Episode #41: Michael Beckwith- Category Manager, CCWP - Xcel Energy

On this episode of Hiring University, get to know Michael Beckwith, Category Manager at Xcel Energy who oversees all contingent and project-based labor across Xcel's U.S. footprint. 

"I'm super passionate about data. And I think all conversations around worker classification need to start with data.  If we don't have visibility into where these workers are, what they're doing, how much we're paying them, what contracts they're tied to, you know, we can't formulate a go-forward strategy, nor can we appropriately advise our leaders about how to make decisions."

- Michael Beckwith

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Transcript

Hiring University! Season 3, Episode 1 - Michael Beckwith

[00:00:00] 

Jon Beck: What's up everybody. Welcome to 2024 and season three of hiring university. What better way to kick off our, third season than to have Michael Beckwith from Excel Energy. Michael is Category Manager of Staff Augmentation and Corporate Card and Travel. I think there's some other things that got added to your list as well, too.

We'll talk about that. Michael, welcome to the show. 

Michael Beckwith: Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to the conversation. Tell us, , a little 

Jon Beck: bit about Excel and the program that you run, you know, size, scope countries, that sort of thing. Give our listeners a sense of, of Excel and the contingent labor program.

Michael Beckwith: Sure. So Xcel Energy is a U. S. based energy firm operating in eight states, has a few subsidiary operating companies, but we're in Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Michigan, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. We are Aiming to be the leader in the clean energy transition, hoping to reduce our carbon footprint [00:01:00] and carbon becoming carbon neutral by 2050 within all of our plants from a generation perspective, and then from a fleet perspective, electrification of all of our vehicles.

Uh, really exciting company to be a part of. And, if you'd have asked me a few years ago, would I, would I be in the energy industry? I probably wouldn't have said yes, but, definitely some, some really cool opportunities I felt like with the organization, just with respects to their contingent labor program and being able to apply some of the knowledge that I'd gained in previous roles and continue to build.

Learn and have an impact in organizations, which is chief objective for me when I look at a job opportunity. Our program, , is operating in those eight states, as I mentioned, about a hundred million dollars of spend, anywhere it's been from about 650 to upwards of 850 head count on the staff oxide, outside of staff augmentation.

There's probably about 12, 000 or so professional services and consulting [00:02:00] services. Those types of outsourced, external labor categories. I'm really focused on staff augmentation currently, but looking at expanding my role and scope to include some of those other categories in the coming years and, can give you some more detail if you want, but that's a good high level overview of it.

, you 

Jon Beck: mentioned that, you never thought you'd find yourself in a energy company, and, and now it resonates with you. Does it matter, when you're talking or I guess, how often does it matter when you're talking to candidates? Or anyone that's interfacing with the company. How important is the mission?

Cause the mission is cool. Um, not every energy company is, you know, as advanced or has made as much progress as you, everyone talks the game, there's promises, but actually doing it and you and I have chatted, many times about the things that have happened and are planning to happen in a pretty aggressive timeline, does it matter to people or how often does it matter?

Well, 

Michael Beckwith: I think in a large percentage of our candidate population, it does matter. Sustainability is becoming an increasing focus within the talent market [00:03:00] and finding people who are passionate about that and moving the needle and being a part of the changes is really exciting. It's this interesting juxtaposition with an industry that feels outdated and antiquated in many ways, just technology stack processes, heavily regulated, uh, feels like it's quite slow moving in many ways.

But, you know, contrast that with, you know, the EV vehicle trend, for instance, is, is a huge impact on us. And so, so I think there's a lot of people who are really interested in how are we. Taking something that is historically a slower moving industry and then applying some of those catalysts and really making an impact on not only the communities that we operate in, but globally and leading the way and hopefully influencing how other energy companies are making decisions.

Jon Beck: Michael, let's talk about the current state of the market. And, it'd be an understatement to say that there are mixed messages right now in the press. One day, if you read CNBC, you'd think everything is great and trending upwards. And if you read the press today and yesterday, you know, [00:04:00] inflation is still looming and there's a recession that could potentially, hit us in, in the next 12 months.

Is the market good? Is it bad? Is it too early? What's your sense of, of what's in store for us this year and 

Michael Beckwith: next? Well, I think the key pieces that you talked about where this piece of next, it's always about the context and the timeframe. If I look at markets broadly, you know, I like to just keep on zooming out until I see a favorable outlook.

