December 31, 2024 • 25 mins
Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Brenda Johnson.
She is the CEO of the Collaborative Training Company, an Atlanta-based management and professional services consulting firm founded in 2018. She has over 30 years of experience in the corporate and nonprofit sectors, serving in various management and senior leadership roles.
Following a 15-year career as a licensed Civil Engineer, Brenda pivoted to the nonprofit sector where she focused on addressing social, racial, and economic injustice. As a former Regional Director of Year Up and former Manager Director of the OneTen Coalition, she worked to expand access to wealth-building opportunities for under-represented populations and historically excluded communities across the country.
Brenda earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Purdue University and is a Certified Corporate Trainer, Certified Scrum Master, and alumna of the McKinsey Black Executive Leadership Program. A native of Indianapolis, Indiana, she has enjoyed the lovely weather and southern hospitality Atlanta offers for over 25 years.
Company Description *
The Collaborative Training Company (CTC) is a professional services consulting firm providing professional development and career readiness training. CTC supports human resources business units by designing and delivering customized workshops that increase employee retention - maximizing human capital investments.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the show. I'm Rashaan MacDonald, the host of
Money Making Conversations Masterclass, where we encourage people to stop
reading other people's success stories and start planning their own.
Listen up as I interview entrepreneurs from around the country,
talk to celebrities and ask them how they are running
their companies, and speak with dog profits who are making
(00:25):
a difference in their local communities. Now, sit back and
listen as we unlock the secrets to their success on
Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Now let's get this show roll along.
My guess is on hold. She is the CEO of
the Collaborative Training Company at CTC, an Atlanta based management
and professional services consulting firm founded in twenty eighteen. The
(00:49):
Collaborative Training Company is a professional services consulting firm. They
support human resources business units by designing and delivering customized
workshops that increase employee retention, which is very important. Please
welco with the Money Making Conversation Master Class. Brenda Johnson,
how are you doing, Brenda?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I'm good, Rashan, how are you? And congratulations on being
Men of the Year stim Atlanta Women and doctor Max
and Kine are close friends of CTC. So I'm thrilleding
here that.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Thank you. You know we run into each other. I
finally got your show, Brenda, I'm so happy as you go.
I'm busy that day. I'm busy that dude, I'm business
that Tuesday. So finally have you on your show. Tell everybody.
I know I read it in the intro, but tell
everybody in layman terms, what exactly does your company does?
A collaborative training company.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
For sure, and thank you for the opportunity to be
on the show. So we work in the space of
kind of what we call workforce development, which is generally
connecting talent to jobs, jobs that are sustaining, that have
a career pathway that like you could actually support your
family with these jobs. What I do a piece of
it is learning and development professional development, So I work
(02:03):
with companies and nonprofit organizations to make sure that their
talent is upskilled enough not only to perform well in
their current role, but what's that next step. Right, You've
got an engineer, they're doing great, but when we want
to transition them to manager, that's a different skill set
than maybe this technical skill that you have. So we
do a little bit of that we do post hire support.
(02:26):
Companies are moving into what we call the skills based hiring,
which means a lot of companies have taken a lot
of time and consideration to remove some of the four
year degree requirements so that they can get this labor
pipeline that they need. Often, when you remove the four
year degree requirement, you may have really skill talent that
are coming from places where they've never worked in a
(02:48):
corporate environment. So we will come into the company and say,
with this cohort of skill talents your prentices, we'll do
an extra week of onboarding to help them understand some
of those professional behavioral norms that might be new to them,
help them acclimate to the culture. This fit this word fit? Oh,
we love them, they have the right skills, but we
(03:10):
don't know that they will fit. So we help companies
unpack what does that fit mean. Does that mean you're
a fast paced company and you need people to hit
the ground running. Does that mean you know you assign
people to mentors? What does that fit? So we help
companies define what is this ideal employee that you're looking
for and then connect these talent sources to that.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Well, now let me ask you this so can someone
come to you as an individual? Sir Rushan McGaugh, let's
me and you know, and I want to get a job,
do I come to you? Or how does that work?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
That's more of what we call a talent coach. And
I get so much of that in my LinkedIn inbox
because if you follow me on LinkedIn, you'll see that
I'm always kind of amplifying opportunities for your career talent
how to get it these jobs. So I do not
do individual talent coaching, but I am a collaborative partner
of many organizations who do exactly that. So with the
(04:03):
workforce development ecosystem, we've got to partner, right, you need
talent coaches, you need people that are working with the
companies on that side. You need your community colleges, your
high school programs. We've all got to work together to
make sure that this talent is a strong candidate when
that job opportunity comes. So I do not do individual
talent coaching.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Now that that's not you know. Now with that being said, now,
how do you identify and nurture the unique talent of
job seekers who may not fit the traditional corporate mode?
Right now, that's why I'm trying to confuse educate me.
I understand what you're doing, but you're saying, Rashan, we place,
we help people adjust. We talking about the corporate side,
(04:46):
the people who do the hiring side. All you talk
about because you don't do the individual coaching right.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Correct, right. So when you work with the larger companies
than many of the smaller ones, they already have talent acquisitions.
