Dashboard: Gene Marks Went Remote Years Ago. He Hates It

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard we've been on Hiatus uh but going forward I will be here most Mondays with Jean Mars to talk about the stories and issues we think business owners should be following as you may recall Jean has a Consulting business that helps business owners with technology and he writes about small business issues for pretty much every every publication in America welcome back Jean I've missed you I have missed you too Lauren and I am so happy to be back and to be talking with you excellent great to have you here uh let's Dive Right In you uh you wrote a column recently about uh remote work which I found really interesting because I think opinions about this continue to evolve the longer this goes on but it's so interesting to hear it from you because you were ahead of your time you you went remote what like 15 years ago yeah even more than that I mean it was in 2005 I have 10 you know I had 10 employees then I have 10 employees now uh you can tell you're talking to somebody who's really running a growing business here um but we um um I have more contractors now so maybe that makes up for it but we had a uh you know we had offices in Philly and um it was me and my dad my dad passed away in 2005 and and uh we no one would ever come to the office you know I mean because everybody's out at projects and so you know we're paying rent and whatever and you know was a lonely place so after my dad passed away and I was reassessing you know everything um I decided to close down the office everybody worked virtually and that's the way it's been since 2005 and by the I mean Lauren that was like still like dialup days you know it must have been hard initially yeah yeah we were sending mail by pigeon it wasn't even an email back then and um so everybody like started working from home and you know at the time you know I set up a you know a virtual phone system which was around and still use it today um obviously we had our website we were using CRM software back then and so people were synchronizing it cuz it really wasn't very cloud-based at the time so that was you know a headache but we did our thing and um it's you know fast forward 17 years later and we're still virtual and I tell this to a bunch of people I mean with all this debate about remote work and working from home and all that kind of stuff I just have to warn people that you know yeah it cuts down on overhead and it's all you know that's all good but you know Lauren I I I think I run America's most dysfunctional company why do you say that I mean we never see each other as a group you know I bump into them you know people at at you know at clients um yeah I talk to everybody you know on the phone or by Zoom or whatnot but you know we have no innovation we have no socialization we have no you know you know group you know activities that we do together everybody's been used by the way my turnover is pretty low I mean I have a lot of the same people that have been with me for at least 10 years 7 to 10 years um so they like it I mean and that's because I when I hired people in they they saw the way the company was organized and they you know they got what the culture was like there's no culture you know it's like antic culture have you tried getting people together for yes yeah I have there was a period of time where I was trying to do the uh you know the the you know the we're all a family kind of thing and everybody seemed to hate it you know we would have have like work events you know we would meet like hey let's all go out to a party together whatever first of all half the people would show up they're like I don't even know these people what do I care and then the ones that wouldn't like they didn't even like they would barely they wouldn't even recognize each other you know they' be like you're Maria oh I didn't realize and then you know and then it's it's that everybody would go their separate ways again and not see each other again so I kind of missed out on that I mean I I get jealous sometimes of those clients that I go to and there are plenty of them where you know you go there and everybody's in the office and there's an employee work room you know you know break room and people are hanging out talking about their weekends or you know overhearing something at a clients you know and they're talking about that I mean I'm like man my company has none of that you know so I guess it's just I I think with this whole work from home thing so much's been written about everybody's so you know you know you know you know just freaking out about what what the best you know just this past week Apple employees published a public letter complaining about apples work from home policies it's a real issue that employers are going to have to work out but I am telling you Lauren um don't go virt don't go completely virtual um and if you're going to error on any side error on having your employees in the office more so than working from home um have you thought about reestablishing an office no because I'm a cheap skate you know I mean what I'm lacking in culture I don't I don't want to pay rent screw that so you know we'll just we'll just muddle on in the culture that we have I mean hasn't done me that bad but I do I do you know Miss it though and I I I wish is it they you miss it because you think it would be energizing and fun or do you think the company suffers the company suffers because of that and I know that because you know we have a lot of clients that we work on and a lot of them have overlapping you know things that they want to do and you know you know with the software that we sell and if we were all in one place you know oh you got that issue with that client we had that at our client you know last month and here's what we did you know what I mean sure but but bear in mind though Lauren I mean again I we tried it I mean I tried to have an office and nobody was in the office because the nature of the work that we do they were at clients so you know I just resign myself the fact well that's just the kind of firm that we have you know do you have a sense of where this issue is moving I mean from do you have clients who are uh who who thought remote was going to work and are now rethinking it when everything Shades itself out um things are going to be the way they were preo except there will be more flexibility in work schedules there's no question um and what I mean flexibility you know people will I I think business