And I mean, so you're an optimist. Well I'm an optimist, you know, with humanity, with. Evolution with where we've been going, if you zoom out of this year, the past five years or 10 years, and you start to look at overall markets, some of our indices, like the Dow Jones and S and P, et cetera, you know, you see that since their inception, it's just been, uh, upwards into the right, you know, we're making progress and yes, there are going to be those corrections that we have to go through in order to, to re.

Establish our footing and to build right. It always is going to be those periods of somewhat like burst growth that happened. And then we have to [00:05:00] settle back in, find some support and and keep on going. So the next year or two, I think is it will be more volatile than some expect election year. A lot of political things happening geopolitically, like within, even in the context of the last few weeks announcing, you know, nearly a hundred billion dollars of funds to be allocated towards supporting Ukraine.

And, , Taiwan is included in that mix as well as Israel. So I think that just as a little bit of a leading indicator that we're going to continue to see , in the big picture, right? A lot of volatility, but when it comes to talent, I'm actually, still very optimistic and in light of the fact that the market is relatively shallow unemployment's low, but, looking at like the , manpower employment outlook survey, they survey over 40, 000.

Companies and I've been the U S 35 percent of those companies are expected to continue hiring and a good percentage of them don't really anticipate a change, meaning that there's still a high demand for talent. Yes, there are [00:06:00] going to be challenges, but, I think it's very favorable for our industry, 

Jon Beck: so, so, so to, to cut to the chase, you're hiring right now. Yeah. 

Michael Beckwith: Yeah. We're hiring, you know, cautiously. I think we're in the same mode that many other large companies are, right? We, we want to hire the right people.

We want to find ways to bring efficiency to our work streams that And, you know, favorably impact our, our shareholders, of course, and some of those decisions and strategies aren't going to be people it's going to be process and optimization AI, all those types of things that everyone's talking about.

But yeah, we're still hiring, and I'm really excited about what we have in store for us these next couple years. And 

Jon Beck: is the labor pool today, shallow, deep, I guess it depends on classification. I know we talked to a lot of hiring managers that. When they read the headlines of layoffs, they just make the assumption that there's a glut of talent sitting around looking for jobs, desperate for jobs.

 We would beg to differ with that. A good talent gets snapped up quickly. What's your sense? [00:07:00] 

Michael Beckwith: Yeah, it varies so much by sector. I think in labor category is the, the honest answer. We're going to really struggle as a, as a country. And we look outside of the country where we've been outsourcing for years, offshore, near shore, those types of things continue to be, I think firmly entrenched in, in most companies.

People strategy, how do we look at other markets because ours seems to be pretty strapped for talent and we're not graduating as many people in professional skilled trades and things of that nature. So, um, yeah, we're going to have to continue to get creative. Look at how do we engage, these other untapped labor categories, whether it's independent contractors, freelancers, or near shore, offshore, et cetera.

So you, 

Jon Beck: it sounds like exhaust as many different channels to find talent, whether it's through professional services, staffing vendors through your program, doing anything with direct sourcing or any of the, the newer sort of [00:08:00] invoke hot, whatever they mean 

Michael Beckwith: having this. Yeah, roadmap. We, I feel like coming into this role, I knew I was.

Taking a little bit of a step back proverbially when it came to where our program was at from an overall maturity perspective, but it was that opportunity that those gaps where we haven't implemented those types of strategies, whereas like, I think we can really make a favorable impact on the company by implementing some of those types of direct sourcing strategies and updating our definitions and policies about, and our understanding about independent contractor usage and freelancers and finding ways that we can do that effectively.

You know, within the context of the ever changing legislation on that stuff. 

Jon Beck: And so let's talk about, cause you, you hit on, I think you, you may even use the word worker classification. I was just at a, an industry event last week and, in every single breakout session and round table, regardless of what the intended topic was, it came back to worker classification and rogue spend.[00:09:00] 

, and how are you addressing it, at Excel? Cause it's cause the themes that I continue to hear is everybody has a problem. Some are being more proactive because procurement cares and believes that there is not only risk, but also potential savings. Others don't think there is as much risk or enough savings to make it worth their while.

 What are you doing at Excel? And what's your own personal outlook outside of, where you sit 

Michael Beckwith: today? Yeah. So from, from a professional perspective and a personal perspective, I'm super passionate about data. And I think all of those conversations need to start with data. And if we don't have visibility into where these workers are, what they're doing, how much we're paying them, what contracts they're tied to, you know, we can't really formulate a go forward strategy, nor can we, uh, appropriately advise our leaders about how to make decisions.

