Job Market Trends and Wishes for 2023

Job market trends we are hoping for this year

Pete’s wishlist

• Increase growth of the freelance market and healthier working relationships
• The economy will improve: decrease in interest rates, cost of living, and inflation
• Employee empowerment
• Quiet quitting will cease to exist

Ricky’s wishlist

• Increase in flexible working relationships, such as 4-day workweeks
• Technology will be embraced like never before
• A decline in the use of outdated application processes because resumes are only a snapshot into an employee’s experience and skillset

Additional resources

• Job outlook and salary guide
• Is freelancing worth it? Pros and cons
• Sample resumes and recommendations

Transcript

Pete Newsome 00:00
You’re listening to the Finding Career Zen Podcast. I’m Pete Newsome. And I’m back today with Ricky Baez for an end-of-year special. Ricky, how are you?

Ricky Baez 00:09
I’m doing great. Pete. What about a year’s end?

Pete Newsome 00:12
I’m doing well. We’re both out of state and made it back. I was flying. And I’m lucky that I avoided just by a day, the collapse of one of the major airlines, it seems like it’s a mess.

Pete Newsome 00:26
So I was able to get back. You got to see some snow in Tennessee but had to drive back. So that couldn’t have been fun.

Ricky Baez 00:32
No, no, it was just way, way, way too many steps along the way traffic in Atlanta, near Atlanta. Love your people, man, and your traffic, you got to do something about that. Yeah, drove back.

Pete Newsome 00:45
So we’re back. We’re back in Florida. And we have one more show. This one that we’re doing before 2023 is officially upon us. And we wanted to talk about making a wish list day.

Pete Newsome 00:57
So three things that we each wish will continue something we wish and hope to happen in 2023. And then something we wish would go away. So I don’t know what you wrote. You don’t know what I wrote. Let’s start you want to go first?

Ricky Baez 01:14
You know what? I think I’ll flip that coin to you, sir.

Pete Newsome 01:17
Oh, I’ll go first. So something that I wish and hope will continue throughout 2023. And that is the growth of the freelance market and also referred to as the gig economy.

Pete Newsome 01:29
It is something I’m a huge fan of we’ve talked about this a couple of times on podcasts throughout the year.

Pete Newsome 01:35
I think we discussed it a couple of weeks ago when we were on the topic of unions because, to me, it’s the polar opposite of that where I don’t believe that someone’s career should be a team sport.

Pete Newsome 01:49
I think that’s what freelance offers, just as the word indicates freedom, and it makes for a healthier work relationship. I could spend hours talking about that. I won’t do it because I’ve done it enough.

Pete Newsome 02:07
And I’m sure we’ll do it more next year. But I see it as all good. I think the government will probably disagree with that.

Pete Newsome 02:17
I think the federal government will, throughout this year, unfortunately, become more involved in what’s happening there. Because it is growing so rapidly. I think that is something I hope doesn’t happen.

Pete Newsome 02:29
But I expect well, I’m a big fan. So what do you think about that one? I’m sure you agree, you want to see that continue to right?

Ricky Baez 02:37
Oh, absolutely. And I think when we did that episode, where we did go in depth about it, I think you and I were both on the same sheet of music.

Ricky Baez 02:44
So I really hope that continues. And I want that to grow even more. So I wouldn’t be on that.

Pete Newsome 02:49
There’s my first wish is for the freelance market to continue to grow. What’s your first wish?

Ricky Baez 02:55
You know, it’s about to be 2023. There, Pete and the pandemic is what, two, three years old now? Almost three years.

Ricky Baez 03:03
And even before the pandemic started, we knew what a flexible work arrangement meant, you know, it’s remote work, Zoom meetings, Skype meetings, and the pandemic kind of pushed us into it.

Ricky Baez 03:16
And now it’s become a part of our everyday lives. And I wish for that to continue.

Ricky Baez 03:23
Because that’s going to only evolve, the more people get involved with it, the more it evolves, and the more we learn from it, and the more efficient is going to be so I really wish for that technology to continue to be used and embraced.

Pete Newsome 03:36
So do you think it will though?

Ricky Baez 03:40
I think it will, I think it will. It’s with, with how relevant it is right now in the metaverse the oldest possibilities on web 3.0.

Ricky Baez 03:51
And now it’s just discovered chatGTP, it whole big thing now that I really think the more we use it, the better it’s going to be and the more efficient we are going to be and how you and I do this now.

Pete Newsome 04:05
So Right. So I wasn’t planning on going down this road, but I have to if you’re the employer, and the flexible work arrangements that you’re referring to that I want to clarify, are you talking about working on-site versus remotely?

Pete Newsome 04:17
Or are you talking about, you know, shorter days on a work schedule? Or are you just putting it all in that under that umbrella to separate things?

Ricky Baez 04:24
Okay, so I’m talking about the option to be able to work from home or from work not exclusively.

Pete Newsome 04:33
Okay, so I’m a fan of that too. You know, that we’ve sent our staffing company employees to all work remotely. If they choose, they have the option.

Pete Newsome 04:42
Not shockingly, everyone is choosing to work virtually. So for 90 plus percent of the time, which is great, it makes sense. I’m a fan. But when you bring up chatGPT it begs the question of if you’re a large employer and you have someone who could potentially use that to do their job.

Pete Newsome 05:02
Let’s say a customer service agent, there’s a tweet that I saw a couple of days ago, where it was showing how to take the chat text, and turn that into a video.

Pete Newsome 05:16
And there’s another site that has an AI person, you know, it looks like a person who will speak the text in the video. So basically, you can have a speech and a video created through that if you follow a couple of steps.

Pete Newsome 05:34
So it’s not hard to imagine that virtual employees could potentially figure out a way to have a chat GBT user job for them. So I guess my question is, could the existence of that technology work against employees being remotely and working that way?

Ricky Baez 05:51
So that’s a loaded question. So here we go. All right. Well, that I was not expecting.

Pete Newsome 05:59
I wasn’t expecting to ask it.

Ricky Baez 06:02
So there blew my mind. I was messing with it. And it blew my mind how intuitive it was. And I’m like, these possibilities are endless. So but back to the question I had.

Ricky Baez 06:11
Let’s take the ethical piece out of the equation. Right. Ethical meaning Is it cheating? Or is it plagiarism to put that out there as your own work?

Ricky Baez 06:23
Then if you initiate the right levels to make it happen? Is that ethical? So let’s take that out of the equation for right now.

Ricky Baez 06:32
And as the employer, if I’m paying an employee to do ABC for me, and, and the employer produces ABC for me, and no laws were violated, I don’t care where it came from. Because to me, all I care about is the product that I’m paying to get.

Pete Newsome 06:53
I get that. Sure. So you know, your boy was just that typing away. And Chad GPT automated? No, I mean, I guess that makes sense. I think the next logical thought on that is why I was, you know, how many jobs is this going to eliminate?