They've got recruiters, they've got campus recruits, they've got that expertise,
and so I am not a staffing firm. We do
not do that work. So we let them do that
methodology that they have to find the talent, and then
we come in after they found the talent to get
(05:14):
them more ready for success. I don't know if you've
ever had a job that on day one, when you
got to that job, you're like, this isn't it. I
don't think I'm a good fit. I hate it here.
But you feel that in the first two weeks. There
are reasons that that might happen. That just mean anytime
we're placing an environment I'm familiar to us, it can
(05:34):
be uncomfortable. You can have this imposter syndrome that they
talk about so many of the people. If you place
some one that's come from a Walmart or Amazon, warehouse,
fastroom retail, and you put them at a job at
at and T, it may feel massively uncomfortable. To an extent,
they'll go back to that warehouse job right because they
feel comfortable I fit. So we let the companies do
(05:56):
their own hiring or work with their staffing agencies that
they all already have. We really lean into that cohort
that you just hired. We want to get them a
one to one mentor in that company that has that
shared lived experience. So if I get Rashaan McDonald a
job at IBM and he's young, early career, hasn't been
in corporate, I'm going to look for an older black
(06:18):
male because he'll have that lived experience at IBM. This
is what I've experienced. These are some things I can
help Reshaan navigate. And we use those employee resource groups
a lot to tap one to one mentors for this
time that's coming in to help them retain at that company.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Wow, I'm talking to Brenda Johnson. She's a CEO Collaborative
Training Company CTC. It's a professional services consulting firm provides
professional development and career readiness training for companies who are
bringing people in and making happing them to adjust. Now,
I got to say, the magical world that's just been
dominating everybody, AI artificial intelligence, robots going to take my job.
(07:02):
A robot's gonna take my job. Let me know, Brenda,
because I gotta find that right now, help me out
hip out everybody, because that's the that's the big fear.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I won't say robots, let's say machine learning. I would
say there are already jobs that have been replaced by
AI components personally. And this is the Brenda Johnson perspective.
Humans are uniquely designed to be creative and innovative. So
what machine learning can do is only create an outcome
(07:32):
based on existing information, existing data. We can feed it
one hundred jobs, right and from the hundred, it can
create something. But it can't do that uniquely human thing
that we do, which is create something from nothing, have
a really innovative idea. So what I tell you know,
all the young professionals, they're going to check GPT to
try to do their jobs right. And I say, if
(07:54):
you don't take that output and put your personal fingerprint
on that it's garbage because you have lived experience, you
have expertise, you have the ability to make it your own.
So I'm a fan of AI and efficiency increasing productivity.
You can do research a lot quicker with that I
(08:14):
but you take that output, and for me, that's my
starting point. So there are are absolutely jobs that will
be automated, but there are many more jobs that will
not be automated, or somebody still has to tell the
robots what to do. Right.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I'm gonna tell you something. I was in this restaurant,
you know, we're based in Atlanta, Georgia. I was in Pascales,
which is a upscale Black African American restaurant, and they
brought my food out. A little robot broke my food out.
Now I was tonned. I'm looking at it just just
turned right there. Light came on, pushed my food out,
and I got it that that robot. Nobody knows. The
(08:49):
human element was gone, you know. And then then I
just it just rolled away. And it was like a
side show because everybody in the restaurant was like, wow, wow,
I just serving everybody. And I was coming over here today, Brenda,
and I was in a red light and I saw
a little bit of a robot at the red light.
(09:09):
It looked at robots. It was just sitting there waiting
for the I don't know, waiting for the light to change.
Because in my mind, Brenda, I'm gonna go a lot
to you. I would have run over it. I would
have run over it if it were came in my
lane because I was like, automation is taking our jobs.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Don't kill the technology. So I got to technology. I
won't know, don't kill the technology. They're extensive. There was
a fast food chain that piloted like AI taking your
order at the order board. A riper of incorrect orders
was so high they had to kill that. Self driving cars.
(09:48):
I spent a year and a half out in the
Bay Area. You saw the self driving cars being tested.
The County Commission had a meeting the fire departments. The
police department showed up and said, listen, these things short
out and stop. Just like a computer, computer freezes up.
Stuff driving driving cars freeze up, and often they're freezing
up in front of the fire station, so the fire
(10:08):
truck can't get out. None of us can move it.
We can't program it. But there's a lot to be
desired in the technology, it's not there yet, and if
the companies will do the diligence of piloting, many of
these replacements of humans won't work. It's what you see
at a big chain. Oh we want you to scan
(10:29):
your own stuff. We don't want you to scan your
own stuff. It's that back and forth. So I think
the business case has to be there. But if there's
a dropping quality of outcome, some of that AI stuff
is going to world right back to humans.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Now let me ask you this, Brenda, because you know
now we're talking about AI because we have to, because
you know that's you know, the recent election, that's all
they talked about with AI. You know, you have Elon Musk.
You know he's good drive. You know basically you know,
you can just sit back and take a nap in
the car, take you around. You can see different situations.
