisfied if I could go be an NFL quarterback, I’m there.

Pete Newsome 21:59
So we all have a job that we would leave for. And when it comes to freelance, it seems intimidating and scary, and uncertain. You’ve mentioned security and comfort.

Pete Newsome 22:11
I mean, those are that’s those are perceived things, right? Maybe not reality, but you don’t know what you don’t know. And so one of the things that I wrote in this article was to stick your toe, dip your toe in the water, right?

Pete Newsome 22:25
You don’t have to go all in and go full-time freelance, and in all the perceived risk that comes with that, figure out a way to take on a project, you know, get your self out there.

Pete Newsome 22:38
And I believe that most people will see that it is a great way to work. I mean, I am a huge proponent of it. I’m a big user of freelance talent. And I think it’s, I think it’s healthy.

Pete Newsome 22:51
I mean, that’s the best word that I typically use when describing it, I think it’s a very healthy relationship.

Pete Newsome 22:57
Or maybe even more specifically, it removes the unhealthy parts of the employee-employer relationship that, you know, at times Plagueis in the workspace, that’s why HR departments are so big, right? It’s not because things are doing so well, in those relationships, freelance solves all of that.

Pete Newsome 23:15
So do you agree with or disagree with any of that?

Steve Glomski 23:19
No, I mean, I agree.

Steve Glomski 23:20
And even more so on developing new skills. If you’re stagnant in the same environment, for 15 years, you’re going to be limited in the amount of exposure to processes, tools and techniques, and methodologies on how to get better at doing things.

Steve Glomski 23:39
And that’s why we’re, we’re encouraging folks to, you know, like you said, put your foot in the water, look at what else you can be doing, you could see how other teams tackle the problem that you’re doing something one way for, you know, as long as you can remember, and there’s a way to do it and half the time, and you just didn’t know about that just because you never got exposed to it.

Steve Glomski 24:00
And so what we’re trying to do is give people a pathway to develop and grow, bring solutions back into their own organizations that they’re at if they want to stay loyal, like you don’t have to dip dive in full speed headfirst, right into being a freelancer exclusively.

Steve Glomski 24:17
Abra is a platform that allows you to take on freelance work while you’re still a full-time employee, as long as your employer is allowing you to do so.

Steve Glomski 24:24
And fortunately for us, we’ve talked to a lot of healthcare IT executives that are excited that they’re progressive, they get it, and they know that retention of team members is really important.

Steve Glomski 24:34
And when their team is, you know, half the time, they’re getting low-value work put on their plate, but they’re studying to be really high-value employees, just because that’s the nature of maintaining the environment.

Steve Glomski 24:45
Let’s give them some more challenging work. I don’t have it in my environment. But let me let you go do that for another organization to pretty much learn back here and maybe we can improve our environment as well.

Steve Glomski 24:53
So some really cool signs from the employer community that is buying into enabling some I’d like that with their employees.

Pete Newsome 25:01
It’s interesting, I don’t have nearly the exposure and experience you have with healthcare IT. But I can think of a couple of instances where we’ve needed to find someone on behalf of our client who’s in a niche role with a rare skill set.

Pete Newsome 25:18
And in healthcare specifically at a high level, they’ve been much more accommodating to out-of-the-ordinary scenarios, as you’re describing someone who can only work part-time, that sort of thing.

Pete Newsome 25:31
And that’s not the norm in our normal corporate staffing, and relationships, anything out of the box really isn’t, isn’t embraced very, very easily.

Pete Newsome 25:42
Healthcare seems to be different, at least that’s my limited exposure that is prevalent across the entire space. And if so, why?

Steve Glomski 25:52
I’d say it’s prevalent around any really complex skill environment that takes multiple different niche skills that have a long learning curve in order to make an environment operate and enterprise apps are a perfect example of that.

Steve Glomski 26:06
So any complex ERP system or supply chain system or human capital management system, there are multiple modules. So you know, the technology team members need to be operationally knowledgeable and understand workflows, and you understand how to what to expect the user to experience and there’s a lot of complexities around that.

Steve Glomski 26:26
And when you have such a complex skill environment, you also. And then on top of that, you layer in requirements for product-specific certifications and things like that, that cost money and time. Any environment like that is rich for the solution that we built into Abra.

Steve Glomski 26:43
I get what you’re talking about. And it doesn’t necessarily translate to all other corporate-type skills and teams, where there’s maybe a shorter learning curve, or there’s a much larger population of talent that can be pulled from, but then also you layer in the complexity of required to be on-site to do some of this work.

Steve Glomski 27:01
You can’t just do all this work remotely, you can’t and some of it, you can some of it, you can’t. So there are a lot of different things and considerations around that.