Pete Newsome 07:09
And, you know, for I think for everyone who’s listening to this, we both I haven’t asked you this, but I think I know the answer, you would highly recommend paying attention to what’s happening to stay ahead of the curve, well, you may not be ahead of the curve, but stay on the curve of the evolving technology.

Pete Newsome 07:26
Because if you look at jobs that exist today, that didn’t exist 20 years ago, and conversely, jobs that didn’t exist 20 years ago that don’t exist today, that evolution is speeding up.

Pete Newsome 07:38
And this is we’ve just taken a big step forward by seeing this AI out in, you know, that everyone can use. And like you said boy, it blows your mind and out.

Pete Newsome 07:52
I think, you know, even since it was originally launched, I’ve seen a couple of comments about how it has some political bias to it. And you know, the answers are somewhat subjective.

Pete Newsome 08:04
And so when you start saying those things, because I My first thought was man, Google is going to be challenged by this. Because it’s going to eliminate potentially eliminate so much traffic.

Pete Newsome 08:16
But when I saw that it doesn’t, it didn’t provide options, which is exactly what Google does, right? I mean, when you do a Google search, the front page of Google gives you roughly ten different options to choose from, where this is one size fits all, at least in its current form.

Pete Newsome 08:31
And there was a bunch, I saw again, on Twitter, a bunch of political questions that were asked, and this thing, let’s just say it was biased.

Ricky Baez 08:42
Well, let me tell you what I did. Let me tell you because this is this I have not been impressed with something like this in a long time.

Ricky Baez 08:49
That’s why when I first saw this and how it worked and tried it out, I was like, these possibilities are endless. So I asked the GPT three chat box, what does a good HR manager do?

Ricky Baez 09:04
And they gave me this really intuitive paragraph and bullet points and everything. And I’m like, okay, so you gather data? Let me see what you think.

Ricky Baez 09:13
And then I asked that. What does a bad HR manager do? And it didn’t do the exact opposite. It really told the story of how a business would fail. If they employed a horrible HR manager. It was really intuitive, and I’m not gonna lie. It’s scary. Pete

Pete Newsome 09:32
Yeah. Well, well, I don’t know if you saw my blog. I hope you have Ricky whom I interviewed chat with JpT a couple of weeks ago about recruiting. Yeah.

Pete Newsome 09:42
So you’ll have to check that out. And I think it was getting it’s mind-blowing to see how impressive it is, however, someone who knows about staffing lacks nuance and response. It was sort of generic in nature. So I think it’ll improve over time. I do wonder if you said it when he talked about ethics.

Pete Newsome 10:09
And I don’t know if you ask ChatGPT to create content for you, is it plagiarism to take on it? Because I thought first, unlike Google, which pulls from existing sources, this is being generated on the fly to some degree. Is that considered plagiarism? If you?

Ricky Baez 10:31
I’ve been pondering that question for a while Pete because I’m also a professor and a few months ago, I was having a conversation with another professor at the same college where I teach, you know, having a conversation about that, not necessarily that DPT one. Still, there are students who put like essays or other information in Google Translate.

Pete Newsome 11:05
Essay right?

Ricky Baez 11:06
So the question was, is like is that unethical? In we don’t know. We don’t know if that’s unethical. It’s, they’re doing the work but it’s not their own intellectual work.

Ricky Baez 11:18
So we’re, where I’m leaning is, if it’s not your own intellectual property, meaning that you did not create it, the words did not come out of your head, then it would be unethical for you to grab what you decided to do with an app to have those words come out. So is Grammarly.

Pete Newsome 11:37
unethical?

Ricky Baez 11:41
Oh.

Pete Newsome 11:42
What I would say for an English student is it would be right if you do so often. If you’re an English student who has tried a paper and you use Grammarly, is, is that cheating? I don’t think it is. And then I’ll give you one more. And this is about this is more in line with what you were just saying.

Pete Newsome 12:04
There’s another tool that there’s a sort of the next level, which is called I think it’s called, I’m saying Wartell is that’s not it. It’s called Word tune.

Pete Newsome 12:14
And it gives you a variety of options. So you write a sentence to Jack and Jill going up the hill. And it will give you a number of alternate ways to say it that may very well be an improvement on the way you originally stated it.

Pete Newsome 12:32
So we’re gonna use so do Jack and Jill traveled up the mountain, right, Jack and Jill, you know, up the hill went jack, and Jill or whatever, right, but it gives you a variety.

Pete Newsome 12:42
So if you took your friend’s paper and just put it through word tune, changing every sentence, the teacher would never, I mean, there’s any software that could find it, I guess unless Well, I mean, but this is bad. This is, where’s this leading?

Ricky Baez 12:57
We’re going back to chat GPT the whole GPT thing. I, I like it, I love it, I think it’s gonna do great things, I’m going to be afraid to use it. Because if I don’t come up with creativity, if I’m in charge of my own creative process, something else is what does that do to my own process?

Ricky Baez 13:17
I don’t improve. So I rather not use it. I mean, that’s our field now. But we’ll see what happens in a couple of years. But I am afraid that is going to rob away of people’s creative process.

Pete Newsome 13:31
Well, I think it’ll make us better. Right, I think it forces us to be better. That’s my wish. This is not one of my three wishes.

Pete Newsome 13:40
But I would say I’m sure if you look back through history, there are lots of things that were thought there, this is going to take away the humans x, right?

Pete Newsome 13:51
And in some cases, that’s probably very true where, if you look at transportation, humans aren’t as fit as they used to be. Because our food is caught for us.

Pete Newsome 14:03
We don’t have to grow our own food. We don’t have to walk and run places we could get to ride in a car. Well, we’re a lot in worse physical shape in that regard. Right. But not everyone but collectively. But that’s been balanced out by other health benefits.

Pete Newsome 14:22
So the life lifespan has extended because instead of spending our time this is sort of the counter right? Instead of spending our time hunting our own food and growing our own food and walking from point A to point B, we’re able to use our brains a whole lot more.

Pete Newsome 14:36
And, as a result, create medicines and technologies that will extend our life. It was a better trade-off than what we were losing there. There’s my philosophical thought for the day.

Pete Newsome 14:47
So I hope that convinced me that chatGPT you know ultimately makes us better because we’re able to spend time, not on tasks that can be created by a computer right now. Then, you know, the matrix question as well. Where does that stop and let’s not let’s not dwell on that today, Ricky? It’s a happy show.

Ricky Baez 15:08
Yeah, yeah, just wait for the Skynet series.

Pete Newsome 15:11
Okay, so So next one. So that’s what we wish will happen. You wish for the continuation. I’m sorry, that’s why we wish to continue flexible work arrangements and a familiar freelance economy.