And you're right, there's some traffic jams that have been
(11:04):
created because the cars just got confused and it just
locked up and just didn't move anymore. But that's taking
away potential. You know, Uber drivers and things of that
nature are left drivers with these cars. Once they get
it right, you just hop in a car, put your
credit card in and it'll take you home or take
you to the airport. So there are situations that are
(11:26):
coming along. But you're saying, Rashan, that is one job option,
but there is another job option that's going to repair
that that vehicle, that's going to a program, that vehicle
if it goes wacky, if it's going to be able
to You have to see that. There are other opportunity
that don't require four year degrees that you can train
(11:48):
people are trained them up. Once these corporations bring you
on board, and that's your job as far as CTC
correct correct.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I think historically in America, the four year degree requirement
was an artificial barrier for certain people not to be
able to get certain jobs. Now that we have more
Americans opting out of the four year degree, there will
be a labor shortage. If eighty percent of the jobs
in your applicant tracking system require degree, those jobs will
sit and you'll see it, Well, y'all had this job
(12:19):
poster for nine months, no one's getting the job. So
they've got to think differently and say, instead of this
piece of paper, let's revisit the job description. Right, this
job description has been in our system ten years. Technology
has changed, our processes have changed, but we really didn't
take the time to sit down and rewrite the job description.
So instead, I'll sit with someone and say, give me
(12:41):
three adjectives for someone who is a star in this role.
Give me three adjectives for someone you would never hire
for this role. I'll learn more about what you need
from that job than this two page job requisition that
hasn't been changed. The hiring manager doesn't have time to
do it. Talent acquisition doesn't write the job description. Often
the companies do not have a person on staff responsible
(13:04):
for even who makes the decision to take the for
your degree away. What's that process like? So it can
be a long journey to just say, let's think about
some of the jobs that don't need the four your
degree and instead let's focus on five to seven skills
of someone who excels in the job sales job pharmaceutical sales.
That's an interesting conversation, I asked, that's a well paying job.
(13:28):
Do you really need a college degree for that? Tell
me why you need a college degree for that?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Now, Wow, we're going to go to break before I
want to ask the question. The simmer on your side
of the conversation. Want to come back. Can you share
an example when we come back for a break of
how you have successfully helped the company diversifies talent pipeline
while improving business performance. That's of question I'm gonna ask,
don't go nowhere. We want to break be back with
(13:54):
more money Making Conversations with my friend Brenda Johnson.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
money Making Conversations Masterclass. Welcome back to the money Making
Conversations Masterclass, hosted by Rashan McDonald. Money Making Conversations Masterclass
continues online at Moneymakingconversations dot com and follow money Making
(14:23):
Conversations Masterclass on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Welcome back to money Making Conversations Masterclass. I'm speaking with
Brenda Johnson. She's the CEO of Collaborative Training Company. Now, Brenda,
can you share an example of how you successfully help
a company diversify it it's talented pipeline where I improve
in business performance.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Absolutely, I'm so through that you asked me that. And
to preface my answer, when we get approached with the
companies like we want to diversit fire our talent pipeline. One,
let's unpack diversity if it's nursing as a second, Does
diversify mean more men? Right? What are we talking about?
Because I think when we hear diversity, everyone goes to
(15:06):
race and gender. They do, so I think we have
to be clear what we're talking about. But the example
that I love, I won't name the company. They had
like a really well high paying, well I think high
paying job. This is out of I won't even name where.
About a seventy seventy five thousand dollars job that you
could get without a degree, And it looked like administrative work.
(15:26):
You're going to support some executives, You're going to do
some travel planning, some calendar management, and they were willing
to remove the for your degree requirement when we get
that request. This is when we do do talent coaching.
So when I have a clear job description, I understand
the company's culture. We go out in the community, our
talent partners, our talent developers and say who has the
(15:49):
hard skills in your talent pool that look like this.
We screen them, we get to know them individually a
lot of people have tried to scale matching a person
to a job. If you've ever looked for a job.
It's not really scalable in that way because it's very
high touch. So we'll take a group of candidates, get
them in a cohort, and we're getting to know them.
(16:12):
Do they have soft skills? Will this person even have
what we call wrap around supports? Do you have a car?
But they say you're going to You're going to go
to this site and done Woodie and this side in
the cab and this site downtown. You got to make
sure they're stable transportation. Are their childcare issues? We can
have our companies having to solve a lot of that.
At this point, I think they could invest in that,
(16:33):
but at this point we're not. So that's when we
do do what we call talent coaching. Prep for the interview,
Let's look at your resume. Let's talk about the job
that you had at McDonald's and at Target and what
you did there, so we can translate those skills into
exactly what they want. So, if I'm gonna send a
group of candidates to be screened for a high volume,
(16:53):
recurring role, those talent I have to touch. I have
to see my team spends time with them. A really
interesting dynamic we see lately, it's this neuro diversity, meaning
we're now where autism is going to be in our
talent pool. How does that show up? Because everyone wants
(17:14):
to have an access to work, So this is when
you get to know, Oh, Okay, this person has autism.
That's why he's not looking me in the eye. Is
this something we can talk through with the company. We've
had a lot of success doing that. They feel really
rewarded to be able to open up a well paying
job for people that don't have a degree. But the
(17:36):
companies need to be able to see the results of
that and then have they retained how are they performing? Oh,
let's do it again. Let's do it again in the spring.
We're going to have this many openings, but it is
a lot of work and it requires a lot of partnerships.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Wow, that sounds great, but you said something in a
buzzword that really has had me all annoyed. With diversity, equity, inclusion,
and whatever we use, the word diversity is always tied
to race. Talk to us about you know, how you've
seen the shift in diversity echoin inclusion over the last
(18:12):
four years, I guess, And what do you see the
future moving forward for diversity in the workforce.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Correct. So I think that's all. I think there was
a milestone moment. But George Floyd, we had many companies,
many organizations moved to embrace the EI and actually put
money behind it, and that looked a lot of different ways.
