No One Wants to Work… for You — Part 1

Every owner says the same thing right now: nobody wants to work anymore. Our guest today has spent a career in HR and employment law, and she is going to gently take that sentence apart because the data says the problem usually is not the applicants. It is a burned-out manager doing the hiring, an offer nobody can find, and a process that makes good people walk away before they ever start.

“Nobody wants to work for you” is a different sentence from “Nobody wants to work.” In this episode, we figure out which one is actually true.

Welcome to From Burnt Out to Bought Out, the podcast for business owners who are tired of being the hardest-working, lowest-paid employees in their own companies. I’m Jon, joined as always by Ryan, and together, we have spent years inside owner-led businesses helping founders go from running on fumes to running businesses that actually operate without them.

Every episode, we break down the real problems nobody talks about—the burnout, the bottlenecks, and the blind spots—and show you what it looks like to build a business that is profitable, sellable, and does not need you in the building every day to survive. Whether you are grinding through a plateau, thinking about an exit, or just trying to take a vacation without your phone blowing up, you are in the right place. Let’s get into it.

Awesome. Ryan, Cindy, hello. Welcome, Cindy.

Hello, Jon.

Hello, hello, hello.

Excellent, Cindy. We are very pleased to have you grace our humble little podcast.

I’m excited to be here.

Excellent. Just a quick introduction: Cindy Koenemann-Warren is the Founder and a Principal Consultant at CKW Advantage, where she provides human resources, labor relations, and compliance consulting services to school districts, municipalities, local governments, nonprofit organizations, and mission-driven employers. We are delighted to have your expertise. It is going to make us seem really smart in this episode.

I’ll do my best.

Awesome. That makes a change, right?

Yeah.

Excellent. Good stuff. We are excited. Nobody wants to work. I don’t want to work. That is why we are doing the podcast, right? Isn’t it fame and glory that we are after?

Something like that.

Something like that.

Just a heads-up for listeners as well: Ryan is going to put on the owner’s hat multiple times throughout this episode. Cindy has so much expertise, and hopefully, we are not going to inundate her with too many questions. Putting on the owner’s hat gives some context to how people might handle specific situations.

We have a bunch of things to throw at you, if you do not mind. This is an episode that has been brewing for a long time. We thought of it a while ago, and Cindy, I know we reached out to you. Thank you for finally agreeing. We had to twist your arm.

Yeah. Ryan had to do more twisting than you.

That is par for the course.

Excellent. First, why don’t you introduce yourself, and then let’s start by taking apart that sentence: “Nobody wants to work anymore.”

Like you said, I have been working in human resources for more than 25 years from various perspectives. I grew up in a house where my dad owned his own company and went through multiple careers himself. I have seen HR issues from the employee, employer, and collective-bargaining perspectives. You name it, and I have seen it from just about every perspective.

I am looking forward to chatting with you about some of these topics. It is funny: employers say, “Nobody wants to work for me or for us anymore,” while employees say, “No one wants to hire anyone anymore.” It is going to be a fun discussion.

Absolutely. I think there are challenges on both sides, so let’s unpack part of it. Ryan, as the owner, what are some of the major concerns we have with hiring these days?

I think there are many concerns that nobody out there is worth anything. They do not want to work as hard as we used to. They are not as smart as we used to be. We cannot just throw them in there and expect them to figure it out. People say the candidate pool has become worse and worse, especially since COVID. You hear the same things repeatedly from every industry.

Cindy, what are some of the things you have been hearing?

The same things. There is ongoing generational frustration. You have three, four, or five generations at play. All of them have their own unique personalities, work ethics, and perceptions of what it means to work hard.

On top of that, you have a wide range of technology skills and comfort levels with technology. Then you add AI, which has blown everything up. It is an interesting combination because the perception is that the older generation works harder. However, someone might say the younger generation works smarter. Maybe they can complete the job faster or know which tools to use. As they say, work smarter, not harder.