Pete Newsome 15:22
So what do you hope will happen? Right? What’s something you wish would happen that doesn’t currently look to be the case? Or isn’t currently taking place? Would you like me to go first again?

Ricky Baez 15:37
Okay, this one because I don’t know if you? I don’t know where you are. On this one. Oh, boy. If you like, Yes or Absolutely, no. Here’s what I hope to happen. A larger acceptance of a flexible work week.

Pete Newsome 15:55
Oh, that’s why you had to separate the two. Yes. Okay. Now I know. Yeah. A flexible work. Here we go. Okay.

Ricky Baez 16:02
So here’s, here’s how I look at it. And I was not under, I was not on this side of the fence up until about two or three months ago, when I started seeing like, wow, okay, this really does work.

Pete Newsome 16:17
Define it, though, please define what you’re actually talking about. Because when you say flexible, that can mean so many things.

Ricky Baez 16:25
Completely do away with a schedule Monday through Friday, nine to five position, and focus solely on a position to where the value of what the employee puts out, is equal, or Yes, should be equal to what he or she works, how they work throughout the week.

Ricky Baez 16:45
So whether it takes some 40 hours a week, 80 hours a week, or five hours a week, as long as the output matches the value that you as the boss of the organization are okay with. We should be okay.

Pete Newsome 16:58
Wow, you sound like a fan of the freelance economy. Of course, I do. So as we know, in many respects, that’s how freelancers get to work.

Pete Newsome 17:08
But I think you’d have to go down the list of job titles and say which ones this could apply to and which ones can’t. Because what is missing from that is, you know, availability and accessibility of people, you know, to interact and work together or support customers, or support other folks internally, right? I mean, it sounds wonderful.

Pete Newsome 17:37
And for many jobs, I think it’s possible. But I think for probably, now, I’m just making this up. Because if we’d really have to go job by job and say, yep, this could work or nope, no way.

Pete Newsome 17:50
But I think what you’d find is that I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. Do you think that companies, so if we acknowledged, say, 50% of jobs, you could do it? 50?

Pete Newsome 17:58
Can’t right? Is that fair? That’s fair. Let’s say take a big company or a small company, our company, 30 employees, I say, you can split it right down the middle 15 Doesn’t really matter when they work. And for the other 15, you’ll have to adhere to a schedule, how much strife does that cause?

Ricky Baez 18:19
Does the strife come from? I mean, yeah, I see that. But wouldn’t that be an incentive?

Pete Newsome 18:28
Because you can’t switch jobs?

Ricky Baez 18:31
Well no, not switch jobs to be promoted into a job that has that kind of a structure?

Pete Newsome 18:36
What if it’s not a promotion, though? What if it’s a job that like, for example, payroll that we run has to be run each week for hundreds of people being a staffing company, the person who does that is someone at our company, someone I trust with my wife, who’s our longest tenured employee, you know, so this is someone that I would give as much flexibility to as I possibly could.

Pete Newsome 19:04
However, she has to adhere to a certain schedule, so I think it would be this I did not intend to use this example. But since I did, so here’s someone who deserves any advantage and benefit and freedom that you could possibly grant and employ, but isn’t bound by the responsibilities of the job.

Pete Newsome 19:33
So if to give the grant that other employees, listen, it happens right. Salespeople make commissions for other jobs.

Pete Newsome 19:41
Roles don’t I mean, that’s, you have some positions get bonuses, others don’t, but I would hesitate that but when you say oh get promoted into it because I don’t necessarily think that’s would is how it would play out.

Ricky Baez 19:57
Well, I mean, obviously it’s This isn’t something that I’ve been thinking about for years and years, this is something that I was just, I started exploring this year.

Ricky Baez 20:06
And it’s funny, you bring up the payroll position because that’s I’ve actually seen this workout live, where they pay to reposition payroll position recently. And just like any other position, so let’s talk about 50% of the position just put apply for right now the other 50%.

Ricky Baez 20:21
So let’s say payroll is one of them. So like any other position with this would apply to, there are some meetings that we still have to be available for, right? So not just 100% flexibility.

Ricky Baez 20:33
But instead of being in a specific office in a specific place, from Monday to Friday, nine to five, are in a position Monday to Friday, nine to five, but just say, Look, I just need you for this meeting.

Ricky Baez 20:43
And that meeting, everything else you do whatever you want to do, you go to the doctor, you handle this meeting, or at least be available for a client, so long as goals ABC or hit, right when this example there’s one payroll person has to be available on this day in that day, in that time to process payroll, everything else is whatever they want to do.

Pete Newsome 21:04
Here’s a world I’d like to live in. I’d like to live in a world or work in a world where it’s not even necessary to dictate those things. And I suspect that’s what you’re going for, right? So the person who’s who has to do X on a certain day or time or meet with a certain group, in a perfect world.

Pete Newsome 21:27
And the world we’d like to live in probably is the one who could just acknowledge it, realize that and act accordingly. And not have to have it spelled out. That’s what I’ve always wanted to say, Why do I have to talk about ours? Right? Like, do you maximize the opportunity for yourself or the organization?

Pete Newsome 21:45
Do the best job that you can. Now we’re in a world where it is commission driven. So it makes sense that people would want to do more for that reason. But as you said, some people want to get promoted. And there’s a reason to do to work harder, you know, that way or to do more right now.

Pete Newsome 22:09
That’s how we get into quiet quitting a little bit. I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves here. But that is that’s an interesting thing. So flexible work schedules where possible,

Ricky Baez 22:21
where possible, this will be in the infancy stages, right? It would have to evolve with time and with practice. But I’ve seen it work for some organizations. And I’m like, wow, that actually makes sense. So I’m excited about that.

Pete Newsome 22:36
Now, do we latch the three or four-day work week onto that or keep that separate?

Ricky Baez 22:42
No, I think it’s that will be included, that will be included. It’s I like how you put it there. Pete, you want to run a company? I don’t know about living in a world. But people want a company with trust. It’s so solid, that you don’t have to mention any of those things. Right? Well, it just worked.

Pete Newsome 23:00
So you realize what I’m saying is I want an HR free. Right? That’s hilarious. But I mean, really, if you think about it, what are all the things that HR is in place to do in a perfect world?

Pete Newsome 23:17
Would you agree with this and put you on the spot in a perfect world? Would you say that these functions shouldn’t it’s a shame, I’m saying they aren’t necessary. But I’m saying it. But if you go kind of through a lot of the things you think, man, when it wouldn’t be nice not to have some of these functions be required.

Ricky Baez 23:38
So I’m gonna get so you’re asking a very progressive HR person this question, okay, I’m going to add, I’m going to answer it progressively. And it will be just like this. If HR did its job at bringing in the perfect talent, for the perfect position, with great leadership. Nothing else in HR is necessary.

