EW 034 – How A Values Driven Leader Built An Exclusive Business Model in Recruiting and HR – Winning With Stephanie Rodenkirchen, CEO Of Lotus Group

Gordon Sheppard (00:01.133)
Stephanie, welcome to the show.

Steph Rodenkirchen (00:04.098)
Thanks for having me, Gordon.

Gordon Sheppard (00:05.933)
Well, I'm so glad to have a values driven leader on the show who's going to tell maybe a little bit of sort of the evolution of your work as things have gone along in terms of the story that we're about to hear. But also you're big in the community, big in giving back a major sort of relationship builder in the community as well. And people are going to hear some of that bits, you know, woven throughout the story that we hear today. So it's really good to have you here. And, but in meantime, for the people that don't know you, if you had to introduce yourself,

what would you say and how would you describe yourself?

Steph Rodenkirchen (00:38.446)
Okay, well, it's a pleasure to be here, Gordon. Thanks for having me on the podcast. So my name is Stephanie Roden-Kerschen, and I am a student of the human condition. So I started and grew a business called Lotus Group, and Lotus Group is a collective and a Canadian fully female-owned boutique that specializes in executive search, professional search.

HR consulting and industrial trades recruitments. have three distinct divisions and we are an exclusive firm with a very engaged exclusive type model. For myself, by my background, I was a recruiter, also known as a headhunter, and I have a passion and a love for sport. And so I was able to combine my early youth of being an athlete and into university being an athlete with

the love of building high performing teams in professional spaces. And so if I were to tell you, know, what does that mean? It means that I've been able to have the blessing of building a high performing team at Lotus Group. And our job is to build high performing teams for various organizations across Canada. And so that is what we do. And that is what I love doing.

Gordon Sheppard (01:58.285)
Awesome, thank you for being so well prepared. What sport was your sport?

Steph Rodenkirchen (02:00.877)
So I have two passions, two loves of sport and they're both very different but they come together well. So I was a soccer player for 40 years from age of four and then I also ski raced and so I was a downhill alpine ski racer. Yes.

Gordon Sheppard (02:17.721)
So you're speed junkie. If I started saying Lionel Messi or some of the stuff that you know what I mean, we could talk about the Canadian women's team winning those medals. I mean, you would be all over it and we would get into like a whole other conversation of your passion in sport, but how lucky that you got to spend the time playing high level sport. And then I can hear you porting that into your student of the human condition that led you to the work that you've really well described in your organization now with.

Steph Rodenkirchen (02:26.016)
Thank

Steph Rodenkirchen (02:30.093)
100 percent.

Gordon Sheppard (02:45.583)
What we're gonna hear over and over again, I can hear it today already, is intention, intention, intention, at every kind of step along the way, because the way you just talked about, even describing your work, is we put this piece in, we did this, this is why, this is who's involved, this is what we do and why, and then that end result is there as well. You build high-performing teams out there in the world, so if people get a chance to work with you in your work, that's the end result, and you're doing it over and over again in a unique way in the recruiting space. So we're gonna kind of get into now the first question.

for the interview which is to say you if you had to describe one of your biggest wins in the work that you do last couple years what would that win be and how would you describe it?

Steph Rodenkirchen (03:23.243)
Yeah, I think that if I were to be very, very blunt and honest with you, Gordon, I think my biggest win came from my biggest hardship. And so I was blessed with a...

a big hardship as a mother with one of my boys who was really ill for quite a long time. And the needs of being a mom and a professional kind of hidden intersection in my life where I needed to innovate a different kind of working arrangement and business to scale professional services in an off the grid kind of model just before the pandemic hit. So again, at that time it was kind of a novel approach, but it isn't anymore.

It gave me an opportunity to build something that was sustainable and scalable. And so I will tell you that my biggest win came from my biggest hardship.

Gordon Sheppard (04:15.161)
Remarkable. So one of your kids has trouble. Let's just leave it at that. I don't mean to get, mean, if you want to explain it, that's fine. But one of your kids has trouble. You're a mom. You're working in maybe more traditional type of recruiting business environment setting. So you know what that's like. It's, I don't mean to characterize it like I know it all. I'm just going to say it was being done a certain way. And you've looked at that in your scenario with your trying to.

Steph Rodenkirchen (04:30.625)
Yes. Yes.

Gordon Sheppard (04:43.043)
balance out if we ever get balance in your work-life balance and that led you to moving forward in Lotus with a different business model. Am I getting that right?

Steph Rodenkirchen (04:52.907)
Yeah, that's exactly it. mean, my son's health journey and kind of his crisis that he has luckily recovered from, and I'm so grateful for his health and that he's just a thriving, you know, teenager and an incredible, brave young man. It really, you're absolutely right. What that situation did for me is it caused me to hit a wall in the traditional realm of recruitment and sort of agency. And it...

it forced me to innovate something that could accommodate what I was dealing with while I could still perform and be a strong professional. And so basically, know, exactly what you said, the model needed to look different. While the delivery and the outcomes, I hoped they would be even better, that the model in order to do the business needed to change. And with that came many other learnings about what else could potentially change. And so that is, yeah, what took place.

Gordon Sheppard (05:49.711)
So let's help the audience understand. A traditional recruiting model is, if I say bag and tag, do you know what I mean? Like there's something about recruiting. When I work on the business advisory side and when I've worked with small businesses, they have an uneven experience with, if you get lucky, you get an individual talented person, say at a large agency or whatever, and they pay attention, they do the thing. But then I've been in the moments where you've got a young junior account rep and they're dealing with a company.

