Kathleen Smith  00:31

So here we are, another episode of our recruiter special podcast series talking about challenges. How are you today, Rachel? What challenges or opportunities are you facing today?

Rachel Bozeman  00:43

Well, how much time have you got? Because I’ve got a couple to talk about here, but it's great. I'm great, Kathleen. Let's kick it off.

Kathleen Smith  00:51

Behind the scenes of our last 100 episodes, we ask a question: What is your most difficult recruiting challenge, and what tools or skills do you use to overcome it? And what's been top of mind for everyone is really getting people on-site. So during the pandemic, we saw a lot of the cleared community adapt and get creative with flexible work options, because we had to continue supporting the mission. Our podcast started in 2022 and we asked, what are the remote and hybrid options that you're offering? We tallied the responses and 44% of our guests said that they provided some fully remote positions, and 71% provided some kind of hybrid, be it one or two days a week or once a month to be able to come in and meet with a customer. And it was really interesting to see what people were doing to address this hybrid remote situation for some of the jobs that really cannot be done remotely, that have to be done on-site and specifically in a SCIF. So today, what we're talking about is, how do you recruit for those really difficult positions that take place in a SCIF when you're competing against other government contractors who have remote and hybrid options, or even the commercial space? So hindsight is 20/20, and no pun on there that the pandemic was 2020. The remote hybrid, return to site, return to work, in my mind, really unveiled a deeper challenge that's really impacting the entire cleared community, and that is SCIF stress – the stress that is put on our cleared professionals by working in a SCIF. And I really think that this also dovetails into another problem of the shrinking talent pool, because so many people saw the remote hybrid options as a way to balance their stress, and then they sort of wanted to keep doing that, so they moved to the commercial space. I've gone on a long time here. Any thoughts, Rachel, on what was going on and why we're now talking about this?

Rachel Bozeman  03:13

It seems like 2020 was so long ago, but yet so relevant. No matter if it's today or yesterday, every time I open the paper—well, if we had papers, Kathleen. Let's be honest, it's not a paper. Anytime I'm scrolling on my phone and see a headline come up, it's another employer saying, let's come back to the workplace. And we just saw recently that Amazon made that decision. They're asking their friends and their employees in January of 2025 that it's time. It's to come back on-site, and not just a hybrid environment, but really five days a week, returning to work and being part of that on-site type of work. The speculations have already begun. When you have a company like Amazon that is well known and they've got so many employees, people are starting to speculate. Are they going to start looking for new jobs? Are they going to go back? What are they going to do, Kathleen? I don't know. It's fascinating. I mean, I remember, I'm thinking back to 2020, when it kind of all first happened. It was, this can't be done, right? We just can't get people to work remotely. They've got to go home. What can we do? And then you saw everyone get a little creative. And then it became a new toy in many ways. Folks were like, I have to work from home. And I hear it every day when we're talking to candidates and we're talking to different friends out there, it's so important to them. But I think, to your earlier sentiment, maybe there's something more beneath all of this, other than just the desire to work from home. And so here we are still speculating, what are the people going to do? Are they going to go back to work? Are they going to look for new jobs? What in the world is going to happen? But I think really, when I kind of boil it all down, and really, if I had to leave you with a word here, or kind of a sentence here, I would say, “flexibility.” I really think is what people are still looking for.

Kathleen Smith  05:07

We had some really great conversations over the last year, year and a half, with many of our guests, and they all had different ways of looking at this and different things that their companies have done. How do you recruit for these roles when you're not really able to offer work from home? I mean, how do you still get candidates interested in going on-site or going into the SCIF? Because, as I know from the 25 years that I've been talking to candidates, they realize that the work that they do supporting the mission is very challenging, it's very interesting, and it's something they can't get in the commercial space. So it is about understanding what really inspires that candidate, but also what you can do to match them with the job that you're trying to hire them for. And it's interesting to address burnout and stress, because according to the American Psychology Association, they did a study in 2023, the Work in America study, and 57% of workers said they experienced negative impacts due to work-related stress associated with emotional exhaustion, anger, and burnout. And even further, a Gallup poll was done that said 26% of federal employees said they very often always feel burned out at work. So I think this was a big problem that has always been part of the cleared community, this burnout, this SCIF stress. But then when we had the opportunity to look at remote and hybrid work, we were able to sort of look at the whole picture. So let's talk about some of these really innovative, really customized options that many of our guests came through with. So take it away, Rachel.