Then we have the Scholist ruling come out and say
you really shouldn't be doing that. We might sue you
if you do that. So at the end of the day,
(18:42):
it has to be a business case that this company
needs talent. And historically, if that talent were white men
with a four year degree followed by white women with
the four year degree down the line, that company's not
going to be in business because the demographics of the
country has shifted and fewer people are opting to get
(19:02):
a for your degree anyway. So we talk about diversity,
I challenge people that think beyond race and gender because
now we have four or five generations in the workplace.
That's a whole different conversation about the way in which
we show up. We have the neuro diversity issue, the autism,
the aspergers, we have the LGBT status. We have accessibility
(19:24):
people that need enabling conditions to be able to work here.
So I think where we are now is you see
a departure of a group of companies who have said,
thank you, we don't want to do that anymore. And
you have another group of companies that are still very
dedicated to building the pipeline that they need from the
broader labor force and are asking people to help with that.
(19:47):
Where can I find the talent because these companies are
not necessarily connected into these communities. One of the reasons
that they're not with what's your recruiting strategy. I've had
companies say, oh, we only recruit from three schools in Illinois.
Tell me about that. Okay, so if you're in Atlanta,
tell me about your recruiting strategy. Tell me if you
(20:08):
have a different quote unquote HBCU recruiting strategy. Why is
it different. How much money is in this one? How
much money is in that one. So you can't come
and say I want to diversify, but you have this
separated recruiting strategy. And so if you start to peel
back the layers, this is the status quo of America.
But if you're saying I want to move forward and
(20:30):
be different, I really want to tap into a labor
pool that's going to meet my business needs. Why do
we have an HBCU program? Make that make sense to me?
Why is it there? Because it's been there, it's a legacy,
right or we just created it. Oh, but it's not
like it's not like our Jorgy tech and UGA program.
Why is it not like that?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
So you have to ask questions because most of these
people inherited this from the job. They inherited this is
the way our company does thing, and often they don't
have the power influence a budget to make those changes.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Wow, you know you've hidden so many mad buttons with
me with that presentation, because it's true because I get
to do these you know, they have these minority supplier portals.
They want you to fill out the information. Nobody ever
calls you, Nobody ever contacted. I've never been I'll just
(21:24):
say nobody's ever contacted with Sean McDonald. And I get
frustrated because they're saying they're offering opportunities of diversity, but
how and the examples are so funneled down, so low.
But you know, the key is this country has changed
and it's not going to go backwards. It's going to
(21:46):
only go farther. It's only going to become more more,
I think, a better country. We just have to accept it.
But we also have to accept the fact that I
don't want nobody Brenda hired me because I'm black. I
want nobody out of my mouth.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
The visit of doctor Martin Luther King was, could you
please see us for our talent, our character, who we
are inside we inherit a system that doesn't do that.
So now we're just saying we don't want to be
able to compete equally, like remove the roadblocks, remove the
bias from your system so we can compete equally. I've
(22:25):
just I've been frustrating in my own career with the
resistance for people to want to compete evenly. So we
don't want the job because we're black. And the companies
who do not abandon these initiatives are going to end
up more profitable because they're gonna have the best labor
force with the right skills doing the work. The one
(22:46):
who want to continue to practice status quo, well this
is who we hire. We hire only from these schools
and they have to look like this and speak that way,
probably going to be out of business because that's not
the the future of America. I think the chips will
followd their lot where they lie, and I think as
a country, we're great enough to start to surface. Let's
(23:09):
hire the people who can get the job done. Yes,
relationship matters, network matters. And I'm laughing at you with
Sean because you're like a supplier, diverse supplier of the year,
so some kind of way you made that work for you.
But I also know that you are well connected and
relationships matter, So we want to be able to get
this talent with mentors and coaches that can pull them
(23:32):
into these spaces so that they can compete equally.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Wow, you're fantastic, Brenda. Brenda, how can we get in
touch with you? You know what?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
You can visit our website at EPC guy guide dot
com and I would think the best way to reach
us on social media is to visit our LinkedIn page,
which is merely the collaborative Training Company.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
And you are amazing. Now, want to thank thank you, Brenda.
You know I got to bring you back because our
conversation became a different conversation the second half, and I
think that that's a really good thing because people need
to hear how the industry is and there's a shot,
but you can win being you and don't let nobody
under not the media, undermine your opportunities by making you
(24:20):
feel like you only got a job because you are black,
you only got a job because you're a woman, You
only got a job because you are this type of person.
We have to recognize that our skill set matters. Our
skill set allows us to compete. If you graduate from HBCU,
it's no different than graduating from Penn State. Equally talented
people qualified to do the job because we have the
(24:41):
right skill set. Thank you for coming on Money Making Conversation.
I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Thanks for Sean.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
This has been another edition of Money Making Conversation Master
Class hosted by Mayor Rashan McDonald. Thank you our guests
in the show today and thank you our listening audience.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Now.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
If you want to listen to any episodes or want
to be a guest on the show, visit money Making Conversation.