Steph Rodenkirchen (06:01.197)
Right.

Gordon Sheppard (06:15.693)
and they've got too many files and they don't get good service for the company. And so in the one case that I was involved with where a company was looking for a senior engineer to come into an important role, there was just miscommunication all the way along. And I remember getting involved with that and finally clarifying it. Not that I was the catalyst, but I was one just to help with communication. And so it struck me that again, and then the frustration on the business owner side was this costs a lot of money and is it going to work out? Now in the meantime, they ended up with somebody and you know this because you would have placed a lot of people over the years.

Steph Rodenkirchen (06:27.661)
ring.

Steph Rodenkirchen (06:33.026)
Okay.

Steph Rodenkirchen (06:39.054)
That's for you.

Okay. Yeah. That's right.

Gordon Sheppard (06:43.309)
when they get it right, makes a huge difference and the value of what they pay in fees is, you know, exponentially overcome, I think, once you kind of get it right. if I say bag intent, if I can say it was a sort of a, yeah.

Steph Rodenkirchen (06:54.157)
You know?

I think it's really, I mean, I think that that is often a client's, I guess, experience. What I would say is in the contingent recruitment world, because there's all sorts of different firms, there, so if we can talk strictly about professional contingency recruitment, and that really means exactly what you said, it is a bit more transactional. There are no fees and no exclusive agreements signed. There is no like deep partnership because you're working contingently. So if we talk about that, Gordon,

And that is like for a decade of my life, that was my life. And so I worked with, what I will say is that it does feel very transactional. And one of the reasons it does is regardless of whether you have an incredibly good recruiter, and there's amazing tenured recruiters and there are amazing young recruiters, but if the model doesn't set the client and the recruiter up for commitment and understanding, then the reality is like how is the fit gonna be properly adjudicated? And so I actually think the model is more broken than the recruiting firms are broken. It's the model.

client's persistence of like, not going to pay until you find someone. Well, typically if you don't pay for a service, you're going to get a shitty service. And so the reality is, that the guarantees you're going to get.

when you don't pay for service until it's completed are pretty small because the reality is recruiters and contingency firms truly have to work in abundance of roles to get even a 30 % fill rate. So what that means is that they only and they have to pay attention to the clients that are giving them the most committed communication and what that creates is a very turn and burn kind of process is what I would say, an overwhelming process, often not a deep enough scrape because they are, like the recruiters are commissioned.

Steph Rodenkirchen (08:36.064)
feeding their families only on what they fill. So if they have 15, you know, accounting rules on their desk at once and they fill seven of them, that's how they feed their family. So if those seven clients are the clients that are getting back to them, those seven clients are getting their best work because...

you know, the recruiters, they're hedging their bets, it's like playing poker. So the reality is in my mind, everyone is deserving at that table. The candidate who is the best is deserving of the job, the client is deserving of a great service, and the recruiter who has to run exhaustive 15 searches, likely they're deserving of more commitment so they could do a better job for clients. So in the contingent world, I agree with you, that's where I came from, and it pained me to see great

recruiters becoming exhausted, clients becoming frustrated, when the reality was we just all needed to innovate a better model. Like, let's just do this in a different way. We're doing it, yeah, you know, we've done it. And in six years, we have taken on zero contingent roles, and I am so proud of that. And let me tell you, Gordon, I've been asked to do contingency roles hundreds of times, like all the time.

Gordon Sheppard (09:32.91)
And you did it.

Steph Rodenkirchen (09:50.763)
And so I have perfected the art of saying no, because if I say yes, then I rob the clients of the model we've built and candidates and my people.

Gordon Sheppard (09:58.415)
How would you say, so we just described the contingent model very well and we understand the downfall. You said you built a better mousetrap and your mousetrap, what would you call it then?

Steph Rodenkirchen (10:02.146)
Yes. Yes.

Steph Rodenkirchen (10:07.906)
So...

Because we work both in the professional search realm and the executive search realm, we've called it an engaged, exclusive kind of search model. And essentially, what happens as soon as you create exclusivity and you create upfront transaction with your clients where it's like there's deep trust and there's commitment and there's a commitment that is moving, it moves your success rate predictor from 30 to 50 % to like 95%.

Because the reality is, is everybody is committed. know, like everyone is committed and as soon as that happens, we all know wonderful things emerge from that kind of relationship, whether it's professionally or personally. So it's not, yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (10:52.207)
Well, how lucky and thinking about it, so you've got a client and they come and meet you and you're different. You're like, you're not gonna say zero dollars upfront, whatever X percentage at the end, some amount in the tens of thousands of dollars or whatever that is. But you say, no, we're gonna get together as partners in a sense over the long haul and then I'm gonna help you. And the neat thing with what you're describing is you would be then really understanding.

Steph Rodenkirchen (11:01.411)
Yes.

Gordon Sheppard (11:18.477)
the clients that you're working with. would understand their business at a deep level. Is that fair?

Steph Rodenkirchen (11:22.712)
You know, I think because we exclusively work with our clients and we have a 98 % success rate of all fills that we've had over six years, we take on far fewer searches on a specialist desk. And what that does for clients is it increases the amount of time spent, the dedicated commitment that they get from us, which typically yields a bigger, deeper, kind of...

bigger breadth of scrape of the market and then with that commitment we attach typically engaged guarantees on that placement that are usually four times what you would see in the market because we can because we feel that you know we can give you that guarantee because we've taken the time and you Gordon as our client have taken the time potentially to work with us to ensure that we understand your fit. So if things go wrong it may be nothing to do with what you've done and even nothing to do with what we've adjudicated it could be life has happened to the incumbent but

let's give you a lot more skin in the game and ensure that we can replace that role and of course you don't want to replace and average replacement rates would probably be around 10 % annually for roles because things like illness, spouses getting ill, know children, life circumstances, movement, things do happen that we can't completely predict and sometimes someone isn't you know some things shift and they're not that same fit that they may have been or things shift in their world or the company so there needs to be a good

faith there because we're dealing with people and people are you know fluid and we have you know many different chapters of our own lives so yes we hope that the model like from start to finish can really bring more value.

