The Experts: Richard Earl on The Business of Caring

Welcome to our video series, The Experts. In the series, we interview staffing leaders to hear their perspectives on industry trends, lessons they’ve learned in the careers, and their leadership philosophies.

In this clip, Richard Earl, Founder and Executive Chairman of Talent International, shares why caring about the customer is imperative in order to create an unparalleled experience.

RIX: What initiatives has Talent International taken to differentiate?

Richard Earl: I think we’re doing some really great interesting things. You know, we’re more than just a regular staffing company and I think programs like our innovation in Talent Engage, our foundation Talent Rise, which is helping youth at risk get into the tech sector, the Unleashed Awards, 100% Human at Work, they’re all great initiatives, and it’s great to see they’ve been recognized by the industry. We’re fortunate to have won a number of awards, and they’re not everything in this world, but hopefully, they’re evidence that we’re doing the right thing.

RIX: What challenges are you seeing in the staffing industry?

Richard Earl: The staffing sector has a number of challenges, in my opinion. I think customer service levels have been pretty poor for some time, and I think clients are looking for a different value proposition. I think with technology clients can do a lot of things themselves, so I think a combination of needing to change the value proposition to dramatically increase customer service, and that’s certainly what we’re about. We talk about taking the customer to an impossible place, which is a level of service thought unimaginable, so innovation and change is much needed in the staffing sector.

RIX: How do you promote innovation?

Richard Earl: The Talent Unleashed Awards is something we launched about five years ago and it’s our program to encourage and recognize great startups, great ideas, and also brave leaders who do some great things in the workplace. We launched it with Richard Branson and Steve Wozniak as judges, and we have a whole global list of judges. We have an event each year, and it started off just in Australia, it’s now a global event. We launched it in the U.S. last year for the first time, and it grows and grows each year, and we take the winners on a great trip around Silicon Valley where they see companies like Airbnb, Amazon Web Services, and Facebook. It’s been great and we’re building on it year on year, and it’s a great program.

RIX: What do you aspire to accomplish?

Richard Earl: Certainly what keeps me going is our effort and desire to change the industry, to take it to a whole new level and leave some sort of legacy. You know, just to simply be a traditional run-of-the-mill staffing company is not what we are and not what we’re interested in.

If you’re interested in hearing more insights from Richard Earl, check out The Experts: Richard Earl on Being Human.