Ep. #95 | The Evolution Of The Staffing Sector With Jon Bennett (Retinue)

Episode summary: Jon Bennett, CEO of Retinue Solutions, discusses his career journey and the services provided by Retinue. He shares his background in recruitment and the evolution of the staffing industry from transactional to strategic partnerships. Jon also talks about Ryalto, a product that helps frontline workers find flexible shifts and improve communication with employers. The conversation covers topics like talent scarcity, the impact of Brexit and COVID-19, and the role of AI in the future of work.

Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and Background

01:17 Career Paths in the Staffing and Recruitment Sector

07:13 From Transactional to Strategic Partnerships

11:05 The Journey of Ryalto

19:56 Retinue: Comprehensive Workforce Management Solutions

22:26 The Competitive Advantage of a VMS

23:01The Four C's Promise

26:31The Evolution of the Staffing Sector

27:40 The Challenges of Talent Scarcity

29:05 The Role of AI in the Future of Work

31:19 Reducing Friction in Talent Acquisition

43:32 Predictions for the Future of Work

Key points discussed:

• Jon Bennett shares his career journey in the staffing and recruitment industry, from starting as a graduate recruiter to becoming the CEO of Retinue.
• The industry has evolved from transactional relationships to strategic partnerships, with a focus on providing comprehensive workforce management solutions.
• Retinue offers a range of services, including managed service provisions, recruitment process outsourcing, statement of work management, talent consulting, and technology solutions.
• The acquisition of Ryalto by Engage has allowed Retinue to expand its client base and offer a wider range of services. Having their own VMS gives Retinue Solutions a competitive advantage in the market by allowing them to control the delivery, implementation, support, and configuration of their services.
• Retinue Solutions offers the four C's promise to clients: continuity of supply, compliance, control through tech, and cost reduction.
• The staffing sector has evolved incrementally rather than experiencing a big bang moment of change.
• Talent scarcity is a significant challenge in the current workforce, exacerbated by factors such as Brexit, COVID-19, and the cost of living crisis.
• AI has the potential to significantly impact the future of work, but there is a need to find a balance between utilizing AI for efficiency and preserving the human element in recruitment.
• Reducing friction in talent acquisition, such as automating processes and creating a seamless experience, will be crucial for success in the future of work.

Connect with Jon via LinkedIn: Jon Bennett | LinkedIn
Visit the Retinue website: Retinue Solutions 

Transcript

Connor (00:01.326)
Hello and welcome to this week's show where I'm delighted to be joined by John Bennett, CEO at Retinue. I had the opportunity to meet John years ago. John, I think when you were at Capita, I followed your career, I suppose, with great interest, particularly when you're with Rialto and you're launching that in the UK market. I really enjoyed the content that you were putting out and I still enjoy the content that you're putting out. And I really couldn't wait to have you on the show, John. So.

A very warm welcome to you. How the hell are you doing?

Jon Bennett (00:34.857)
Yeah, absolutely brilliant. And kind of likewise, you know, I've been following you as well. It's a bit of a loving already, isn't it? But always wanted to get involved. And when you invited me to come be part of this, I jumped at it, of course. So really good. We're super busy here at Retinue HQ in London today. But you know, this stuff's important to me. So just delighted to be here.

Connor (00:39.278)
Yes.

Connor (00:52.654)
Great. Well, John, thanks again. And I know you're incredibly busy. So John, I've had, I think you will be our 94th guest on the show. And I've, yeah, which is great. And thanks to all our listeners for listening. I've interviewed a number of CEOs in the staffing recruitment, HR tech, human capital space. And I think all had one commonality, bar one.

All of them fell into the staffing and recruitment sector. None of them actually consciously decided on that as a career choice. They didn't really know much about it. I include myself in that bracket. I thought I was going to be a stockbroker. That's how bloody stupid I was, John, right? But John, I think for the benefit of our audience, we and I would love to hear your story. So John, how did you get into the sector? And would you mind just giving us the pop quiz history of your career to date?

Jon Bennett (01:46.601)
Yeah, and I'll keep it super brief, I promise, because I've definitely overdone this one before when being asked. So, no, I'm going to it was the same situation, right? So I went to Reading Uni, studied geography. What job do you get from geography if if you're not going into teaching, which I definitely wasn't going to do. No worn patches on my elbows. So as many did, I started to poke around for a job once the dream time at Reading University was coming to an end. Met somebody who said you should try sales.

Connor (01:50.254)
No.

Jon Bennett (02:15.689)
direct me down into recruitment. And three days after I graduated, I started on the graduate scheme at Hayes, which kind of shaped everything from there. So I had a massive three days off, no traveling, no chilling. I remember just going from jeans and a t -shirt straight into suited and booted into Hayes in the city. Yeah, making cold calls three days later. So it was a bit of a bonkers arrival, but you know, thank goodness it happened. And because whilst I don't do that type of recruitment anymore, I'm not kind of the front line. It is something I've been met.

Connor (02:23.342)
Wow.

Connor (02:32.846)
Jeez.

Connor (02:40.046)
Yes.

Yes.

Jon Bennett (02:45.705)
massively passionate about since those days really and they were amazing days. A lot of the people that I know from back then are still friends and actually we're working with some of them at the parent company here at Engage Retinue so thank goodness that happened really Connor.

Connor (02:49.678)
Yes.

Connor (02:58.19)
Yeah, here John, it's great. So I started my recruitment career this January 2007, John, and I actually left my law job to become a recruiter, but I thought I was going to be a stockbroker. But I suppose ultimately, we were selling contractors, right? So it felt like a bit like you were a bit like a trader, John. But I suppose like the sector for me is absolutely fascinating. In some ways, I think it's evolved and other ways it hasn't, right? You know, it's...

Jon Bennett (03:14.889)
show. Yep.

Jon Bennett (03:27.113)
Hmm.

Connor (03:27.63)
some of the older guys I was working with back in the day, they were like saying, you used to have to fax CV, courier CV, then you had email, ATS, right? So I suppose, do you feel that the sector on a general basis has evolved, John, over the years? Yeah.