Gordon Sheppard (13:02.031)
There's so many things to explore in reinventing, in a sense, the model, but that would suit your lifestyle that you needed to shift, but also suiting your values. You can hear, are you sleeping better at night? Is that something going like, what was I saying?

Steph Rodenkirchen (13:14.466)
You know, there's something...

really special when candidates even know that you are fully committed to them and you can give them the time that when they go in for interviews and they are, you know, trusting us that they are one of, you know, maybe three to five in a short list and there's not 30 candidates that are being interviewed or in the end that their resumes are not being thrown around town. Like it is so critical that we build trusting relationships and we deeply adjudicate. So I think our recruiters sleep well because when they work on something, they're not an afterthought for their clients. The clients, we are like an

affiliate to their team and we expect that, we deserve that and our clients deserve that. So we, you know, I'm always amazed at how many groups often will come and you know still want to have a conversation with me but tell me that they're only going to work with us contingently and I'll often ask them like how that's going for them and they'll tell me these horrible stories and then I'll say but you still want to keep doing the same thing like I think you and sometimes it's like okay great I think you should keep doing that until you're really ready.

for us to help you because we're just not going to work any other way because you deserve that, we deserve that, the candidates deserve that and we believe that that is, you know, that's the model it should be done in.

Gordon Sheppard (14:23.215)
Well, and remarkably with this long partnership scenario, I'm hearing speed in business is increasing. You're getting better velocity and you're getting better retention once things are done. that maybe that early days when they're sort of conditioned by the marketplace about the way recruiting is supposed to go, they're actually then coming into this breath of fresh air where you again in this values driven way are kind of doing it right. Well, congratulations, that's a big deal because if you came from successful contingency, the temptation to stay on that drip.

Steph Rodenkirchen (14:29.015)
Yes.

That's right.

Steph Rodenkirchen (14:38.402)
Yes.

Gordon Sheppard (14:53.039)
would have been there, but you wanted to do it differently and Lotus is now in your six years into this experiment. Now I'm just going to take all of that for a second. I'm going to work with you here just for a sec to find one sentence or two that if you had to describe the win in sort of one or two sentences, how can we give sort of a refined way to express it?

Steph Rodenkirchen (15:02.094)
Thank you.

Steph Rodenkirchen (15:12.172)
Yeah, the win would be, you know, like I think we've, I would just basically say like we have found a way to provide elevated people solutions, you know, for our clients and for one another as professionals in this marketplace.

Gordon Sheppard (15:26.479)
Cause that affects your team as well, right? The team members that you would have would love working in this model. Obviously, you know, if you've created that environment and that's sort of also good for you on the retention side and your own turnover and what it takes. Cause you know what it takes to put in the system processes and those things to make that work. Okay. Elevated people solutions. Now we got it. Now we've got the person who originated. know where it came from, motivated from personal circumstance, but also maybe it sounds like it might've been years in the making. That's one of those back of the mind things you would have known for years.

Steph Rodenkirchen (15:28.782)
Totally.

Yes.

Steph Rodenkirchen (15:44.118)
Okay, great.

Gordon Sheppard (15:55.342)
something on your spidey sense saying, there could be a better way. And now you're executing on doing that. Great. Elevated people decisions. We got it. Let's get into the anatomy of that win then. What is the strategy, work plan, people, operations, and results behind the win? Strategically, values, vision, mission, goals are the things you like to sort of point out for the strategic highlights for getting this win.

Steph Rodenkirchen (16:19.638)
Yeah, definitely. think that, you while we started early days, you know, really like grassroots, it became very clear that having a North Star and having values and a mission and sort of like, you know, a large goal would be critical for us to be called towards as a team and as we grew this collective to grow together. So basically our mission is to uncover talent and tap into potential to elevate the organizations and the careers that we are privileged to get to work with.

that is really, really like our mission every day, every year. And outside of that, our long-term goal is to become Canada's most trusted provider of the people, elevated people solutions. So we really, that doesn't mean we have to be the biggest, but by being, you know, the most trusted, then all the other things will follow in terms of quality and retention and, you know, turn rates and sustainability. And so with that, over the first two years, Gordon,

saw our team evolving and we could see the values that were the most important to both our internal team and then externally to our clients. We also know and value the use of sort of like science and psychometrics around people needing to align to the values of the environment in which they work which will create the most engagement, the best outcomes and cohesion. And so our values at Lotus are trusted so that we are we are trusted and we trust one

one another to do great work, that we are collaborative, so externally with our clients and candidates as well as internally as team members, resourcefulness, which may kind of align with resiliency and grit, that we are extremely resourceful and we need to be because the human capital market has obviously shifted and not gotten easier often. It's definitely a challenge. And the fourth value is powerful.

And I often get asked, like, that's, you weird. you know, I'll get asked, like, what about that? And the reality is, that, you know...