Our social media handle is money Making Conversation. Join us
next week and remember to always leave with your gifts.
Keep winning. This has been another edition of Money Making
Conversation Masterclass hosted by me Rashaun McDonald. Thank you to
our guests on the show today and thank you our
(25:16):
listening to audience now. If you want to listen to
any episode I want to be a guest on the show,
visit Moneymakingconversations dot com. Our social media handle is money
Making Conversation. Join us next week and remember to always
leave with your gifts. Keep winning.
Welcome to the show. I'm Rashaan MacDonald, the host of
Money Making Conversations Masterclass, where we encourage people to stop
reading other people's success stories and start planning their own.
Listen up as I interview entrepreneurs from around the country,
talk to celebrities and ask them how they are running
their companies, and speak with dog profits who are making
(00:25):
a difference in their local communities. Now, sit back and
listen as we unlock the secrets to their success on
Money Making Conversations Masterclass. Now let's get this show roll along.
My guess is on hold. She is the CEO of
the Collaborative Training Company at CTC, an Atlanta based management
and professional services consulting firm founded in twenty eighteen. The
(00:49):
Collaborative Training Company is a professional services consulting firm. They
support human resources business units by designing and delivering customized
workshops that increase employee retention, which is very important. Please
welco with the Money Making Conversation Master Class. Brenda Johnson,
how are you doing, Brenda?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I'm good, Rashan, how are you? And congratulations on being
Men of the Year stim Atlanta Women and doctor Max
and Kine are close friends of CTC. So I'm thrilleding
here that.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Thank you. You know we run into each other. I
finally got your show, Brenda, I'm so happy as you go.
I'm busy that day. I'm busy that dude, I'm business
that Tuesday. So finally have you on your show. Tell everybody.
I know I read it in the intro, but tell
everybody in layman terms, what exactly does your company does?
A collaborative training company.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
For sure, and thank you for the opportunity to be
on the show. So we work in the space of
kind of what we call workforce development, which is generally
connecting talent to jobs, jobs that are sustaining, that have
a career pathway that like you could actually support your
family with these jobs. What I do a piece of
it is learning and development professional development, So I work
(02:03):
with companies and nonprofit organizations to make sure that their
talent is upskilled enough not only to perform well in
their current role, but what's that next step. Right, You've
got an engineer, they're doing great, but when we want
to transition them to manager, that's a different skill set
than maybe this technical skill that you have. So we
do a little bit of that we do post hire support.
(02:26):
Companies are moving into what we call the skills based hiring,
which means a lot of companies have taken a lot
of time and consideration to remove some of the four
year degree requirements so that they can get this labor
pipeline that they need. Often, when you remove the four
year degree requirement, you may have really skill talent that
are coming from places where they've never worked in a
(02:48):
corporate environment. So we will come into the company and say,
with this cohort of skill talents your prentices, we'll do
an extra week of onboarding to help them understand some
of those professional behavioral norms that might be new to them,
help them acclimate to the culture. This fit this word fit? Oh,
we love them, they have the right skills, but we
(03:10):
don't know that they will fit. So we help companies
unpack what does that fit mean. Does that mean you're
a fast paced company and you need people to hit
the ground running. Does that mean you know you assign
people to mentors? What does that fit? So we help
companies define what is this ideal employee that you're looking
for and then connect these talent sources to that.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Well, now let me ask you this so can someone
come to you as an individual? Sir Rushan McGaugh, let's
me and you know, and I want to get a job,
do I come to you? Or how does that work?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
That's more of what we call a talent coach. And
I get so much of that in my LinkedIn inbox
because if you follow me on LinkedIn, you'll see that
I'm always kind of amplifying opportunities for your career talent
how to get it these jobs. So I do not
do individual talent coaching, but I am a collaborative partner
of many organizations who do exactly that. So with the
(04:03):
workforce development ecosystem, we've got to partner, right, you need
talent coaches, you need people that are working with the
companies on that side. You need your community colleges, your
high school programs. We've all got to work together to
make sure that this talent is a strong candidate when
that job opportunity comes. So I do not do individual
talent coaching.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Now that that's not you know. Now with that being said, now,
how do you identify and nurture the unique talent of
job seekers who may not fit the traditional corporate mode?
Right now, that's why I'm trying to confuse educate me.
I understand what you're doing, but you're saying, Rashan, we place,
we help people adjust. We talking about the corporate side,
(04:46):
the people who do the hiring side. All you talk
about because you don't do the individual coaching right.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Correct, right. So when you work with the larger companies
than many of the smaller ones, they already have talent acquisitions.
They've got recruiters, they've got campus recruits, they've got that expertise,
and so I am not a staffing firm. We do
not do that work. So we let them do that
methodology that they have to find the talent, and then
we come in after they found the talent to get
(05:14):
them more ready for success. I don't know if you've
ever had a job that on day one, when you
got to that job, you're like, this isn't it. I
don't think I'm a good fit. I hate it here.