Steve Glomski 27:08
But I’d say enterprise apps is a very, very specific community, I think some of the new work around cloud services, that health systems are getting involved in doing some of the complexities around infrastructure and information security, all that relevant, you know, very niche specific product experience, certifications, understanding workflow, and data and those healthcare environments.

Steve Glomski 27:32
There are all sorts of complexities that are required consideration.

Pete Newsome 27:36
So I’m speaking right now to anyone listening, who’s early in their career, or still trying to figure out what it is they want to do.

Pete Newsome 27:46
Like me, you have a big, big family, a lot of kids and I tell you, mine are older than yours, learn to code, learn to code, learn to code, right?

Pete Newsome 27:54
I mean, that’s the agreement. I mean, there’s just such a shortage of, of employees, in many respects, why we need better systems and ways of connecting talent with opportunity. Because there’s, there’s a shortage of talent at a high level.

Steve Glomski 28:10
Yeah, you know, learning to code is good advice. I would say that really becoming a student in an environment that you are passionate about, is really important.

Steve Glomski 28:23
If you look at organizations that are trying to just hire people off the streets and then train them on the products to support those environments. It’s a failed approach.

Steve Glomski 28:32
What’s more successful is hiring people that work in operations in those departments, and then learning the technology after so, yes, you need to fundamentally understand how systems work, how, how it works, how to define workflow, so more of problem-solving skills.

Steve Glomski 28:51
But knowing an environment really well, operational workflow. So let’s say you’re in HR, and you’ve been an HR generalist for years, and then your organization is going through, you know, implementing a brand new system who knows that environment better than you?

Steve Glomski 29:04
Nobody, right? So you might be tapped as a subject matter expert to help the technical team go in and make those changes and implement the software.

Steve Glomski 29:13
Or you can actually go in and become that technical person that brings all that valued operational understanding and expertise into that environment.

Steve Glomski 29:22
Now, you’re worth a lot to the organization.

Pete Newsome 29:25
No doubt, I mean, specific knowledge, right? You can’t replace that. That has value always. Tell me high level and I know you’ve described it, but I just to be to want to be really succinct and clear with us.

Pete Newsome 29:42
On both the client side, the buyer side, if you will, and the candidate side who should check out Abra I mean, just you know who speaks to the audience and say this is really who your target is right now.

Steve Glomski 29:56
On the talent side, it’s anyone that’s supporting enterprise apps and health care.

Steve Glomski 30:00
Are environment and specifically provider organizations. So that’s anyone that’s supporting EHR systems like epic Cerner all scripts, Meditec, next-gen to name a few ERP systems, Oracle, cloud, workday, PeopleSoft Kronos, you got human capital management systems, some of those same names I just referenced.

Steve Glomski 30:22
Serviceman has a service now BMC Remedy, you name it.

Steve Glomski 30:26
On the employer side, it’s any leader and healthcare organization that’s focused on building IT teams and driving its initiatives, or it’s any IT staffing and consulting firm that supports the provider community.

Pete Newsome 30:39
Great. And then if you’re not a leader, but you see the value in what the platform could deliver, what’s the pitch internally?

Pete Newsome 30:47
I mean, is that what they call it where do they go running that up the ladder to get by? And I mean, how would you approach that if you were a manager level, who didn’t have the clout in authority to make the call, but see, see the value?

Steve Glomski 31:03
Well, I think they’re all feeling the pain.

Steve Glomski 31:05
And so it’s easy to surface, a new solution that’s addressing one of the largest pain points that every organization’s facing today, there’s certainly a talent squeeze in healthcare IT. It’s, hey, here’s a platform that can enable us to in a more affordable way, engage a flexible workforce that we know we depend on every day.

Steve Glomski 31:28
And unfortunately, we’ve got this massive backlog of projects that are sitting on the side and our customers are upset with us because we’re not addressing their projects because we’re having to prioritize, we’ve got limited resources and limited budget.

Steve Glomski 31:40
Well, if we can do x more with our budget, we can accelerate some of those projects.

Steve Glomski 31:45
So even if you’re not in it, and a healthcare organization, let’s say you’re an operational leader in an emergency department, and you know, you hear about Abra, and you’ve got a backlog of projects, you’ve asked an IT team to work on, but they’re not getting to it.

Steve Glomski 31:57
Yep, bring this to your IT executive and let them know, here’s a pathway to free up some budget for you to get access to the talent you need to help drive these projects forward.

Pete Newsome 32:05
Perfect. All right. So, Steve, I’m not gonna let you go quite yet. I want to spend just a couple of minutes on Steve Galovski, the entrepreneur who has now started two businesses, what is it that you think of? Yeah, there’s a little introspection here.

Pete Newsome 32:18
But what is it in your history, and background makeup that you think allows you to be an entrepreneur? What is what does that take, if you will?

