People in Production Podcast with Ryan Nelson

Episode 6 - Ryan Borgerding: Discovering Passion in Staffing and Transforming Apprenticeships (Part 1)

• Circle of 5 • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Discover how Jarboe Employment Group is revolutionizing the staffing industry by prioritizing people over profit. Ryan Borgerding shares his unique journey, the core values of their business model, and the importance of building relationships in employment.

• Ryan B.’s journey into staffing and starting Jarboe Employment Group 
• Importance of a candidate-centric approach in staffing 
• Flexibility of Jarboe's services: permanent vs. temporary placements 
• Unique benefits provided to employees and liability management 
• Collaboration with KCNMA and development of apprenticeship programs 
• Addressing labor quality versus perceived labor shortages

Ryan Nelson:

Ryan with Jarboe, it is great to see you. We just had a little technical difficulty and I was just trying to figure out what was going on, so we are jumping back into this. Ryan, thanks for being with me today. You are with Jarboe Employment Group and tell me about how you got into the Jarboe business.

Ryan Borgerding:

Yeah, so I guess I'll go, you know rewind to just getting into staffing in general, as kind of everybody told me that was in staffing at the time and I come to learn myself after getting into it is you know, staffing finds you. You don't really go find staffing.

Ryan Nelson:

You don't go. I was thinking that's where I want to land. Is that what you're saying?

Ryan Borgerding:

No doubt, no doubt, yeah, and you know, when I came out of school, I, you know, had a couple of different options and, as most young folks do, I took the highest paying job at the time and you know it was an insurance claims position with a large commercial line carrier. And I did that for about three and a half years and, you know, was succeeding in the role but finding zero enjoyment in what I was doing. And a buddy of mine called me up out of the blue, knowing that I wasn't too happy with what I was doing, and asked me if I'd be interested in getting into staffing. And my first question was what's staffing?

Ryan Borgerding:

So yeah, the high level overview was well, you get paid to help people find jobs and I thought to myself that sounds a heck of a lot better than what I'm doing right now Let me pause for a second.

Ryan Nelson:

Is that how you would describe Jarbo?

Ryan Borgerding:

Yeah. I would describe Jarbo in that way.

Ryan Nelson:

I was just curious did his sales pitch to you hold true through your journey?

Ryan Borgerding:

It has. I'd say the one part of it that hasn't is that I came into it naive it that that you know hasn't is that. You know I came into it naive, thinking that you know we'd be able to support the people that were in the, you know, greatest need for support. But you know, as I learned pretty quickly, these companies are, you know, paying a decent amount of money for us to help them identify these key hires and, you know, unfortunately, like the people that are in the most dire situations aren't, you know, always the highest caliber individual for the particular position that our clients looking for them to fill. So you know, we've identified ways to, you know, find fulfillment and derive intrinsic value from supporting the people that are in the greatest need in other ways you from supporting the people that are in the greatest need in other ways.

Ryan Borgerding:

But aside from that realization, after getting into it, it's definitely what Jarva was founded on is helping people, people helping people, and we've taken a much more employee-centric, candidate-centric approach, more employee-centric, candidate-centric approach. And it seems counterintuitive to some that we would give preference to the individuals, more preference to the individuals than our clients. But, as I put it to a lot of clients over the years, without the trust of those people, we would never be able to find anybody for you.

Ryan Nelson:

So yeah, we're going to, we would never be able to find anybody for you. So, yeah, we're going to Love that. And so, if I understand right, you actually started in it in a national agency. You didn't start by starting your own company, obviously. So tell us a little bit about that journey.

Ryan Borgerding:

Yeah, yeah. So started out as just as a recruiter. You know banging the phones and doing my best to learn all of the technical intricacies of the work that we're involved in. At that time we're heavily focused?

Ryan Nelson:

Were you recruiting staff, people or were you recruiting businesses that might need your staffing service?