Jon Bennett (03:34.057)
Yeah, true.

Jon Bennett (03:43.172)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, back then, so my career started a couple of years before yours, that's back in 2000, I can't quite believe it. And everything in that recruitment space was very, what I would call transactional, right? It was a company needed a hire, they found an agency. Being part of Hays, you know, we pretty much normally got the phone call. It wasn't a whole high street full of agencies back then. And so we're pretty lucky we had candidates walking through the door to come and register. We had phone calls coming in with live jobs and opportunities for those candidates. That was absolutely.

Brilliant. Very, very transactional. Obviously we've had some deeper relationships where people are coming back to us and we're doing two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 hires. But you sort of fast forward to where we are today, where at Retinue we run an entire recruitment function on behalf of our customers. That's every single temporary worker, every single permanent worker, everything in between from statement of work to consulting. It's managed by us in partnership with the client.

but definitely not transactional anymore, sort of a deep embedded strategic partnership where resourcing and finding the best talent is taken really seriously.

Connor (04:48.782)
Yeah, I love that someone described it to me yesterday, moving from the transactional to the transformational. I love all these tried phrases, John. So you'll have to you'll have to forgive me. But but John, just come back to you and your story. And of course, I want to unpack what you guys do at Rednew in more detail, of course. So how the hell did you go on this wild ride? Right. Two, three days out of uni, straight on the phone and he's banging the phones, getting after making a name and impression. But.

Jon Bennett (04:55.721)
Yeah. Yeah.

Connor (05:18.382)
You know, this is what I love about recruitment. It's a meritocratic career to start as a grad, right? And to become a CEO of a company. Like it doesn't always get to happen that way in a lot of sectors, but in recruitment it does. And that's what I think that's what I love about it. So John, over the last couple of years, you've been with Retinue, Rialto before that. Do you mind just telling us your journey to get to become the CEO at Retinue?

Jon Bennett (05:25.321)
Mmm. Mmm.

Jon Bennett (05:45.353)
Yeah, absolutely. So whilst at Hayes, I had an incredible opportunity to develop into that strategic market. So a guy that I'd like to give a shout out to, a chap called Simon Bradbury, who's one of my friends now, but he gave me that opportunity, moved me into what we now call the RPO MSP space. We didn't really know that's what it was at the time. Hayes had some fantastic big banking clients and they said, look, we're spending quite a lot of money with you. Couldn't we do this differently? Couldn't we have greater access to your recruiters? Actually, we could do with a bit of tech.

We wouldn't mind a bit of MI. Should we still be filling out paper time sheets? We've heard about these things being done online. And of course, being kind of entrepreneurial, excited guys that we are, Simon started to lead the way and shape these new solutions for the big banks. We're talking Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, big, big businesses, big brands. And Simon started to shape, well, let's put some folks on site for you. Let's give you dedicated recruiters. Let's change the pricing so that there's a bit of a discount for the amount of volume that you're doing. So you're getting a

financial benefit, you're getting commitment. We rolled out the first ever online timesheets, which exactly as you said earlier, Connor, they might have got filled out online, but they printed out on our fax machine back at the office. And we've busily couriered them over to the finance team. So that's a bit of a secret back then that I've just revealed. And of course that blew up, right? So that was the early 2000s. That's when every bank soon had an RPO. Every bank had a managed service provider doing their temporary and permanent recruitment. I think if you look at the market now, it's a fact.

that every single financial services provider in that banking space has a partner doing that. Back then, we were kind of leading the way. And from there, I ended up running the global implementation team. So we grew rapidly from two or three people in an office above McDonald's with a kettle balancing on the monitor and the leads stretching across the tables to 400 people pretty quickly. New sectors, so grew into the pharmaceutical space, grew into the telco space. And it really was hedonistic times, really.

The margins were good, the clients were really pleased with some of their savings but were really still quite open to paying for it. The sort of offshoring hadn't started yet so it was all our friends working in local offices on site with the clients. It was good, fun, times where clients were happy but money was being made. It was really exciting. So I was, yeah.

Connor (07:57.902)
Yeah. John, just on that, just want to call out Simon Bradbury, friend of the show, great guy, friend of CXE, loved his book that he did with Bruce Morden on the Universal. Great, great guy. And I didn't realize that he was at the genesis of of this sector. So all credit to him, because that's what we're doing today. Yeah. Yeah.

Jon Bennett (08:10.057)
Yeah, really impressive.

Jon Bennett (08:21.417)
what we're doing today. Yeah, and I wouldn't be doing it now. So no, and he gave me that opportunity really. And then from there, I went on to run a little talent management business. So we sort of did everything that wasn't recruitment actually for a few years, performance management, 360 degree feedback, staff surveys, and it was very much tech led. So this was at a time when some of those providers out there that we now go to the workdays, the success factors, they didn't exist. If you wanted that tech, it had to be built by developers. So we had a room full of developers, a room full of

occupational psychologists and we were putting that tech together, working with massive brands, Coke, Pepsi, Accenture, you know, big, big businesses that took their people really seriously. So that's when I fell in love with technology really and seeing the real power of what you could do for building state of the art tech, but also the downsides of having a lot of cutting edge first line of code tech under your sort of wheelhouse, the maintenance, the management, the cost of that was pretty significant.

And that's when I started to realize actually we need tech in the HR space that is flexible, that is quite cutting edge, but you don't want this overhead of having really bespoke technology being created client by client because it eventually becomes quite unmanageable.

Connor (09:33.486)
Yeah, yeah. And, and John, moving then on to Rialto, if we may, and then then on to Retinue. And I know you're also you've been an entrepreneur as well and a number I think twice, if I'm not mistaken. It's it's I as a sort of entrepreneur at the CXE world. It's the good, the bad, the ugly, right? Like it's, it's, it's really hard, particularly at the at the start when when

Jon Bennett (09:38.249)
Hmm.

Jon Bennett (09:47.241)
Yeah.

Jon Bennett (09:53.161)
Mmm.

and the ugly. yeah.

