Justin La Vigne from Fluke Electronics discusses Turazo for Talent Acquisition

My name is Justin La Vigne. I'm the Director of Talent Acquisition at Fluke Corporation. We're based up in Everett. We're an operating company under the Fortive brand. We've got 5, 000 employees worldwide.

First thank you for coming. Tell us a little bit about Connect @ Fluke, where it came from, then how it works.

We realized that when candidates understand our culture, the more enthused they are about wanting to work here. And it really helps get them across the finish line. If we can share our culture, if we can really show what it's really like to work here, that's a differentiator for us. People really want this to work out. It's not just, okay, I'll apply and we'll see what happens, but actually get them really interested and enthusiastic about joining the company and being part of our culture.

It was really easy to work with Pete and his team around how you approach your employee base with their participation in the program.

When do you want candidates to come into the process and become a participant? You configure how it's going to work. And so, for us, it turned out to be a really good program. You can see it in the slides if you're reading ahead , I'm happy to talk about the results we've seen implementing the program.

How do you see AI impacting talent acquisition?

I'll briefly talk about AI and then broader with technology. I think AI is really exciting and fascinating. Especially as it applies to talent. Think about things like writing a job description scheduling interviews , those are a thorn in my organization's side, constantly.

I would imagine for a lot of you in here, it's a pain. I think AI is going to be fantastic at helping us As a tool, better able to spend more of our time being strategic. Able to provide more services to the candidate and our business partners and hiring managers.

But the one thing that I don't think AI is going to replicate anytime soon is empathy. And the fact that it may be able to simulate it is one thing. But it's another thing to actually be able to talk human to human. And I think that's something that we have to be really thoughtful of. And make sure that we utilize technology to its potential, but we don't lose sight of that human connection. Going back to the Turazo example, the power of those conversations couldn't be replicated with an AI or some sort of bot.

However, the technology platform that allows for a candidate to choose, well, I want to talk to this person. Oh, great, the scheduling is going to be automated, and now I can meet with that person. And it takes care of that all without human interaction. That's amazing. But the conversation is just incredibly powerful. So I think it's important for us to think about harvesting the potential of technology, but also being thoughtful of, we add a lot of value as humans to the process, and hopefully we don't lose sight of that.

What was the most surprising thing you learned through Connect @ Fluke?

A couple things. One, I didn't think that it was going to be as successful as it was, and not to be skeptical about it, but going into a new program, you just don't know what it's going to be like, and how people will respond to it, and there's an element of experimentation. Are we introducing people or inviting them at the right point in their journey, right?

So there's a little bit of experimentation there. Yeah. How are the employees going to respond to it? Is it too burdensome for them to have these conversations? Going into it, there's a little bit of unknown, but I think what was most surprising is, one, the overwhelming positive feedback from the candidates.

The stats on there, like, 97%. In my wildest dreams, I wouldn't have guessed it would be 97%. I'm an ambassador, so I meet with candidates, and unanimously when they come through, they're like, "no other company that I apply to is doing this. This is so awesome. I wish other companies provided the service and allowed me to talk to somebody actually at the company."

One of the reasons we wanted to do this program was to help candidates in underrepresented groups find and connect to people like them and have been on a similar journey. And say, what's it really like? Like, I can read the propaganda, I can see the stuff that's on your website, I can read all that stuff, but like, tell me, as someone that has a similar journey, what's it really like being there?

And the ambassadors have complete candor, they show what it's like, the good and the bad, and I think that that honesty and authenticity really helps a candidate make an informed decision on, wow, I really want to be at this company. And to be fair, too, it's also helpful if someone says, oh, okay, that's actually not for me. It's helpful for all parties.

And the ambassadors have complete candor, they show what it's like, the good and the bad, and I think that that honesty and authenticity really helps a candidate make an informed decision on, wow, I really want to be at this company. And to be fair, too, it's also helpful if someone says, oh, okay, that's actually not for me. It's helpful for all parties.

So that's one thing that was surprising, is just how much uptake we had on the candidate side. The second side would be the ambassadors we had. People that participate in this program, they are reminded and they're energized about the good things at work.

It's easy to get cynical in our jobs, and be like, ah, this isn't great, you know, just working here. But having these conversations and talking to other people about the things that you appreciate about your job, about your company, and reinforcing things that, elicit, pride really helps reinforce satisfaction.

The enthusiasm and the feedback that we get from the ambassadors on how it energizes them, and reminds them about the good things about working at the company, has been a surprise as well.

What's next for the program?

That's a good question. We had a really good rollout in the Americas last year.

This year, we're delivering worldwide. So, we've going live in Europe and then Asia. I'd like to say Q4, but probably it's Q1 of next year. So, it's more around global expansion and seeing if this will resonate and land the same way that it has in the U. S. Trying to find that right balance with our ambassadors where they have that excitement and they're engaged doing it, but it doesn't become a burnout situation.

One of the really nice things is that the ambassador sets what their availability is. If you're hitting a period where you're really heavy. And if you're really busy at work, you can scale that down and say, I'm available for one hour this month.

That's it. You're not going to get bombarded with more invites.

We want to continue keeping the ambassador community vibrant. And making sure that they don't get to a point where they scale down, and then don't come back up. Very good. Okay. Justin, thank you. Yeah, my pleasure.