Episode #45: Angela Westhead, Procurement Manager, Contingent Workforce & BPO @ Zendesk

Angela Westhead joins the program to discuss, among other topics, remote work, BEI, (yes, B not D), AI, and her favorite podcasts!  This is an episode you don't want to miss!  

You can have great talent that sits anywhere. They just have to be bought in on being present in a different way than someone who sits in an office. So what we've seen in the last four years since everybody went remote is that, yes, you can find great talent outside of large cities, and in many cases, it can cost you less!

     - Angela Westhead 

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Transcript

Jon Beck: [00:00:00] Hey, it's episode 44 of Hiring University, and today we welcome Angela Westhead, Procurement Manager overseeing the Contingent Workforce at Zendesk. And coincidentally, one of my favorite people in the industry, not because she's so good at what she does, but she's so darn positive about her job and the people she works with, but also very fair.

And we're going to talk about some areas where there's room for improvement in our industry. Angela, welcome to Hiring U. Hi, John. Thank you. For our listeners that are not familiar with Zendesk, give us a little explanation of what they do and what you do for them. 

Angela Westhead: Cool. So, Zendesk is a customer service enablement software.

We are out to make a very hard job of customer support. Much more easy and enjoyable. We've got lots of cool products to enable that, including a lot of work we're doing right now in AI that we're integrating into the software. So pretty cool time to be working at Zendesk. I oversee our non employee labor program.

So [00:01:00] if it's not employee comes through my desk, so that's contingent workforce, staff augmentation, independent contractor, as well as larger business process outsourcing contracts. 

Jon Beck: We are going to come back to the topic of AI, because how can you not have a podcast and not talk about AI? But before that you have worked at LinkedIn, Twitter, Workforce Logic.

For those of you that don't know Workforce Logic, look it up kids. , it's now Magnet. , how did you get into the industry? 

Angela Westhead: I fell into it, honestly, like 99 percent of the rest of us. I relocated from the state Capitol of Florida, where I was very happily working in state government and benefits administration and answered a Craigslist ad for a onboarding role at workforce logic, which is like a very creepy story at first, right?

Cause what are you doing on Craigslist? It was 2014. 

Jon Beck: Everyone was on Craigslist in 2014. That's where you did 

Angela Westhead: [00:02:00] everything. I was, I'm not good at being unemployed. And so I was just hitting up every avenue I could think of to find a job. But I left it. It was great. I was onboarding for the Google Ads Quality Rater program.

And people were so excited to be onboarding for this job. Just like to be associated with working for Google. I really kind of like caught the The fever of matchmaking people with great jobs, and that kind of continued on when I went to work on our LinkedIn account because we were matchmaking people with excellent jobs at LinkedIn.

They were contingent jobs, but they were still super jazzed to be there. And so I really caught like a passion for staffing in those initial couple of years in the industry. 

Jon Beck: And workforce logic is such a great place to have come from. I mean, that alum group is strong. Yes, I see a workforce logic. I'm like, all right, that's that.

Yeah, they know what's up. Angela, hard to believe that this week. Marks the anniversary of [00:03:00] when COVID shut down, the world was coming to an end. It was four years ago this week. And when you think about all the changes as a result specific, not just in contingent labor, but the workforce in general, 

remote work, back to work, worker classification. Emphasis on DEI, now a de emphasis on DEI in some states, one that you happen to live in, we can talk about that. Specific to the contingent workforce, is life better today than it was four years ago? Ooh, that's 

Angela Westhead: really hard. Um, in some ways yes, in some ways no, right?

So I think with regard to remote hiring, like, I'll take it back to LinkedIn for, A minute. There was a specific focus on hiring certain trusted and safety roles in the Midwest, which really opened up a lot of labor that LinkedIn normally wouldn't have seen because they were so concentrated in hiring in the Bay Area.

And that really kind of started to open my eyes to the [00:04:00] fact that great talent can be anywhere. And of course, like not to brag on myself too much, but I live in Florida and I work in tech and I'm fairly talented at my job. But I'm not in San Francisco. So that all started to gel to me over those years.

You can have great talent that sits anywhere. They just have to be bought in on being present in a different way than someone who sits in an office. So what we've seen in the last four years, since everybody went remote is that, yeah, you can find great talent outside of large cities. It can cost you less.

They can be just as productive, but. The challenge that seems unanswered at this point is how do you wrap that into some of the benefits that do come from being present and in person with your team occasionally? It's, that's an unanswered question, and I don't know if RTO mandates are quite the answer, or if hybrid is the answer.

