Chris Havrilla

The Chick-fil-A Manifesto: What Service and Value Should Mean in Staffing Across multiple conversations with contingent workforce leaders this month, a familiar frustration trend emerged: the staffing industry has become commoditized. Across the entire ecosystem, suppliers, MSPs, VMSs, HR Tech, and the clients they serve have found ever-more-creative ways to devalue ourselves. Vendors underbid, clients squeeze at the expense of quality, candidates are ghosted, and hiring managers are stuck navigating a system that feels more like a transaction machine than a talent solution. Here’s a radical thought: what if we looked to Chick-fil-A as the model to improve? Yes, the chicken place. Chick-fil-A generates 2x the revenue and profit per location than any other fast-food chain and they are closed on Sundays!! Why? Not because their prices are lowest, but because their experience is exceptional. In the early 2000s, they hired The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. consultants to train their teams. The “My pleasure” became more than a tagline; it was a cultural shift. They accept just 0.5% of franchise applicants, 10x more selective than Harvard. They invest in people and service, and it pays. Meanwhile, much of the staffing industry has done the opposite. We’ve raced to the bottom, cut costs, automated relationships, and measured success in fill rates and spend, not outcomes or experience. We’ve made contingent labor feel, frankly, disposable. There is an opportunity here, not just for Ursus, Inc. , but our entire industry. What if we reimagined our industry around value and experience, not just cost? What if our recruiters were trained like hospitality pros, focused on respect, response time, and true partnership? What if hiring managers got more than just resumes, and contingent workers felt pride, not disconnection? For procurement and program owners, this is your moment too. Your mandate and your responsibility are bigger than just compliance and cost containment. You shape and curate how your brand is experienced by thousands of workers who aren’t on your payroll but are part of your team. In today’s fiercely competitive market, experience drives retention, and reputation is currency. Do your contingent workers feel part of something great, or just another number in the system? You get what you pay for. But more importantly, you keep what you value. We don’t have to be the fast food of professional services. We can choose to be the Chick-fil-A. It starts with redefining value: from transactions to trust, from price to partnership, from “filling seats” to fueling teams. Service isn’t a commodity. Talent isn’t a transaction. It’s our pleasure. Chick-fil-A Restaurants #Staffing #ContingentWork

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TA leaders are being pushed to adopt AI, do more with less, and constantly fight for budget. It’s difficult to make the case for investment in a new AI solution or additional recruitment marketing spend. Solution providers are falling short: they are not equipping TA with the insights needed to craft persuasive narratives, to share within their orgs. This is one of my learnings from recent conferences. We need to empower TA leaders to tell compelling stories. The hard truth is TA is often viewed as a cost center. Very few TA leaders enjoy the organizational clout that sales and marketing leaders do, primarily because those functions speak the universal language of revenue. The absence of this persuasive narrative is what’s holding TA back from the influence it deserves. The pivot is simple, but not easy: Transform your data into a compelling, stakeholder-specific narrative. Storytelling is the single most critical tool for influencing your CHRO, your CFO, and your CEO. We need to start telling the story of why great talent is a core competitive advantage. We must make the case for why an investment in AI tools, candidate experience, and recruitment marketing is not just a cost, but an insurance policy against falling behind the competition. The good news? Storytelling is not that hard either. Ask your partners and teams to equip you with the insights you need. This will enable you to: - Unlock dollars. Tell a people-to-profit story. Articulate the ROI of recruitment marketing, candidate experience, and technology investment in those terms. - Influence compensation. Tell the story of labor market competition, talent scarcity, and competitive compensation. - Gain a seat at the AI council table. Provide the context needed to vet vendors and allocate resources. Our community is filled with incredibly talented and passionate leaders. We just need to arm ourselves with the right storytelling tools, insights, and language.

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This week, a judge ruled that a lawsuit against Workday can move forward. The allegation? That its hiring algorithm disproportionately screened out candidates over 40. This isn’t just a legal case—it’s a wake-up call. 🧠 AI in hiring is sold as efficient, fair, and neutral. But as Hilke Schellmann has brilliantly explored in The Algorithm, it’s often anything but (I would love to hear your thoughts on this case Hilke). Bias isn’t just a bug in these systems - it is part of the system, and it can't be different when tools are trained on data from workplaces that haven’t been inclusive in the first place. Here's the bigger issue from my point of view: Most work tech is built for companies, not for people. It's designed to help HR teams move faster, but rarely to ensure fairness or transparency for candidates. To us, this also reinforces the urgent need for platforms designed with employee voices at the core, where fairness isn't an afterthought, it's the architecture. Fair and meaningful work doesn’t happen by accident; it’s designed. And if we create it around and with the employee, that's a sustainable, empowering win. This is the kind of perspective we've been adopting at WorkVue. Building from the employee outward. News like this today reinforces the importance and urgency of this work. #FutureOfWork #AIandBias #InclusiveTech #WorkplaceEquity #WorkVue #HiringTransparency #EmployeeVoice