And so I'm a huge proponent of, of building out data, you know, both internally, but then. You know, engaging third parties to help build additional credibility that are industry leaders and, and have gone through some of those [00:10:00] conversations with, with various general councils and different industries to help benchmark and understand where are we at?

And some of those numbers that I mentioned earlier, you know, 12, 000 workers that are external labor that aren't classified as StaffOG. I have to believe that a good percentage, you know, I mean. Some companies would probably say 10, 20 percent of those are probably Staffog, right? For sure. And so I think there is a lot of opportunities as I always describe it to, to revisit what are our policies?

What are our definitions? How are we advising our business leaders to engage? Resources. And are we giving them the right advice? Are we equipping them with the right information and data points to make those decisions and help them understand the cost risk, the potential legal risks, better understanding co employment and debunking some of those myths, which still linger no matter how much we've had those conversations.

So does it, does it seem 

Jon Beck: ironic to you though, in the midst of [00:11:00] arguably the, biggest advances in data science. And analytics and AI to propel that. I mean, saying that we don't know, we can't determine who's who in our program feels like a cop out to me. Well, 

Michael Beckwith: it absolutely is. I totally agree.

And that's where, you know, when I look at how do you practically move the needle on this, it's. Hard work is the answer. It takes surveys of, of managers who have had count and finding a tool that allows you to aggregate that data. And maybe it's building it, but most of the time, I think there are a lot of good options out there, whether it's a, in a context of a VMS platform or a HRIS platform, however, you're going to get that picture of what your human capital equation looks like.

You know, it needs to include FTEs. It needs to include Staffog. It can't just be those two also has to be your professional services categories and And then start to build out, you know, this more holistic understanding of what is the cost per individual per function [00:12:00] that we're paying and start to make those comparisons and see, are there any efficiencies that we can remedy by either a change in strategy, whether it's transitioning certain types of workers and labor categories, you know, to professional services or to staff augmentation, depending on the nature of the work and what kind of.

Transfer of risk we're looking for, uh, with those vendor partners. But, you know, I think that really leads to one of my other big passions is relationships and having the right relationships with our vendors. So they're helping us and, and really giving. , our stakeholders and our supply chain organizations, the right guidance on, Hey, this type of project seems like it's actually staff.

We should put this through staff. Now it's going to be tough to find partners like that. We all know the margins are much better on professional services work, and they should be if we're transferring risk. But if we're not, then, you know, having the type of partners who will. We'll call that out. I think they're going to be in the longterm, more successful, especially with the level of [00:13:00] competition that exists.

It 

Jon Beck: feels to me like we're nearing a tipping point because it is on everyone's lips. I mean, literally every conversation I have, this comes up with you. It's hard work, which is why there's probably resistance. It's about understanding. It's about where ownership lives within an organization and understanding who not only your external partners are, but your internal stakeholders are.

But there's either going to be some legislation that's passed or there'll be enough case studies. Like we had somebody at this last event who estimated there was a billion with a B spend that they could go reclaim and recapture that it had hundreds of millions of dollars of saving. Their publicly traded company goes straight to the bottom line.

Like that is significant. And I think the more this topic comes up and people see that there's a path to get there, um, and some people will play and some people won't, that it'll happen. But I just, it's, it, it. It's like the prevalence of this topic is like it's everywhere right now. So I hope you're right.

And I hope there are more companies that drive for it [00:14:00] selfishly for us, but also just for the industry, because the other people that suffer are the workers themselves, that are getting misclassified and sometimes underpaid and, you know, and occasion overpaid, not getting benefits. I mean, there's a myriad of things that, that are not being talked about that are impacting the individual worker.

Michael Beckwith: Yeah. And I think that is a really often. Overlooked part of the equation is the, the worker experience and the expectations that are placed on workers. And, uh, in many cases. Depending on how long a worker has been engaged for a company, they start to be increasingly feeling like they're part of the company, right?

It's part of their strategy to always engage external labor for most large organizations. And so, you know, how we treat those workers. Especially when you're talking about the equity and inclusion components of the D E and I, uh, acronym, right? How do we start to bridge the gap between how we're treating those workers and including them things, including them in, in events and in [00:15:00] company process that makes them feel more comfortable with their, their role and their function versus instigating, you know, unrest or dissatisfaction.