Connor (10:02.158)
cash is everything and you're trying to grow, you're trying to implement, you're trying to get technology and people. Yeah, it's thank God we're well through that part of our journey. But I'll credit anyone that's actually walked the walk because it's no mean feat.

Jon Bennett (10:07.401)
all of it.

Jon Bennett (10:14.377)
Hehehehe

Jon Bennett (10:23.209)
No, absolutely. And the first forience that was revenue. So we set up revenue through James Kahn's investment vehicle. So that came first back in 2011. Three people in a room with three computers looking at each other going. We promised we'd set up an RPO and MSP business. We better crack on with it. As you say, from delights and excitement to tears, blood, sweat, seven days a week, selling things during the day, implementing through the day, and then writing.

tenders and proposals at night. It was extreme for two, three years. It was pretty hard. If I'd have known how hard it was going to be, I wouldn't have done it. I'm really glad I didn't know how hard it was going to be because I'm glad I did it. And that's what I always say, that it's almost good to know it wasn't coming because I might not have taken that plunge, but really glad I did. So.

Connor (11:05.614)
I'll get you.

Connor (11:12.718)
Yes. I love it, John. And John, tell me then about Rialto, where the genesis of that idea came from. And then if we can, just looking at your move into Retinue.

Jon Bennett (11:15.305)
Yeah.

Jon Bennett (11:25.769)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the part of that story is we exited Retinue to the Engage Group back in 2015, which left me, I actually decided to leave at that point and take a little break. So I was out in the Middle East doing some interesting things with some other interesting companies and eventually came back and met with the then owners of Riauto. Now Riauto has been an amazing story. It was actually originally set up by EY. So it's an Ernst Young product and project originally.

Connor (11:38.126)
Yes.

Right.

Connor (11:48.622)
Yeah.

Connor (11:54.414)
Really? I didn't know that.

Jon Bennett (11:55.625)
Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of investment from those guys. And they were trying to build something that would bring all of the nurses in the UK onto one platform to try and sort of free up the availability of those shifts across the NHS for all nurses in one place. For no thought of EY, that was almost a mission impossible because the NHS is actually 200 plus individual businesses and trying to get everybody signed up to that. I can tell you right here, right now, it's impossible. So.

Connor (12:08.558)
Yeah.

Right.

Connor (12:14.83)
Yeah.

Connor (12:24.206)
Yes.

Jon Bennett (12:25.321)
So through some private investors, we had the opportunity to repurpose all of that amazing technology from Ernst Young, and we repurposed it for the customers. So we actually flipped it from something that was due to be a consumer app into a business app. And we now sell that to end enterprise organizations as a communication and shift booking tool. So better way of communicating with frontline workers and a way to give them more opportunities to work, flexible shifts.

Connor (12:38.638)
Yeah.

Connor (12:46.35)
Wow.

Connor (12:52.782)
Wow, and John, that's bloody brilliant because it is something I became obsessed with like a sort of sad geezer. But maybe 13 years ago, I was working for a company called the Rethink Group at the time, and they had a really amazing, amazing subsidiary called Amy. It was their tech arm. And we actually we built a resource demand planning tool on a platform called.

Jon Bennett (13:06.153)
yeah, very good.

Jon Bennett (13:12.169)
Okay.

Connor (13:17.87)
Micro strategy. So it sparked my interest in it. And one of the banks we were working with in Ireland at the time, they were like, we can't get the talent we need bloody last in time, let alone first in time. So it became obsessed weirdly with strategic workforce planning. Like John, how important is that resource demand planning to the reality of app? Like, and do you get that cooperation from the enterprises you're working with? Cause a lot of companies haven't cracked it.

Jon Bennett (13:44.809)
Yeah, and you know what, it actually works with the two extremes. So if there's the perfect demand planning, and actually we do have that in healthcare. So in healthcare, you can't really not do demand planning, right? If you're running a hospital and you've got X number of patients coming in, and there's rules around the mix of doctors, nurses, porters, all of that is rules, right? You can't make that up yourself. So many healthcare businesses have to get that absolutely spot on, and people work very hard to make sure there's the right number of nurses, the right number of doctors.

We all know the challenges of that, right? There aren't enough nurses and there aren't enough doctors. I'm not saying that's not challenging, but they typically get that right. And they'll understand out of their permanent resources where the gaps are. And therefore in that scenario, it's very easy to push those gaps into our product, which gives the people on the product the opportunity to take those extra shifts. Now it also works though, where it's chaos. So we have clients, which I won't name, I won't even name the sector, where the plans are on whiteboards. It's a grid with Bob in the top left -hand corner.

Connor (14:36.334)
Of course. Yes.

Jon Bennett (14:44.233)
Wendy in the bottom right hand corner and everything's blank in the middle, you can also take those gaps and manually upload them to the Riatto product to again push that out to the frontline workers that are available to fill those shifts. So we can work at the two extremes, the perfect workforce plan, no workforce plan and everything in between.

Connor (14:55.95)
Wow. Wow.

Connor (15:01.678)
Geez, John, that's bloody brilliant. This is one of the many reasons I love doing this show to speak with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs like yourself that have just done something that no one else is doing. And even if they're doing it, they're not doing it as well as you. And this is what I love about the show too, John. You start off as a geography grad in Reading. You're now running a company as a CEO. You've had multiple roles and jobs and businesses within that 24 year journey. It's...

Jon Bennett (15:07.753)
Ahem.

Jon Bennett (15:26.185)
You

Connor (15:31.214)
It's such an amazing sector that we're part of. Like sometimes when you hear stories like yours, John, I'm like, Jesus, this is bloody brilliant. Tell me more. Right? You know, it's great.

Jon Bennett (15:39.301)
Yeah, yeah. And it has been, you know, has been good fun. And I think the thing with the Riauto product is it's for frontline workers. You know, if you think about, if you think about all of those businesses out there that do have a frontline workforce, everything from nurses and doctors, but also laborers, facilities management, so cleaners, people who don't get to do what you and I do quite a lot, which is sit at a desk, I know we're with our customers, they get forgotten. And what we've done with Riauto is we've reconnected them with that product by putting it on their own mobile phone.

