Jason Leverant and Kamal Bhatia With AtWork

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio. Brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, CSU’s executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today, on the Land of business radio, we have Jason Leverant and Kamal Bhatia with AtWork. Welcome, gentlemen.

Jason Leverant: Hayley, thanks for having us.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Let’s kick it off with Jason, who is the CEO of Atwork. Welcome.

Jason Leverant: Hey. Thanks, Lee. Yeah. Super excited to, uh, to join you and share, uh, all the exciting growth we’ve been experiencing here at the At Work group. You know, the staffing industry is is really an amazing place to be. You know, we’re creating impact in all the markets we’re in, helping great people find fulfilling careers and employment across, you know, across the country. It’s it’s amazing and exciting to, uh, really bring that impact to Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: Now at work Group is a your franchise. You’re a national staffing company and you’ve been around for a minute. This isn’t the the first time you’ve done anything like this. Can you give us a little backstory into how that work started?

Jason Leverant: Yeah, it’s definitely not our first rodeo. We’ve been franchising for 32 years now. I think that’s the count where it just keeps, you know, time flies when you’re having fun. But, uh, we, you know, we focused our business model exclusively around franchise sales and franchise support, really building a really unique staffing model. We’re quite different. There’s only a couple other real active staffing franchise companies that exist in the market today. Our model, how we structure the business is unique, and it brings massive strategic and tactical advantages to our franchise owners. And so, again, it’s one of those where our business really emulates and follows the, uh, the employment market in the US. And if and if you’ve just been around, you drive around your local communities, uh, you’ve been seeing now hiring signs literally everywhere, uh, whether it be the local Starbucks when you’re grabbing your coffee or big manufacturers, everyone is hiring. Unemployment rates are adjusted unbelievably, unusually low levels, and they’ve stayed there for for years now. And it creates massive demand for our services because we bring, you know, speed, we bring flexibility, we bring adaptability, agility. Those are key words that most businesses are really trying to trying to bring into their businesses. We can deliver on the on the human capital side, on the employment side, which in most instances is is company’s biggest expense. So it’s been an awesome time to be in the staffing industry.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re defining staffing, what types of jobs are you helping folks with? Is it, you know, light industrial? Is it kind of administrative? Is it executive? Are they C-suite? Like? What is kind of the scope of the staffing solutions you offer that?

Jason Leverant: That is an awesome question because, you know, you think about staffing. It’s it’s very broad. You know, a lot of people immediately think of, uh, who aren’t experienced and aren’t hiring managers and haven’t, uh, done this type of thing, maybe never worked for a staffing agency. They have a preconceived notion of what it is. But when we look in the mirror, uh, at work is what we call a commercial staffing organization. So we primarily focus on your traditional staffing opportunities. So those are going to be your warehouse manufacturing industrial positions and your clerical call center administrative roles and things of that sort. Those are the type of roles that we handle day in and day out. And we typically handle those types of positions on on an hourly basis. Those are true contingent or temp to hire type positions. We also have opportunities to work in what we consider most people familiar with, like headhunters or executive search, where we’ll help professionals find the next career that they’re looking for. But the engagement is slightly different with our customer base, where we were actually take that professional, find them that career directly with that organization. And it’s a slightly different structure. It’s a direct hire is what we call it internally. But, um, the reality is we can fulfill pretty much a very, very broad range of positions within, within an organization. And we do so across the country. It’s not like we only do this in this area. We only do that in that area. All of our offices are capable capable of handling those various types of roles.

Lee Kantor: Now, from a candidate standpoint, are you a good fit for somebody who wants to work remotely, or is it a better fit for somebody who is okay with going into an office on a regular basis?

Jason Leverant: Oh, that’s a that’s a great question. Obviously, work from home is has been a very, very, um, interesting topic over the last few years. The reality is, most of the positions that our businesses focus on are, uh, on site and in location due to the nature of those positions. Now, depending on the clients we work with. And that’s the reality. Our jobs are very much bound to the type of companies that we end up working with, and that can be somewhat market specific. So if we’re marketing into downtown Atlanta, where there’s high, you know, a lot of high rises, but a lot of those high rises now are 5050 open or not open because people are working from home. Then our opportunities mirror those of our clients needs. Whereas in the manufacturing setting, there is no work from home when you have to go operate, uh, manufacturing, uh, equipment or, uh, move products in a warehouse or things of that sort. So again, it all depends on the types of clients that we work with, the type of companies we serve in our local communities.