Pete Newsome 24:03
All right, I’m gonna go. So let me just jump in and go the opposite way of what I said. There’s no way that anyone could accomplish that. Period, right? So there’s no matter what you do with people, you’re not going to accomplish that, therefore, it’s an impossible scenario. You can’t hire perfectly.

Ricky Baez 24:26
No, you can’t. Right. So you can’t, but you can hire. You cannot hire perfectly, but you can have a really dang good match from a candidate through a position. Right?

Ricky Baez 24:38
So if, if HR is strategic enough to partner with the business leaders and convince them to have a really good process on who to bring in when what kind of person to bring in when with the future in mind, not the right now but the future in mind, then that is a strategic partnership that’s progressive, very CES right now where some HR just focus hanging out until something happens and employee relations.

Pete Newsome 25:06
P&l, even the best businesses, look at Disney and sort of the public things they went through in the past few months with their CEO being replaced by the former CEO.

Pete Newsome 25:18
And then there was an article written about why that happened and how it came to be. Not sure how much of it is true. I don’t know if you read the article. But it was, you know, this organization is, it was the top of admired companies, and rightfully so it’s an incredibly successful and massive employer and brand.

Pete Newsome 25:41
And yet, you kind of look and say they’re still a disorganized mess at some levels. And I think that something that employees probably don’t realize, as much as they should, is that the companies are just our mess. In many respects, even though there are highly intelligent people involved, they have incredible decision-making experience, tools, and processes.

Pete Newsome 26:07
Now, it’s still people who will make mistakes and get things really wrong. You know, Elon is doing it publicly daily with Twitter. Right? He’ll decide, then 24 hours later, reverse that after getting bashed? I mean, HR will always be necessary. You’re safe, Ricky, you’re safe from Ai?

Ricky Baez 26:27
Oh, no, give it time. Give it time. I’m pretty sure it’s going to evolve with time. But, you know, Pete, it’s hearing you say that. And then, you know, knowing what I’ve got, I’ve gone through with with with with human resources and what the future is going to look like.

Ricky Baez 26:44
That right. Is there that difference, though? Is that a strategic partnership? So yeah, you’re right. I’m safe from AI for right now. We’ll wait until it starts evolving. And then let’s see what happens.

Pete Newsome 26:54
I just think it’s so hard for companies to plan. That’s all it was, it is even the best one. And just looking at, like I said that just kind of there was a mess going on behind the scenes. Do you think man if they can’t do it? Who can?

Ricky Baez 27:12
Who can really who can plan that Pete comes on the fact that that is the only issue we’re seeing? It says it’s a real well-oiled machine. I mean, people don’t know that the mouse who the mouse owns ABC, right, ESPN.

Ricky Baez 27:27
It’s Hulu. I mean, those are a lot of it’s a lot of huge organizations. And for this to be the biggest right now. They’re just focusing, on what happened with Che pag with everything else, right, and the streaming service and everything. So we’ll look at

Pete Newsome 27:42
the streaming service, right as an example. And looking at CNN plus, I think it was that came, it was released, and then canceled within a very short timeframe, I think under 60 days.

Pete Newsome 27:53
And I just, we’re so off-topic. Still, when you talk about companies planning, to me, Look, I’m going to sit back to say, you know that I believe that one of the reasons I support the freelance market so strongly is I think we there’s too much of a dependency on employers among the workforce.

Pete Newsome 28:13
I think employers today in many respects, are responsible for health and wealth and well-being and mental well-being and it’s so much beyond a job when you lay those responsibilities on the employer it was just not how that evolved. And we talked about unions the other day, it’s just how they evolved is irrelevant.

Pete Newsome 28:39
The fact that it exists today and isn’t necessary to exist today, I think is sort of my mission that I want to try to bring about with the freelance concept let’s stop expecting so much from each other. I mean, let’s expect the job to be done and not in be paid the wage that was agreed upon.

Pete Newsome 29:04
And man, let that be enough. Right? I agree. Because everything else that you pile on to it just adds complexity and negativity and in problems that you know, where let everyone solve the rest of it on their own. Anyway, that’s my, highly unrealistic freelance objective that I want to help achieve.

Ricky Baez 29:30
So we got we have one more wish, right? In that wish?

Pete Newsome 29:34
Well, I didn’t I didn’t talk about the thing that I hope will happen. I’m sorry. That’s right. I’ll do it briefly because everyone wants us right. Everyone hopes that the economy will turn around, inflation will decrease, and interest rates will go down, so that’s what I hope.

Pete Newsome 29:49
That’s my wish, of what I won’t have because all those things can happen, or at least the majority of those things happen if we can if businesses can be healthy. The supply chain can be good, and we can not have out of control inflation, and then the job market will be strong and income will continue to grow and will be a good place in you know, that’s what I hope to happen happens.

Ricky Baez 30:21
Yep, I’m gonna throw one out. Yeah. I need a certified Pete Newsome prediction. Give me an ETA.

Pete Newsome 30:29
On what? I’m that on. What about getting back to like the economy going in the right direction? That means I have no idea. I a year. A year. Yeah. Early 2024.

Pete Newsome 30:47
Yeah, because it just seems like there are too many bad signs. Right now. I think I think I don’t know why. Because it gets me all I really care. I mean, that’s all I really care about. But professionally, what I care about is the state of the job market. And that has a long, long way could drop before it’s not strong. So that knows, what do you think?

Ricky Baez 31:09
I figure it’d be a year and a half or two before it gets to the level that we’re going to be good. Good with. Because I don’t think I honestly don’t think much of America fully understands why the prices are the way they are right now.

Ricky Baez 31:24
Like everything is the way it is right now. Yeah, it is the political cycle. But there was something else involved there. And there was this little COVID thing that kind of disrupted everything worldwide. And right now we’re paying the piper for that.

Pete Newsome 31:37
Have you been reading the Twitter files?

Ricky Baez 31:41
No, I want to though, and that is on my list.

Pete Newsome 31:47
You need to it’s good. Well, okay, not comforting. All right. But listen, anything that brings anything that brings the truth to light and that I think is ultimately good for us.

Pete Newsome 32:05
But yeah, you just well, you have some reading to do you have some catching up? I thought you kept up with that stuff. Oh, no, no.

Ricky Baez 32:12
Not with that. And with that towards the end of the year, I tend to lay back kind of a little bit, but that is definitely on my list of things to be agitated about.

Pete Newsome 32:20
Well, let’s just say there are some interesting things. But yeah, I look we need, we need to get the economy going in the right direction. I think inflation is a tough one.

Pete Newsome 32:38
That prices everything’s so expensive right now. And even though some kind of government massage and going on with the numbers. I’d like to see that turnaround. I won’t turn around and won’t go backward. I’d like to see it just get back to normal.

Ricky Baez 32:55
Get back to normal before we get scarier. That’s right. That’s what I want. I don’t want it to be too scary.