But you feel that in the first two weeks. There
are reasons that that might happen. That just mean anytime
we're placing an environment I'm familiar to us, it can
(05:34):
be uncomfortable. You can have this imposter syndrome that they
talk about so many of the people. If you place
some one that's come from a Walmart or Amazon, warehouse,
fastroom retail, and you put them at a job at
at and T, it may feel massively uncomfortable. To an extent,
they'll go back to that warehouse job right because they
feel comfortable I fit. So we let the companies do
(05:56):
their own hiring or work with their staffing agencies that
they all already have. We really lean into that cohort
that you just hired. We want to get them a
one to one mentor in that company that has that
shared lived experience. So if I get Rashaan McDonald a
job at IBM and he's young, early career, hasn't been
in corporate, I'm going to look for an older black
(06:18):
male because he'll have that lived experience at IBM. This
is what I've experienced. These are some things I can
help Reshaan navigate. And we use those employee resource groups
a lot to tap one to one mentors for this
time that's coming in to help them retain at that company.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Wow, I'm talking to Brenda Johnson. She's a CEO Collaborative
Training Company CTC. It's a professional services consulting firm provides
professional development and career readiness training for companies who are
bringing people in and making happing them to adjust. Now,
I got to say, the magical world that's just been
dominating everybody, AI artificial intelligence, robots going to take my job.
(07:02):
A robot's gonna take my job. Let me know, Brenda,
because I gotta find that right now, help me out
hip out everybody, because that's the that's the big fear.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I won't say robots, let's say machine learning. I would
say there are already jobs that have been replaced by
AI components personally. And this is the Brenda Johnson perspective.
Humans are uniquely designed to be creative and innovative. So
what machine learning can do is only create an outcome
(07:32):
based on existing information, existing data. We can feed it
one hundred jobs, right and from the hundred, it can
create something. But it can't do that uniquely human thing
that we do, which is create something from nothing, have
a really innovative idea. So what I tell you know,
all the young professionals, they're going to check GPT to
try to do their jobs right. And I say, if
(07:54):
you don't take that output and put your personal fingerprint
on that it's garbage because you have lived experience, you
have expertise, you have the ability to make it your own.
So I'm a fan of AI and efficiency increasing productivity.
You can do research a lot quicker with that I
(08:14):
but you take that output, and for me, that's my
starting point. So there are are absolutely jobs that will
be automated, but there are many more jobs that will
not be automated, or somebody still has to tell the
robots what to do. Right.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
I'm gonna tell you something. I was in this restaurant,
you know, we're based in Atlanta, Georgia. I was in Pascales,
which is a upscale Black African American restaurant, and they
brought my food out. A little robot broke my food out.
Now I was tonned. I'm looking at it just just
turned right there. Light came on, pushed my food out,
and I got it that that robot. Nobody knows. The
(08:49):
human element was gone, you know. And then then I
just it just rolled away. And it was like a
side show because everybody in the restaurant was like, wow, wow,
I just serving everybody. And I was coming over here today, Brenda,
and I was in a red light and I saw
a little bit of a robot at the red light.
(09:09):
It looked at robots. It was just sitting there waiting
for the I don't know, waiting for the light to change.
Because in my mind, Brenda, I'm gonna go a lot
to you. I would have run over it. I would
have run over it if it were came in my
lane because I was like, automation is taking our jobs.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Don't kill the technology. So I got to technology. I
won't know, don't kill the technology. They're extensive. There was
a fast food chain that piloted like AI taking your
order at the order board. A riper of incorrect orders
was so high they had to kill that. Self driving cars.
(09:48):
I spent a year and a half out in the
Bay Area. You saw the self driving cars being tested.
The County Commission had a meeting the fire departments. The
police department showed up and said, listen, these things short
out and stop. Just like a computer, computer freezes up.
Stuff driving driving cars freeze up, and often they're freezing
up in front of the fire station, so the fire
(10:08):
truck can't get out. None of us can move it.
We can't program it. But there's a lot to be
desired in the technology, it's not there yet, and if
the companies will do the diligence of piloting, many of
these replacements of humans won't work. It's what you see
at a big chain. Oh we want you to scan
(10:29):
your own stuff. We don't want you to scan your
own stuff. It's that back and forth. So I think
the business case has to be there. But if there's
a dropping quality of outcome, some of that AI stuff
is going to world right back to humans.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Now let me ask you this, Brenda, because you know
now we're talking about AI because we have to, because
you know that's you know, the recent election, that's all
they talked about with AI. You know, you have Elon Musk.
You know he's good drive. You know basically you know,
you can just sit back and take a nap in
the car, take you around. You can see different situations.
And you're right, there's some traffic jams that have been
(11:04):
created because the cars just got confused and it just
locked up and just didn't move anymore. But that's taking
away potential. You know, Uber drivers and things of that
nature are left drivers with these cars. Once they get
it right, you just hop in a car, put your
credit card in and it'll take you home or take
you to the airport. So there are situations that are
(11:26):
coming along. But you're saying, Rashan, that is one job option,
but there is another job option that's going to repair
that that vehicle, that's going to a program, that vehicle
if it goes wacky, if it's going to be able
to You have to see that. There are other opportunity
that don't require four year degrees that you can train
(11:48):
people are trained them up. Once these corporations bring you
on board, and that's your job as far as CTC
correct correct.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
I think historically in America, the four year degree requirement
was an artificial barrier for certain people not to be
able to get certain jobs. Now that we have more
Americans opting out of the four year degree, there will
be a labor shortage. If eighty percent of the jobs
in your applicant tracking system require degree, those jobs will
sit and you'll see it, Well, y'all had this job
(12:19):
poster for nine months, no one's getting the job. So
they've got to think differently and say, instead of this
piece of paper, let's revisit the job description. Right, this
job description has been in our system ten years. Technology
has changed, our processes have changed, but we really didn't
take the time to sit down and rewrite the job description.