Steph Rodenkirchen (18:24.462)
It has to do with intention and it has to do with like really understanding what kind of output we are trying to bring for our clients because if we create powerful outcomes for our clients, it is powerfully very successful for us. And so we always say to our clients, like your success is our success. And you know, but for them, we wouldn't have the opportunity to add capacity to their teams and but for the trust and the power of the candidates we deliver, we wouldn't be able to see that into fruition. And so we always, our team,

committed because we are a collective of 21 we are committed to always seeing the but for like none of us go this road alone and so that I think is very important from an accountability standpoint and sort of ensuring that we're bringing you know elevated people solutions no matter what size of group what industry what sector we're working with we want to leave organizations better than we found them and candidates better than we found them.

Gordon Sheppard (19:20.856)
Again, how wonderful, trusted, resourceful and powerful. Powerful, that's new, I love it by the way. I think it's a great one in there and I love when you explain the rationale, how clear it is and that you've taken the time. Anytime we have a strategy and we need a work plan, there's a timeline. There's like a, hmm, I think I'm gonna build a better mousetrap. I'm gonna start to build a better mousetrap. I'm gonna be in the middle of that. What sort of year did this sort of concept?

Steph Rodenkirchen (19:27.021)
rate.

Thanks.

Steph Rodenkirchen (19:42.882)
Three.

Gordon Sheppard (19:49.326)
begin as an idea and then how long did it take to execute to get to this real clarity that you're talking about.

Steph Rodenkirchen (19:55.833)
Yeah, so the...

That's a great question. So knowing that we would work exclusively, that was something that was like in my soul probably for a few years, you know, prior to starting Lotus. And I felt like it could be tested. And of course, if you're going to test something and bring it to fruition, you have to measure it. You have to look at it. so the pieces that were really critical, and this was probably really able to start within our kind of two and a half years in Gordon, I realized as the business grew and the client base grew and our team members grew and our reach grew, it became very,

important for us to have like really really ingrained processes, policies, of operationalizing of the business so that as the business grew and we were an off-the-grid non-brooks and mortar business that we could actually ensure that the outcomes

and the ways in which we conducted and completed the work in the model that we promised was like that, you know, we weren't talking out of both sides of our mouths, that we could certainly ensure that we could deliver on that. So very quickly, I knew that it would be time for us to implement some sort of operational philosophy system and very innovative tech stack in terms of our technologies. And so we endeavored just over two years ago into EOS. So for about a year I was researching it, had the team look at it.

all adopted that, talked to a couple of implementers, and then we worked with an EOS certified implementer. And so we really felt it was important if we were going to ask for exclusivity from our clients and have them work with us in a more committed way, that we could ensure the delivery of way better outcomes, longer guarantees, and test and measure that. So the key performance indicators around that that we dialed in at about the second year and going into the third were things that we were

Steph Rodenkirchen (21:43.721)
looking at is annual and monthly time to fill. So from a search executive or professionals kicking off to accepted offer. We were also looking at recurring clients.

through our three different divisions, but then also annually. So what are those rates? And so for us right now, over six years, we have held a 85 to 87 % year over year client retention rate, which in this market is like unheard of, very proud of it. That's because of all our great people and the work that we do, but I also believe it's because of the model. And so we test.

We test those things, we are constantly measuring all sort of, you we have to look at how we measure things in our business. so, you know, success rate, fall off rates, time to fill, all of those pieces are absolutely critical. And I think the thing that while you're building out processes and kind of the framework of the business, having to ask for feedback and having to be willing.

to look at the parts of the business that are maybe not thriving, or, you know, and just being humble and honest about the fact that we often, you know, when we know more, we can do better. And so what is it that we need to learn now as we grow? And so that was something that, you know, I think has been a part of our journey is to just continue to level up our business, because if we're not doing it for ourselves, it's pretty hard to do it for clients. Yes.

Gordon Sheppard (23:11.224)
Yeah, completely. what I'm hearing in there is sort of a pathway to scaling up, a pathway to becoming Canada's trusted provider. Right? There's an element in there of what you've said and in that timeline. And thanks for just, again, being so well-prepared because we're hearing those certain moments. There's sort of, you know, I was thinking about it, then we got going. These things happen in year two, then two years ago, so then year four-ish, we get into the EOS model and we're going to touch on that a little bit more in just a second. And we've got that going forward. And in the meantime, it's all...

Steph Rodenkirchen (23:15.683)
Yes.

Steph Rodenkirchen (23:29.038)
right.

Gordon Sheppard (23:39.202)
It's a continuous improvement to a certain degree, but you're leveling up in every area every time. So that's really remarkable. And 21, I'm sure as a kind of, you're getting a bit of a gang as opposed to walking in there, right? Like the Lone Ranger and yeah, right? So you got, yeah. so it leads me to the third step, which is there's always people involved in a win. And I can hear, if I had to add, I mean to talk about a few key people to get you to this elevated.

Steph Rodenkirchen (23:53.071)
We've got a pretty great gang. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and we've done that carefully. Yeah. That's right.

Gordon Sheppard (24:08.016)
people's solutions win. There's you. How would you describe you and your attitude at the beginning of this process to now?

Steph Rodenkirchen (24:19.618)
Well, I think that I learned very quickly out of the gates, Gordon. Something that often I think athletes and entrepreneurs learn is that if you want to go fast, go alone, and if you want to go far, go together.

