Click here for Part I, Part II, Part III & Part IV

A Greater Philadelphia firm defining best practices in the talent acquisition and HR industry

Harry Griendling is the founder and CEO of DoubleStar, a talent acquisition, advisory, and analytics consulting firm. Since 1993, Doublestar has helped hundreds of business attract and retain top talent in industries like healthcare, banking, pharmaceuticals, engineering, and biotechnology. With Harry at the helm, DoubleStar has grown into a leading partner for organizations looking to recruit staff; the company has appeared twice on the Inc 500 list of America's Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies and six times on Wharton’s Philadelphia 100 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the Philadelphia area. Recognized for his thought leadership in the HR industry, Harry has been honored as one of the inaugural inductees into the Philadelphia Business Hall of Fame.

EDWIN WARFIELD: How has technology changed recruiting since the 1990s?

HARRY GRIENDLING: When we started the company, we didn’t have computers and we didn’t have cell phones. Obviously, the industry has come a long way since then. I remember we bought our first computer in 1999 for our consultants and our clients were jealous because we were actually ahead of the game. They wanted what we had. Same thing with cell phones. We were early with cell phones and our clients wanted those. What we see with technology now is that there are so many more tools and so many more options: things like LinkedIn, social media, Facebook, of course, et cetera, et cetera, and even specialized recruiting tools that you probably have not heard of.

For us, the trick with recruiting is does not matter about all the tools. What matters is that at some point a human being has to pick up the phone and make a connection with another human being, and then bring them in and find some chemistry and common ground in order to be able to get together to work. That, you can’t really delegate to technology. You can delegate the finding to an extent, you can delegate the initial screening to an extent, but the human part where two people have to get together—you can’t.

To me, it’s just like dating. You can have the greatest dating technology and matching technology in the world, but when two people sit across the dinner table and look into each other’s eyes and if there’s nothing happening, there’s nothing happening; and if there’s sort of something happening but it needs help, you need someone who’s skilled to help bring that along. Recruiting is very much analogous to dating in that regard, and the technology helps, but the heart of the thing is two human beings getting together and figuring it out if they want to work together or not. That’s the part that will never be automated.

Q. From your perspective, what does the workforce and workplace of the future look like?

A. One of the things that we are seeing is employers rethinking how they organize work and think about work. When we started, there was one client that we had in our first 20 or 30 that actually offered flex time. It was a big deal because no one else was doing it, and I think they required their employees to come in two or three days a week. They did it only because they had relocated and they didn’t want to lose their workforce to the relocation, because the new location was a much more difficult commute than the previous one.

Now, what we’re seeing is that space, real estate, and work style is getting integrated into the conversation about the physical place. The best example in the city that I am aware of is GSK down at the Navy Yard. They have a beautiful space that is completely flexible. There are very few offices and there are no assigned work spaces. You come in, you plug in, and you work and you leave. There are lockers to leave your materials there—that are safe and specific to you. You work at home or you come to the office as needed—nobody’s tracking it—and that to me is what the workforce of the future will look like, and it’s kind of already here.

It’s been here for a while, actually. Europe has been pretty far ahead of us in organizing this way. In the inner cities, as space gets more expensive, you’ll see employers do it just as a matter of trying to gain efficiency in how they invest in workspace, because if you can get half your workforce to stay at home and be as effective as they are in the office, why carry the overhead?

Connect with Harry on LinkedIn

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Edwin Warfield, CEO of citybizlist, conducts the CEO Interviews.

If you're interested in reaching CEOs, please contact edwin.warfield@citybuzz.co

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http://www.doublestarinc.com/