Ryan Borgerding:

Recruiting the staff for those businesses. Yeah, so the business was in place already and you know the job orders were were there already and, um, you know, our focus was predominantly engineering at that time and, you know, aside from my dad being a science teacher and, you know, having some engineers in the family, um, that's about all I knew about engineering.

Ryan Borgerding:

So, you know, learning learning kind of the technical intricacies of the positions that we were staffing for was a fun challenge at the beginning of it all, and you know so that's I spent it was probably about three years in a dedicated recruiting role and then had the opportunity to move into an account management position from there where, you know, I'd work hand in hand with the clients that we were staffing for and you know I'd also be recruiting and helping to find them people. And as we continued to grow, the branch office of the previous company that we were working for it, you know, started to get to the point where we weren't really seeing eye to eye with the, you know, the ownership at the time and you know our strategic visions really weren't aligning anymore. And I think we had both come to that realization. And, given that my business partner and I had kind of created and maintained everything that was happening within the Kansas City branch office at that time, like I think, the owner realized like without us being a part of it.

Ryan Borgerding:

There wasn't much there for them. So, you know, provide us the opportunity to purchase out the assets to their Kansas City branch office, which we did in June of 2019, and started up, started up Jarbo Employment Group from there, maintained all of our existing staff, that we had all the clients, we had all the you know external employees that we had contracted to our clients at that time.

Ryan Borgerding:

So it was really a much smoother transition than I think my business partner Nick and I really, you know, thought of that it would be and, you know, obviously got met with a national state of emergency, you know, not too long after starting the business and definitely a nightmare for any new entrepreneur and business owner.

Ryan Borgerding:

But, thankfully, we were able to weather that storm staff for a lot of essential business operations and manufacturing, construction and engineering and were able to maintain all of our staff during that time and fast forward to today. We started Jarbo with four people internally. I think we had about 15 people that were W2 employees that we had contracted to clients at that time. Today we're up to 12 internal staff and roughly 60 external employees that we have contracted to clients of ours. So it's been a fun, exciting, wild roller coaster of a journey.

Ryan Nelson:

I love that. I love hearing that journey. As an entrepreneur myself, I've started multiple businesses and stuff and it's just fascinating to hear how you guys came into the business and where it's gone from there. So just to let people in a little bit, you and I I have a meeting with your ownership group this afternoon and we'd already been talking.

Ryan Nelson:

You last fall had attended a workshop that I did with the NTMA and that was our first interaction. Then we connected at another NTMA event around the holiday season and you heard me just talking about some of how I approach coaching and stuff like that and you're like man, we've got to talk. So here I've got a meeting with your ownership group. But then I was also saying, hey, we need to do a podcast too. And when we were talking about that I said do you want to wait until after our meeting? And you said, no, let's let it be more organic, let's just learn about each other as we record the podcast.

Ryan Nelson:

So this is fun for me just to be able to learn about your company and I just wanted people to understand how we connected.

Ryan Nelson:

But then understand that I'm asking questions because I'm coming into this without knowing a whole lot about your group other than some of the research that I've done online and I've been really intrigued and when I shared with you kind of my approach to coaching, that when I work with people, first I try to say, hey, I want to care about you, and then I want to follow up on the accountability you promised yourself, and then I want to work through clarity and then I want you to set your commitment to yourself that will hold you accountable to the next thing. You kind of jokingly said, hey, when can we meet and stuff like that, and are you available next Thursday? And it's just turned into this hey, we've got some connecting points on how we view people that drew us to each other. So from that perspective, you are an employee-centric company that are really trying to invest in people. If I'm an employer that needs talent and I come to you, what sets you guys apart and why should I work with you instead of go out and get someone myself?

Ryan Borgerding:

The thing that sets us apart and I can say this are is that you know the, you know the stereotypical sales tactics, the. You know the pressure, you know coercion you know the you know not that we don't.