So I like to go fast, as you know, I like to ski race and I have a bit of a CEO profile, but I also very analytical. And so what I, what at the start of the business was very exciting for me was all the new things and all the risk and, you know, the growth and, you know, trying to design and create, which I never really got to do at a certain level in my professional career. And so I think I was very satiated with that. But what I quickly learned while the business started to grow was that

in order to successfully captain an organization or a ship or whatever analogy we want is that it is so critical to be a stable leader.

and have a core team of individuals that have a clear vision and clear communication so that we can all go in the same direction. And so what I learned from every one of my team members that has joined our collective is that they bring strengths that, you know, I don't have. And that is a beautiful thing. And I think that when we can be open to building out different profiles within, you know, Team Matrix, we can really harness some horsepower. And it doesn't mean that it's always going to be easy.

Because often, I'm sure you've seen it too. You go into a group and they're just, you know, we're all trying to hire clones. And the reality is for certain job function that might work. But for typically an overall organization, you need individuals that are wired differently that, know, where maybe I have strengths, someone else, you know, may be able to compensate where I have weaknesses and vice versa. So I saw quickly that if I was going to be building the business, there would be an important piece for me to have someone who is very operationally astute where I was lessing.

Steph Rodenkirchen (26:09.649)
inclined and or you could say maybe more of an integrator so to speak.

And then, know, thinking about building out the different divisions of the business, it was really important that we harnessed, you know, sort of proper organizational design and role design to make sure that the hiring could align with not only our current business state, but where the business was going to be going, like from a successioning standpoint. So the key hires in the first kind of year and a half, actually quite a few of them are still with the business and they have been huge contributors. And I have learned so much from

them and I know that you know they've we've weathered some some great winds and lots of growth and we've had some storms and and I think that we've just there's a level of commitment and I think that yeah there it's pretty amazing when you get a group of committed individuals what you can accomplish.

Gordon Sheppard (27:03.076)
That's so good. And I can hear the culture build that you've invested in. Like when you describe those values and you form the values, have the language around the values. The EOS entrepreneur operating system is a incredible system that so many entrepreneurs should be certainly aware of. If not, the ones that have implemented them.

Steph Rodenkirchen (27:20.249)
Yes.

Gordon Sheppard (27:22.22)
Sound like you, you've drank the Kool-Aid. Because there's a moment before EOS walked in your world and you wouldn't have had the, you're being quite, then we got the integrator and we did this. That means you went to school on EOS and you made it work and you've actually gotten it done. And I think that's a wonderful thing. And I hope as many people as possible learn about it, especially at the leadership level for all the good things that come out of there. And then for folks like you, the leaders that embrace it.

Steph Rodenkirchen (27:24.568)
You

Gordon Sheppard (27:45.036)
It goes a million miles. Now I've heard about you and your attitude. I was a certain way and then I evolved and allowed those things to occur. And that's it's, you're saying it with a smile right now. There's agony in there in weeks and months of up and down. And you know what mean? I don't mean to sort of dig into that, but I mean to say there's a reality, but how nice and lucky for you to have that humility either earned or given to you, whatever way it came, that you've got it now that you recognize those things and the way to build a team. And funny, you would advise a company.

Steph Rodenkirchen (27:51.875)
and

Steph Rodenkirchen (27:57.304)
Ha

course. That's fair.

Gordon Sheppard (28:14.756)
to do the things that you're doing, but you've actually been able to do it for yourself. So that's really wonderful to hear on the people side. you're, you you've evolved, you've got some people that are sticking around, you got the secret sauce kind of boiled in, and then it gets us to, you know, if I said strategy, work plan, people, operationally you've started to dig into, you know, already mentioned some of those things that were key. You had to operationalize these key elements and you got into that and you knew how that would impact not only your team, the work that you do, but your clients would see.

that you were doing it differently, that it was operationalized. And again, I know you've said a few things already operationally, but is any key one that you'd like to point out, like when you meet the clients say, well, this is what we did, the investment in tech, the investment in EOS, like what's the thing that you like to point out and show off so they can feel secure in working with you?

Steph Rodenkirchen (29:00.532)
You know, I think for our clients...

the thing that's really important is that we try to run, you know, agnostic to technology for our clients. So, and when I say that, what I mean for them is that everything that we do will be visible for them. So if they needed to have a dashboarding, say of, you know, whether it's HR fractional work that we're providing, and they wanted to actually know exactly to the T detailed, like by the hour, when it happened, what happened exactly, that we wanted to have

kind of radical transparency for them in terms of what is actually happening. So if a client said, you know, we want to know how tough this search has been, we could actually say we've gone and done, you know, 95 shoulder taps in the headhunting market. We have looked at 200, you know, profiles in the span of, you know, a 10 day process. This many pre-screens were done. This many in-person interviews were done. This many, you know, 70 % of the candidates felt that the compensation was in alignment with where they were going. Like we need to have.

detail because the reality is without it, it's nothing because we are working with, you know, humans and it is critical that we can give that data because that is critical for our

to make decisions in real time in the market. Because yes, we have compensation data and yes, we have lots of, you know, surveys that you and I can read and look at, but the reality is anecdotal feedback in the marketplace is also critical. So we capture all of that in our systems and then the output to our clients is, for us, it's really about empowering them to make good decisions, you know, down the road when they're even not working with us. Like it's critical that we leave them sharper, more astute to the climate of, you know, retention.

Steph Rodenkirchen (30:40.945)
and hiring an attraction than they were before on the HR side. It's like, how do we up their people game? Because if their culture is better, employees feel safer, engagement is higher, at the end of the day, the business will be more productive. And so we also wanted to run like all the drivers in our business in terms of our financial acumen and our different divisions like.