Rachel Bozeman  06:57

Absolutely. Now I love this because it really taps into what makes recruiters so good at what we love to do, which is sell an opportunity. And so it's really giving you an opportunity to think and share and get excited. And I think you have to start from the mindset of, nothing is being taken away. I think I've heard quite often from peers, how in the world am I gonna sell come back to on-site? Like it's some kind of dead dog or something to discuss. I'm like, guys, it's a location. Whether you're working from home or you're working on-site, it's simply location. And so you should be able to sell any location. We've all had to sell that really remote godforsaken town somewhere. We can do it, friends. You can do it. When I think about on-site, it's kind of exciting. There are parts of it that I miss. I've worked remotely for the last six years, and the thought of working on-site is kind of exciting to me. And so as we were kind of chatting through this, Kathleen, and thinking about, how do you encourage or how do you get people to come on-site, I think you can have a genuine story about some of the goodness that does come from on-site. I don't know you, Kathleen, but I'm gonna share a couple, unless you really are opposed to that. I'm just gonna go big.

Kathleen Smith  08:16

You always go big. Go on.

Rachel Bozeman  08:17

I mean, go big, or go home—not home, on-site. We're here all day, folks! Some of the benefits, it's that in person. I mean, I love talking to Kathleen. We're hundreds of miles away from each other, but sometimes when I can give her a squeeze in person, there's nothing like it. So it's that in-person interaction where those conversations happen organically about, “Tell me more about what you do every day,” and you realize that might be the career path I want. So there's the human interaction and then there's just the opportunities to learn more about careers that are coming up, things that are happening at the facility or on site there. You also get a little bit more face time, if you will, with your manager, your peers, and your mentors out there. Again, there's nothing like an in-person high five or an attaboy when you're there in close proximity, it's just building that more natural type of relationship with your colleagues. They're within arm's reach, so reach out and touch—well, don't. You're on-site, so don't touch them, really, but you know what I'm saying. And then there's something about those organic water cooler conversations, whether you're talking about water or the weather or a Taylor Swift concert or the football game last night. Whatever it is, there's just something human and fun about those organic conversations that pop up. And there are many benefits, especially for those that may be earlier in their career. You get to kind of see amazing things happen there in person. You get to watch some of those that might be pros in their field. You might get to hear conversations that you wouldn't get the benefit of hearing if you were working from your home office. You get an opportunity to build that professional network. It's pretty stinking fantastic. And to take it one step further personally, and I think and I'm hoping you would agree with me here, Kathleen, but I think being in office, it's super important for those that are transitioning military, really getting to understand a little bit more about the private sector getting to be on site.

Kathleen Smith  10:23

I totally agree with you, because I think that absorbing the culture is a really great way to understand how you're going to do your job. And the one thing that I've always loved about working in the cleared community is this family, this sense of purpose. And I think that we just reinforce that by being close together, by working in proximity, by being able to walk and talk to that other person who's also in that SCIF with you. And while remote may seem like it's a big driver in recruiting, ClearedJobs.Net did a survey, and we asked many cleared professionals when they were deciding between two or more job offers, which factors influenced their decision the most. And remote wasn't the top influencer. The top influencer was salary and benefits. 47% said salary and benefits were the top drivers in making it easier for the candidate to choose. 29% said remote work. So 47% versus 29%. Then 13% said a flexible schedule, and then 11% said the culture. So while we may be talking about remote and flex and all of this, it's still not always in the candidate's mind, the top driver. Some of the solutions that all of our very creative and innovative guests who are cleared facilities employers – one solution that came up was making the salary commensurate with the job being on site. So some employers were actually paying on-site workers a premium versus their hybrid and remote counterparts. We only heard this a few times, so I really invite you to comment about this in the LinkedIn discussion or on ClearedJobs.Net, because this is one I want to have some discussion about. And talking about salaries, just so you know, we will be in another episode talking about the competitive salaries in the cleared community, how we have challenges competing against each other, and how we have challenges competing with commercial employers. So stay tuned for that episode. Rachel, what are some of the other ways that our recruiters can entice people to be on-site?