owners not only will allow their people to work from home a day or two a week they'll leave it up to their the the managers to say what's best for their teams you know and I feel the same way about the whole four-day Work Week thing I mean I think that's a narrative that's going on and a lot of older business owners are you know grumbling about that but you know I think it's an answer for a lot of people that are um struggling to find hourly workers um everybody loves to hear 4-day work week and you know you say okay you can work for us for 12 hours shifts and then take the rest of the you know take the rest of the week off I mean it works for the nursing industry so work from home remote working virtual workers 4-day work week it's all about flexibility and I think that we're you know employers realize that they have to offer some level of flexibility to their you know to their employees that's what gen zers and Millennials want all right next issue uh we just got a uh a new jobs report and the economy continues to add jobs 428,000 in in April um any thoughts on does does that line up with what you're hearing from your clients and what you're observing in terms of how the economy is performing you know what's really interesting to me Lauren is um I was at like three different clients this past week two manufacturers and one distributor all three of them told me that they're concerned about a potential recession all three they are all seeing right now um a little bit of softening in orders um you know I hear again this anecdotal because it's only three so you know but but it's not just based on you know reading the Wall Street Journal it's based on looking at their own numbers and assessing where the the the business is going yes and as I told you before we started recording I was I spoke to a bunch of people in the chemical distribution industry people that uh do coil coding manufacturing I don't even know what that is but I spoke to them um and they you know and you know hundreds that are there and I spoke to a few you know handful of people at each and they also cuz I ask them you know do are you hearing anything what are you seeing you know as far as your orders or whatever and I I am I am they are telling me that there is a bit of softening there is a bit of concern um you know and not not immediately their order books are okay but as they get further on into the year fourth quarter of 2022 early 2023 they're they've got concerns and they also see um uh you know we know fed you know fed's raised interest rate at you know U what a half a basis point and now you know more interest you know increases are expected that's going to have you know you know anti-growth effects on the economy as well so to get back to your jobs thing though having said all of that they're all still looking higher you know interesting yeah they're all like and I'm like so you so hiring like oh yeah you know I'm I'm going to write a piece I'm putting notes together about how to prepare yourself for a recession because it does have to do with hiring I mean there's 11.5 million unfilled jobs even though we've added 400,000 jobs this month so um you know labor Remains the number one issue for businesses and if I was running a small business and what I'm going to be telling my clients and readers you should welcome a you know a recession a Slowdown and that's that's going to be the theme and and I'll tell you what okay not we don't want it to be a big give us a hint why is that because recessions create opportunities for people with cash and the opportunities that it will create already I'm seeing this in the tech industry there's there's layoffs going on right now and when a recession happens big companies they start pulling back they start laying people off and I've learned this from some of my smartest clients if they've got the ability financially they can use a recession to snap up some talent that was not available prior because they had jobs you know and now it opens up that talent pool a little bit more for them so my you know my angle and my take and my advice to a lot of my clients and what will be to to the people that read the the dribble that I write is as we you know if you're going to prepare for a Slowdown you know don't be afraid of it embrace it uh be ready um and I'll make some you know suggestions as to what you can do to make sure you're ready but most importantly take advantage of the opportunity to hire because I do think that we will be seeing a Slowdown in hiring and even some layoffs and I think that's an opportunity for small businesses do you think your clients that are continuing to hire despite suspecting that there may be a a recession on the horizon is that because they've never gotten you know fully up to speed in terms of employment and they're they're just still trying to catch up or yeah okay yeah I mean I always make the joke when I start talking to groups of people about you know labor stuff I always start out by saying well you guys are fine right you've got all the people you need this I don't even know why we're even talking about this because obviously that's you know that's completely untrue um you know they what my the smartest business owners that I meet Lauren are looking ahead and they're already looking not just at 2022 but 2023 and Beyond they know that even with the recession we're not going to see a financial collapse I mean we we shouldn't at least that we saw like in 20 2009 but you know slowdowns will come because life is cyclical you learn that after running a business for a while and you're like all right I'll I'll weather that slowdown um if I can grab a good employee I'm going to bring on board now because eventually that slowdown will turn around into growth and I will have some Talent here to be able to deal with it so look Beyond don't have a knee-jerk reaction to what you read in the media that a recession is coming and you know the world's on fire um look Beyond and know that you know the recession recessions come and go and it's a great opportunity to staff up if you've got the resources to do it all right last story I want to talk about uh in the past week the the biggest story nationally has been um about the leak of the Supreme Court uh draft ruling about abortion and I guess my question for you is do you see this as a business issue is this going to have an effect on businesses especially smaller businesses you know it could um it is a um I wrote in the Washington Times this past last week um about an issue where you know