Pete Newsome 32:29
Because, look, a lot of people want to not nearly as many people actually take the step. So that’s admirable, and it takes some confidence and, and some risk. But why are you Why do you think?

Steve Glomski 32:43
Well, you took some words out of my mouth, and I was thinking about it as I answered.

Steve Glomski 32:45
I just kept going, I should have just stopped.

Steve Glomski 32:50
You’ve got to be okay. With the potential to fail. Like you just have to, you have to accept that there is a chance you’re going to fail.

Steve Glomski 32:58
I mean, what are the statistics out there? I think like 90% of entrepreneurs fail at least a few times before they have success, right? So having tolerance for risk is really important.

Steve Glomski 33:10
I think work ethic is in my mind, the biggest lever that you can pull, to blue-collar your way through all the trials, trials, and tribulations that you’re going to get.

Steve Glomski 33:22
I think another thing that has been, I guess, very important to my success and my pathway, there has been just being high integrity, like being honest with yourself, being honest with your customers, and being honest with your employees.

Steve Glomski 33:39
That goes a long way, as we talked about it earlier, reputation matters.

Steve Glomski 33:44
I think leadership is critical, you know, leading from the trenches, not asking anyone to do anything that you’re not willing to do yourself leading by example.

Steve Glomski 33:44
And, you know, if you make if you’re if you’re not if you don’t have high integrity, I mean, you’re just going to build a poor reputation for yourself.

Steve Glomski 34:03
I certainly do that on a daily basis in both of my businesses. And I think that’s a good foundation.

Pete Newsome 34:12
I know I appreciate you answering that. I mean, talk to me about though, if you could go back in and do anything differently. You have between from the time you started your career, maybe even in school, to where you are now what would that be?

Steve Glomski 34:28
That’s a great question. I would say. While I loved my education, I studied biology because I was fascinated.

Pete Newsome 34:38
That’s how you remember the hierarchy earlier. I was feeling pretty insecure after that after you rattled that off.

Steve Glomski 34:45
I think of like life as a miracle. Right? That’s really fascinating how our bodies are like the perfect machine. So I studied that because I was fascinated by it.

Steve Glomski 34:53
But I didn’t realize that I would be so fascinated with business and economics. You And the ability to influence the world on a much larger scale through business.

Steve Glomski 35:06
And so I guess the one thing I would change, is I would have studied some type of business-related degree just to give myself a, you know, a launching pad earlier potentially.

Steve Glomski 35:18
I didn’t know that that was a passion that I had until after I finished school and I took my first job as a recruiter at a healthcare staffing agency.

Pete Newsome 35:26
Okay. do you think that’s been a disadvantage to you in the business world not having that degree? Or maybe as had been a hurdle to overcome, right that you haven’t?

Pete Newsome 35:42
Because I’ve never thought that I have a poli sci degree. I’m someone who often talks about opportunities, and I don’t necessarily think college is a requirement. I’ll just say that I’ll leave it there. But the question, I mean, do you think it’s impacted you in a negative way?

Steve Glomski 36:04
I think there have been times when I could have been equipped with, some more knowledge that would help me make some other decisions, and times and not have to slow down to stop and think and go research and try to educate myself to make some decisions.

Steve Glomski 36:18
But I guess overall, no, I mean, not an insurmountable hurdle. But I do think that I could have accelerated some things. I guess, coming back to your question earlier, Pete, what are some other pieces of advice is be a lifelong learner too?

Pete Newsome 36:32
Right.

Steve Glomski 36:32
Always have to be just neat, sucking up as much information as you can by reading, exploring, listening to podcasts, and exposing yourself to as much as you can, and you almost have to be obsessed with your, your trade to become an expert at it.

Steve Glomski 36:47
And that that is that’s, that’s mandatory?

Pete Newsome 36:53
Yeah, I don’t I don’t I think about this a lot. I interview people frequently now and talk about how success happened. And there’s no story that I have encountered yet, that didn’t come with an incredible work ethic and dedication to whatever it is that individuals doing.

Pete Newsome 37:12
And it’s rarely about education or background, or, you know, how whether you were able to start with a head, you know, you had a head start from the beginning.

Pete Newsome 37:22
I mean, I don’t, I’m sure that I know those stories exist. But those aren’t the ones that I encounter, it is always a story of us having a goal and a steadfast commitment to achieving it and really believing in it.

Pete Newsome 37:37
And in that case, education and history, and background matter significantly less than what you’re willing to do going forward. And it’s a message I asked without knowing what your answer would be.

Pete Newsome 37:48
But I’m not surprised by your answer, because I’m yet to hear anything really to the contrary from people who find a way you started two businesses, you’re succeeding in an area where you’re charting your own course, right, no one can do that for you have that has to come from with that.