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As internal TA teams grow, where do executive search firms still add value?” It’s a fair question. And it’s one I get asked more and more by CHROs, Talent Directors, and even CEOs. With internal talent acquisition teams scaling, investing in AI tools, and building employer brand muscle—why bring in an external partner? Here’s my answer, shaped by over a decade of executive searches across global FMCG: 1. Internal teams find active candidates. Executive search finds the ones not looking. Top-tier commercial, marketing, and general management leaders—especially those delivering results—aren’t browsing job boards. They aren’t waiting for a recruiter to email them through LinkedIn. They’re heads-down, creating value. But… they’ll talk to someone they trust. Someone who understands the industry, the business model, and their personal career arc. That’s where an external search partner earns their keep. → We don’t just reach the market—we reach beyond it. 2. Internal teams know the business. We bring what they can’t see from the inside. Great TA leaders understand their company. But what about the competitor down the street? Or the breakout startup that just poached their VP of Sales? Or why a pricing leader from beauty might outperform in snacks? External firms bring… → Market mapping across industries → Competitive intel → Emerging talent pools → Compensation benchmarks → Cultural fit markers you won’t see on a CV We see how other companies are building. We see what “great” looks like in five different flavors. That perspective is hard to replicate internally. 3. When stakes are high, objectivity matters. Hiring a CCO, a CEO successor, or a transformative VP? That decision has a ripple effect across revenue, culture, and investor confidence. Internal teams can be too close to the brief—or too influenced by internal politics. External firms bring a layer of neutrality. → We don’t have legacy bias. → We’re not trying to fill a role. We’re trying to solve a business challenge. And that changes how you search—and who you hire. This isn’t about “external vs. internal.” It’s about knowing when to partner. Because the best internal TA teams I’ve worked with don’t see search firms as competition. They see us as an extension of their brand—when the search needs more reach, more rigor, and more ROI. So if your business is entering a new market, scaling globally, or redefining its leadership—don’t ask “Why use a search firm?” Ask: → Do we have access to the people who won’t apply? → Do we know what ‘top-tier’ looks like outside our walls? → Do we want more than just a placement—but a long-term partner who sees what’s next? That’s where the value lies. And that’s where we step in. #ExecutiveSearch #FMCG #TalentAcquisition #LeadershipHiring #ConsumerGoods #CHRO #TAstrategy #SearchFirmValue #HiringInsights #FutureOfWork

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The biggest skill gap in Talent Acquisition isn’t "sourcing." It’s System Design. We have an industry full of incredible recruiters who can find a needle in a haystack. But we have a shortage of TA leaders who know how to design systems. Most TA leaders are promoted because they were elite recruiters. But the skills that make you a great "headhunter" (grit, persuasion, networking) are entirely different from the skills needed to lead a modern function: Product Management. If you treat Recruiting as a service, you’ll always be an "order taker." If you treat Recruiting as a Product, you become a business architect. Here is how the "Recruiting PM" mindset changes the game: • The Pipeline is your Funnel: Stop asking for "more candidates." Analyze the conversion rates. If 50% of people drop off after the first interview, you don't have a sourcing problem—you have a "bug" in your process. • Candidate Experience is the UX: Friction kills deals. Every slow feedback loop or redundant interview step is a bad user experience that drives top talent to your competitors. • Data is your Roadmap: PMs don't guess; they look at the metrics. A TA leader shouldn't just say "it’s a hard market"—they should show the data on market supply vs. demand and iterate the "product" (the job requirements) to fit reality. How to start your "Product Audit" today: 1. The Mobile Test: Apply for your own job on your phone. If it takes more than 3 minutes, you are losing the best talent to high-friction UX. 2. The Feedback Loop: Measure the time between "Interview" and "Decision." If it’s over 24 hours, your "manufacturing line" is stalled. 3. Efficiency over Activity: Stop measuring calls and emails. Start measuring submittal-to-hire ratios. Activity is noise; throughput is signal. The next generation of TA leaders won't just be "people people." They will be System Architects. #TalentAcquisition #Leadership #SystemsThinking #RecruitingStrategy #ProductManagement