So instead, I'll sit with someone and say, give me
(12:41):
three adjectives for someone who is a star in this role.
Give me three adjectives for someone you would never hire
for this role. I'll learn more about what you need
from that job than this two page job requisition that
hasn't been changed. The hiring manager doesn't have time to
do it. Talent acquisition doesn't write the job description. Often
the companies do not have a person on staff responsible
(13:04):
for even who makes the decision to take the for
your degree away. What's that process like? So it can
be a long journey to just say, let's think about
some of the jobs that don't need the four your
degree and instead let's focus on five to seven skills
of someone who excels in the job sales job pharmaceutical sales.
That's an interesting conversation, I asked, that's a well paying job.
(13:28):
Do you really need a college degree for that? Tell
me why you need a college degree for that?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Now, Wow, we're going to go to break before I
want to ask the question. The simmer on your side
of the conversation. Want to come back. Can you share
an example when we come back for a break of
how you have successfully helped the company diversifies talent pipeline
while improving business performance. That's of question I'm gonna ask,
don't go nowhere. We want to break be back with
(13:54):
more money Making Conversations with my friend Brenda Johnson.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
money Making Conversations Masterclass. Welcome back to the money Making
Conversations Masterclass, hosted by Rashan McDonald. Money Making Conversations Masterclass
continues online at Moneymakingconversations dot com and follow money Making
(14:23):
Conversations Masterclass on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Welcome back to money Making Conversations Masterclass. I'm speaking with
Brenda Johnson. She's the CEO of Collaborative Training Company. Now, Brenda,
can you share an example of how you successfully help
a company diversify it it's talented pipeline where I improve
in business performance.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Absolutely, I'm so through that you asked me that. And
to preface my answer, when we get approached with the
companies like we want to diversit fire our talent pipeline. One,
let's unpack diversity if it's nursing as a second, Does
diversify mean more men? Right? What are we talking about?
Because I think when we hear diversity, everyone goes to
(15:06):
race and gender. They do, so I think we have
to be clear what we're talking about. But the example
that I love, I won't name the company. They had
like a really well high paying, well I think high
paying job. This is out of I won't even name where.
About a seventy seventy five thousand dollars job that you
could get without a degree, And it looked like administrative work.
(15:26):
You're going to support some executives, You're going to do
some travel planning, some calendar management, and they were willing
to remove the for your degree requirement when we get
that request. This is when we do do talent coaching.
So when I have a clear job description, I understand
the company's culture. We go out in the community, our
talent partners, our talent developers and say who has the
(15:49):
hard skills in your talent pool that look like this.
We screen them, we get to know them individually a
lot of people have tried to scale matching a person
to a job. If you've ever looked for a job.
It's not really scalable in that way because it's very
high touch. So we'll take a group of candidates, get
them in a cohort, and we're getting to know them.
(16:12):
Do they have soft skills? Will this person even have
what we call wrap around supports? Do you have a car?
But they say you're going to You're going to go
to this site and done Woodie and this side in
the cab and this site downtown. You got to make
sure they're stable transportation. Are their childcare issues? We can
have our companies having to solve a lot of that.
At this point, I think they could invest in that,
(16:33):
but at this point we're not. So that's when we
do do what we call talent coaching. Prep for the interview,
Let's look at your resume. Let's talk about the job
that you had at McDonald's and at Target and what
you did there, so we can translate those skills into
exactly what they want. So, if I'm gonna send a
group of candidates to be screened for a high volume,
(16:53):
recurring role, those talent I have to touch. I have
to see my team spends time with them. A really
interesting dynamic we see lately, it's this neuro diversity, meaning
we're now where autism is going to be in our
talent pool. How does that show up? Because everyone wants
(17:14):
to have an access to work, So this is when
you get to know, Oh, Okay, this person has autism.
That's why he's not looking me in the eye. Is
this something we can talk through with the company. We've
had a lot of success doing that. They feel really
rewarded to be able to open up a well paying
job for people that don't have a degree. But the
(17:36):
companies need to be able to see the results of
that and then have they retained how are they performing? Oh,
let's do it again. Let's do it again in the spring.
We're going to have this many openings, but it is
a lot of work and it requires a lot of partnerships.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Wow, that sounds great, but you said something in a
buzzword that really has had me all annoyed. With diversity, equity, inclusion,
and whatever we use, the word diversity is always tied
to race. Talk to us about you know, how you've
seen the shift in diversity echoin inclusion over the last
(18:12):
four years, I guess, And what do you see the
future moving forward for diversity in the workforce.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Correct. So I think that's all. I think there was
a milestone moment. But George Floyd, we had many companies,
many organizations moved to embrace the EI and actually put
money behind it, and that looked a lot of different ways.
Then we have the Scholist ruling come out and say
you really shouldn't be doing that. We might sue you
if you do that. So at the end of the day,
(18:42):
it has to be a business case that this company
needs talent. And historically, if that talent were white men
with a four year degree followed by white women with
the four year degree down the line, that company's not
going to be in business because the demographics of the
country has shifted and fewer people are opting to get
(19:02):
a for your degree anyway. So we talk about diversity,
I challenge people that think beyond race and gender because
now we have four or five generations in the workplace.