Pete Newsome 33:01
All right, wish number three. All right, so we’ve talked about what we hope will continue and what we hope will happen. And now what do we wish would go away, something you hope would go away?

Ricky Baez 33:15
This is a pet peeve. So it may not be on anybody else’s list. But man, let me tell you, it really gets under my skin back when I used to do this.

Ricky Baez 33:26
When I was in the job market looking for a job. And I would submit a resume and fill out all this information. And they are still asking me to fill out the information that’s on my resume.

Pete Newsome 33:39
I thought you were gonna, are you? You’re kind of bashing recruiters here. No, no, no, you’re getting back away from the HR comment.

Ricky Baez 33:49
No, not recruiters not recruited just to process just the process. Because to me, I don’t know why. I take it back. I know why organizations do this.

Ricky Baez 34:00
And, you know, it’s just to be clear, but I’m saying that I don’t like applying for a position quote-unquote, by sending in a resume putting all this information. It’s just done the information.

Ricky Baez 34:11
And we still have to spend time filling out the different boxes in the application process. I get why that’s necessary from an HR perspective because you want to get the data aggregated and do what needs to be done. Get it from an end-user perspective. I gave you my resume. Here you go.

Pete Newsome 34:29
What would you do to change it? I mean, how can it change? Is there an easy fix?

Ricky Baez 34:33
Yeah, well just get rid of the application process. Just here’s a resume. There are websites I’m sorry, but the applications out there right now are intuitive enough to parse out information and have almost zero errors.

Ricky Baez 34:54
So why would we still put people through the process of entering the E Each and every job, and all these sorts of things when it’s already on a resume? That’s just, that’s just my pet peeve.

Pete Newsome 35:05
Well, I don’t know how much we’ve talked about this in the past, but I think resumes are antiquated, antiquated, outdated tool that hasn’t evolved and kept up with the rest of the world. They are still effectively the same as they were 50 years ago, right?

Pete Newsome 35:23
How many things can you say that about? And so we don’t recruit based on job descriptions and resumes as much as we recruit based on the intent and objectives of the candidate, and skills and background for sure. But the resume to me is just, it doesn’t tell the right story, right? It tells it’s like a cover of a book.

Pete Newsome 35:48
But I think there’s a way to get to more of the cliff notes of the book, as an individual, if you will, by phrasing things differently by having a different format, right that a resume doesn’t portray. So you’d rather not have a resume, I’d rather have it in a different form.

Pete Newsome 36:05
I mean, you can call it a resume still, but a resume that, generally speaking lists your jobs. And what you’ve done in the jobs doesn’t speak to what recruiters need to know.

Pete Newsome 36:16
So that that gives you let’s say, the hard skills, right, the resume doesn’t speak to the soft skills, which is hard to do on paper, but it also doesn’t speak to dry the motivation and objectives of the individual the way it should, right, because it’s like a resume tells me what you’ve done.

Pete Newsome 36:34
I need to know if I’m a recruiter what you want to do and intend to do going forward and not just the past, I want to hear you’re calling forward plans and objectives.

Ricky Baez 36:45
So we’re on the same sheet of music. Yeah. Okay. With that. All I’m advocating for is an easier process for the candidate.

Pete Newsome 36:53
I mean, if a candidate, I’ll tell you this, the process is I know, it is, I believe, is that takes time, right? So you’d have to fill out like we are recruiters fill out a profile on candidates that includes answers to a lot of questions that are on a resume that you wouldn’t see from a resume. But I don’t know the acceptance rate if people were willing to do that.

Pete Newsome 37:19
You just said you don’t like having to fill out additional information. But no one does. I mean, that’s not but it’s different when you have someone asking you to live and interviewing you, so to speak. Not every candidate is willing to spend that kind of time with us. And that’s okay.

Pete Newsome 37:33
We don’t need to work with everyone, just like clients, if you don’t want to recruit based on just a generic job description, I want you as a hiring manager, to tell me to describe who you need in the job and the skills that are required it just with meaning and not just checking the box on our own or JavaScript. So yeah, they’re both outdated processes, even though they’re used 99% of the time.

Ricky Baez 38:00
Yeah. And in luck, that information is useful. I mean, I get it from an HR perspective. It’s, it helps us. It’s in HR when the candidate fills all this information out.

Ricky Baez 38:12
So so I can wear those two hats. A great example is I have one client I’m working with right now, and I was having an issue with specific positions being filled.

Ricky Baez 38:22
And when we started taking a deeper dive into that issue, we found out that looking at the applicant tracking system, the candidate would never get past 20 minutes on the application process would never get past that.

Pete Newsome 38:37
20 minutes no wonder, because they died of old age. That’s why 20 minutes. Wait, wait a minute. I’m sorry. I want to make sure I understand where you can say where you were working.

Pete Newsome 38:52
They couldn’t figure it out, and I want to ensure I quote you on this correctly. Why the kids wouldn’t get past 20 minutes of the application

Ricky Baez 39:00
process. That was after we took a deep dive, right?

Pete Newsome 39:06
Because at first, the person did along with the whole thing. How long would it take? An hour? That’s atrocious.

Ricky Baez 39:16
We can’t do that we can’t. Now again, from a business perspective, I understand. They want to make sure they got the right person.

Ricky Baez 39:26
And although I commend that, and I completely understand that there’s a more efficient way to do that. Then they put the candidate through it. Now. Yes, their argument was, if anybody goes through that process, they’re as serious about this job as we are.

Ricky Baez 39:42
My counter to that is if anybody goes through that process is because nobody else wants them.

Pete Newsome 39:48
Right well. But even then, I mean, think about that, right? That’s the kind of statement that I think is not surprising using of course, but man, that’s where I immediately know my head, I go up freelance solves that right?

Pete Newsome 40:08
You need someone to do a job you’re not getting stopped back and like you’re getting married, stop acting like they have to be indebted to you and vice versa, right?

Pete Newsome 40:16
But that’s kind of what we’ve I want to make sure I’m what they’re buying and I want their soul, you know committed to this and their firstborn I mean what the hell just happened to do a job, right that should be okay and I don’t care what it is, you gotta cut your pinky off.

Pete Newsome 40:31
I mean, but just that that’s that just level of commitment I think is really in look. If you go on to social media, you’ll see it I mean, LinkedIn, Reddit, or any place has a large audience.

Pete Newsome 40:50
And you’ll see the vast majority, there’s an imbalance out there where, by default, the employers will look bad to the candidate for not doing things like providing, you know, benefits and time off, pay for time off, and all these things, right?

Pete Newsome 41:05
We know that so but what we would what gets lost in all this, and you and I’ve talked about, I think even recently as you don’t want to be part of that pool.

Pete Newsome 41:10
And then you take off when you want do you think we can ever get there? It’s so off where we were, but everything brings me back to it.