Ryan Borgerding:

You know we are persistent in reaching our objectives and but we're not we're. You know we don not, we don't pester people, and so it's really the pressure that we felt working for another agency to produce revenue, to produce profit. It really forces you to make decisions and do things that may not necessarily coincide with your moral and ethical values, and you know the way that we always looked at it is if we were, if we were starting to feel like we were forcing something, then it probably wasn't the right fit. And so you know when, when you're got people over top of you, that are saying you need to do more, you need to bring in more you need to do.

Ryan Borgerding:

You know it makes it challenging to strike the right balance between those moral and ethical values and profit right. So you know, I know the phrase people over profit has been used in various contexts, but I think it applies to our business and our mentality and it's really doing the right thing for that individual that we're working with and taking a much more consultative approach with them. We spend more time talking people out of making career transitions or talking people out of pursuing an opportunity with one of our clients than we do talking them into it, and that's intentional, because we want to make sure that it's really going to be the right fit for both parties before we even put forth a recommendation. So I think that's one thing that most of our clients would echo. Is that the thing we like about DARWA is that when they send us somebody, we can feel confident that they have done the work to make sure that it's going to be worth our time to consider this individual.

Ryan Borgerding:

And on the flip side, with the candidates, you know having, you know, experienced recruiters that do apply a lot of those pressure tactics. You know it can leave a bad taste in their mouth and you know, especially those that have fallen victim to those pressure tactics and end up in a less than desirable situation and, you know, wishing they had never left their, their previous position. So that's, that's really the difference for us, and it's hard to, you know, encapsulate that in any. You know one particular phrase, or you know marketing slogan or whatever it may be. It's something that's, you know, our that has to be experienced right so um.

Ryan Nelson:

So let me ask you this, if I am, because there are two. There are two approaches we could take to this conversation. We could say, hey, what's the what's the pathway for the employee versus what is the pathway for the employer, for the audience that that we're reaching I want, I'm a lot more interested in this pathway for the employer side of things, and so tell me a little bit, if I'm an employer and I have a need, I'm in KCK, I have a machine shop that needs a CNC operator or or some other role. Um, so how do I come to you? What's that relationship look like when I come to you? Am I coming to you if I need someone for three weeks, or am I coming to you if I need someone for permanent placement?

Ryan Borgerding:

Help me understand how companies would use your services of needs that stem as short of a duration as a temporary you know, two week.

Ryan Borgerding:

You need to get somebody in here while we've got somebody out on leave to, you know, to identifying somebody for a very strategic position that you know the company is intending on hiring directly and needs us to find that person, help play matchmaker and really everything in between.

Ryan Borgerding:

I'd say the most common reason that employers will utilize our services is to identify folks for, you know, a longer-term need that they have and you know it's really at the preference of the organization in terms of how they want to go about structuring. You know how this person comes on. You know whether they get hired on directly by that organization or if they want them to come on through our agency and work through our agency, for you know various durations of time before they, you know, put forth that full commitment and hiring them on directly. You know the way that we've always seen it is it's to teach their own. It's really the preference of the organization in terms of how they wanna go about that and the way that we structure our fees. It's no more costly to go one direction or the other and we do that intentionally to make sure that our customers feel comfortable doing whatever they feel is best for their business, outside of the financial considerations.

Ryan Nelson:

So you had shared with me earlier before the technical problem and stuff like that, and there have been a few moments where I'm like wait, have we talked about this since?

Ryan Nelson:

we got to our audience. If there's anything that we've repeated, it's because we're overcoming operator error on the technical side on my part. But you have shared a little bit with me about this dynamic of your employees are the people are employed with you until they become employed by the other company, so you're paying their payroll taxes, you're paying their insurance benefits and stuff like that. Tell me a little bit about that, because that seemed to be. That was different than what I anticipated the model would be.