In order to continue to create sustainability for our clients in the realms that we produce, we have to ensure sustainability and optimizing all of that. you know, we've learned a lot also from our clients and we hope that our clients learn a lot from us. Often clients want to, know, organizations, leaders, they are so good at what they do. They are savants in their industry, but the people side of it is very challenging. It's fluid and it changes all the time.

And so I think our job is to have the data to empower them.

to make those great decisions. so we like on the HR side, we ensure that all our HR consultants have various different areas of specialty. So if someone is running an HR AS system over here, we've had three people who've worked on that and other complimentary systems. We don't want our clients to ever feel like when they're working with Lotus, we're going to fit them in a box. We're not going to sell them a system. And, and I agree with you, like there are so many great ways to operationalize businesses and you know, there's, there's not one way to do great human resources, but there's many ways.

And I think what we are good at is meeting our clients where they are and customizing based on their philosophies, their corporate vision, where that corporate culture can fit in, as opposed to bringing it to them in a box. And so what we do is completely customized. And because of that, we have to be able to share all the data as to what we've uncovered with them and what we've built for them along the way. Because if we don't...

Steph Rodenkirchen (32:34.858)
it will not be sustainable for them. And we know that. It'll just live on a shelf somewhere and no one will know what to do with it. And that is not serving your client. So yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (32:44.56)
People ask me to write their strategic plan when I do facilitations and I say no, I won't. I will help you write it, but that's that very same dilemma of no, because if I fill it all in for you and you never read it, you'll never use it. I need it getting into their lives and getting implemented. love that transparency. I'm going to guess is a word that doesn't come up in recruiting very often. And so you're talking about transparency.

Steph Rodenkirchen (32:48.494)
Good. Yeah? Yeah.

Steph Rodenkirchen (33:04.44)
Good for you.

Yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (33:10.692)
meeting the client where they're at, and then you can hear again in the detail that you're talking about, you're really getting to know people. And you're not just getting to know them because you feel like it, you're getting the stats to back it up. And then you come back to the office, you've got a brain trust. So when you're going to problem solve, you're like, let's go problem solve this aspect. And then you've got the people in the background with the varied skill sets and abilities.

Steph Rodenkirchen (33:25.507)
Yes.

Gordon Sheppard (33:34.266)
to help problem solve at a higher level because you have this gang. Anyway, just we can go on and on. That's so wonderful to hear. And I'm so glad to hear that you're doing it in that way. We said straps.

Steph Rodenkirchen (33:39.938)
I agree.

Well, Gordon, like your philosophy of, like I just have to really say, like I love that you are saying, no, I'm not gonna write it for you, but let me help facilitate and get you there with their succession plan or their strategy plan, because the reality is, like, if you take even that at a strategic level, and then you take even the branding of a business, if they're like, oh yeah, those are cliche words, like everyone wants to work for a company like that, yes, but if that is not your company.

then you are falsely advertising and people will just turn out and like turnover is so costly. And so I always say to clients like, we actually want to know what the most challenging parts of your business might be. Or, you know, for us to do an HR baseline assessment, if we don't see the true fires, the biggest fires, the biggest risks, and we go fighting something that isn't actually as critical as that, well, we've just, you know, really not brought value. And so for us, it's about like, let's actually have a really deep.

thorough look and create a baseline understanding so that regardless if you know say you or I leave tomorrow they still have that they are equipped and they know we've given them a roadmap that if they choose to follow it

good things will happen, whether they do it with us, another group, know, someone internally. And I think it's just about, like you said earlier, can we go home at night and sleep well? To say like, you know what, end of the day, we truly wanted to help this group. We've given them the information. We're excited to, you know, implement that, changes with them, or they've got someone who's gonna be great and they've got a great roadmap. Like that, that's when you know you're doing great work.

Gordon Sheppard (35:12.592)
Oh, that's anyway, I'm glad you, thanks for bringing that up and extending that. I'm philosophically exactly aligned. Funny enough, when I say, tell me about your win, that's tip of the iceberg. The next part of the iceberg above the water is what we're doing today. Strategy, work plan, people, operations, and results. If I can get everybody in the organization, when they think about a problem, thinking about the strategy, work plan, people, operations, and results, we can create very deep alignment. Cause we can catch everything we need to be thinking about around problem solving. Underneath the water, I have a 650 page document.

That if I go work with somebody, if I can get it to the leadership team over about a year and I make sure they fill in all the boxes and usually they've got about 80 % filled in, but it's the 20 % missing because those good leaders, they're good. They're good at what they do. And, that piece that like, no, you didn't know anything about quality assurance. Okay. Have you asked these questions? And I'm not a quality assurance person, but what I can do is ask those basic questions. No, the leadership team knows, and then make sure they're able to go find that right person. Cause I think birth to death, that company needs somewhere between, I don't know.

Steph Rodenkirchen (35:47.534)
Yes.

Steph Rodenkirchen (35:57.379)
Yes.

Gordon Sheppard (36:11.152)
12 to 20 people. start off, first thing you do is you get a bookkeeper, then you get an accountant, then you probably bring in HR somewhere, then you might bring in a consultant maybe somewhere there, and then you gotta get a specialist, then you gotta get a lawyer, all those things. All those things that we look at the life cycle of a company. So I'm glad to hear about that process driven thing. And then I can hear also is you're having honest conversations with people up front. I work well with about a third of the people that I meet. And it's because I'm not, I'm just, not in the family. So I...

Steph Rodenkirchen (36:25.41)
Yes.

Steph Rodenkirchen (36:34.658)
You

Steph Rodenkirchen (36:39.308)
Right. That's right.