Steve Glomski 38:06
Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to take all the credit because my wife’s at home working just as hard. And I think that another important thing if you do have a family is to set realistic expectations on the front end of jumping off that cliff and taking those risks.

Steve Glomski 38:21
Because, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of stress felt at the home front as well, you know, there’s a lot of sacrifices made to make sure things work here.

Steve Glomski 38:31
There’s a lot of weight borne by the shoulders, the entrepreneurial start of the business, and there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that’s taken on my wife and kids at home. So, you know, is a conversation that should be had if you’ve got a family as

Pete Newsome 38:45
well, you’re absolutely right. And I’m experiencing that for the second time now. So I started my staffing company 18 years ago, and two of my four kids weren’t even born yet. And I remember talking to my wife, she was pregnant with number three when I decided to quit my job to start 4 Corner Resources.

Pete Newsome 39:04
And I said, Look, I’m going to do this. And she’s like, just don’t be stressed when the baby comes. I’m like, What are you talking about? I’m a stress case. 24/7 That’s not a that’s not an option.

Pete Newsome 39:15
But to your point, she was very supportive. But that was a conscious decision that I knew I was going to have to sacrifice family time and I did for years.

Pete Newsome 39:24
And then that normalized as the business survived and started to thrive, I was able to spend more time but now I’m back in it with zengig and it weighs on me in a different way.

Pete Newsome 39:39
Because, you know, I still have to be at home still and I have to talk to my family on a regular basis that hey, I’m going to consciously remove myself from the time that I would otherwise be spinning and that’s that that comes with a different kind of cost.

Pete Newsome 39:55
You know, I mean that that’s not easy to do. It’s hard harder for me to do now. How conscious are you of that? And I mean, your kids probably aren’t how old? Your oldest? I mean, can you even have those conversations yet?

Steve Glomski 40:10
My oldest is 11. And I do have those conversations. And he’s pretty, you know, with it, and I can’t think he understands. And, you know, he actually repeats it back to me, Hey, I understand, you know, why you’re doing this and, and all that. So. But my youngest is six, so he doesn’t get it.

Pete Newsome 40:26
No, no, but one day, right? I mean, you know, they will, and I, and I think, you know, like me, you probably realize that, hey, there’s lessons learned on both sides.

Pete Newsome 40:38
And I know you’re a very attentive parent. And so you find that balance. But for anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur, I think there’s, an expectation that is almost the polar opposite of the reality that if I do this if I don’t work as an employee, I will have more free time.

Pete Newsome 40:57
And my experience is the exact opposite. I know, I was never more free than I was as an employee, where I could take a vacation and let someone else worry about it. And I had a backup to answer my call if I wasn’t available. Is that been your experience, though?

Steve Glomski 41:13
Yeah.

Pete Newsome 41:15
So it’s not all rosy out there. But looking forward, Steve, what I may ask is that it is just about the job market real quick. You’re knee-deep like I am. We see lots of layoffs that have taken place over the past couple of weeks, very visible. Lots of press.

Pete Newsome 41:32
We still have 10 million job openings in the US right now. But what do you Yeah, there are signs right there signs that things may turn south a little bit.

Pete Newsome 41:42
We’re seeing it a little bit. Some of my peers that I talked to in staffing are seeing it. What do you think? If you look ahead to 2023, what do you see the job market look like?

Steve Glomski 41:53
Well, I think employees are the talent on the market if they’re empowering. They’re exercising their empowerment right now.

Steve Glomski 42:01
And so there’s all these openings and all these people that aren’t working right now. They’re not taking those opportunities. So I think they fully appreciate the value that they bring. I’ve been in healthcare technology for a long time.

Steve Glomski 42:15
And we’re very fortunate in that it’s relatively recession-proof. So that area and domain I don’t think it’s going to be all that impacted.

Steve Glomski 42:24
But some other industries may be impacted more by retail hospitality, potentially. But I do think that with greater access, and information and data, the talent is going to continue to be more and more empowered.

Steve Glomski 42:40
And employers gonna have to bend and be a little bit more flexible. Wages, work scenarios, the remote list goes on and on.

Pete Newsome 42:50
Well, I love that you’re doing your part to help. You’re helping the talent, you’re helping employers as well, but you’re really helping to improve a marketplace that is in need of a facelift.

Pete Newsome 43:00
So congratulations on where you are so far. Hopefully, you’ll agree to come back maybe in a year. Tell us where you are with Abra after a year and we can celebrate your success. How’s that sound?

Steve Glomski 43:11
I love that. Thanks so much for having me. Always a pleasure, man.

Pete Newsome 43:14
Awesome. So we’ll look we’ll put out your contact info on how to find out or how to find Shyft6 in our show notes. Thanks so much for joining today. Really appreciate it.