That's a whole different conversation about the way in which
we show up. We have the neuro diversity issue, the autism,
the aspergers, we have the LGBT status. We have accessibility
(19:24):
people that need enabling conditions to be able to work here.
So I think where we are now is you see
a departure of a group of companies who have said,
thank you, we don't want to do that anymore. And
you have another group of companies that are still very
dedicated to building the pipeline that they need from the
broader labor force and are asking people to help with that.
(19:47):
Where can I find the talent because these companies are
not necessarily connected into these communities. One of the reasons
that they're not with what's your recruiting strategy. I've had
companies say, oh, we only recruit from three schools in Illinois.
Tell me about that. Okay, so if you're in Atlanta,
tell me about your recruiting strategy. Tell me if you
(20:08):
have a different quote unquote HBCU recruiting strategy. Why is
it different. How much money is in this one? How
much money is in that one. So you can't come
and say I want to diversify, but you have this
separated recruiting strategy. And so if you start to peel
back the layers, this is the status quo of America.
But if you're saying I want to move forward and
(20:30):
be different, I really want to tap into a labor
pool that's going to meet my business needs. Why do
we have an HBCU program? Make that make sense to me?
Why is it there? Because it's been there, it's a legacy,
right or we just created it. Oh, but it's not
like it's not like our Jorgy tech and UGA program.
Why is it not like that?
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:50):
So you have to ask questions because most of these
people inherited this from the job. They inherited this is
the way our company does thing, and often they don't
have the power influence a budget to make those changes.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Wow, you know you've hidden so many mad buttons with
me with that presentation, because it's true because I get
to do these you know, they have these minority supplier portals.
They want you to fill out the information. Nobody ever
calls you, Nobody ever contacted. I've never been I'll just
(21:24):
say nobody's ever contacted with Sean McDonald. And I get
frustrated because they're saying they're offering opportunities of diversity, but
how and the examples are so funneled down, so low.
But you know, the key is this country has changed
and it's not going to go backwards. It's going to
(21:46):
only go farther. It's only going to become more more,
I think, a better country. We just have to accept it.
But we also have to accept the fact that I
don't want nobody Brenda hired me because I'm black. I
want nobody out of my mouth.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
The visit of doctor Martin Luther King was, could you
please see us for our talent, our character, who we
are inside we inherit a system that doesn't do that.
So now we're just saying we don't want to be
able to compete equally, like remove the roadblocks, remove the
bias from your system so we can compete equally. I've
(22:25):
just I've been frustrating in my own career with the
resistance for people to want to compete evenly. So we
don't want the job because we're black. And the companies
who do not abandon these initiatives are going to end
up more profitable because they're gonna have the best labor
force with the right skills doing the work. The one
(22:46):
who want to continue to practice status quo, well this
is who we hire. We hire only from these schools
and they have to look like this and speak that way,
probably going to be out of business because that's not
the the future of America. I think the chips will
followd their lot where they lie, and I think as
a country, we're great enough to start to surface. Let's
(23:09):
hire the people who can get the job done. Yes,
relationship matters, network matters. And I'm laughing at you with
Sean because you're like a supplier, diverse supplier of the year,
so some kind of way you made that work for you.
But I also know that you are well connected and
relationships matter, So we want to be able to get
this talent with mentors and coaches that can pull them
(23:32):
into these spaces so that they can compete equally.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Wow, you're fantastic, Brenda. Brenda, how can we get in
touch with you? You know what?
Speaker 2 (23:43):
You can visit our website at EPC guy guide dot
com and I would think the best way to reach
us on social media is to visit our LinkedIn page,
which is merely the collaborative Training Company.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
And you are amazing. Now, want to thank thank you, Brenda.
You know I got to bring you back because our
conversation became a different conversation the second half, and I
think that that's a really good thing because people need
to hear how the industry is and there's a shot,
but you can win being you and don't let nobody
under not the media, undermine your opportunities by making you
(24:20):
feel like you only got a job because you are black,
you only got a job because you're a woman, You
only got a job because you are this type of person.
We have to recognize that our skill set matters. Our
skill set allows us to compete. If you graduate from HBCU,
it's no different than graduating from Penn State. Equally talented
people qualified to do the job because we have the
(24:41):
right skill set. Thank you for coming on Money Making Conversation.
I appreciate you.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Thanks for Sean.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
This has been another edition of Money Making Conversation Master
Class hosted by Mayor Rashan McDonald. Thank you our guests
in the show today and thank you our listening audience.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Now.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
If you want to listen to any episodes or want
to be a guest on the show, visit money Making Conversation.
Our social media handle is money Making Conversation. Join us
next week and remember to always leave with your gifts.
Keep winning. This has been another edition of Money Making
Conversation Masterclass hosted by me Rashaun McDonald. Thank you to
our guests on the show today and thank you our
(25:16):
listening to audience now. If you want to listen to
any episode I want to be a guest on the show,
visit Moneymakingconversations dot com. Our social media handle is money
Making Conversation. Join us next week and remember to always
leave with your gifts. Keep winning.
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