Lee Kantor: And then. But so the best fit, though, are the ones that have a need for people to physically be there. That’s a great fit for you and your.

Jason Leverant: Yeah, if I had to look in the mirror, that’s the vast majority of our opportunities are on site client. You know they’re working at the company’s facilities locally. But again it’s not any kind of direct rule or anything like that.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re looking for a franchisee, um, what is kind of that avatar for you? What kind of skills does a good franchisee have?

Jason Leverant: Well, you’re about to talk to, uh, one of one of them right here in just a minute. So he just said I could take an easy cop out and say, oh, just just, uh, look at Carmel’s profile. But the reality is, we’re looking for someone very much like Carmel. Entrepreneurial minded, has been successful in really everything they’ve touched, engaged with. Um, you know, obviously our industry is very, uh, sales focused, very business development focused. So, so that is very, very critical to see, uh, previous experience in direct sales or managing sales teams, growing businesses. It’s really important because at the end of the day, staffing, uh, and being in the staffing industry, we sell to companies, we also sell to candidates why you should come to work for us. So we’re selling on both ends of the spectrum and both aspects of what we’re already doing. So that’s such a key component of it. But having you know, you know, again, hot list of traits uh, grit, determination, resilience, those are all qualities that we want to see from franchise owners that join the Atac system. Uh, and obviously we want to work with winners. We want people with with track records of success, uh, who want to be successful in our industry, who want to see the value.

Jason Leverant: You know, staffing is unique in the fact that it offers tremendous scale for entrepreneurs. So, you know, other franchise concepts, other business industries, you know, there’s a there’s a general kind of maximum that you can really do in a market. You know, I know the threshold for growth is only so much for a quick service restaurant or for, uh, a small service based company in staffing. With the right client mix, you can build 20, 30, $40 million enterprises out of single branch locations in relatively small markets. And we’ve got the proof to back that statement across the at work network. It’s truly amazing. And I’ve found and I challenge anybody, show me another industry that offers the same level of scale and then compare that to the investment required, the amount of capital required to do that because we don’t need them. You know, we don’t have massive inventory, we don’t have machinery we have to acquire. We don’t have big assets that we have to bring in. It all goes back to that hard work, the drive and determination of the franchise owners that we have in place, then building and motivating their team success will follow that.

Lee Kantor: Now, one of the qualities I didn’t hear you mentioned is experience in the staffing industry.

Jason Leverant: Oh yeah. Yeah. Good good good observation. You know that that helps obviously. But we’ve got a phenomenal structured approach to to doing business. And I’ll tell you, the staffing industry, as you heard me say a moment ago, uh, it takes determination. It takes resilience. It’s not really about having this unique proprietary knowledge that nobody else has. At the end of the day, we work with companies, we provide great service. We find great people for them. That’s really the secret sauce. It’s the service. It’s that franchise owner being there at present, ensuring that there’s a high level of service. Service in our world really focuses on communication, facilitating communication, making sure that the employees are prepared for the assignments they go to, make sure they’re the right fit. Uh, having staffing experience helps, uh, elevate slightly, but only to a certain point. At the end of the day, once somebody understands, our industry knows what needs to happen, it’s rinse and repeat. We’re going to go and keep doing what we do. So yeah, it gives you a little bit of a tactical advantage on the front end. But especially savvy owners like Jamal, we bring in folks that have business sense, good acumen, understand sales. They jump right into it very quickly and they realize, wow, put the work in and the results follow. Doesn’t take 20 years experience to be really, really strong. Staffing. Operator.

Lee Kantor: All right.

Kamal Bhatia: Let’s bring back and uh, yeah.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, please. Kamal, I would like to welcome you. Kamal is, um, I think one of the newest at work, uh, franchisees. And his location is going to be in the Peachtree Corners area. Kamal Bhatia. Welcome.