Ryan Borgerding:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, regardless of whether or not they're actually working in our office every day or if they're working for one of our clients and we don't see them, we treat everybody as if they are an internal employee of the company and, again, that's with the approach and mindset that these people are what really drives revenue for our business and, while the organization, the client, the companies are the ones that are actually paying the bill at the end of the day, if we didn't have people that trusted us and didn't provide people you know, a good offering during the time that they're working through us, we would never have anybody.

Ryan Borgerding:

that that because there is an opportunity to provide different benefits to different classes of employees, and I know a lot of staffing agencies have elected to provide minimum essential coverage in the way of health insurance benefits in an effort to keep their costs down and generate higher margins from that temporary or contract to hire staffing.

Ryan Borgerding:

In our eyes, it was more important to us to provide a comprehensive benefit package, which is the same benefits that I have as an owner of the company. We provide to all employees, internal or external, because we felt that that would allow us to identify the highest quality talent by providing the best offering. And you know, seeing what we've been able to accomplish over these past five years, I can say confidently there is something to that and you know it's like it's also just personally, it feels like the right thing to do. It's also just personally, it feels like the right thing to do. So that's, you know we take care of not only you know the benefits, part of it, but all of the initial onboarding and compliance. And you know we assume all the employment liability during that time, not just from a work comp and injury perspective, but extends beyond that as well, but extends beyond that as well. So you know it really provides our clients with a lot of you know financial protection and liability protection that they wouldn't have otherwise employing them directly.

Ryan Nelson:

Yeah, and so you are currently serving clients in 11 states. If I understand right, You've placed people in long-term jobs in I think you said 37 states, is that correct and so? But you're based out of Overland Park, Kansas, which is part of the Kansas City Metro and that type of thing. So you've really set yourself up so that if you have people in another state that that company is not ready to hire them full time yet, they want to date them a little bit before they marry them. If you will, you are licensed in that state or you're organized in that state so that you can pay payroll taxes and offer the benefits that you offer and stuff like that. So that's amazing the extent that you guys have gone to be able to do that. Did you anticipate when Jarboe? Were you in that many locations when Jarboe started, or were you just in the KC area when Jarboe started?

Ryan Borgerding:

When we first started it was just Kansas and Missouri as far as the states that we were registered in and employed individuals in, and no, did not anticipate to expand that wide geographically. You know some states have been very intentional, just knowing the landscape of the state and you know the amount of opportunity there is for a staffing agency that focuses on. You know we started staffing for in Kansas and Missouri that had other operations and and encouraged us to help them out in those locations as well. And you know for the good clients yeah.

Ryan Borgerding:

What's that?

Ryan Nelson:

It says something about how you serve them. They were like it works so well here. We want you to offer these services where we are expanding or where we have other opportunities, so I think that's amazing. We love that. We're going to come back to this. I want to talk a little bit about the position an organization needs to be in to work with you. But before we get to that, let's talk a little bit about. You're a part of KCNMA, or Kansas City National Machine and Tooling Association, and you've just recently joined the board of the KCNTMA. Tell me about your journey with that organization. Yeah, so it actually stems from.

Ryan Borgerding:

We had somebody reach out to us that was selling ad space for the at the national level for NTMA and you know that was our first exposure to NTMA. This is probably two years ago now and you know, as we're contemplating whether or not to purchase that ad space, they started exploring the association further and initially decided I'm not going to purchase the ad space but do want to have some involvement with this group.

Ryan Borgerding:

So I reached out at the national level and noticed they had a number of affinity partners, didn't see any staffing agencies that were part of those affinity partners and had inquired about coming on in that capacity. And given that we weren't truly like a completely nationwide staffing agency, it didn't necessarily make sense to join at the national level and was learned pretty quickly that they perceived staffing agencies as competition to their workforce development initiatives and weren't interested in having a staffing agency as an affinity partner, which makes sense.