I'm not sure. Where I feel like we could be headed down less good, but Than four years ago is this focus [00:05:00] on DEI. Right? So the de-emphasis of DEI for reasons that I'm not a hundred percent clear on why we're deviating from all of the research I've seen, all of the productivity statistics that I've seen, all of all of this together, really shows that DEI is beneficial to corporations and it's beneficial in the contingent workforce because number one, we're hiring.

More people from different backgrounds, and we're actually looking at people that may not have gotten a chance first round. And we're looking at suppliers to differently too, right? Are we giving people a chance at supporting our business that otherwise may not have, because we're looking at things through a DEI lens.

If we kind of move away from that, I think we're going to start seeing some of those benefits that we started to really reap over the last four years decline. And again, like I'm not super sure for what reason we're moving away from that. My 

Jon Beck: personal theory on this, outside of the political part, park that to the side, because that is [00:06:00] part of it.

I think, like a lot of things, the pendulum swings way farther to each side, and you get these big movements. And I think a lot of companies coming out of COVID where. Let's be honest. Workers had more power, which is not a bad thing. And the corporations recognized that they, that voice needed to be answered.

Programs needed to be developed. They needed to do something about this and they did, but I think a lot of corporations put out the PowerPoint, made the statement and didn't necessarily back it up with action. Cause it's not a one time event, right? You don't have to say, oh, here it is diversity. It's a constant practice.

, you have to invest in it. You have to look at where you're getting your returns on. And I think a lot of companies as the market got tougher said, well, what is our return on investment without really looking like, do we really commit or do the work in the first place to move the needle? And that's lazy at the end of the day.

, and I think that's one of the reasons why you're seeing it happen. Those [00:07:00] companies that continue forward. I think it's competitive differentiator. People will recognize that you can sniff it out, whether it's authentic or not. Does that seem fair? 

Angela Westhead: It does. And I think, you know, you kind of hit on a larger thing is the shift in the labor market.

For a long time, we were in a candidate market and you can demand whatever you want to, you can demand remote work, you can demand higher salaries, you can favor or demand inclusion policies. But when you flip to it being back to being not the candidates market anymore, all of a sudden, we want you in the office X days.

We want you, we're not going to fund our ERGs. It becomes a different. balance of power than it has been before. And you're right, it will swing back the other way. But maybe it's a millennial or Gen Z thing. I don't know. When, when I left Twitter and I was looking for my next role, what drew me to Zendesk was number one, another great tech company that had a good reputation for parents working there, but [00:08:00] also a well defined and documented diversity statement on their website.

I want to be at a place where I can support that mission in addition to whatever else is there. And I think that's something that My generation values almost as highly as any other kind of like, I hate to say perk, but that's a total package of what a company offers you. 

Jon Beck: I agree. And I think generationally, it'll continue to become important.

A lot of the decisions that are being made right now, like return to office are being made from a different generational lens only because sometimes the only reason is that's just the way we've done it. And so we're going to go back to doing it and not recognizing that there's benefits to the alternatives.

 And again, that's going to be a competitive differentiator. Here's another crazy stat. I just read this this morning and I was shocked at the percentage of this article. It says 45 percent of. Corporations, U. S. corporations are now offering [00:09:00] etiquette training to employees to handle going back to the office.

45%! Are you seeing that in the day to day? I mean, are people running rogue in the office? Like, what is going 

Angela Westhead: on? That's hilarious. I, you know, it's funny though. I have thought about this a lot. I started working from home seven years ago and I do have to wonder like if I've gone slightly feral. I'm not, I'm not sure.

I have never heard of this before, but I mean, I think the one thing maybe working in tech kind of exacerbates it too, but dress code that could be wildly different generationally. Yeah. Used to just being like a nice shirt and pajamas for, for zoom calls for a number of years. 

Jon Beck: The thing that this article didn't include, which I think is maybe overlooked is, are we doing etiquette training for managers?

You know, I've talked [00:10:00] about this a lot. Remote work forces managers to become better managers. Whether you're sitting three feet from me or 3, 000 miles from me, if I'm not in tune with my employee, then I am not doing my job as a manager. And, , I think people are missing that. I think people are coming back to work and they're still operating with the same cadence as they will on Zoom.

We have this great opportunity to interface and get to actually know your employee and what makes them tick and motivates and coach them and all that sort of thing. The etiquette thing is, is great. It's crazy, I guess watch that space. But, , and there's a whole new industry for etiquette training.