Rachel Bozeman  12:46

I think it just goes back to – it's kind of what you said. People are really looking for that home or that culture for their next career. And so it's being able to emphasize and speak with authenticity about your employer brand. pull out that EVP. Make sure it's dusted off and ready to go. But what’s special? What's unique? I wouldn't lead with things like we have pizza. Those aren't unique or special. It's really those things about your culture that make you want to come back every single day. And then it's not just about the salary. It's the benefit, and it's making sure that you think about that whole benefit package, that total rewards, that total compensation. Maybe you have an incredible benefits package that has some innovative ways that people can really take care of their whole health. You have really cool wellness programs that emphasize--

Kathleen Smith  13:37

I had another thought, so I'm sorry for interrupting you.

Rachel Bozeman  13:42

Kathleen, you got so excited, I thought, maybe she wants to talk wellness. Let's do wellness, girl.

Kathleen Smith  13:47

I do wellness, but no. One of the really great benefits that we heard several times that we don't hear a lot in other spaces is the academic benefit, the tuition reimbursement. I think that people are losing sight of the fact that stress and burnout can really be sort of changed over into professional development. So sorry to interrupt you.

Rachel Bozeman  14:12

Hey, interrupt anytime you want to talk about benefits. Feel free to interrupt anytime. No, I think the education benefits are huge, but also maybe there's some flexibility, that work-life balance that we love to talk about, or life-work balance, whichever is more important to you. It's really kind of meeting the candidates and the employees where they want to be. So maybe it's giving them flexible Fridays. Maybe you come in a little bit later on Fridays. Maybe you have events where you get to bring family in and you do barbecues. Whatever it is, make sure you're selling that total employment package. And then talk about those little, what we call in Louisiana, those little lagniappe moments, or those additional perks. Maybe there's some commuting benefits that will really sweeten that deal. Call them out in the job postings. Don't make them wonder. Don't make them have to think. Gosh darn it, make it easy on yourselves. Put it out there. Let them know why this could be really great for them. And then be creative with your job offers. Think outside when you're getting to that finish line and going to extend that offer. You've spent all that time kind of courting that candidate, you've talked to them through the screening, the interview process, you've talked salary, you've talked all the important things, you know this person. So make sure when you're extending that job offer, don't just pull that one out of the can. Make sure that you have customized it and you know what's important to them. So to Kathleen's point, if education is something that's super important to them, maybe that should be the first benefit that comes out of your mouth. So really make sure that you're leaning into what the candidate wants, highlight it, get it out there, and get them excited. So that helps sweeten the deal for the candidate, but now I kind of want to talk a little bit about the elephant in the room. Why do people want to work remotely? And I think the answer is simple. Ask them why they want to work remotely.

Kathleen Smith  16:06

Yeah, very simple. Ask.