Ryan Borgerding:

So I was encouraged to reach out at the local level at that point in time and that's when I got connected with Catherine O'Toole, the executive director for the Kansas City chapter, and it didn't take long to determine that there was going to be some synergy between the association and our efforts and staffing. For a lot of manufacturers in Kansas City it seemed like a no-brainer partnership, if you will. At that point in time I spent a year just as a member, you know, kind of seeing what it was all about and you know, having been involved in a lot of networking groups over the years, like I've come to realize that you got to be really mindful of. You know how beneficial that time spent is going to be, and not necessarily from like a return on investment perspective. But you know, are the things that you're going to learn and get exposed to and the connections that you're going to learn and get exposed to and the connections that you're going to make are those going to create, you know, value for you in some way shape or form.

Ryan Borgerding:

And, having wasted a lot of time and a lot of other networking groups, like I've come to realize, like the you know the success of that you know, and that being, you know, the usefulness of that time, is really predicated on how, you know, engaged and involved and motivated, that that networking group is right.

Ryan Borgerding:

And that's something I identified early on with the Kansas City chapter of NTMA that, you know, members were not only showing up to events but they were actively participating, they were having thoughtful discussions and conversations, you know, and you know, as far as the actual member shops you know that are part of the Kansas City chapter, you know they all have. See, you know one of the main benefits and being a part of the association is to identify ways to, you know, share work with one another and, you know, help one another to generate more revenue and help to keep more work here locally. And I've heard a number of success stories in just the year and a half that I've been a part of the association now, of that occurring, and so that was the thing for me that told me this is going to be a group worth investing the time, effort and energy into supporting in whatever capacity that we can.

Ryan Nelson:

And when Catherine approached me to be on the board this year, it was a no-brainer decision for those reasons, Well, and I would say this first of all, knowing, by the way, if you want to know a little bit about Catherine, she was in episode one of our podcast.

Ryan Nelson:

This podcast was kind of launched in a collaborative effort between the KCNTMA and my company, circle of Five, and we just said, hey, we need to have a new conversation, a higher level of conversation in the area, and I just proposed this idea and it's been a blast so far. I'm loving it. But knowing Catherine's background as a teacher, knowing her desire to get people connected and get people growing, there's not a surprise to me that you found this synergy between your organization and KCNTMA. Whether you felt that at the national level or not, it makes perfect sense to me that when you came to the local level, that man it just locked and loaded like this resonates. And and to be fair, you didn't just go from being a member to being on the board. You got heavily invested this past year in helping to develop a skills driven skills developing program. You want to talk a little bit about that investment that you've partnered with the KCMTMA to accomplish.

Ryan Borgerding:

Yeah, absolutely so. Actually, a former colleague of mine that owns and operates his own staff and agency out in Colorado was. You know. I found, through a proposal that he sent us for a government contract that he was going after that. There was a blurb in there about having created an apprenticeship program for the local chapter of NTMA in Colorado, and after I read that I called them up right away and was like what's this all about, you know?

Ryan Nelson:

what are?

Ryan Borgerding:

you doing here at this thing and you know, after learning more about kind of the intention behind them, you know building that apprenticeship program for the local chapter, you know made a lot of what made a lot of sense to me and quickly, you know, introduced that idea to Catherine and and she was fully supportive and felt've, you know, been an advocate for and encouraged a lot of companies to consider you know as a talent acquisition strategy. But you know, a lot of times that was, you know, those recommendations were falling on deaf ears and so it took a lot of you know questioning, you know questioning why companies weren't interested in doing that.

Ryan Borgerding:

What I came to find out is that it's overwhelming for a lot of employers, especially smaller employers that have owners and leadership staff that are very active in the business it just seemed like a daunting thing for them to be able to develop and create.

Ryan Nelson:

And they need productivity. They don't have time to slow down and mentor someone and apprentice someone. They need every hand on deck to be focused on the job because, at the end of the day, they've got customer demands. Is that part of the reasoning behind it?