And so as they're leaving an organization, you know, what are the things that we're doing to mitigate those. Wrongful termination suits. And how are we partnering with vendors to answer some of those questions? I think is, is really important. More to come 

Jon Beck: there for sure. Michael, let's talk a little bit about you.

How did you get into this business? , very few people, graduate from college or grow up thinking I want to get into contingent labor. What was your path to get here? 

Michael Beckwith: Yeah, I was really fortunate actually. My dad always encouraged at a young age to to take advantage of the network you have it.

And in this case, I took advantage of his network. My dad was in The staffing and professional solutions business. He was working for manpower experience. And so he had introduced me to his recruiting director, had conversation initially, but, you know, I was essentially [00:16:00] looking for a replacement of, of income.

I was like, I was bartending at the time. I was like, what's something that I can get into that's variable. Based on my performance, because I'm hungry, I'll go after it. And so that's how recruiting was. It seemed to be this opportunity to learn more, first of all, and get paid for it, which is a key criteria of any job for me.

And, um, so you're meeting people, you're talking to them, you're having ideally. You know, dozens of conversations a day with people who are doing jobs that may or may not be interesting, but it allows you to get more context to make decisions. And then as I progressed from recruiting into account management and started to learn some of the fundamental skills, so like sales skills, uh, around relationship development and communication.

And I realized like, those are the things that are really the through lines in all jobs, you know, that you, you have to build those skills out. And so I was. Thankful to have the foundation from a, about, you know, recruiting and account management background to then [00:17:00] be come more involved with technology implementation in the form of direct sourcing with Thompson Reuters.

And, um, really had a great opportunity there to just continue to level up and get a little bit deeper into the contingent labor world. And you're right. It's not a common path Is advertised heavily, but it's a bit of a shame that it isn't because great opportunity. I know so many people who have started off as recruiters and then maybe they end up in project management or business analysis or X, Y, Z, right?

It's just, that's a great starting point. And it also has a great career because. As we just discussed, you know, this is not an industry that's ever really going to go away. Yeah. Ever 

Jon Beck: go away and continually changing. So, so you think your time on the other side, dare I say the dark side, uh, helps you in your roles today?

Michael Beckwith: Yeah, definitely. Don't consider it the dark side, but I think it was absolutely formative and really helpful and just. Building the perspective that I have about how to run a program, how to [00:18:00] treat vendors, how to treat people. And, you know, I look at the stakeholders that I work with as internal customers.

And I look at vendors as, you know, a part of that equation and trying to find ways to really understand where the goals that we have in common and, , to find, you know, opportunities to understand more about the people that I'm working with versus just what they do. And I think that's been really helpful, you know, from a.

The recruiting and sales start to my career. You know, that really drove a lot of, of how I look at things from a philosophy perspective. 

Jon Beck: When you think about going to industry trade shows and events. What's the, what's the better or worse, , scenario going as a representative of a staffing company versus as a, as a buyer?

Michael Beckwith: Well, I think my number one objective when I go to those events is to talk as little about staffing and contingent labor as possible, just really do try to focus on how do I build relationships with the right people so that, [00:19:00] you know, as I look to my future, , we have. The right types of more proactive approaches to relationships, you know, whether it's with existing suppliers that I haven't met with or with technology that we're going to be evaluating in the future, look to, to just build relationships there.

And I think that actually is. Pretty similar, or it should be pretty similar to how I would have approached it as a recruiter or account manager, but it definitely takes a lot of the pressure off of those types of events to walk away with, you know, in the case of a salesperson, like walk away with leads or medium set or some of those things, but I would say invariably it has the same outcome.

I have new leads on. Technology partners who I'm interested in having further conversations or seeing demos with or, , set up some meetings with prospective vendors that, that may be filling out a capability that, you know, we're currently lacking something like that. But yeah, always enjoy at those types of events, a lot of the keynotes that aren't really focused on contingent labor and just much more focused on the human [00:20:00] condition and the things that we all have in common.

Jon Beck: I think that's excellent advice for anybody attending those events. Uh, good stuff. I know you're a podcast guy other than hiring university. What's your favorite podcast 

Michael Beckwith: and why? Uh, number one for the last few years has been Huberman labs, Andrew Huberman. Just a huge fan of. The way that he approaches sharing information and education, , professor at Stanford, but it has done great podcasts and they're usually a few hours long.