Rachel Bozeman  16:09

Oftentimes we assume -- and I'm guilty. Hi, it's me. I'm part of the problem -- that everyone just wants to work remotely. And I just assume that maybe they like it for work-life balance, or maybe it's because they don't like the commute, or maybe they don't like to share the refrigerator at work. Whatever it is, it's a lot of assumptions on my part, and you know what happens when you assume. So what better way to avoid that embarrassing situation than to ask, why is this important to them? It may be something that you can't solve for. Maybe for them, it is a reason that they do need to work from home, and it's just a non-negotiable. But maybe there are reasons that they uncover where they talk about commuting, it's just very expensive with gas right now, or whatever the situation is, and you may have that special little perk or that little incentive there that would help really cover that need. So ask the folks about it. And I don't know if you remember Jen over at SAIC, she talked a little bit about how they really put a steroid into their leave hours and increased it to 240 hours of leave, which I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be mad at that. I mean, please bring it on. 240 hours of leave. Maybe part of that motivation for folks is they want to support their parents or their multi-generational families. And so they came up with support systems to really give people the support they needed there. And then maybe it's about providing some kind of incentive or benefit for people that need backup employee child care or elder care. So it's kind of, again, finding out why the people want to work remotely, and putting the right solutions in play, not your assumption, because you know what that means. But really making sure that you're finding out what the root cause is and putting the right solution on it by understanding their motives. And guess what? You gonna be part of the solution. Kathleen, stop me, because I could go all day on this. So please tell me more.

Kathleen Smith  18:09

So at the top of the episode, I sort of pointed out what I thought was the underlying issue to SCIF stress. And we had a reason why we went hybrid and remote, but it was addressing this issue that's been around since the beginning of SCIFs, the fact that people don't really like going into a windowless office, dealing with the traffic at the gate, not being able to, you know, if the child is needing some help at school. That's a lot of stress to sort of situate everything there at work and then leave and come back again. You know what we talked about earlier, from the American Psychology Association, that 57% of workers feel stress, burnout, emotional exhaustion, irritability, and anger. We have all this stuff, and even in our federal space, we have so many people who are feeling stressed, and you're really right, talking to people about they might have parents at home that need to have some care, or they have a child who has special needs, or things that really bring joy to your life, like I really every other Thursday would like to go see my child's baseball game or something like that. So really looking at all of these different ways that you can make an integration between life and work with your candidates and your employees. But I also thought that sometimes when we work in single scope, compartmentalized information, we sort of feel like we know enough about this one thing, but I don't know enough about other things. And this is why I really loved the sort of solution that Sean Devroude from SIXGEN shared. And SIXGEN really understands the high rate of burnout for people who work in SCIFs. So they rotate their teams through the SCIFs to outside, rotating them through their commercial programs. And I think this is just a real innovative, great way of looking at things, because looking at all of the capabilities of the company and looking at all the technologies that are being used, it really makes that a more educated and accomplished professional that's working for you. But then also, when they go to other programs, they can bring a fresh set of eyes. But also your employees who are in the SCIFs really can give you that inside track for upcoming proposals. And so if your employees already know all of your commercial capabilities, and then can think with their classified hat on and being able to say, we can solve that problem because we have this commercial project that we're working on. So I really think that this was an innovative way of rotating people through the SCIFs into commercial projects.

Rachel Bozeman  21:11

I think you're spot on that rotating really is a great way to just really provide some relief to all the stress that comes along with being in the SCIF. And similarly, you may remember our guest from DataHaven Solutions shared that their DevOps engineers are 33% remote, meaning they work two weeks on-site and the third week on unclassified systems. So even though a lot of the cleared work can't be done remotely or outside of the SCIF if you're fancy, think about how you can get creative to offer some flexibility with that life-work balance, to really avoid burnout. Can you do a flex schedule, or maybe a 4/10? We even heard some examples of physical security personnel working remotely a couple of days a month for administrative and training purposes, or maybe having a day of a month for administrative tasks or meetings outside the SCIFs can make such an incredibly huge difference for those that are in the SCIFs day in and day out.