Ryan Borgerding:

Absolutely, and there's the financial component of it. You know I've sent them through the schooling that's required in order to be certified as a journey level machinist, and you know I is a DOL. You know approved apprenticeship program and you know, I think, I think there's, there's some myths about, like you know, what?

Ryan Borgerding:

what this means as far as like you know the DOL's involvement in individuals' businesses, and you know it couldn't couldn't be any more the opposite. You know we've worked hand in hand with the rep from the DOL to you program into place and it's something they've communicated over and over again themselves. Like you know, we're not here to catch anybody doing anything that they shouldn't be doing.

Ryan Nelson:

Like, our goals are aligned.

Ryan Borgerding:

We want to certify our furnaces, you know. So you know, those are the main concerns that I face a lot of times and when I made that as a recommendation and we were able to alleviate a lot of those with the program that we've created and and yeah, tell me what the solution you guys have created is help help people understand what.

Ryan Nelson:

what does this apprentice program look like?

Ryan Borgerding:

Yeah. So I mean, first and foremost, we came to find out that you know there's multi-employer apprenticeship programs that you can create and you know obviously that's something that made a lot of sense for an association like NTMA. The administrative burden associated with, you know, a creating the program and B maintaining it thereafter, you know that alleviates the concern about the time that the owners and leaders of these companies are going to be putting into it. And then from the cost perspective, with the schooling, you know we had looked at a few different options through, you know, local trade schools and tech schools and there really wasn't anything that you know was extremely affordable On average it was going to be about $15,000 to, you know, get an apprentice through the schooling portion of the program for machining. And through a lot of research and questioning we found that there was actually another chapter, local chapter of NTMA that had utilized NTMAU, which are courses that have been developed at the national level to help train machinists. They were able to get that approved as their related instruction portion of that apprenticeship program.

Ryan Nelson:

Chapters that you know that invest in you know getting access to that, the portal, the NTMA-U portal. They're able to provide their members employees, you know access to that schooling at no cost. So for other NTMA chapters they need to understand that they could deploy the same strategy in their context. Is that Absolutely?

Ryan Borgerding:

One hundred percent, yeah, one hundred percent that they could deploy the same strategy in their context?

Ryan Nelson:

Is that Absolutely?

Ryan Borgerding:

100% yeah 100%.

Ryan Nelson:

That's pretty amazing that you guys are kind of breaking some ground and you're leveraging resources that are available. And I think part of what you're saying is the industry can be a part of their solution to the problem that they're experiencing of having a lack of talent. So why would people get involved? Because, frankly, we and I don't mean to be negative we complain every day about not having enough talent, but if we're not willing to invest in the solution, we've got to stop complaining. Well, once we start investing in the solution, we're solving the problem and we don't have to keep complaining Now.

Ryan Borgerding:

It's going to take years to solve the problem, but if we're intentional, we can improve the conditions Undoubtedly, and you know I myself have, you know, talked a lot about, like the labor shortages and you hear that a lot as well, and I can't remember who it was, but you know one of the shop owners had made the comment to me like I don't think it's a problem of there being a shortage of people that you know are available and able to work. I think it's a problem of labor quality. You know, there's, there's plenty of people out there. There's not, there's not a lot of people that are good machinists or can be good machinists. And I think that that statement is more true than than referring to the problems that exist as labor shortages.

Ryan Borgerding:

It's really labor quality and productivity issues and that's, you know, one of the main components of what these apprenticeship programs aim to solve, right? I mean, not only are they going to be getting more structured on the job training, but they're also going to have, you know, the schooling that they're doing, related instruction, you know, outside of the normal work hours. That's supplementing that knowledge base and, you know, providing knowledge that isn't just specific to you know, that particular shop or their, you know, day-to-day operations and you know, provides for just a much more well-rounded machinist, and that's the that. It's things like that that are really gonna be the you know, the catalyst for solving the labor quality and productivity issues yeah, right on man, that's great.

Ryan Nelson:

All right here's.