Is it like where you put your fork and spoon or just don't wear paja? I don't know. It's an interesting topic. Let's dive into ai. , I personally am a big fan of ai. We use it in our company. I use it personally. But I also get a little worn down by the AI washing. Every company has the solution that's gonna solve all of our problems.

Specific to Zendesk. 'cause obviously in customer support, that's a big part of it. But your own outlook for the industry. Where, where are you on AI [00:11:00] today? 

Angela Westhead: Yeah, I'm, I'm super bullish on ai. I love it. I find it fascinating. I think where people get a little bit confused sometimes is AI as it is now, and generative ai, right?

So when AI can, yeah. Can basically do all the tasks that a human can do. We're not at generative AI yet, so we don't have to be, you know, the sort of the fear mongering that's out there, I think is just, just that it's fear mongering, what we can use AI for right now is really exceptional. We can use it for automating tasks that we don't want to do manual tasks.

We can use it in software like Zendesk to, you know, to do a chatbot, right? So to help guide you along a process, really cool things that can enhance your life and take sort of the heavy lift of the manual everyday things off of your job to free you up to do even better thought work that you can do when you have less of the sort of.

Garbage on your plate. So [00:12:00] I love to see companies using AI intelligently to make their product easier to use, more intuitive to take some of the stress out of interacting with different systems that you don't want to interact with. Like we've all done the customer service phone thing where it's been an infinite loop.

You can use AI to understand the words that you're saying and get you to the right place sooner. I'm super bullish on all of that. And I think Sometimes the framing of it as coming to take your job is not necessarily correct. It's not coming from your job. It's coming to enhance your job and let you do higher level work.

Jon Beck: Yeah, I agree. I've, I've, um, used this metaphor. I wish I came up with myself. If you were working at NASA in the 1960s and you were on your slide rule doing all your calculations and somebody came up to you the first time and handed you a calculator and said, Hey, Check this out. You can do your math faster.

 Same thing is true with AI. It's not going to replace recruiting. It may replace some of the more repetitive tasks that we see out there, and that's not [00:13:00] necessarily a bad thing. Our workforce should get smarter I think along the way. But let me ask you this. How many times have you made a personal decision based on your gut feeling?

Angela Westhead: Oh, you're asking an outlier on this because I tend to be 99 percent gut feeling so I'm probably, I'm more, I'm more heart than brain. Well, 

Jon Beck: I would argue that the majority of the population, whether it's 99 percent or a handful of percentage points, trust their gut, which again, if you think about AI in a decision making model and being able to interpret some things that aren't.

Really able to define like a gut decision or love or like all the things that you can't necessarily quantify. That's where the human element is more important today than maybe it ever has before. And so I think you're also seeing this counter, it's not even a counter movement, but maybe a greater awareness of the human element specific to what we do in our industry.

That's is more important than it ever has been before. Are you seeing any of those threads in your day to day? [00:14:00] Yeah, 

Angela Westhead: I'm trying to think like back to, I'm deviating slightly, John, I'm sorry, but I think for me, one of the reasons why I was really good at being a talent matchmaker back when that was part of my job was because I did seem to have the gut for the fit, right?

And not just the fit, but the enhancement, right? And so you would pick up the phone call and have a screen with a candidate and you would know, well, One would know within the first 30 seconds. If this was a yes or a no, a lot of cases. And I don't think that that's something you can have a really mediocre resume and have a candidate that just comes off the phone.

Awesome. Great fit knows what they're talking about. Super knowledgeable. You can't quantify that. And so I do wonder with like ATS is where it's doing an AI, like skills match on the resume. Yes, that's good. But that's not really like the secret sauce of what we do when we're 

Jon Beck: recruiting. That's right.

Because you can have a fantastic resume that looks [00:15:00] amazing on paper and then in that first 30 seconds be like, ugh, no way. Like, this is going to be a no. So yeah, fair enough. Especially 

Angela Westhead: with engineering recruiting too. , to like, double click on that further. I think engineering resumes can get really dense with All the tools that we use and how we do them and projects, but being able to speak to someone who can talk to you as a non technical person and walk you through it is really the mark of a superior engineer because they're able to instruct and inform on process.

And you can see that doing really well within your organization once you hire that person. Yep. 

Jon Beck: Agreed. We could go on and on about this. Let's move to the speed round. Okay. Or speedy around, I guess. When you wake up every day and sit down at your desk, what's the single biggest challenge that you face?

Hmm. 

Angela Westhead: I don't know if I'm going to be speedy on this one. I think right now it's maturing my program. I think, you know, we're, we're [00:16:00] two years out of implementation with an MSP, VMS, and that's fine, but we've had a lot of structural changes. And we've had a lot of pivots on where we're hiring and how we're hiring.