Pete Newsome 41:17
You want it you should be able to make it so you can decide when you take the time off, not be hope be beholden to your employers and the days that they grant you like, that’s the problem that we’re asking that this organization who just needs the job done, right to provide all these things, and we shouldn’t have them provide all those things we should just have them pay you as much as you can possibly make for the job.

Ricky Baez 41:46
If you ever run for president, I want to throw my hat in for the vice presidency because I believe that I that I’m with you there. I’m definitely with you there because that, you know, so long as you have that mutual respect and admiration for being there.

Ricky Baez 42:04
And for the reason that you’re talking about people who are in the organization and working there for the right reasons. Right. That’s what you’re talking about. But you’re right, if we start with them it returns to HR.

Pete Newsome 42:19
Yeah, well, it does. It does. Because we don’t we so here so let’s back this up for a sec. vacation policy. Right? That was a big talk with the railroad union recently that’s constantly at a talk and people from other countries will say I can’t believe that the US doesn’t provide, you know, full sick days, you know, pay and all this stuff. Right. Okay, I get it.

Pete Newsome 42:45
But just think of the relationship that starts off with an employee being granted time off. Right as part of the job having to ask for it. This is what we have today. I have to ask for time off. What like that?

Pete Newsome 43:00
No, that’s no, don’t work that way. If you worked as a freelancer, then you don’t ask for anything. You say, here’s where I’m, you know, you communicate. Right? You let, but you’re at it, you’re operating as peers, you’re not operating effectively as indentured servants.

Pete Newsome 43:18
And so that relationship now the problem is the employers. You’d say, Well, okay, but employers have to get people are going to abuse it right? It will, unfortunately, they would.

Pete Newsome 43:30
And the way to avoid someone abusing it is not to put any kind of mandate on the employer not to be able to act so if a freelancer misbehaves in the relationship and you know, says they’re going to be somewhere. They’re not or shows up late, there’s no HR process and writing them up. They just end the relationship.

Pete Newsome 43:49
The government’s not involved. No one cares. So guess what? Those relationships are healthy. Because it doesn’t have anyone looking over your shoulder or telling you what’s logical and what isn’t. It’s what adult a agrees to with adult B. And that’s it. That’s all it is.

Ricky Baez 44:06
I agree. 1,000% 1,000%. Now, can I come back real quick? Because you said something that made my ears perk up. Okay. Sorry that I don’t know even why I just get so fired up about that. No, me. No, me too, because I am on the camp of advocating for unlimited PTO PTO does not really exist. Right.

Ricky Baez 44:26
And everybody that’s told me that employees would take advantage of it. I asked him to give me an example. And each and every example I was able to rectify the issue. There was no mass exodus to take advantage of the organization.

Ricky Baez 44:45
So it’s Did you have an example? I don’t know if the other if you’ve heard of other examples out there of how an employee can possibly take advantage of the unlimited PTO process. Because if they do Oh, it’s because the leader allowed it.

Pete Newsome 45:02
Okay. Well, let me make sure I understand so the obvious one is employees say, All right, great. I’m just not showing up for days at a time or weeks at a time.

Ricky Baez 45:16
The counter to that is what works there, now that that’s the spirit of not having PTO if you have to do anything, you could go ahead and do it. But we have to plan it out because your number one priority is to work here.

Pete Newsome 45:30
Okay, so it’s not, it’s unlimited with a catch.

Ricky Baez 45:34
In some, it’s, it manages unlimited. limited, limited. Manage, yeah. Because as a leader, nobody just because the person has PTO in a bank doesn’t mean they can take time off, that the time off still needs to be scheduled, it still needs to be approved by the leader. And the leader can say your name.

Pete Newsome 45:53
Okay. All right. Make sense to me.

Ricky Baez 45:57
So there’s the process for that, right? It’s not this wild, wild west, people just don’t show up. Yeah, it doesn’t work that way.

Pete Newsome 46:03
I think what employers have to strive for and feel the need for rather, is consistency, and something that they can live with, you know, once they because that’d be a hard thing to pull back.

Pete Newsome 46:17
Right, once you say unlimited PTO. And where I always think of it is, look, the candidates can leave whenever they want. In many states, employers can’t just send the candidate away whenever they want. So they have to, you have to make sure that employer is protected there too, right?

Ricky Baez 46:40
Well, yeah, but it’s just so much easier. With everything being unlimited. Nobody has to track anything about who has what when people leave the organization, you don’t have to worry about a financial liability to the employee because of vacation hours they’ve earned it is so much an easier process for the employer to manage.

Pete Newsome 46:59
Yeah, well. Yeah, I guess there’s no, I mean, the downside would be, again, as long as how do you call it, okay, this is where I’m struggling. This is a misnomer. You can’t call it unlimited. When the manager gets to decide whether the days can be taken. That’s not unlimited PTO, that’s, that’s a skill. That’s now that’s fake news. That is false advertising revenue is it not?

Ricky Baez 47:25
Because well, hold on. So a manager, so let’s say I got 40 hours of PTO. You’re my manager? Yep, you still get to decide when I take it. I do have to have some time off.

Pete Newsome 47:37
Well, there’s a problem with that, so it’s limited, it’s unlimited. From the perspective of there isn’t a number that you earn whenever you’re out, within a process of requesting to be off, that time off will be paid.

Pete Newsome 47:58
That time off is going to be paid.

Ricky Baez 48:00
Remember, there’s a process to request that time off.

Pete Newsome 48:05
Okay. So if there is, you’re having to give your managers hard guidelines to follow. Yes, absolutely. Okay. So that it’s not affected by not being unlimited. You’ve just got a policy that you’re positioning differently.

Ricky Baez 48:18
It’s no different than the policies now. Which are right.

Pete Newsome 48:21
That’s my point is no different than the policies now which aren’t unlimited.

Ricky Baez 48:26
No, as far as I know, it’s no different than the policies. Now. The only difference is nobody tracks the time and there isn’t any financial liability when people leave.

Pete Newsome 48:36
Well, I mean, any financial liability is self-imposed. Let’s acknowledge that companies don’t have to offer paid unused vacation. I mean, maybe in some states, but generally speaking, well, not here, not not in Florida. And so that doesn’t really that.

Pete Newsome 48:53
So I think the alternative to me being the broken record now is freelance where nobody’s asking permission for anything. And because here’s the difference, a major difference is those hours aren’t being paid either. Right? And because you’re going you can’t have the freedom as long as there’s a financial tie.

Pete Newsome 49:18
And that’s where I think we may not be looking at it the same way where you’re saying employer why what? Explain this.

Pete Newsome 49:27
To me, that’s right. This is going to sound anti-employee, but it’s not at all because I think the freedom for the employee that comes with being a freelancer trumps any perceived benefit of getting quotes and being paid for the time you’re not working.

Pete Newsome 49:41
But here’s my question, why would an employer want to pay someone not to do the job they’re paying them to do? It wouldn’t be okay, but you’ve said I don’t care how long the job takes, right?