Kamal Bhatia: Thank you, thank you. Lee. So, uh, basically what, uh, you know, I want to add on to what Jason said when I looked at the artwork, I could see the work ethics. I could see how genuine they were, uh, you know, had total integrity in, uh, in what they were serving. And that’s what intrigued me. And, uh, you know, I’ve been in the hospitality business, uh, you know, opening up hotels for investors or for the Marriott. And that’s what intrigued me, uh, looking at the job market. And, uh, so it is basically not you got to have staffing experience. It’s all about creating more leaders and right from from the bottom, because that’s what I did in my past, uh, you know, created, uh, right from the bottom, you know, people who have accountability, they, you know, they take ownership and, uh, they have good sense of being a team player. That’s when you see that, uh, the profitability, uh, you know, for the company starts to grow. And that’s what, uh, you know, the staffing requires. And, uh, me being in the hospitality business, I could see that there was always a need of, uh, you know, of the right people with the right profile. And, uh, when I went for the artwork discovery session, I could really see, you know, how focused they were, how the training proper, uh, you know, processes were, uh, right from their, uh, systems of operations. And everybody were so welcoming. And that’s what, uh, you know, uh, guided me that I should. This is the, uh, you know, company. I should, uh, basically franchise with. Now, that’s where I am today.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you talk about kind of the decision to get into franchising, just in general? You were working in hospitality. You’re probably still working in hospitality to some degree. Can you talk about, hey, I think I want to do something on my own. I want to buy a franchise. And then once you have that thought, how do you kind of narrow it down and land on that work?

Kamal Bhatia: Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, you know, with the franchise, uh, you know, I don’t have to create systems. You know, the systems are already created. All I do is go there. And if I have any questions, they are. You know, there’s a team of leaders who assist me in every aspect of it. So as soon as I, uh, you know, went for the discovery session, I could see, you know, how focused they were and how, uh, you know, inviting they were and, uh, you know, they would take ownership and, uh, create every value. The values were awesome. And that’s where what I thought that, uh, you know, that will help me, that even, uh, not, you know, having this kind of a business like, uh, you know, I do not have any experience in the light industrial, administrative finance or, you know, placing people in this, uh, different companies. I would, uh, get a very thorough training and, uh, and also leaders who would assist me, uh, to, uh, hold my hand and, uh, guide me through the whole process and looking at the numbers, you know, because it’s all about numbers also. And I see that, uh, you know, within, within a year, they start to make $1 million and within like what Jason said, you can even a small entity, a small business can even touch 30 to $40 million. Uh, so with the limited amount of money, what you’re putting in, and this is where I want to leave a legacy not only for myself, but also for my children. So they also can, uh, you know, uh, hold my hand and move forward with it. So that was my reason of now this, uh, franchise.

Lee Kantor: So when you say, okay, now I’m in at work, I go to the discovery, I sign the papers, I’m in what is like your first hundred days look like at at work? Like, what is the kind of the work that you’re doing to grow the business locally?

Kamal Bhatia: They give us. They give us a whole manual. They give us, uh, you know, handheld training. We actually go to the corporate, we hire the people. What they require, they say we need a recruiter along with the sales person. So we go there and we get specific, uh, you know, skills that are required for each and what the recruiter needs, you know, how do we actually recruit people right from the scratch? Like, what are the norms and what are the policies and procedures? What while we are recruiting, same thing goes with sales. You know, uh, they even recommend us books to read. Uh, what books? We can actually keep enhancing our, our growth. Not only that, they are audio, audio, uh, you know, programs which consistently are there. They have training managers with them who can guide us through the entire process. And then not only that, then we have, uh, some, uh, test on, uh, you know, online, which we give that also gives us even more confidence. And then if we are not if we are not aware of it, that gives us a, you know, it’s anybody, you know, from any field, I would say can come in, join this franchise and they will hold your hand, guide you through the process, and then you start to make what what your dreams are now.

Lee Kantor: How quickly is it open now? Is the is your location open? We.