Gordon Sheppard (36:40.048)
I'm going to be respectfully saying what needs to be said. And for the people that want to hear that and get that sort of grounded advice, we go a million miles. For the people that are sensitive, I think they kind of continue with the dysfunction that they're creating. So until they have sliver humility, the ability to sort of have somebody reflect to them. So I'm proud of that in the work that I do because the work is deep and it's strong with those individuals. Anyway, so I don't mean to go off on what I do because we're talking to you about your thing. So.

Steph Rodenkirchen (37:05.102)
No, it's fantastic because I think, it goes hand in hand. mean, at the end of the day, when you work with any type of advisor or consultancy, it's like you're going to get out what you put in. And so if you give 80 % of the truth, you're probably going to get 60 % alignment. If you give, you know.

I think nobody wants, everyone wants to tell you what they hope to be or what they think you want to know, but the reality is, is when we truly help people, it's because they have been vulnerable. And then we can actually find somebody or like in your case, you can actually bring them a strategic tool that will actually deal with their biggest issue and close the gap. And then the learning can happen because if we don't talk about it, then it's like, you know, it's that whole like head in sand, like, you know,

And guess what? That stalls businesses. So I love your food.

Gordon Sheppard (37:53.594)
Well, and I'm bothered by the dollars that have flowed to wasted consultancy. So if I walk in the door and they've been burnt two, three, four times or whatever, and they just aren't gonna know they're gonna get honest work, then it's just hard because that pathway has been sort of broken down, but they still need the help. Because again, like you said earlier, go alone, do it by yourself. They need a gang and those specialists coming in, it's funny, meeting people like you or the lawyers or the people that need to be plugged into the situation, I'm always like,

Steph Rodenkirchen (37:58.853)
Yes.

Yes.

Steph Rodenkirchen (38:06.191)
Great.

Steph Rodenkirchen (38:14.863)
Yes.

Gordon Sheppard (38:22.904)
I have a reputable person on the line, don't talk price. Whatever they say, pay the price. Because they're going to come in, if you spend an hour with them, they're going to do, they're going to take you a million miles. And that's why I know for me, meeting people like yourself and having those people in the network, when that referral comes up, you're like, well, actually, I know somebody who does recruiting differently. Let's go, let's go, because I spent the time, I understand, and that kind of thing. Anyway, I get super excited about this philosophy and this approach. And I can hear you, said it earlier.

Steph Rodenkirchen (38:31.949)
Yes.

Steph Rodenkirchen (38:38.777)
Right. Yes.

Gordon Sheppard (38:48.856)
If we get brought in to do HR problem number five, but I actually wanted to do, we should have been doing HR problem number one, you're gonna say it and you're gonna make sure that they know that that's what their priority is. Is that fair?

Steph Rodenkirchen (38:53.604)
Yes.

Steph Rodenkirchen (38:58.253)
And this is more than fair. And this is one of the problems with, I think often in the market and as a business owner and as busy CEOs who have issues with their people and culture department, or maybe they've not had someone who's been sort of an HR generalist or a human resources manager or an HR business partner, and they're they're flying without that. And so often,

I believe that when I meet with clients and they kind of like, yeah, like, so this is what we need. Like clients often don't know what they don't know if they've never had that. And so I also believe that, like you mentioned earlier, to talk price right away or ask for things free out of the gates, like immediately if I meet with a client and I'm sure you've had this too, where they don't want to pay for services or they want a bunch of deals, like my concern is immediately that if they don't take their people kind of.

their human capital in their business that is the horsepower to everything seriously enough to want to pay money, to for a true deep dive to truly understand what is fundamentally happening in their business, then we likely don't want to work with them anyways. Because the reality is if they don't care about their people, we might disrupt someone's journey very well, you know, in their career, bringing them to a place that, you know, is unfortunately not ready to elevate those processes.

Gordon Sheppard (40:20.558)
And you're guarding both sides of the equation. You're guarding the company and you're guarding the recruit, recruit like, cause you're building trust with all stakeholders in your environment, basically.

Steph Rodenkirchen (40:22.743)
And we are.

We'll be, because we don't want to get into the race of like, sure, yeah, no, for sure, we'll just jump in and then we'll just do this. Because at the end of the day, we're robbing them of actually figuring out what's actually happening in their business. And we might even be missing something that's going on really well that they don't know that they could replicate, duplicate, that they could build upon. But also we might be like at the end of the day, it's not only about culture, it's about mitigating risk for the owner.

And so when I have owners that become, you know, all of a sudden we get back into the whole contingency piece, I get really worried and I've realized that that's okay. They're just not there yet on their journey and it's okay to wait. And sometimes they may never get there. And sometimes it might be a wonderful leader that comes in that they get that can take that part of the business over them and loves that because it's complicated. And the reality is that often I hear, Stephanie, I don't want to hear about HR anymore. don't, we've all these HR issues.

And my question is, like, are you ready to look in the mirror? Like we have to look at everything we're doing because at the end of the day, it's like a team. If your team isn't playing well on a sports field, whatever it might be, you don't send everyone home. You get them together and you dig in and you figure out and you practice the plays and you get better systems and it's typically the coach's responsibility. Yes, everyone has to show up, but I think that there's no, that's not different at work. And if people feel unsafe, they'll walk off the field.

If people feel recognized and supported and built upon and developed, guess what's gonna happen? They're gonna become better players. And guess what's gonna happen? We're gonna win more games.