Pete Newsome 49:56
But if you’re the person paying for it wouldn’t You want to pay the minimum for the job that you could? Are all things equal? So if the job can be done in 20 hours, why should you pay for 40?

Ricky Baez 50:12
So how do I value time?

Pete Newsome 50:15
Well, you, I mean, you value as an employer you value I would tell you, I would want to pay the employees as much as possible, right, while making is serving customers and clients as well as possible while making as much profit as possible.

Ricky Baez 50:33
All right, I agree. My statement comes from if as the employer, I’m paying for me to get this product, right? And that product is delivered to my liking. And I feel like I gotta give value for what I paid for. I shouldn’t care how long it took to produce that product.

Pete Newsome 50:54
Well, I want to, but what you said, you feel like this is not a field thing. This is an objective thing. Did you overpay for the labor? Because your competitor is not going to different hats, though, right? Two different hats, right?

Ricky Baez 51:07
Because from my perspective, right, if I attend 99 people, if I say I’m gonna pay X amount of dollars for this item, but I need to see an itemized bill from you, right?

Ricky Baez 51:24
So that tells that person that I value time over anything else. So I’m penalizing that person for finishing a really good product early because I value time.

Pete Newsome 51:36
So I and I, well, I want to pay them as much as I can for their time. But I don’t want to pay them for the time that they’re not spent on the thing that I need. That, to me is where I think we’re talking a little bit differently, right? Where I’d rather you say, Hey, I’m gonna charge a premium because my time is valuable to end in.

Pete Newsome 51:57
And I want to have the best I can for whatever, as much as I can afford for that or whatever, right? But where I get blurry is when you then have to say, well, now I want you to pay me for time, I’m not working, that skews everything once that comes into the mix.

Pete Newsome 52:17
Like now I want you to pay me what I’m not doing the service or job or producing the product you need me to produce as a business. That’s where that tie comes in, in a level that I think makes it unhealthy because a business has to say then, okay, Ricky, I could have paid you $100 an hour for 20 hours.

Pete Newsome 52:37
But since I have to pay you for 40 hours and give you time off, then I’m going to have to keep some of that I’m going to hold that money back because I still only am going to pay the same amount ultimately. It’s just how I position it to you. Versus Hey, Ricky, you can make 20 Work 20 hours from me at $100 an hour.

Pete Newsome 52:56
And it’s up to you how you spend the other 20 hours using the example of you as an employee wanting to work a 40-hour week, because you could say, well, 20 hours at 100 hours and hours enough, I’m only going to work 20 hours a week. That’s a win for you.

Pete Newsome 53:11
Why should I require you to stay another 20 hours? You’re going to say I shouldn’t. Right? Right? Okay, so what if you as the employees, well, want to work more than 20 hours and I want to be paid another $20 or another $100 out for another 20 hours? Shouldn’t you have the opportunity that way?

Pete Newsome 53:31
You can’t be in a situation where you’re beholden to me because of this relationship that dictates I have to pay you when you’re not working. And you have to work a certain number of hours for me. And it’s just we’re married, we’re back to being married.

Ricky Baez 53:45
So real quick, real quick, real quick for the HR professionals that are currently banging their heads against the wall. Yes. Pete and I thoroughly understand that. We’re not talking about hourly associates, right? Forget the FLSA forget hourly versus exempt and everything so that it’s we get it because I know people are gonna look or listen to.

Pete Newsome 54:06
Whoa, Ricky. Well, but no. But yeah, I mean, we now understand the laws as they exist. And my problem is that the laws exist because I think it makes the unnatural come into play.

Ricky Baez 54:19
So when I’m saying I live relations, I like a relationship. That’s the same as 1099. employee, or what an oxymoron, 1099. Contractor. Right?

Ricky Baez 54:33
Because it tended to my contract to say, here’s what I want. I want you to build this for me. How much are you going to charge me? Boom, here you go. And if I see that, this wood structure that he’s building for me, here’s his building for me, it’s worth the amount of money I paid.

Pete Newsome 54:49
I got no, absolutely and so you know, now it’s different. Now you’re not talking about real you’re saying I’m gonna pay $100 to you to do this job, whether it takes you an hour or 50. That’s up to you since you quoted me on this right?

Ricky Baez 55:04
You told me he was gonna have it done by this day, boom, here’s the deal.

Pete Newsome 55:07
Thank you cannot work. Do you think that can work in a traditional setting? Can you do you think that that makes sense? I don’t think that that scenario is just described as perfect for freelance I don’t think it works in the corporate world.

Ricky Baez 55:26
I think it’s not going to work for every job.

Pete Newsome 55:29
Not not in the corporate world. I don’t think it works in the W2. Employee scenario.

Ricky Baez 55:35
I get it. Yeah. in it. It’s some jobs again, you it will work for some it will not it’s so we get that I think 50% is really conservative number to that.

Pete Newsome 55:46
But so in my last thought on it, and then we’ll be done with it because we’ve talked about this you haven’t given us yours. I know I will be my last thought on this is don’t be fooled as an employee by thanking things like unlimited PTO work in your favor.

Pete Newsome 56:02
That’s all that’s really my message. Because the second the employer has to start paying you for what you’re not doing. Takes mean they’re paying you less for what you are doing there. There’s my profound not so profound, but a definitive way of phrasing it. Okay, you got a whole nother you want to challenge that?

Pete Newsome 56:23
Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. So stay mid again, is by them, your employer pays you for what you’re not doing? means they’re paying you less for what you are doing there.

Ricky Baez 56:39
Yeah, tomato tomahto. All right.

Pete Newsome 56:41
All right. So my, the thing that I hope will go away. And now that we’ve gone we’ve sort of talked all around it is quite quitting and I thought it was gone. I hope it will be gone.

Pete Newsome 56:54
But the morning brew, which is a massive email list that comes out every day, or newsletter. The subject today was quitting quietly and they said that quiet quitting is a phrase of 2022 I think they’re probably right, but he likes I think that is, man. We’re still talking about it.

Ricky Baez 57:20
We are and let me for anybody listening who you know who works in it’s it’s a candidate looking for a job. Let me tell you. It’s this whole quiet quitting concept that may look and feel like the best justifiable thing to do right now. It’s not, it’s not it. It literally is, is a self-inflicted gunshot

Pete Newsome 57:44
wound. So I talked about this on Tik Tok a little bit. Are you familiar with Napoleon Hill? No, Napoleon Hill is a guy who wrote a book called Think and Grows Rich. It was published in 1937.

Pete Newsome 57:55
And he was a young journalist who interviewed Andrew Carnegie, who was a rich person world at the time. And he, for whatever reason, Carnegie really liked him as the story goes and said, Hey, let me take you under my wing, and I will share all my secrets of success with you.