Connor (15:52.462)
Yes.

Connor (15:59.278)
Yes. Yeah.

Yes.

Jon Bennett (16:08.681)
got a messenger, it's got a version of an intranet, which means they're still connected without having to go onto the intranet. But it's also not intrinsically connected to the rest of that technology ecosystem, which means if you are working a short shift, you're not working particularly regularly, you might even have an email address, right? A lot of frontline workers don't even get an email address, little in teams login, you can still connect them to that company, you can still give them access to the news, the feeling of being part of something, which is great for us and gets

Connor (16:12.59)
Yeah.

Connor (16:20.014)
Yes.

Connor (16:25.774)
Yeah.

Connor (16:34.958)
Wow. Yeah.

Jon Bennett (16:37.449)
gets better work out of people as well, which is great for the bottom line.

Connor (16:38.958)
Yeah, yeah, of course. Like John, there must be other really significant use cases for this. I'm thinking some of the gig economy type perfect. Like also the production and events sector and TV broadcasting. my God. Right, John, we could have a probably a separate show on that because that's something I'm really, great, done. All right, man. So John, you're at reality.

Jon Bennett (16:48.937)
Thank you. Perfect. Yep.

Jon Bennett (16:55.337)
Perfect. Yeah.

Jon Bennett (17:00.809)
Yeah, I'm in.

Connor (17:07.086)
Reato, you guys raised the funding. What happened next then, John? Did Rednew come along and how did you cut? Yeah, how did you go full circle? This is bloody brilliant.

Jon Bennett (17:15.017)
How did we get that together? Yeah, so we grew Riauto at about 80 % growth a year, so it was doing really well. But we wanted to super boost it even further, I think is the best way to say it. So we started having some conversations with businesses. It wasn't just about money, Connor. It was about access to more clients, more expertise, bigger sales teams. There's only so much you can do as a standalone tech company. And we met with the guys at Engage.

Connor (17:39.822)
Yes, John.

Jon Bennett (17:42.729)
And it was the perfect marriage really, because the Engage Group have, you know, they're a workforce management organization. It's not just about recruitment, it's about the whole workforce. They've got a massive sales team in the recruiters, existing clients, blue chip clients, and of course being a private equity backed organization, they can access funds as well for the right opportunities when the return on investment is right. So it was the perfect marriage of, if we came into this group, we can offer the Riatto product to all of those great clients. There's flaws and flaws of salespeople.

Connor (17:53.806)
Yeah.

Connor (18:04.653)
Yes.

Jon Bennett (18:12.809)
talking about Riatto all day, every day, and we're nicely funded as well, which is of course always important in this world. And the stars aligned and sometimes even the right opportunities and the right marriages don't always come off. This time it did. And Engage said, you know, Natalia, while you're there, the current CEO wants to take a bit of a break for personal reasons. How about you come back and run Retinue as well? So talk about pinch yourself. I did wake up that morning and just think, how has this happened?

Connor (18:18.989)
Yes.

Connor (18:27.182)
sure.

Connor (18:34.382)
Yes.

Jon Bennett (18:41.577)
This is the perfect outcome.

Connor (18:44.014)
My God, like John, this is like childhood dreams stuff. The company you founded or co -founded, company you exited, and then you're walking back through the door. How many years later, roughly? Was it about six, seven? Yeah.

Jon Bennett (18:54.953)
it was a long time ago. It was 11 years later.

Connor (18:59.918)
Gee whiz, you must have felt like bloody Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. Yeah.

Jon Bennett (19:04.937)
That's right. Yeah, just without the without the hair and trainers. But apart from that, no, it was it was and it actually is a few of the old folks were still here. So some of our original hires are still here. And one of them is now the managing director, right? And the higher number for Lauren Hunter is the .D. of our commercial sector. So to see those things have evolved in that time was was really quite amazing.

Connor (19:18.51)
Wow. Wow.

Connor (19:27.598)
God, John, that's a, that is a, I think this is my favorite story on the show thus far. Yeah, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. Night before dying. No disrespect to our previous guests. You're all amazing. Which they are, but God, that's a great story. I think the one that was similar, not similar, completely dissimilar, Bruce Morton, who works closely with Simon. I think he was telling me his first job was actually as a butcher, right? So that was, yeah, that was the first time then.

Jon Bennett (19:33.225)
Wow, 94 down.

Jon Bennett (19:38.825)
Hahaha.

Jon Bennett (19:48.649)
Mmm. Mmm.

Jon Bennett (19:54.537)
wow, yeah.

Connor (19:56.334)
You know, he's running strategy for Allegious now. So it's just amazing where the sector can take you and the journeys you go on. So, John, just if we may focus on Retinue for a couple of minutes for those listening that aren't aware of Retinue and GTS, what are the major challenges and problems that your company solves for? I know it's your workforce management company, but can you just unpack in a bit more detail the sectors and what you guys do?

Jon Bennett (19:59.081)
Yeah, crazy.

Jon Bennett (20:24.521)
Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, so you're absolutely right. We work across and I wish there was a different word for it, but we do work across that whole total talent space. So if an organization has any talent challenges, we can provide services, solutions and ideas and address those. The most common ones, I guess, that would be associated with Retinue are the managed service provisions. That's where we manage the entire temporary workforce. That's everything from sourcing those folks to working with the suppliers to doing all of the...

to getting them in, to getting them paid and get them out. That's the nature of the attempt they do leave. The traditional permanent recruitment but on a strategic basis, recruitment process outsourcing or RPO, where again, this isn't a transactional relationship, this is us working directly in partnership with the end organisation to deliver that whole permanent recruitment strategy. Sometimes we even get handed over the responsibility for the employer brand. It's everything from how do we put this organisation in the shop window for the candidates.

that we want to attract, why would they join us? Then the process of actually going out, engaging, inspiring them and hiring them, which is something you need to do these days. You can't just find them. You need to inspire them and hire them. And then that whole process of bringing them on board. And at that point, we typically then hand them over to HR, of course, where HR then run their careers and everything else around that as well. So Statement of Work is becoming much more popular in that flexible workforce space. We can look after the Statement of Work process. Do a lot of talent consulting.