Then you have automation integrated into the entire hiring process, which has become frustrating for everyone. It is one of those cases where technology is not helping us. I think that is leading to more disconnection.

You have strong candidates applying for jobs who are screened out before anyone ever sees them. If you are the hiring manager, you might log in to LinkedIn, Indeed, or another job-search service and find yourself inundated with 5,000 applications for an administrative-assistant position.

That is the conundrum we are all struggling with. We have lost the human element in some ways, along with the ability to speak to each other.

You probably experience this as parents, too. My younger sister is 17 years younger than I am. She is all about text, while I am all about phone calls. There is something in between, and now the next generation—my nephews—may not be doing either. People do not sit across from one another anymore.

If you are, for lack of a better term, a COVID baby who started school through a computer, you may have lost opportunities to develop some of those social skills. Add that to the inability to sit one-on-one with someone, and it all plays into the problem.

Lastly, there is the perception of what it means to work remotely and how productivity should be measured. Some people believe that if you are not in the office, you are not working. If you are on Teams and your dot is not the right color, they assume you are not productive instead of focusing on whether the work is getting done.

The easiest way to sum it up is that it is frustrating for everyone.

Right. Going through the hiring process, it is difficult to understand the quality of candidates. That frustration also exists on the candidate’s side because people are unable to be seen.

What does that look like? How do we solve it? What does it look like from the day-to-day perspective of someone applying and the employer reviewing applications? What are your recommendations for companies going through these challenges?

I think there are a couple of different ways to approach it. One option is a job fair. In a larger area, such as Orlando, you have a bigger population to pull from. It gives you the opportunity to meet someone one-on-one. You get to meet the person, and they become more than a piece of paper. They have not been screened out by AI, and you have a chance to talk to them beyond what is on the résumé. At least there is a little bit of human interaction.

However, if you are a small organization with 10 people or you do not even have an HR department, how do you access that kind of environment? It is great in a larger market. If you are in New England, particularly New Hampshire, Maine, or Vermont, you may not have the same population clusters or number of employers needed to create that type of event.

Sometimes, it comes down to networking and building employee-referral systems. Employees know who the worst employees are. They are also invested in ensuring that you bring good candidates into the organization.

Maybe you use that as a tool more often. If an employee recommends someone and that person succeeds and reaches certain targets, you can create different levels of referral bonuses based on the new employee’s ability to join the company and perform successfully.

As discussed in your family episode, you may not want to encourage people to nominate family members for various reasons. However, it is about finding resources beyond simply posting an advertisement.

Of course, you must remain sensitive to equal-employment-opportunity issues and ensure you comply with the law. At the same time, you must find other avenues for bringing people to your website and attracting candidates.

At the end of the day, word of mouth will always be one of your best employment-marketing tools. If your employees are happy, people will want to work with you.

That is gold. Across multiple organizations, our most successful hires come from word of mouth. Many of the businesses we work with are smaller. They are not hosting job fairs or dedicating time to an activity that large.

We have seen that recommendations work because referrals often come with a more honest assessment of the person’s capabilities.

The complex hiring environment is challenging because we now see so many AI-generated résumés. It is obvious from the formatting, emphasis, and the way everything is described perfectly.

Do you discount someone for using AI, or do you count it in their favor because they are using the technology available to them? We all need to use that technology.

It is funny. Twenty years ago, I would have screened an application based on whether the candidate remembered to change the employer’s name in the cover letter. How many times did you receive a letter saying, “I want this position at this company,” but the person did not even put the correct employer’s name in it?

Now, it is, “Here is my résumé. Here is the advertisement. Build me the perfect application.”

I tried it myself and was shocked to discover that I was apparently qualified to be a project engineer. Luckily, I read what AI created.