Pete Newsome 58:12
And you can write about it and publish it. And he did. And so along the way, Napoleon Hill wrote his ladders of success and so what those ladders are things like you know, be enthusiastic and have purpose and be very focused on what you do and self-discipline so all the things when you go, okay, yeah, that’s pretty easy to associate those things with success, right self-control and take action to be imaginative, right.

Pete Newsome 58:38
So it’s his ladder of success, and its infinite missing still ranks as one of the all-time best self-help books. So yeah, so So that’s a Polian Hill. Well, one of the things that he wrote on his ladder of success, which I found really interesting last week when I was talking about it was to go above and beyond.

Pete Newsome 58:59
Or I think he phrased it as doing more than you’re paid for. Like, how does that fit in? With what’s going on, I actually mentioned on TikTok, and I’m waiting to see because this is a dialogue that needs to happen, where the people who are operating that way need to acknowledge that it’s going to work against them and like you can do it, and then you can even be justified and do it, but it’s not going to lead you to a better place.

Pete Newsome 59:33
And that means I mean, all of this we talk about even things that seem to be I’m going to say against because I just it’s not against but I worry it could be perceived. I don’t worry. I think it could be perceived that way to be anti-employee. No, no, no, it’s an anti-bad unhealthy situation.

Ricky Baez 59:52
That’s right. Pete, It’s here that you should not do it. I agree. But here’s what I say. If that message goes out that people say, Look, do more than one suspect. If people push back on that, that’s fine. Those are not the people whose that message is not for them. Right? It’s not for them.

Ricky Baez 1:00:15
And that’s perfectly okay. Because the right people will take that message to the right people will do just that. And guess who’s gonna get promoted? Not, not the quiet quitters are the people who did more than what was expected of them. Now, folks, if you’re out there thinking that, Ricky, that is that you’re full of BS, that’s, that’s fine. It’s okay. Two plus two is still equal regardless of how you chop that up. That’s right. This is what’s happening. Regardless, it’s up to you whether you want to be on that train or not.

Pete Newsome 1:00:46
So you look sorry, I hope not, I’m glad you said. So I hope it goes away. We’re 100% agreement on this absolute Do you think? Do you think it will? Do you think this is here to stay? Or is it like, hey, these things become trendy, and they’re talking about on LinkedIn a lot?

Ricky Baez 1:01:04
Now, here’s what’s going to happen. It’s they’re going to start to see that that path is not leading them to a position that they want. And they’re going to see that the other folks who took that advice are getting those positions. They’re going to complain that find the people who don’t get it, but they’re going to see the fruits of those labors. And I don’t think that’s going to last very long.

Pete Newsome 1:01:26
Yeah, no, I hope not. Well, I don’t know. I think it might for a while I think the potential recession could affect that, you know, of downsizing, continuing, and hopefully, that won’t.

Pete Newsome 1:01:39
But the two things I’m going into the year trying to figure out like these are my big objectives. at a micro level of figuring out how to continue to perpetuate the message of freelance Why not be dependent on your employer for more than just paying for the value of your time?

Pete Newsome 1:02:03
That’s something that I need to work on. And you can help me because even if you’re not, I don’t have you on the same page as me as necessary with this. Of like, freelancer? Well, just on. Just leave with it. I know you agree with the freelance, but

Pete Newsome 1:02:27
the concept of employers not taking benefits out of the equation to put money back in the employees’ pockets, all of those things? Like I don’t know if you’re fully there yet, are you?

Ricky Baez 1:02:42
As long as it’s so misunderstood, and it’s not. If it’s not done in haste to steal from the employee, then yeah, I’m okay with it. I’m not looking.

Ricky Baez 1:02:54
So maybe I misunderstood that. Right. Right, because maybe I was under the impression that because you know, some organizations, cut benefits and nothing else, right? They’re still getting the same output for the employee. That’s not what you’re saying. Right?

Pete Newsome 1:03:05
I’m saying don’t yeah, I’m saying separate them entirely. Right. Not all from in the first place.

Ricky Baez 1:03:12
In exchange for more pay? Yes.

Pete Newsome 1:03:15
Well, again, not not not. It was so so back to it. And I guess we’re the reason I made the company not fully on board is that what that means is like, you know, time off to write not having the employer responsible for paying for time, where that should be something that would benefit as because I believe that would benefit the employees, the workforce more than the employer should I think, I think it’s just employers are somewhat.

Ricky Baez 1:03:53
They could have paid you more if they’re paying in and out of work. That’s all I mean that I know, I just said it again, all I care about is whatever the employer says, you know, what, forget it, whatever entity a agrees with entity B. And as long as those two understandings that one excuse me, those understandings are followed in they’re honored, I don’t care for the government to get involved.

Pete Newsome 1:04:12
Well, that’s the problem their entity sees looms over all of the above.

Ricky Baez 1:04:16
Right? I am entities doing its own thing,

Pete Newsome 1:04:20
entity G, big G for the government. And that’s, you know, that’s so, but that’s, that’s something I’m going to I’m going to try to figure out how to articulate better because I don’t think I think I don’t do a good enough job of it today.

Pete Newsome 1:04:34
And then the other one is to try to convince all the people who think quiet quitting is to their benefit to convince them that it’s not that you have a goal. Those are my goal. Those are my those are two things we want to work for that I’m not. I don’t know how successful I can be, but I will spend a lot of time trying this year.

Ricky Baez 1:04:56
I need a goal and the goal for next year Well, I mean, you know, I have a goal. Obviously, the goal is to grow, to grow a business, I’m looking to get about 15 more clients on, okay, and grow my payroll.

Ricky Baez 1:05:09
So absolutely, or my 1099 out, but so that’s my goal. But from the other side of it from an HR perspective, here’s my goal. Honestly, my goal next year is to expose the idea of breaking the mold from whatever business worked before hired before i

Ricky Baez 1:05:32
My goal is to expose how much different things can be done, how these new clients how can handle things differently, and what worked ten years ago, it’s not necessarily going to work right now. And let’s, let’s be risky enough, to do a couple of things together, have fun with it. That’s my goal for next year.

Pete Newsome 1:05:50
Perfect. Well, we’re on the same page that I think for Yeah, with a couple of different ideas on how everyone’s situation can improve, right?

Pete Newsome 1:05:59
Because you want to see, things get better for employers and companies why and for employees. And I think where both can benefit is where you can have a healthy relationship, right? And we do need to shift some things. So that’s well I think we’ll be talking more about that in 2008.

Ricky Baez 1:06:21
Just wait. Alright.

Pete Newsome 1:06:22
Well, that’s it. Three Wishes, six wishes. Let’s see what happens this time next year.

Ricky Baez 1:06:29
Alright. Well, have a good one, folks. Happy New Year, everyone.

Pete Newsome 1:06:31
Happy New Year! Ricky goodbye.