And it's the reaction to that and trying to get our current system to fit future state. So that's probably the thing that takes up most of my thought. 

Jon Beck: I love that answer because I don't know if I can necessarily say that about every program that we're in, where people are actually trying to improve. So as a supplier, I'll appreciate that.

Angela, are you a podcast listener? Yes. I'm 

Angela Westhead: a big 

Jon Beck: podcast list. So other than hiring university, what's your favorite podcast? 

Angela Westhead: I absolutely love Scam Goddess with Lacey Mosley. It is my favorite. 

Jon Beck: Tell, tell us more about Scam Goddess, if you can. If it's suitable for 

Angela Westhead: kids. It, it's, it is so I love, there's something like, I just really [00:17:00] love, I don't know how this is painting me to the audience, so I'm really a nice person, I promise

Um, I am fascinated by like the psychology of scams. I. just find it so interesting the way that people are able to relate to each other and move each other. And Lacey Mimsley, the host, is so funny. She's a great comedian and every week she does, a segment called What's Hot in Fraud. Where she informs about, like, fraud or scams that are happening currently.

And then she does a historic hoodwink, where she takes a fraudster from history and then kind of recaps what they did and how they did it. , this week it was like the first female Ponzi scheme. Yeah. And it's, it's a couple hundred years ago. I don't know. I just, the psychology is fascinating and she's a wonderful host.

So it's just a funny listen. 

Jon Beck: It's, uh, it's why shows like Dateline in 2020 are so popular. And, uh, I'm with you. I like that stuff too. And to me, the amazing thing is that history repeats itself. You think [00:18:00] that we would learn because the same scams keep getting, like maybe re engineered because of technology, but at the end of the day, it's the same construct and people seem to fall for them.

So I don't know. What's your one pet peeve or your biggest pet peeve specific to work? 

Angela Westhead: Oh gosh. Work, pet peeve. Um, um, people that Slack just hello.

And then nothing else. That's good. I don't, please don't ever do that. It will fill me with both. Like if you need something from me, just hello. Leaves you hanging. 

Jon Beck: Right. Yeah. What's your favorite saying? It is what it is. Love it. Angela, if a Florida State Seminole and a Florida Gator were fighting in the middle of a hurricane, who would come out on top?

Angela Westhead: This is a terrible question, because I, I want to say a Seminole because that's where I went to school. [00:19:00] But realistically, the only person crazy enough to be out in the middle of a hurricane trying to fight somebody is a Florida Gator. 

Jon Beck: That is a great answer. Not what I was expecting. Thank you. I'm going to give you the way back machine question.

 Every guest who comes on the show gets it. You are graduating from Florida state. You're starting your career. If you could go back to that point in time with all the information and experience that you have today, what one piece of advice would you give yourself? 

Angela Westhead: Um, slow down, the, the timing of what's going to happen for you and to you.

It is not clear right now. And life is much longer than you think it is. 

Jon Beck: Do you think that this generation struggles with that more than other because of social media and everyone thinks they have to be ahead of the game and have it all figured out? Is that fair? I 

Angela Westhead: think so. I mean, when you only see people's highlight reel and it's [00:20:00] It's easy to say, like, the only good things happen to this person but also for me, I just have always been the type of person that wants to be accomplishing and and settled in my ways.

And so I know for me, when I would, I started over again, when I went into staffing, I had already been in state government for 4 years at that point, and it hurt, but ultimately, it was a step backward to take infinite steps forward. And I just couldn't see it at the time. 

Jon Beck: I think that's good advice, regardless of what decade of life you're in.

I still struggle with it today. God bless my wife, who reminds me constantly to slow down and be and be patient. It's not easy. It's not easy if you're type A, not even type A, if you're an achiever or whatnot. It's like a double edged sword, right? Because you want to continue to press yourself and not be complacent, but it, it saves a lot of angst.

Angela, such a treat to have you on the show. Thank you for coming. We'll promise me we'll do it again soon. [00:21:00] If our listeners want to get in touch with you, , other than just sending you hello on Slack, how should they do that? 

Angela Westhead: Yeah, definitely don't do that. I would say LinkedIn is, um, pretty active on there.

I enjoy the community that we've built in CW land. So check that out. Angela Westhead, just that's me. I think there's only one. 

Jon Beck: Perfect. Thanks for coming on for our listeners. Thanks for tuning in. As always, stay hungry, stay safe, stay curious, and we will see you next time on Hiring U. Thanks again, Angela.