That is another part of the issue. What tests can you use to filter out harmful or misleading AI use while still allowing helpful AI? In some ways, it remains a great tool. It can help someone find the right keywords to get past an AI screening system. However, the application must also give the employer realistic expectations about the candidate’s actual skills.

Right. That is extremely important because AI will make everybody sound perfect. The challenge appears as soon as you begin those initial conversations.

What are your thoughts on initial screening? Several companies we work with already have processes. I like to have a 20-minute sanity check. It is conducted either by me or a senior person in the organization—someone who cannot be easily fooled and knows which questions to ask.

It is a quick check to determine whether the candidate is actually right for the position. Have they worked with the platforms we use? Can they explain how to perform certain tasks? That exposes a mismatch quickly.

Is there something companies can use to work through some of this application overload?

I am seeing companies add specific questions in addition to asking candidates to upload their résumés. They go beyond general questions about skills, licenses, and certifications and ask screening questions immediately.

The questions may require short written answers. Some employers provide an opportunity for candidates to record videos of themselves answering the questions. That can be a faster way to screen people.

We used to ask whether someone knew what a pivot table was. You could tell quickly whether the candidate understood the answer. Even if I did not understand everything the person was explaining, I could tell whether they knew what a pivot table was or were intimidated by the question.

Even though customized questions add another step, they save time in the long run. The questions must address the exact skills you need. Do not simply ask whether someone has used a payroll system. Ask whether they have used the specific software your company uses.

Responsiveness is also key throughout the entire process, on both sides.

Definitely. One major frustration is that everything goes out into the void. As the owner, you might send an invitation for an interview and never hear anything again.

You think you have created the perfect system. You send a scheduling link and ask the candidate to select an interview time, but the person never responds.

On the other side, someone may apply for a job and never hear from anyone beyond an automated message saying, “We might get back to you.” Sometimes, they do not even receive that.

Even if you create an automated system for responding to applicants or sending interview links, you must have a follow-up system. If you have not heard from someone within 24 hours, pick up the phone or send an email saying, “I sent you a link. Are you still interested?”

The candidate wants to know that the message did not come from a recruiting bot collecting personal information. The person may not be completely sure they are communicating with the employer. They may think someone is going to start spamming them.

How do they know the opportunity is real? Depending on the person’s generation, they may also be afraid to click an unfamiliar link because they think it could damage their computer.

That raises the question of how owners attract people and advertise opportunities. As an owner, what are your thoughts about bringing people into the company and taking responsibility for the process?

Owners want to know what they are doing wrong. Typically, they run an advertisement for a couple of weeks, receive a handful of applications, and schedule interviews. Two candidates fail to appear.

What is wrong with the process? Why can’t they attract strong applicants, especially people willing to attend the interview?

We need to dissect how owners can reach the right people. Consider a small-town electrical contractor in New Hampshire. How does that business reach qualified candidates? What worked 15 years ago will not necessarily work now. How do we adapt?

It is difficult because the small town may be better from a reputational perspective. You may be less likely to stand up a local business owner because everyone in town will know you failed to appear.

At the same time, because of the internet, the employer now receives applications from far beyond that small group. In the past, the business might have received applications only from people who saw the local newspaper advertisement. Today, the advertisement can be found internationally, even if that was not the intended audience.

Part of the solution goes back to screening. Before offering an interview, some employers conduct a quick screening conversation.

Another point where the process falls apart is when candidates learn more about the benefits and salary range. Some states and local governments now require employers to publish the salary scale or range before the first conversation.

However, the range does not necessarily provide context about the total compensation and value of the full employment package. Again, some of it comes down to word of mouth.

Cell phones have also changed how people interact. There was a time when you automatically sent a thank-you note after an interview. That became a thank-you email, and now you sometimes do not receive anything.

The same change happened on the employer’s side. Candidates once automatically received a message thanking them for attending and explaining when the company expected to respond. The employer might have communicated it verbally during the meeting or through a separate message.

