Igniting Career Transformations: Aligning Employee And Organizational Values With Tonia Martinez

Why is it that a majority of employees find their work disengaging and unfulfilling? The ultimate answer to that is a lack of career introspection and the inability to place the right people at the right job. This process has gotten more frustrating over the years, both from the standpoint of the job seeker and the organizations trying to build a team. Tonia Martinez is the founder of Career Transformations and she has had her foot set on both sides. Tonia talks to Stephen Jaye about this continuous struggle of presenting opportunities to the right people. Learn more as Tonia shares how she manages to ignite career transformations across organizational hierarchies. --- Listen to the podcast here: Igniting Career Transformations: Aligning Employee And Organizational Values With Tonia Martinez One way, a lot of people settle for less is in their jobs and careers. I have seen some conflicting numbers around what percentage of people are satisfied with their jobs but all of them have shown that the majority of people here are disengaged and dissatisfied in some way. It will be great to find a way to better place people at the right job and that involves a little bit of effort on both sides. The process has gotten a little bit frustrating both from the standpoint of the job seeker as well as from the organizations trying to build a team. Interpersonal transformation journeys that we are all on or hopefully you are on, based on reading this, there are going to be some of you that are looking for a new job and some of you that are building an organization. Building an organization involves hiring and bringing in the right team. My guest, Tonia Martinez is the Founder of Career Transformations, and she has her foot in both sides of this. She helps both the organizations find the right people as well as people looking for a job and career transformation. She should have a lot of good insights to say about this whole process from both ends. --- Tonia, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me, Stephen. Thank you for joining us. Let's begin with the Career Transformations and your personal story. What prompted you to start this organization and what were your experiences, and all that? My background is 22 years of HR. For most of those years, I primarily focused on the talent acquisition space. Recruiting for organizations here in Colorado. Also in HR, you wear a lot of hats. I have helped design onboarding and orientation programs, as well as help train managers on how do we interview, how do we bring the right talent, and having a consistent process has been a lot of focus throughout my career. My passion is helping people find jobs that they are happy and passionate about and will go back the next day, and also helping clients find the right fit for the organization, so they avoid turnover. There's a concern in the hiring process on both ends the organization wanting to have the person that's going to love the job and the person wanted to have the organization that's going to love them back, whether the job was the right fit. What do you think is the factor now that is contributing to why we see so many people in the wrong job? I covered in a previous episode, this idea that our culture is based around people dreading to work. The whole, I have a case of the Mondays, Taco Tuesdays, Happy Hour on Fridays is all based on the idea on Monday something to be dreaded as opposed to something that's joyous or happier. It's twofold and maybe threefold, there's a level of digging and finding out deep in your heart and your soul, what you want to do or want to be when you grow up. A lot of times people are pressed for finding a position because they are financially strapped, laid off on the fly or for whatever reason. There are lots of reasons that you would jump into another position and not do your homework sometimes and put a time to learn about the company, the culture, the leadership team, the compensation, and everything you can. It's a lot of work and time. You'll learn a lot about what people want, what they're not happy with, why are they leaving, what can we do to change that. You'll uncover problems that you didn't even know you had.Share on X If you don't put that time in, you are going to oftentimes make the wrong decision. Going with your gut is not always the right thing to do. It serves some people well but digging deep to find out, "What you want to do? Who do you want to work for? What do that culture and environment look like?" On the corporation side, I have been in the position too many times where we have mis-hired. Oftentimes, I can reflect and find out the reasons pretty quickly. A lot of times, we are hiring quickly as well from a corporate perspective. We may not have trained our managers the way they should have been trained. Maybe we didn't have a process or leadership didn't want a process, they just wanted to interview with their gut. A lot of times, you don't do that preparation and also do your homework the same as a candidate would do on you, you fail. You mis-hire and go with your gut or sometimes you have too many people involved or too many hands in the pot that have a say in it. There are a lot of factors on both sides. I hope that helps. Let's begin from the job seeker side since it's a little bit less complex given that theoretically, the person looking for a job or looking to change jobs is completely in control. There's no other people's input. We all know examples of overbearing parents, etc. For example, it's just one person and they are looking for what job they want to apply for and put some energy into. What should these people be doing? What is the homework that someone should be doing, whether they starting a career or realizing, "I need to undergo a career transformation?" My number one tip would be if you don't have a career coach or leadership executive coach that you get one. It's important because you want to make the right decision and go down the right path. Sometimes some work needs to be done before figuring that out and you don't even know. A coach will help get you aligned to where you need to be. They uncover so much and you learn about yourself through the process. If you can't afford a coach, do your homework, get out there online, talk with people, do your networking, and research to learn more about what it is you want to do. What company do you want to work for? What industry do you want to be in? What are you passionate about? What are you good at? Looking at all of those areas a little bit deeper and maybe with a little more of a microscopic look. It's interesting to think about what someone is passionate about. Oftentimes, the start of that process for most people is you go to college and pick a major. Do you think that there is somewhere that gets miscommunicated? If someone is looking at a list of majors and saying, "I want to study this. I like this subject in high school or middle school," versus figuring out what the passion is. What drives you? What gets you out of bed saying, "I want to do this?" That's learning. It takes time. You could be in college as a young student and not know and pick a degree. That's not necessarily where you want to be. It's what your parents did or a friend did it. You picked something but it's not what you want. You have to have some experience to see different fields, roles, and industries to figure out what you want to do, what you are passionate about, and what speaks to you. That's a good lesson in almost self-forgiveness because there are a lot of people who will go into a field and realize it's not for them and thinks, "I messed up. I screwed something up. I picked the wrong major. Now I’ve got five years of experience in this field and I don't want to do this job function anymore. I have to go back to the drawing board." That seems like somewhat, you are saying more humans and people should give themselves a little bit more grace for having gone through that experience of being in that position. That happens often, unfortunately. From the organizational side, it gets a little bit more complex. What does an organization need to do? I have been, and a lot of other people are in situations where the job posting does not match what they want or you get there and it turns out what they want is something different. What does the organization need to do given all the people involved to make sure that the job posting when they go into posting it, recruiting for it, and interviewing people for the position that they know what they want and make an accomplished decision? That's where it starts. A lot of companies don't do what I call a kickoff call or a kickoff meeting for an opening. It's super critical because this gives you the opportunity to bring all of the players that are going to be involved in this process that know what this role is about, know what it takes to do this role effectively, and sell the position. You also have to have people not only that know about it but that know also how to interview. You want people involved that are going to sell the company, culture, position, and everything. There are processes that companies can implement to make sure that everybody is on the same page but that's a lot of times where organizations go wrong is that they are not on the same page. Career Transformations: A lot of times people are pressed for finding a position because they're financially strapped or because they were laid off on the fly. But really putting time in to learn about the company and the culture keeps you from making the wrong decision. I remember some organizations I have worked for in the past that we were having an interview at 3:00 and one manager got stuck in a meeting and he can't show up. "Let's grab Sally. Sally could jump in on the interview,...