Kathleen Smith  22:12

Yeah. And what I really found interesting when reflecting again on it, hindsight being 20/20, is how many times our guests said, it really depends. The remote hybrid work-life balance options really depend on the employee and the customer. It's not the employer, it is actually the customer. That is the nature of the work. Which agency is being supported, which program is being supported, and it really is a case-by-case basis. It's up to the employee to build that street cred, to build that relationship and that trust between themselves and the customer. And so being able to talk to the candidate about, “We may not have it now, but we have seen it happen with other employees. We can't promise it, but we can say a lot of the responsibility for creating a hybrid opportunity or flexibility really depends on you.” So it's saying, how can you build the relationship with your customer? How can you uphold the reputation of the company and yourself? And really coaching the employees through all of these options. And we heard this time and time again from several of our guests. I mean, Aaron Turner of Peraton shared, some customers think they want everyone on site all the time, but then once they start to get to know the employees, once they start to get comfortable with them, they relax the requirements and really start creating some customized opportunities. And we've seen this time and time again throughout the community. So it's really something that is eye-opening for me at how flexible we really can be. And I remember Shannon Donovan of BDO sharing that when it comes to creating a flexible schedule, it's really up to the employee. They really at BDO say, it's up to you how you work with your clients. What are your clients’ needs? You know the project, you know the nature of the program. They will empower their employees to be able to say, let's build the framework. I need a day or two off a month to be able to do things. They don't micromanage, they support their employees. And I really think that this is something we have to remember when we're recruiting, is talking about the empowerment of the candidates. And are you creative? What can you create? What kind of trust can you build with a customer? What do you need? We can provide it to you, but you have to be willing to step up to the plate. What are some of the other things that we heard on the podcast, Rachel?

Rachel Bozeman  24:55

So many great things, but I know that you are often challenged with learning so much about remote work, remote work, remote work. So before we burn you out and only get you excited about on-site work, we do want to give a little bit of hope and give some examples of maybe things that one day, once upon a time, might have some flexibility. So we did have an opportunity to chat with Adam Fife, the CEO of CenCore. He helped chair a committee with one of the major Intel agencies that explored what a hybrid remote workforce could look like. And in a two-year study that Adam was involved in, they found that you can write 85% of your code in uncleared environments, right there from the kitchen, sitting at your windows, sipping your coffee. Yes, 85% of your code can be done in an uncleared environment. Then you need to lift and shift it to the classified networks to finish off the product. So that sounds like there might be a little flexibility there. But because it still makes people nervous, Adam thinks that there's still another five to 10 years before a lot of these roles could have a lot more of that flexibility, or the ability to work remotely. But five to 10 years sounds a lot better than 50 or 60 years. So I'm taking that as a silver lining on things that could be possible. So I'm sorry, I just had to deviate there for a second. Kathleen, I thought it was important to give a little hope, maybe a little teaser of what could be possible in the hybrid opportunities coming down the road for our cleared friends.

Kathleen Smith  26:29

We talked about a lot of things today, and in summing it all up, I'm really glad that we were able to look deeper than just the remote and hybrid opportunities and really look deeper into what's causing some of this SCIF stress. Because again, when I talk to employees in the cleared community, they are very excited about the kind of work they get to do. A lot of them really like the stability. I mean, we didn't even talk about the stability of working in the cleared community versus the commercial community. Part of this might be your favorite solution as well. It's talk to the candidate, individual by individual. Let's create a solution. Let's tell them they have ownership with this. Tell them that you’ll support them. I mean, I don't want to steal all of your thunder there, Rachel, but what were some of the solutions that you really liked?

Rachel Bozeman  27:21

I mean, again, I know this is gonna sound silly, but I agree. I think it's just the simple solutions. It's listening and asking the question, why does it matter to you? And then going back to your roots of being able to position things that matter to the candidate, getting that creative job offer out there where you tailor it to that candidate, really being ambassadors and advocates of your company's culture by being able to speak to it fluidly and with enthusiasm and excitement. Those are the things that I think are such simple solutions. We're not giving you a magic or silver bullet here. We're just asking you to do what you're so darn good at, which is talk to your candidates, learn your candidates, and give them the best possible job offer or experience that they could have.

Kathleen Smith  28:10

So thanks for joining us today on one of, I'm going to say, one of my most favorite episodes, because it's a really great conversation that transcends the entire cleared community. Be sure to share, review, engage, give us your feedback, and if you want to be on the podcast, reach out to us as well. Thanks so much. Bye.