Connor (21:31.15)
Yes.

Connor (21:47.534)
Yeah.

Jon Bennett (21:53.321)
So a business might come to us and say, hey, look, we're not ready to do a big partnership yet, but we do need some help with our branding or our attraction or our screening. We can consult around that and put services in. And then of course, in 2024, there's a massive importance on tech. We bring our own tech. So we've got Riauto, which I think we've probably already bored the audience with. So it won't say much more than that. We've got our own vendor management system. We've got our own applicant tracking system. And of course we use lots of third party tech to deliver that tech stack.

Connor (22:08.718)
Yes.

Connor (22:13.102)
That's it.

Jon Bennett (22:22.345)
that underpins that entire workforce piece and we can consult around that as well. For some clients we just do bits, for some clients we're doing the temps but not the perms, we're doing the perms and not the temps and for others we're doing the whole.

Connor (22:26.318)
Bye.

Connor (22:30.03)
Yeah.

Wow, John, that's an amazing business that you guys have. Just the breadth of it and the experience and the expertise. It strikes me, I had a question, I don't think we discussed this previously, but having your own VMS, it must give you such a bloody competitive position in your market, right? Because you can control the delivery of it, the implementation of it, the support of it, the configuration of it. You know,

and probably the cost, right? We don't need to get into commercial conversations, but it strikes me that you've got a lot of levers there to deploy in order to win a deal and solution a deal.

Jon Bennett (23:04.681)
Mmm.

Jon Bennett (23:13.865)
Yeah, I think that's really interesting. And because it can be quite a complicated marketplace, if I could cut through all of it and say I get an elevator time to describe us, I just say that we will give our clients the four C's promise. So the four C's promise is continuity of supply. Most people, when they think about outsourcing, which is a horrible word in my opinion in this space, or partnering with another organization around people, they worry that supply will change and dry up, whether that's temporary.

resources or permanent and we give the continuity of supply promise which means in all of our clients we've never gone backwards. We give a compliance promise so we work in highly compliant spaces so healthcare, facilities management, banking these are places where you really can't introduce people unless they've been properly thoroughly vetted so we give an absolute guarantee around compliance which is everybody that comes in will be who they say they are and we'll make sure they're paid in a correct compliance.

fashion to make sure you don't get any reputation or financial risk. So that's compliance and continuity of supply. We give control through tech, which I'll come back to in a second to answer your direct question. And we take out cost, right? With no point in denying in 2024, most organizations need to save a bit of money. We can deliver the other three C's, so continuity of supply, compliance and control, and actually still deliver it at cheaper than it was pre -retinue, even with all those other excellent things in place. So.

Connor (24:27.278)
Yes.

Connor (24:37.454)
Wow.

Jon Bennett (24:37.833)
That's it. As I say to the sales team, there's no excuse not to sell. Three a week. Three a week. Exactly.

Connor (24:40.526)
That's true. I love it. But I love the elevator pitch. I love the simplicity of the four C's. There's an obvious and evident beauty in that, John. So what about the VMS piece then? I mean, like, you must, like, I'm just thinking as a sales guy myself, an unreformed sales guy, John, like, that's a good thing to have. It's unreal.

Jon Bennett (24:53.705)
Yeah. Yeah, thank you.

Jon Bennett (25:00.593)
Yeah, we will love.

It is, and let me be super clear. So it's owned by another Engage company. So there is a software company within the Engage group called iResource. So in theory, it's not directly mine. It belongs to the group. So we do have transactional feeds with them. And there is a roadmap that we have to work on. Everything's done very officially. So I think everybody knows with tech, you can't be too matey about technology. You have developers tweaking things and changing things. So we do evolve it on a very mature professional.

roadmap and we have to demonstrate the return on investment and the benefits that any changes that we make will deliver to our clients and to the owners of the product. So that's all still very official. However, having said that, we can go and have a chat with our mates in the organization to say that we really do need this. We need this bumped up. It's really important to our customer and typically that will get done. So we definitely have those benefits and I'm told we get mates rates. I've been looking at the prices we've been paying recently. I'm not entirely sure.

Connor (26:01.75)
We'll keep that for a chat of our beer, Joe. But we touched in the introduction around the evolution of the staffing sector, right? So I always look by way of analogy, right? I love analogies, right? And if I think of the staffing sector on a general basis, like there's companies like yours that are doing something really amazing. You've got an amazing tech stack, service stack.

You're constantly evolving. You're in short, controlling your own destiny. But if I look outside the obvious outliers like your own company and indeed there are, of course, there's others out there. It strikes me that we haven't really evolved. I look at the stock market in the 1980s. It's sort of a weird way to look at things. But it just indulges me. Look at the stock markets in New York, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Chicago. Open outcry trading.

guys shouting over each other, right? It reminds me of recruitment in 2007, right? It really does. You know, we had these huge trading floors when I worked in London. It was the noise was infectious. It was exciting. It was empowering, right? But it was in some respects inefficient, right? And it strikes me that in the 1980s, stock markets had their big bang moment. The computers came in. They sensed they didn't replace all the traders or the brokers, but they replaced a lot of the inefficiencies, right? And that moved from

Jon Bennett (27:09.225)
Yeah, great.

Jon Bennett (27:15.913)
massively.

Connor (27:27.854)
open outcry to computer based work. It strikes me though that the staffing sector hasn't had its big bang. It's changed more incrementally. Would you disagree or agree with that hypothesis, John?

Jon Bennett (27:40.873)
Yeah, I think a bit of both. So I understand that face value at a high level, it all still looks quite the same. And I think when we look at recruitment agencies, most successful ones probably are still like that. And I think, you know, it's probably a longer conversation, but it probably wasn't like that for a couple of years. But I think the ones that are succeeding in 2024 within the appropriate setting of treating each other these days, I think those those agencies are a bit back to the old days, certainly from speaking to

some of my friends and colleagues that own agencies, the ones that have the higher obtain their office based. There's a bit of an office culture, a bit of a social culture back and it is a sales environment again. I think on a transactional level that probably does look quite similar. I think taking someone's chair away for five days and sellotaping their phone to their head probably wouldn't go down too well with today's workforce. Yeah, so perhaps that isn't going on.