There is now a disconnect around basic politeness and follow-through. I am not sure how we return to that standard when society’s ways of engaging have changed.

We would have once considered it rude if someone agreed to attend an interview but did not call to say they had changed their mind.

There may also be fear involved. People may be afraid of disappointing someone. Instead of calling to say they are not coming, they ghost the employer. Ghosting has become more socially acceptable. Some people assume that if they stop communicating, the other person will understand the message.

It goes back to the opening question: how do we work with multiple communication styles, generations, cultural norms, and expectations that are no longer as clearly established as they once were?

One way to address this is to send an email or make a phone call confirming the appointment. Ask, “Are you still coming at four o’clock tomorrow? Has anything changed since the last time we spoke?”

Part of the process depends on how quickly the company conducts interviews.

When I worked in education, they were masters at making the process last longer than anyone could imagine because they needed committees and everybody wanted to be heard.

The owner of a local shop may simply want a qualified electrician to walk through the door. That business might keep an advertisement on its website throughout the year saying, “If you have these credentials, we would love to talk to you.”

The company can invite qualified candidates to submit their information without waiting for a formal opening. If you are looking and have heard good things about the company, send your résumé.

This allows the business to keep its hiring process open throughout the year instead of narrowing it to a one- or two-week period. It also helps the company move away from conducting full days of interviews.

The specific process depends on the level of the position, the background checks required, the industry, and any legal requirements related to certifications.

That is excellent advice. Several of our clients are shifting their marketing toward showing the quality of their employees, how they treat people, and how they educate and develop their team. That reflects the culture.

It is interesting how many companies use their treatment of employees as a front-end marketing tactic for winning both business and strong candidates.

It is especially helpful for smaller businesses. An opportunity may arise and require the company to hire immediately. If the business already has a group of strong candidates with whom it has developed relationships, it can pull from that group.

Otherwise, the owner suddenly says, “We need to start hiring right now,” knowing it could take three months to get someone through the door. The owner then has to keep their fingers crossed that they selected the right person.

Another strategy is to contact technical schools, high schools, and colleges and build internship or apprenticeship programs. Even if the placement lasts only six, eight, or 12 weeks, the company has started building a relationship.

When I worked at an auditing firm, we had a student join us after his sophomore year. As far as I know, he returned every summer. I think he has one more year to go, so we will see whether he eventually joins the team.

We had another situation in which an intern joined us and realized, “No, this is not the direction I want to go.” That was also a successful outcome because it did not waste our time or theirs.

Awesome. That was a great segment. We are only getting started, but there was so much valuable advice there.

In the next section, we are going to explore why people do not want to work for specific organizations and the reasons behind that. Before we do, it is time for Ryan’s fun fact.

All right. Here is a fun fact straight from Gallup’s 2026 workplace data: the decline in engagement is being driven by managers, not frontline staff, and it is not even close. The people in the middle are burning out the fastest.

Wow. The layer we are leaning on the hardest is the one that is cracking.

An owner who ignores manager burnout is sanding the floor while the foundation shifts. Cindy has been saying this louder than almost anyone.

That was not much of a fun fact, was it?

It was not really fun, but it was interesting.

It makes you think.

That is right.

All right, it is time for a quick break. This one is fun and awkward because today’s sponsor is CKW Advantage, which is Cindy’s firm, and she is sitting here listening.

That means she has to sit quietly while we describe her own company, and I intend to enjoy it.

Yes, indeed. CKW Advantage provides outsourced HR and strategy for businesses that are too big to wing it and too small for a full HR department.

Its tagline is “Where strategy meets execution,” and that is the gap where most owners fall.

CKW Advantage provides outsourced HR leadership, compliance support, employee classification, handbooks, labor relations, and even outsourced technology leadership—the things that quietly become lawsuits when nobody owns them.

That is the deal. CKW Advantage, ckwadvantage.com, where HR strategy meets execution and where, apparently, the owner narrates her own advertisement in silence.