there's the Supreme Court's going to be hearing a case in the fall about a website designer that refused to design a website for an lgbtq couple saying that it violated her religious you know principles and the Supreme Court's going to weigh in on that so I have an opinion on that and but that's that opinion is irrelevant what what why TI into this whole abortion issue is that there's a lot of social issues going on in this world right now and you know obviously Amplified because of social media abortion is going to be a major we're going to be hearing about Rover's way this entire year it's an election year it's a big deal you know you you should know if you're running a business that if if you're going to jump into that if you're going to make your your feelings known um or if you're going to even take action like Amazon for example this past week announced that they were going to reimburse their employees if they wanted to travel out of state uh for medical care including um AB you know abortions you know I think I think they said up to $4,000 up to $4,000 yeah so you know and listen I mean I I you know that that's Amazon's decision and it's completely fine it's just that when you do stuff like that you're inviting you know you're you're inviting a lot of people to have an issue with you you know what I mean and looks you know Amazon they make their decision they take their stands and and you that is what Disney did the same thing with the whole don't say we saw what happened to Disney in Florida do do you think you know a lot of this is driven by employe es who want their employer to take a stand do you think businesses are going to be compelled to take a stand on this issue is it avoidable I think if you're a small business you will be less uh you know less persuaded to do so by your employees I mean for big companies there's there's a lot of PR stuff that goes on that employees want to get you know they can get again you to to back what they want I think I think you're less exposed to it if you're a small business um I do think though that and I do have some clients that are political you know and they're running businesses and you know it's kind of awkward at those clients I mean I you know they you know there's one guy I know who runs a business he's very religious guy he's a Catholic guy and he's very conservative guy and he's got like you go into his reception area and he's got like a cross hanging there and he he had a picture of trump you know there during the administration and I don't it's fine if that's your point of view and that's your you know if you support your your president Trump ex you know former president Trump or if you're you you you're Catholic fine but when you do that you know just like the whole abortion thing if you make those views known or you adopt policies to do it you're just really risking um causing you know losing business because there could be some customers that just oh my God that person you know is a pro- lifer I'm not doing business with him you know or you might lose employees that don't want to be in that kind of environment so I don't know I my my my advice is just in this year of this year of a lot of Row versus way talk a lot of abortion talk my advice to stay out of it from a business perspective you want you go to the voters box do what you want do what you want in your personal life but you know the more you bring into your company the more that you are risking losing customers and potential employees it seems to me this one's a little bit different in terms of being able to avoid it just because it it could have a real impact on the labor market um you know if you're in a state where abortion becomes illegal well if you're in Texas right now um You may have a harder time convincing people to move to the state to um to take a job with you um by the same token if if women are getting fewer abortions it stands to reason that fewer of them after a pregnancy will return to work and that you know in the aggregate could have an impact on on the number of people people available to work in this country do you see that having an impact I mean you could also argue if they're getting fewer abortions that'll be that'll solve our Workforce issue in the years to come you know that's pretty far down the road I'm sure somebody will think I'm more concerned about the next couple of years yeah they'll take issue with that well you know there's fewer Bo to then change the child labor laws let's get him in the workforce as soon as possible there you go listen I think the points you raised are really are really true um I I don't know the extent of the issue I mean like in the sense of um you know okay yeah there there's there there there is a very vocal you know percentage of the population um that that also that that would would get an abortion you know you know what I'm saying Lauren like I mean if if does it stop somebody moving to Texas because of their abortion laws like perhaps for some I just don't know how many do you know what I'm saying like is it that big an issue um so I don't know I I you know I I think it's it's sort of new territory to explore but I do think listen California and New York have very liberal um abortion laws and I think that you know those states that lean more to the left you know if if this happens with the Supreme Court and they push it down to the States you're going to see a lot of the left leaning states have more liberal abortion laws and right leaning states have ones that are more restrictive um and that may I think that's going to have it impact on businesses in those locations yeah it it it could very well it could very well I think you would have to ask and it would be an interesting question to ask HR managers at all of those companies that have moved to Texas over the past couple of years in Austin area is this impacting you or or you know a concern of yours I'd be curious to hear the answer I don't want to I don't want to say that I even know the answer to that because I don't have that data it's early in terms of this sinking in for sure but but it's going to be around as you said Gan marks is a CPA who writes weekly on small business for the guardian the the Philadelphia inquire the Washington Times Forbes an entrepreneur you can also hear him on ABC radio's ey on the world with John Bachelor Jee host two small business podcasts with paychecks Corporation and the Hartford thank you Jean great having you back thank you Lauren and go Phillies go Phillies have a great week everyone [Music]