Connor (28:23.47)
Yes.

Connor (28:28.046)
Nothing is just... no.

Jon Bennett (28:37.705)
But then I think if you look at more of the space that we work in, quite a lot has changed. So if you think about offshoring, for example, you know, that has changed the cost base, it's changed the quality. I think too many people focus on offshoring and nearshoring as just a cost saver. You know, our colleagues in our centres, our delivery centres, are high quality, dedicated professionals, very well educated, who have careers in recruitment and resourcing, and there is no drop in quality whatsoever, I would argue is probably...

Connor (28:40.462)
Yeah.

Jon Bennett (29:05.577)
increasing quality whilst we're also saving money. So I think that's been interesting. I think the tech space has changed things quite a lot. The applicant tracking systems, the ATSs, you know, they're a bit old hat. They haven't really evolved. So we had a moment in time where they launched. I don't think they're much better than they were. Just trying to think if I'm offending anybody. Don't think I am. They're not a lot better than they were back in the early 2000s. Obviously they're cloud based. There's no installations. They're mobile enabled, but that doesn't really move the dial.

Connor (29:07.95)
Yeah.

Connor (29:23.31)
Yeah.

Jon Bennett (29:33.353)
I think what is changing and has the greater potential is AI. We are seeing AI now being properly introduced into the tech stack. Our chairman and Engage group CEO says, AI won't take your job in recruitment, but you will get fired if you don't understand AI eventually. And I can't steal that off him. I wish I could say that as mine, but he did the father of me or sue me, one of the two or both.

Connor (29:57.166)
Yeah.

Yes.

Jon Bennett (30:00.521)
But I think that's true, right? So as people in this space, we've got to understand how we utilize AI. We're not going to give up our job to a robot. But I do think there's an opportunity, Connor, for that to be quite a significant change in the next year to 18 months, where we do start to see the proper application of our artificial intelligence into the tech stack.

Connor (30:10.574)
Let's go.

Connor (30:19.566)
Yeah, I'd love to cover that in a bit more detail, John, if we can. But I love your analogy of taking away someone's chair for five days. Your chairman's phrase, I think my favorite phrase on the sales floor to some of my team was, is that phone an antique? And then verily they'd say no. And I'd say, well, then better pick it up then.

Jon Bennett (30:22.545)
Yeah.

Jon Bennett (30:30.313)
Yeah.

Jon Bennett (30:42.153)
like. I love it. Love it. I love it. And the one that I do use occasionally with my teams and I get a bit of a frown is everyone's welcome to call in sick as long as it's from a hospital. That was always a good one. Which definitely, definitely I don't think is suitable for 2024 is it? So things have changed.

Connor (31:00.27)
No, no, no. They have, John. And it's interesting. Like, there's evident changes for the better, but I think there's something's been lost around the SEALs culture and that sort of politely pushy, almost slightly aggressive, never give up hunting mentality. But...

Jon Bennett (31:12.521)
Mmm.

Yep, definitely.

Jon Bennett (31:19.921)
Yeah.

Connor (31:25.71)
I could probably we could we could actually spend a couple of shows talking on that John, but we'll definitely catch up on that again. But I think there's there's something about that art and science that's been lost in the world of staffing. What's your what's your reckon John? Do you think that's fair actually?

Jon Bennett (31:36.105)
Yeah. Yeah, and I...

Yeah, I think if we think about why that was important though, so, you know, was that important because we were helping young people get into Porsches and have nice fancy chandeliers in their house? Probably not. I think it was the brokerage that it created around the talent market. And that gave people a real incentive to find an amazing person and match them with an amazing business. Yes, there was a commission check in between, but that happens a lot in other industries. In the sports industry,

Connor (31:51.086)
Yes.

Connor (31:55.438)
Yes.

Connor (32:03.342)
Yeah.

Connor (32:08.878)
Yeah.

Jon Bennett (32:11.049)
Now the brokerage fees for moving talent around is astronomical. You ask a football agent, did they move Paul Pogba from Juventus to Manchester United because their fans had helped the bloke out? No. Did it create, I'm sure Man United fans might argue that isn't the best example, but did it create a good talent outcome? There have been many great talent outcomes because of the way that is incentivized. And I think if we take that away and it just becomes people plowing through LinkedIn,

Connor (32:16.27)
Chris.

Connor (32:24.366)
No.

Connor (32:28.814)
Hahaha!

Jon Bennett (32:40.777)
finding a name, pushing it onto somebody that could have found it themselves and saying, how about this person? Now that isn't proper recruitment, that isn't proper talent brokerage. And people work harder and do a better job if they're financially rewarded for it. We see that all over the world in all different sectors and all different things. So I don't think that's a bad thing. And I do think bringing some of that back would help organizations end up with better fit.

Connor (32:59.822)
Thank you.

Jon Bennett (33:05.673)
more ready, faster paced talent than they access through a world that's become a bit calmer and a bit more transactional.

Connor (33:11.598)
Yeah, I agree, John. I think that's a really spot on way to look at that discussion that we're having. John, something I want to chat on. I mean, a lot of the workers you mentioned are frontline workers, right? And that's for the good, right? I strongly believe in protecting those workers. And that's what I love to hear about that compliance piece that you mentioned, because it's a two way street, right? You know, your clients want to know that the workers are compliant, but equally,

Jon Bennett (33:35.209)
Mm -hmm.

Connor (33:38.702)
you guys as the workforce management company want to be doing the right thing for your workers. And I love that, making sure they're compliant, they're engaged properly. But we're in this world, John, and I don't know what your sector's like of talent scarcity, whereby most economies, even those that were technically in recession, like the UK and Eurozone and USA, we're at or close to full employment. And then you've got the added complexity in the UK.

Jon Bennett (33:46.921)
Definitely.