Gordon Sheppard (41:58.736)
I can hear, I see you standing on the TED Talk stage. Have you done that yet? Because I can hear that right now. We just sort of wrote the first opening salvo there when you're talking about, wow, I was going down the hill at 240 kilometers an hour and I did my thing. That's so good. Thrilling to be able to sort of range in conversation, have really intelligent conversation that so many leaders that are listening are going to take a lot away from. I got us into the anatomy of when talking about the elevated people solution that you're providing.

Steph Rodenkirchen (42:02.839)
Yeah. There we go.

Yeah, it's

Gordon Sheppard (42:27.524)
talking about the strategy, the work plan, the people, operations. And finally, we're down to this last step, which is results. Results are qualitative and quantitative. And you mentioned some KPIs earlier that you were sort of proud of. Maybe one or two quantitative that you think are highlights, result of, hey, you know what? Six years ago, I've got this personal circumstance. I'm going to change the way we do things. We've gone through our two year, our four year. We're bolting on, we're bolting on, we're growing the gang, we're getting better. We're sticking with the philosophy.

Steph Rodenkirchen (42:39.14)
Yes.

Gordon Sheppard (42:57.328)
we're not varying from it. What sort of results quantitatively and then qualitatively as well?

Steph Rodenkirchen (43:02.905)
Yeah, so maybe I would just say like, you know, over the last six years, we were very hyper-focused in the Alberta market, obviously in Edmonton starting out. And then over the last couple of years, we've really taken a focused approach to ensure that we have specialists that are, you know, deeply across all three of our divisions, but also the geographical kind of spread as well to ensure that we have boots on the ground. So our team has grown from about a focus in Edmonton region to include Red Deer,

to include Sylvan Lake, to include consultants and employees in Calgary, as well as Kelowna, as well as Vancouver, as well as Nova Scotia, and newly our St. John's as well. And so I think that, you from a geographical ability to understand the different markets in which we, you know, can work within, even though we can work remotely, and we've seen that now, that's really critical. We have, you know, our business has been growing...

you know, in the first few years very rapidly. then in the last couple of years, we've really stabilized. And even in this last year where there was some pretty economical kind of, you know, unsteadiness and trepidation in the market, we've continued to grow at about 20 % this year, year over year. And I'm proud of that. was, you know, to be honest, we wanted to grow a little bit quicker, but based on the market right now, I think that's still a win. We are still closing this year at between 95 and 98 % success rate close. Our average days to fill are,

right across the board, 28 from kickoff to signed offer. So that is a four week turn, which is quick. Obviously some are quicker, some will be longer based on, but on average that is very, very quick turn. As far as client retention rate, we're still hovering at that 80 to 87 % this year, which again is really critical. We've done some digitization in our business, which has been one of our big drivers in order to ensure

sort of that speed, efficiency, ensuring that we're able to spend, of like invest back into the company in the right ways. And then our expansion plans are going to continue. And so those are maybe a few stats that I'm proud of, but I think one of the things that I am most proud of is that we have a few key team members this year that celebrated their fifth, their five and a half year anniversary.

Steph Rodenkirchen (45:17.039)
that they've worked right across two divisions potentially. And to be honest, that matters to me more than anyone, than anything because of that retention. It's so, important. yeah, our team members are, the fact that they're happy and they're thriving is, it's a very good sign when you're a business owner. Yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (45:35.44)
So you took us through a great telling of your win. So this is long haul stuff, this is six year stuff, and with 10 years in behind there, and then you're balancing out family and being super mom and doing all that stuff at the same time. How's it all feel when you tell this story?

Steph Rodenkirchen (45:38.393)
Thanks.

Steph Rodenkirchen (45:50.094)
Yeah, I feel really blessed and grateful because I feel like I had this moment in time to experience a moment in my career that many other people will and have or maybe haven't yet experienced. And I think part of our journey is to kind of be lighthouses for one another. And so if we can create something that we know will benefit others and maybe even the industry that we're in, then good things will come of that. So I feel lucky and I feel excited about the next six because

At the end of the day, when you meet that sixth year, know, lots of businesses go under within the first six years. kind of, like, there's some pressure to get to that sixth year mark, and not that we really felt it, but when you look back and you realize how lucky you are and how many people have helped you along the way, I think that's something I'm really aware of. And, you know, and then you just realize, wow, we've got a lot more horsepower than we did six years ago. What can we do now? Like, it's exciting.

Gordon Sheppard (46:43.28)
That's great. And if you had to give one or two sentences of advice to another leader based on your own experience, what would that sort of short piece of advice be?

Steph Rodenkirchen (46:53.569)
I would say that probably 100 % of the people on their team have more capacity and next gear in them that they don't know they have yet. And that the leader's job is to figure out how tap into that. And that if you can do that, I think being a leader will always be a joy and a challenge.

Gordon Sheppard (47:16.506)
That's super. Well, it's just been, if people need to get in touch with you, what's the best way?

Steph Rodenkirchen (47:20.163)
Yeah, so the best way is to probably look at our website, www.lotus-group.ca. I can also, Steph Rodenkirchen, you can look me up on LinkedIn, right through our website. You know, it's pretty easy to find me and track me down. And if you wanna just look up in Google Lotus Group, then you can read all about our business and basically contact us. There's a careers page attached if you're looking for work. And if you want to set up an exploratory college,

connecting with me or any of our team members is the best way to do it.

Gordon Sheppard (47:51.834)
Well, I can't say thank you enough for putting in the hours that we get to have this short conversation where we get to benefit from all those, whatever, sleep well nights, but also sleepless nights that you put in too to get us here. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Steph Rodenkirchen (48:08.207)
Gordon, thank you so much for having me. It was an absolute pleasure.