So they just go into so much depth about the science of performance. And I mean, everything that we're, we're dealing with that is, is I think relevant, , things that need to be discussed that aren't being discussed intellectually or like. You know, alcohol use and THC use and depression and anxiety and motivation and talks a lot about dopamine and , as it pertains to motivation.

And so I've just learned so many things that practically have helped me become a better person, become more successful. So [00:21:00] it's a great podcast. If you haven't, if you haven't listened to that one yet. Nice. 

Jon Beck: We'll include that in the notes. And, I'll give you an opportunity cause you host your own podcast, maybe give a shout out for your, your own program.

Michael Beckwith: Sure. Yeah. It definitely was part of the process. And I wasn't originally super keen on, on doing a podcast myself, but had a couple of, a couple of really good friends who, who convinced me otherwise. So last year we started the reclaiming man podcast and the, the sort of tagline is we are trying to stop our sleepwalk towards extinction and reclaim some of the values and, you know, beliefs that our forefathers held that Our timeless, integrity, honor, strength, courage, and in order to do that, we have to reclaim our minds, our bodies, and ultimately reclaim freedom.

And so we explore a number of different topics. A lot of it is, I would say, similar to, to other content out there around self help and growth and learning. But, you know, [00:22:00] from, from our perspective, from our story, it's, The opportunity for us to chronicle our relationship. And so I think it's as much selfishly motivated as selfless, but, , but really actually, you know, enjoying it.

We're coming up on our 50th episode. So we've worked out some of the initial kinks, but still have a ton of progress and ways to go yet, as far as building it out further. , so yeah, it's a great, it's a great time to, we're trying to do the same thing I think that you are keep episodes a little bit more succinct, keep them short to the point.

And, it's been enjoyable. And as I 

Jon Beck: understand it, you're looking through the lens of humans as members of the planet, not as members of the United States or some other country or political organization or religious organization. It's, it's the universality of being 

Michael Beckwith: human, correct? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And it's I think there's so many things that transcend religion and humanity and not humanity.

I'm sorry, like that transcend religion to focus more on humanity itself. And to your point, you know, there's so many things that can be divisive in our world right now. And it's [00:23:00] it's finding ways to have conversations about those divisive things in a way that Actually brings us back to what do we have in common?

And I think that's a really, it's a big challenge, but it's also a responsibility that we have. We should use our freedom of speech to unite people and help each other out, right? That's ultimately what I think the unintended or by product of our, our podcast should be. We hopefully are helping people ask better questions about their life so they can, hopefully become better people, have more success in whatever they're pursuing.

I 

Jon Beck: love it. And I love the name reclaiming humanity. Well done. Last question for you, Michael. If I threw you in the way back machine to the time that you graduated from University of Minnesota, the gophers, what would you tell yourself today based on all the things that you've learned up until this point?

Michael Beckwith: Oh, probably something really simple. Just like read, think, and grow rich and apply every single concept. Um, yeah. Love Napoleon Hill. I, you know, as a person, I know he kind of deviated [00:24:00] off and some of his other work that probably isn't as, , from a, a current perspective isn't acceptable socially, but that book in particular really just reinforced to me as I read it a couple of years ago now, how important it is to.

To think about our thoughts, to get into metacognition and to realize what are we thinking and how is it impacting our actions and outcomes. Really one of the core tenants that I took away from it was we have to cultivate this burning desire for what we want to accomplish. And if we are passionate about anything in life, it will help us.

With making progress towards it. And that's what I consider success. Nice, 

Jon Beck: Michael, you are in the right profession being in the people business because you think about people and humanity, and it comes through, , in your comments and experience. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to get to know you a little bit better.

 Promise me you'll come back to the show and, we'll compare notes and maybe a year or so we've done that with some other guests along the way. But, , appreciate you coming on and getting to know you. 

Michael Beckwith: Well, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me [00:25:00] and, uh, good luck with, with this year and the podcast.

And, absolutely happy to come back at some point and hopefully can return the favor and get you on our show. Would love 

Jon Beck: to. Best way for people to get in touch with you. LinkedIn. 

Michael Beckwith: Yeah. LinkedIn is probably it. I've, uh, took a little bit of a backseat on some other social media. I'm on Instagram too, but, um, but LinkedIn probably from a social network perspective is the closest thing that I have to, to, uh, to social media.

Awesome. We'll 

Jon Beck: make sure we post that as well too. Thank you again for our listeners as always stay curious, stay hungry, stay safe, and we will see you next time on hiring university. Thanks again, Michael.