Connor (34:07.278)
particularly with Brexit, right? They're basically saying, you know, don't, if you're here, we don't really want you here unless you're XYZ, right? And that's rather a crude way of saying it, but you know, you read so many stories of the Portuguese, the Polish, they can't get their work their work fees is now to stay in the UK. And that's further exacerbating the scarcity problem in my view. And then you've got companies, or sorry, countries like Netherlands, Ireland, USA, Germany, they're essentially closing or...

Jon Bennett (34:09.097)
Mm.

Connor (34:36.974)
are reducing their borders, right, the ability to come in. So again, there's a further constraint on the labor market and talent availability. So I suppose my question really is, John, is twofold. One, are you guys seeing that in your business and your cloud base? And then two, are you guys doing anything innovative or different to solve for that particular problem?

Jon Bennett (34:58.249)
Yeah, yes. So the answer is yes. And if we look, actually, we've got what we call the perfect storm. And it started, and it's not related to it. We can't blame the politicians for all of it. But it started with Brexit. Brexit was the first shock. Right? None of us, for a start, none of us expected it. But if we look back at the frontline workforce particularly, and that's where we focus, Brexit in itself caused us to be, caused us to lose 350 ,000 frontline workers. Right? So we're...

Connor (35:24.238)
Really?

Jon Bennett (35:25.385)
with 350 ,000 fewer frontline workers since Brexit as a direct result of Brexit. So throw that into the social care industry who are, the different numbers fly around, but say 150 ,000 people short of being at the point, they would be fully staffed. Losing 350 ,000 has definitely contributed to that negative situation. However, had it just been Brexit, who knows, we might have coped. But you might remember following Brexit came a little thing called COVID, which,

Connor (35:31.405)
Whoa.

Connor (35:46.414)
What?

Connor (35:52.909)
Yes.

Jon Bennett (35:55.241)
followed it pretty quickly in 2020, didn't it? And then following COVID, we've had the cost of living crisis. And we've had quiet quitting, have you come across quiet quitting where people, because of those things, just don't have the energy and effort to go back to their jobs. They don't resign, they just do much less. So you've now got a workforce that are doing less and there's less of them. And that affects frontline, affects everything actually, but affects the frontline pretty significantly. We've now got the cost of living crisis where people are having to make very difficult decisions around.

Connor (35:57.614)
Yeah.

Connor (36:04.558)
Yeah.

Jon Bennett (36:24.361)
the money they earn and what that means for their lives at home. And the newest one is this pre -war era. You know, we are officially living in a pre -war era now. It's the first time we have in over 100 years. And that makes people make different decisions about their careers. It really promotes a gig economy. They've all just, no one's been on holiday for three years prior to this last couple of years. Now they're thinking we might be at war. Am I going to be at the front line? Maybe, maybe yes, maybe no. But we probably won't be flying to Ibiza for a few years if that happens.

Connor (36:45.262)
Yeah.

Jon Bennett (36:53.705)
So what I'm going to do is go and have a load of fun and my job will just feed my fun. I don't need to think about a career. Now, all of that in its together has created a huge problem for the workforce, frontline workers specifically. Even if we're looking at facilities management, construction, health care, social care, it's all short of the workforce. And that means the war for talent has shifted from professional white collar where it's been for years, according to McKinsey certainly.

Connor (36:58.254)
Yeah.

Connor (37:05.294)
Correct.

Connor (37:22.126)
Yeah.

Jon Bennett (37:22.825)
and is now right at that front line, which isn't a processing job anymore. It's a war for talent.

Connor (37:26.062)
Yeah. Wow. And John, that's an excellent analysis of where we find ourselves. What's your views on how to solve that, or at least potentially solve elements of those problems and the specific problem, which is talent scarcity? Where the hell are we going to get these people from?

Jon Bennett (37:45.737)
Yeah, so I think the first thing to say is not everybody can win. So if you need to access those people, you need to become a winner, right? And you need to access your unfair share, because if you go for your fair share, everyone's going to lose. So you've got to be ready to put yourself out there and do more, do better. We're doing the straightforward things for these clients that I think has been traditionally more accepted at that professional hiring level, but is now absolutely critical at the frontline level, which is what's our value proposition? What do we need to do to attract these folks?

Might be things we were already doing but we weren't telling anybody. It might be things we need to start doing otherwise we're not going to get them. What do we do to engage them when they're here and keep them? We know we don't want to lose them for 50p an hour or we don't want to lose them because somebody else makes it very obvious it's a great place to work. We need to make this a great place to work. So we're transforming all of that into that frontline space and that is having its effect. We then look at all the things that might stop them working. So lack of access to travel, needing to go further away from their home than they typically did. So we're putting on buses, minibuses.

travel routes to get people into those frontline jobs, particularly in those harder to reach areas. So it's some degree it's back to basics and really accessing an unfair share.

Connor (38:52.622)
Yes.

Yeah, John, I love that there's a beautiful straightforward and simplicity in that to help your clients win that market share and that you go back to basics is perfectly acceptable because you have to. It's absolutely smashing. So John, we touched briefly on AI, right? So I...

I'm pro technology, right? I'm a capitalist. I run a business. I run the business not as a social enterprise. It's a profitable business. And I've got a responsibility to my shareholders, but also my stakeholders, the people that work with and for me. But here's where I'm conflicted, John. AI, I take your chairman's point, right? If you don't get it, it might replace you, right? You've got to learn it. But...

Jon Bennett (39:24.489)
Yeah, of course.

Jon Bennett (39:31.401)
definitely.

Connor (39:42.766)
The rate and pace of acceleration was at two conferences last week in the States, right? And both of them scared the jeepers out of me, right? Because AI is learning so fast. And one of the things that was hypothesized last week was the following, John, that essentially by the end of 2025, AI will be much smarter than the collective of humanity. That's how fast it's growing. Now, these guys, there were a lot of tech bros, right? You know, venture capitalist guys, you know.

Jon Bennett (39:50.761)
Yeah. Yeah.