Kamal Bhatia: Yes, we just opened, uh, you know, our location. We just got a signboard actually, last week, and, uh, we are getting a lot of, uh, you know, uh, calls from, uh, people are coming up to sign up with us because we are centrally located right on Buford Highway and Jimmy Carter. So a lot of people actually, because it’s right on, on the main road. So a lot of people just look at the sign and come in, and then they also read, uh, you know, at work reviews. And they, they see that it is one of the top 100 franchise. So I actually don’t have to upsell in any way, even when I go, you know, I’m treated with a lot of respect because, uh, you know, the name carries itself and then.

Lee Kantor: You have a physical location. So there’s an office for people to go into and. Absolutely.

Kamal Bhatia: Yeah, we got to have a physical location because there we, you know, we recruit people, we interview them, uh, we make them fill up all the paperwork and, uh, we get all the assistance from at work, uh, you know, at the corporate.

Jason Leverant: If I could jump in Lee two on the, uh, the first 90 days, you know, and Kamal mentioned that, uh, kind of playbook we deliver on staffing is is really two parts. And I referenced it earlier. You’ve got the client development where we’re working with companies locally to identify where their needs are. And those the sales part of it is asking those companies to allow us to help them with their open jobs, their open requisitions and the recruiting side, which is building the talent pipeline. And so, you know, really the first 90 days is is getting the gears moving on, on both of those processes, you know, and the reality is building relationships with, with on the sales side of it, it’s, it’s it takes time. It’s one of those it’s the challenging aspect of starting any business is generating those those sales activities and those sales leads. And so, you know, Kamal brought his sales team, he brought his whole team to training and got firsthand really experience on what it takes to kind of get those gears moving and those, those, uh, those things happening because building relationships takes time. And the faster we can do it, the sooner we can do it, the more effective we can do it, the better the results become. And the reality is, as those things start building, that’s where the grit and resilience, just like any sales role.

Jason Leverant: Right. How many no’s before you get the. Yes. And that’s really the key is to keep your your sales team motivated, keep them encouraged, you know, embrace the yeses, embrace the positive outcomes, push through the nos because it’s going to happen at sales in any in any industry. And the outcome is ultimately positive. The big differentiators though, I go back and what stands out to me about Kamal’s experience and where, I have no doubt you’re we’re going to see the impact in Atlanta to the positive are companies that they will be servicing. We’ll see. The impact. Is his background in hospitality. You’ve done any time in hospitality. You know what it takes to provide service that is different or better than your competitors. And so we found that that folks that come from the hospitality industry, they just get it. They understand what good service means. And so if we can be the in the hotel reference the Ritz-Carlton to the staffing industry, high levels of service, our clients will see that they feel it, they embrace it. And now we’ve got lifetime customers, which is really our M.O. we have customers that we’ve served for many, many years. Our retention rates are so much better than industry averages, and I attribute it completely to that service focus from franchise owners and that commitment to our mission. So.

Lee Kantor: So now, what’s that conversation look like when an at work person goes to a company? And I’m assuming that you have to be proactive in this. You can’t just wait for companies to go to you that you have to. That would be awesome that you’re going to have to take some action and say, hey, if you have this need, we have the people. Um, like, is that what the work is like? Is that relentless kind of prospecting in that area?

Jason Leverant: That’s it. Lee. So, you know, we provide resources to kind of start the baseline of where to start calling. And we look at validation. We look at account qualifying. We have a it’s pipeline funnel management. It’s your it’s your typical B2B based sales approach with staffing the the the identification of talent, the screening of talent and placement of talent as being the service that we deliver on. And so that sales person gets into it and they’re cold calling, they’re dropping by customers, they’re visiting them, they’re hitting them on email. They’re hitting them on social media. It’s every avenue possible. Flanked by the resources that we deliver. There’s some marketing resources. There’s social media resources to help facilitate that process. At the end of the day, though, it’s those local activities that really make the difference for us. Our typical buyers are going to be HR directors, maybe plant managers, maybe office managers. But for the most part, just if I had to stereotype, it’s going to be those HR type roles. They typically own the staffing relationships. So we’re engaging with those people and they want to build that relationship.