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So hiring isn't broken when humans drive the process? As mentioned from yesterday, let's revisit the trust factor in hiring. Dice's new report surveyed 212 U.S. technologists (small sample, but useful.) The results: 🔹68% distrust fully AI-driven hiring 🔹80% trust fully human-driven processes 🔹92% believe AI misses qualified candidates who don’t optimize for keywords That last stat is the root of the finger-pointing, a tale as old as time. ATS systems have been the scapegoat for YEARS before any AI integration. Remember "beat the ATS"? Now it's just "beat the AI." Same frustration, new target. People are aggravated with the mystery of the tech platforms itself, due to their lack of access. (Black box experience). So what's the employer's play, to earn that trust? If the majority vote is humans, give the people what they want. A few examples I've seen in the wild: ✔️ In job description, disclosure of process. PM2 Strategies had a "Your application will be reviewed by a human." ✔️ Rejection emails from an employee rather than a do not reply. ✔️ Cadence of communication from real employees during interview process on updates. 7 day response times and notification on when position is filled. ✔️ Metric-based rejection. I saw an example from Ashby floating around that included total applications, shortlist (and what criteria this consisted of), and a reiteration of success factors. Using technology is a necessity for nearly all businesses, at least from utilizing an ATS system. This isn't a choose tech OR humans. It's a balance of using systems for efficiency and infusing humans at the forefront of those experiences. What hiring transparency wins have you seen? 

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TA Leaders - Let’s talk budget. Annual budgets? That’s old news… Now it’s: 🧾 Start at zero 📈 Make the case 💰 Hope you get what your team needs So how do you secure a budget for the tools, headcount, consultants, or programs that would make your life easier and your team more effective? Here’s what we’ve learned from supporting dozens of companies: 👉 Budget approvals rarely start or end with Finance. Your CFO might sign the check, but the case is won or lost with your cross-functional allies. If you want buy-in, speak their language. Start with urgency → highlight the pain → paint the upside for the business. 🎯 Talking to your Head of Engineering? They need to hire 100 engineers in 6 months - 4x their usual pace: Don’t just say “we need process help.” Say: “At our current conversion rate, we’ll need 750 interviews. That’s 500+ hours of Eng time. But with structured interviews, we can reduce interview load by 40% and hire faster. Let’s invest now to save hundreds of hours later.” 💡 Pitching to your Head of People? They’re managing tradeoffs across the entire People team. Don’t say: “We need to improve our interview process.” Say: “Our current process is creating inconsistent candidate experiences - and it’s showing up in Glassdoor reviews and offer declines. If we roll out a interview training program, we’ll improve manager confidence, mitigate bias, and better support our DEI and employer brand goals. It’s a small investment with high visibility and long-term retention benefits.” 📊 And for your CFO? Quantify the cost of inefficiency. Don’t say: “We need a sourcing tool.” Say: “Last quarter, we spent over $150K on agency fees to fill roles we had already sourced candidates for - but couldn’t move fast enough. With a lightweight investment in interview scheduling automation and better funnel analytics, we could cut agency usage in half this year.” Most people outside TA don’t realize what it takes to run a high-performing function. It’s on you to educate, empathize, and make the business case crystal clear. Your ask should feel so logical, so strategic, and so tied to business outcomes - that saying no would be irresponsible. You don’t need to beg for budget. You need to build the case. 🛠️ Want help making that case? We helped the VP of Talent at FLYR Labs secure budget for fractional RecOps support when they couldn’t afford a full-time hire. And we’d be happy to help you do the same. ———————————————————————— 👋 I’m Brandon. I help TA leaders build high-performing recruiting engines - through better systems, streamlined processes, and empowered teams. Ready to lead with less stress and more support? Let’s talk. #TalentLeadership #RecruitingOperations #RecOps #BudgetStrategy #TAReality #NobleTalent

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The Human-Centric Approach to Recruitment Technology Technology without strategy is just expensive noise. In today's competitive talent market, recruitment platforms promise to revolutionize how we source, engage, and hire. Yet many organizations find themselves drowning in features while struggling to improve actual hiring outcomes. The difference? Purpose-driven implementation. Beyond the Feature Race While vendors compete on functionality, the real value lies in alignment—matching technology capabilities with recruiter workflows, stakeholder expectations, and measurable hiring objectives. The most effective recruitment technology doesn't announce itself. It seamlessly integrates into how your team already thinks and works, amplifying human expertise rather than replacing it. Our Philosophy at Peepal Consulting Technology should serve three fundamental purposes: Enhance Performance → Tools that make recruiters more effective, not busier Drive Decisions → Data that informs strategy, not just status updates Enable Flow → Systems that adapt to your process, not the other way around The Integration Imperative When recruitment technology aligns with focused execution, something powerful happens: recruiters move faster, gain deeper insights, and consistently make better hires. This isn't about having the latest platform—it's about using technology the way it was designed to work: as an extension of human judgment, not a replacement for it. Ready to move beyond feature lists to measurable results? Let's discuss how the right technology strategy can transform your hiring outcomes.  #RecruitmentTechnology #TalentAcquisition #HRTech #RecruitingStrategy #TalentStrategy #CHROInsights #TalentLeaders #RecruitingLeadership #HRLeadership #TalentOperations #RecruitmentEfficiency #HiringOptimization #TalentTech #RecruiterProductivity #HiringROI #TalentConsulting #RecruitmentConsulting #HRConsulting #TalentAdvisory #peepalconsulting