Connor (40:10.798)
that their job is to sell it and promote it and hype it. But some of the statistics they were quoting around 1000 % growth in AI's capability and abilities. And then I read a World Economic Report last year from World Economic Forum. They're saying about 60 % of jobs are at risk, particularly in the white collar professional space, right? So, and they weren't given any solutions to it either, John. So, although as a business leader, we're investing in AI, right?

I'm conflicted by it because I know the societal impacts of this might not necessarily be good. So what's your take on it, John? Would you be more on the AI optimistic front?

Jon Bennett (40:51.849)
You know, it is challenging because where does just natural evolution become non -competitive or competitive, if that makes sense. So who are we going to stop using it and how do you stop them using it? We don't have control of the globe. Nobody does. So if we restrict ourselves using it, just to say another region in the world won't, the Middle East, China, or Asia, America, we can't really stop people doing things. And if the technology is there, how do we stop that? That's the first question.

Connor (41:02.926)
Exactly.

Jon Bennett (41:21.769)
I think there's certain things that are available right here right now which aren't going to threaten humanity, which just make really blooming good sense to start using. So it's a bit like when we decided to put things offshore back in the day. If it's on a process map, why would you pay somebody a lot of money to sit in a suit doing that in the middle of London when it doesn't cost you that to do it to the same quality in India, Poland, Romania? So I think that's the decision point. And we are now looking at things that humans are almost doing in a robotic way.

that requires a little bit of thought, but doesn't need to be done by a human. I think that's the sort of stuff we're looking at AI for. So market mapping, creating short lists, producing job specifications, producing assessments, assessments, which they're just better at, right? They will go out and look at all of the job specs available for somebody with that similar job title, create a document which gets us 80 % there. We just have to do the final 20%. It does it in five minutes instead of in five days.

Connor (41:54.862)
Yes.

Connor (42:00.846)
Yeah.

Jon Bennett (42:21.545)
That's just daft not to use that sort of artificial intelligence in my opinion. Do I want to go from that to only ever speaking to an AI lawyer in five years time? Not really. So a bit like you, I feel a little bit conflicted at there's some obvious stuff we should just be using, but how far does this go? And I had a, this might be a bit of fantasy Connor, but are we going to have to start putting in rules for a government level for how many humans you have to have?

Connor (42:38.286)
Yes.

Jon Bennett (42:50.281)
Maybe that's the way to do it. You can only have a certain proportion of your work done by AI. You have to have a 50 % human layer. Otherwise, what doesn't go to AI, right? Haircutting and plumbing is anything I can think of at the moment.

Connor (42:51.63)
Yeah.

Connor (42:59.182)
Yeah.

Yeah, except yeah. And you know what, John, that's probably the best possible solution I've heard to date in order to protect humans and to protect society and to protect some level of jobs. Of course, I think it's fair to say that not all jobs, but I actually, I actually love that. John, I think you might make a bit of a serious here as an after dinner speaker on AI and that there's a good, a really good possible solution there. Well, John.

I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I've loved hearing your story, your vision, what you've done, your journey, what you guys at Rednew do. But I'd love to finish your conversation, John, if I may, with a question we ask all our guests, which is what, if any, are your prediction or predictions for the future of work, John?

Jon Bennett (43:55.113)
Future of work, yeah, absolutely. So I think there's a couple of things in here. My big, the word that I like to use at the moment is frictionless, right? So I still think when we look at talent acquisition, there's too much friction in it. And all of those things we've just described, yet we still need a CV. We're still filling out forms and applicant tracking systems. Mostly we're still waiting for a human being to get to that form. We're still only talking about work and changing work between nine and five, Monday to Friday.

Connor (44:11.534)
Yes.

Jon Bennett (44:25.257)
and there's way too much friction in it. Now, if we look at everything else we do in our world, it has become almost frictionless. Whether you want to take away on a Friday night, a cinema ticket, world -class sport ticket, an airline to take you around the world and arrive at a super fancy hotel, it's almost friction -free. You're probably doing it from your mobile phone on your journey home. Yet, when we look at careers, it's covered in friction. So my absolute belief is the winners...

in the talent acquisition and human workforce space or human capital workforce space will be those that get the friction levels right. And I think we're ready for it as a work as a workforce, we're ready for it. Right. So a lot of the workforce now have grown up with tech. Five, 10 years ago, a lot of the experienced workers hadn't grown up with tech. The whole workforce has now grown up with tech. So making it friction free, automated, 24 seven, mobile enabled, AI driven.

Connor (45:07.502)
Yes.

Connor (45:18.702)
Love it.

Jon Bennett (45:21.673)
process, I think if somebody nails that they'll probably be the winner and that's certainly what we're targeting doing.

Connor (45:28.046)
John, I absolutely love that vision that you've outlined. You've brought it back to something that I think will resonate with a lot of our audience and a lot of our listeners. John, I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I really appreciate your time. And I know being a CEO, time is your most precious commodity. So thank you for affording me and our audience and our listeners the time. And I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and continued success to you, John, and to your team. So John.

Jon Bennett (45:41.225)
Me too.

Connor (45:57.71)
If our audience wants to reach out, hear more about you and what your team are doing at Red Noo, where's the best place to reach out?

Jon Bennett (46:06.153)
Yeah, I think probably best to connect with me on LinkedIn is still the best way to get hold of me. So John Bennett on LinkedIn. We've also got a Contact Us page on the Retinue website. So if you want to come in through the more formal channels, that's there. But definitely LinkedIn. I'd love to connect with anybody that's interested and we'll take it from there. But a big thank you from me, Connor, as well. Absolute privilege to be on your show. So thank you. And shame I wasn't the number 100 show. We could have had a bottle of champagne.

Connor (46:23.502)
Thanks.

Connor (46:29.07)
Don't worry. Well, that's going to come anyway, John, right? This is going to be our most downloaded show, I can tell. But, but John, thanks again and thoroughly enjoyed this and enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks, John. Take care of yourself. Cheers. Thank you. Cheers, John.

Jon Bennett (46:38.441)
Thank you.

Jon Bennett (46:42.121)
Me too. Thank you, Connor. Cheers. Bye bye.