Jason Leverant: They want to build that trust. To know that Kamal, that Jason, that that Lee is going to help them find the best people in the market. Why should I trust you? Well, it takes relationship, takes a while to build that trust. So that’s where we go back to the repetition of those calls, the really the focus on our differentiators. Uh, yes, we have we’re nationally backed. We have all the resources of the big boys. But at the end of the day, we’re locally owned, we’re citizens of this community. We are here in this market. You’re going to see me at the grocery store, you’re going to see me locally. And it’s my reputation that I care about. It’s my team’s reputation that I care about and the service that will follow it. You build that trust using those differentiators. The basic value props in the staffing industry client says, great, send me XYZ person. Send me an office manager, send me a forklift driver, send me a machine, whatever the title is. And the recruiting team goes into action and starts delivering candidates.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned that it’s you’re it’s kind of a two sided marketplace. You have the you need the the clients and you need the candidates. Is there any kind of training for a candidate that a person comes in and says, hey, I’m enthusiastic, I have some of the right qualities of a good employee, but maybe I don’t have the skills to do that specific thing. Is there any training element as well, or is it they got to be kind of on their own, a perfect fit.

Jason Leverant: So it all depends on what the client’s needs are and what they want. So if a client said I need an experience X, I have a candidate come through the doors. They really need to meet the needs of the client with. The job orders that we have. There are opportunities for what we call upskilling and what’s a very hot, hot topic in the in the HR world right now. And looking at partnerships for upskilling and allowing training opportunities for our customers. And we have those opportunities. We have partnerships with skills based assessments and learning, uh, resources and things of that sort. That’s an area where I feel like personally, we could we could increase our presence in. Although we have those vendors, we have those resources. The reality is our customers needs are are very specific. And for us to be able to meet those needs, provide good service. We need to find candidates that match exactly what our customers are looking for. So upskilling is on our radar. It’s something that we want to do, but it also becomes a component that we have to engage with our clients who are willing to accept candidates that may not match their skills directly, that we can upskill into. That’s a dialog that’s more of a a deeper relationship with a customer where we can have those type of discussions. But I’m I’m a huge proponent. I pushed out some blogs recently. I’ve got a piece on Forbes in regards to upskilling and mentorship programs to help develop talent that is on everybody’s mind, because the reality is today, the talent that is on the market and interested in work doesn’t always align exactly with the positions are available. So offering offering opportunities for skills development is becoming very much the forefront of everybody’s minds in the hiring and HR world.

Lee Kantor: Well, if Jason, if somebody wants to learn more about the at work opportunity as a franchisee, where should they go?

Jason Leverant: As a franchisee and or a candidate and or a client. It’s really easy to remember. At Work.com Artwalk, they can find all of the information around our franchise opportunity, but most importantly, the opportunities that we’ll have at Atlanta and Malls office, uh, opportunities for clients, jobs available for the talent who are interested. Um, also, another great place is is find us on LinkedIn. Kamala and I both are very present on LinkedIn. Uh, you know, follow us on LinkedIn. Connect with us on LinkedIn. All of our contact information is there. Send us a message. We’d love to engage and chat with you further about, uh, about at work and about how we can deliver a positive experience, whether it be a franchise owner, client, or a talent.

Lee Kantor: Now, Kamala, is there a website for your specific location at at work, or should they just go to at work.com and then kind of drill down to your your geography.

Kamal Bhatia: At work.com/peachtree Corners? Uh, they can uh, then we can, uh, they can fill up their applications online and, uh, they can hit us right there.

Lee Kantor: And, Kamal, what do you need more of at this stage? Do you need more candidates? You need more clients. What can we be doing to help you?

Kamal Bhatia: Uh, you know, as a start up business, I need both right now. So I’m working side by side, both on on the recruiting as well as on the sales. Uh, definitely on the sales side, because as as long as I have the clients, then I can recruit the people. And especially with the market right now, how it is, uh, especially in my location, you know, we have a lot of candidates who are ready to, uh, you know, jump for the jobs. So I’m looking for the right, uh, you know, uh, clients who can whom I can fulfill all the needs and just move forward with it. But I definitely know that there is a lot of growth in right in Peachtree Corners.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you both so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Jason Leverant: Thank you for letting us, uh, really showcase and share the work we’re doing. We appreciate you.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.