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AI adoption shifts from experimentation to implementation in 2026 As we approach 2026, HR technology trends are shifting from experimentation to implementation. This December 2025 report from SHRM highlights a growing trust gap around agentic AI and skepticism about its real-world adoption. For IT executives and talent leaders, this means navigating digital transformation with a keen eye on where tech investments are gaining traction and where resistance remains. Organizations planning their 2026 talent strategies must consider AI's role in workforce planning and analytics. The shift from experimental to practical applications of AI is crucial for those looking to stay ahead in the competitive landscape. This is exactly where Sierra ITS helps clients. We rapidly deliver specialized IT, analytics, and digital transformation talent, ensuring your projects are staffed with the expertise needed to succeed. Our focus on speed, precision, and fit means your initiatives won't stall due to unfilled roles. If your organization is feeling the pressure from unfilled roles or shifting skill demands, let’s connect and explore how we can support your roadmap. Like, share, or reach out for more talent insights. #HRTech2026 #DigitalTransformation #ITLeadership

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What if you managed your talent strategy as it relates to AI, with the same focus you managed your P&L? McKinsey’s recent piece on Strategic Workforce Planning hit some key points for me. Here are 3️⃣ takeaways that I feel are especially relevant right now, for SMBs and for us at GadellNet as we rewire for AI: 1️⃣Talent strategy = business strategy. It’s not just about whether we can fund an initiative, it’s about if we have the right people in place to make it successful. That’s where real ROI shows up, and for companies with EOS or other operating frameworks, it has to be integrated. Right people, right seats on the bus...as it always has been. 2️⃣SWP is your insurance policy for AI disruption. GenAI has the potential to change more than workflows-- it has the potential to change roles, expectations, and capacity. If you haven't thought about mapping your current skills to future needs, you should schedule time to do this work in your next strategic planning session. 3️⃣The answer isn’t going to be “go hire someone with AI skills" or "go buy the over-hyped AI tool." It remains in investing in the great people you already have. Most SMBs don’t have the luxury of making moves like this without strategy, nor should they. You need to grow capability from within, upskilling and teaching teams to be tech savvy, agile, flexible and resilient in the next 5 years. Teach them how to reclaim their time back. We’re actively applying this lens to our own growth strategy, and helping our clients think through it, too. In my experience, AI isn’t just a tech conversation. {Again, no surprises there for anyone that has been leading digital transformation.} Also, every post I read lately has the word moat in it. So, I said moat...if you made it this far. Moat! *Based on research by McKinsey & Company: “The Critical Role of Strategic Workforce Planning in the Age of AI” (Feb 2025). Full article here: https://lnkd.in/gkg6mFUp

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The contingent workforce industry is at an inflection point and the inflection is caused by rapid adoption of AI based Freelance Management systems transforming how companies think about both their contingent and total talent strategies. Staffing Industry Analysts just released their 2025 FMS Global Landscape Report, and the data tells a story about fundamental industry transformation, not just technology adoption. For decades, managing contractors meant navigating fragmented systems, compliance headaches, and limited visibility into spend and performance. Organizations paid the price in time, risk, and missed opportunities. Freelancers dealt with payment delays and administrative friction that got in the way of doing great work. Freelancer Management Systems are fundamentally changing this equation. The value creation is profound: Risk mitigation at scale: Companies are moving from reactive compliance management to proactive risk mitigation across multiple jurisdictions. The cost of getting this wrong has never been higher. Data becomes intelligence: Real-time visibility into contractor spend, performance, and workforce composition is enabling strategic decisions that were simply impossible before. CFOs and procurement teams finally have the data they need. Speed creates advantage: What used to take weeks (sourcing, onboarding, contracting, payments) now happens in days or hours. In fast-moving markets, this operational speed translates directly to competitive advantage. Integration multiplies value: When FMS platforms connect seamlessly with existing HR, finance, and procurement systems, organizations multiply the value of their entire tech stack rather than adding another disconnected tool. What the SIA research makes clear: the organizations winning with contingent talent aren’t simply using better software. They’re fundamentally rethinking their approach to workforce agility, unlocking talent pools they couldn’t access before, and building operational capabilities that become genuine competitive advantages. The spreadsheet era of contractor management isn’t just outdated. It’s leaving measurable value on the table: slower time to hire, elevated compliance risk, limited workforce intelligence, and constrained access to specialized talent. The question isn’t whether to adopt FMS technology. It’s how quickly your organization can capture the value it creates. In the link in the comments or just DM me to get the SIA’s YunoJuno showcase report to understand what leading organizations look for when evaluating an FMS and how YunoJuno supports modern contingent workforce strategies. ‍ #ContingentWorkforce #FreelanceManagement #FutureOfWork #Procurement YunoJuno

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