I feel like a puppet. I feel like somebody has an arm up my back.

How did we do?

Strings. You danced well, monkeys. You danced well.

Good, because we are going to murder the next one.

I am going to use my cymbals next time.

All right. Let’s stop talking around the subject and dig in.

If I am the owner, I have open roles, and I want the actual list of specific things that make a great tradesperson choose one job over another, what are the most critical items?

Several things can make a tradesperson take another job.

One is that the schedule changes at 6:45 on Monday morning. The schedule goes out on Friday but gets blown up on Monday morning. The owner calls that being flexible. The crew calls it being unable to plan a life.

Nobody quits because of one Monday. They quit after the ninth one.

The other issue is the rate. The hourly rate may be fine, but the paycheck is not.

Someone may earn $20 an hour, but the business is seasonal. They work outside, and their hours are affected by rain, snow, and other conditions.

The person’s worst week could produce almost half the paycheck of an average week during the summer. That is a 50% swing.

Did the person’s rent change? No. Did the truck payment change? No.

When the employee applies for a mortgage, can they qualify? They may need two years of previous income to demonstrate what they earn.

The problem is that they did not sign up for a changing job. The job changed after they accepted it.

Cindy, that puts the emphasis on predictable earnings and the stability of the role. What are your thoughts about that?

Let’s start with seasonality and the predictability of working hours. You hear two general complaints from the workforce.

The first is exactly what you mentioned. People need to know they will receive at least a certain number of hours each week or month, depending on the pay cycle, so they can meet their basic needs. Many people are already living paycheck to paycheck.

The first step is being honest during the hiring process. Explain the nature of the business’s seasons and how the schedule works. Explain that employees are paid for the hours they work because they are hourly rather than salaried.

The second and probably more important question is whether there is a backup plan. Can the company guarantee hours by having employees complete other work the organization needs, even when it is not the perfect day to work outside?

What happens if an unexpected nor’easter arrives in April? What are the projects that never get completed but could be handled on-site? Could everyone complete inventory? Could the company turn it into a training day?

How can the business use its resources to equalize employee pay as much as possible?

That will also depend on the company’s budget, how projects are priced, and whether the business accounts for the overhead cost of providing stability.

Owners need to think outside the box. Is there a way to provide 30 hours every week, regardless of the schedule? If there is not, the company must be honest about that.

Can the organization guarantee minimum hours? Regardless of how many hours someone works during a particular week, perhaps the company can pay at least 24 hours.

The employee cannot rely on receiving 30 hours, but they can rely on 24.

The company can also show candidates what an employee’s income looks like over 52 weeks without identifying a specific person. Explain that the work ebbs and flows and that one season is more difficult than another, but the income averages out over the year.

However, that does not completely solve the employee’s immediate problem.

There also needs to be honesty about the profession someone has chosen. We experienced this with school-year positions. A 190-day work year for an hourly employee will not pay the same as a 260-day work year.

The employee will either not get paid during the summer or will only be paid for hours worked, unless the person is salaried.

That is part of the nature of the position, and people need to understand it. In that situation, we supplemented the work with summer school and other options.

Again, the question is whether you can build safeguards for employees that also help the company or its clients over the long term.

That is why landscapers may also plow snow. Businesses use these dual approaches to find work they can complete during one season to offset slower periods in another.

That would be the first place I would address the problem.

Stability is essential. It is a key factor when people decide where they are going to work.

What a great segment. Thank you so much for all your expertise.

That is it for this episode of From Burnt Out to Bought Out. If something we said today hit home, do not just nod in agreement.

Pick one thing: the number you have been avoiding, the process that exists only in your head, or the conversation you have been putting off for six months.

Do that one thing this week. That is how it starts.

If you are unsure which thing to choose, drop us a line. We will happily point you in the right direction.

New episodes drop every week. Until next time, stop running the treadmill and start building something.