American Staffing Association: When you set off the ambitions, you achieve those. It's kind of like Michelangelo, he told the story about if you want to hit the bullseye, you have to aim very high and the R comes and that's how you hit the bullseye. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Make them over and over. But be relentless about learning from them and don't do it again. Welcome to the ECE podcast where we explore the journeys that take careers from entry level to executive. I'm Leith and today's guest host is Stephen Dwyer, the CEO and president of the American Staffing Association. How are you doing today, Stephen? ⁓ fantastically. How are you? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. ⁓ when we first started this podcast, ⁓ one of the first guests we ever floated around was who we have on today. And I'm super excited that the stars have aligned that we have finally come together to record this episode today. So. Give us a little bit about our guest today, Stephen. Yeah, it's my pleasure. Today's guest is Gino Cattolo. He's president of the Deco North America. He leads one of the largest staffing organizations in the country, and he's been responsible for one of its strongest performances in recent years. He's overseen major growth initiatives, enhanced operations at scale, and guided enterprise level transformation during a period of significant change, and that is an understatement. He's a trusted voice in the industry. He advises on congressional workplace policy, mentoring senior leaders, and helps shape how staffing organizations think about growth, leadership, and the future of work. Gino, welcome to the podcast. It's a pleasure. you, Stephen. Super excited to be here. ⁓ And thank you for that introduction. It makes me sound like I'm a lot bigger than I am. I like to think about this industry as a really just a humble industry and ⁓ the work that we do putting people to work is just, it's really important work and that's what keeps me going every day. So thank you for the invite, Steve. It's my pleasure. You know, you've had in all seriousness, long and illustrious career. you know, more than 25 years in the industry. And when you take a look at that entire career, what early experiences kind of shaped who you are today as the CEO, the president of a Deco? know, Steven, it's when I think about that, like one story always comes to mind and it's, we probably have stories like this. But I remember this was, I would say probably early 2000s. And one of the offices that I was ⁓ working in was in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I always got in early. It was about 7 a.m. I came into the office. were there already. There was a young lady was sitting in the lobby. She was applying for work in our office. And I remember she looked at me and she said, ⁓ Gino, you're Gino, right? And she said, you, thank you. And she, she told me that I had put her to work, ⁓ you know, a couple of years ago. And at that time she, she had been going through some hardship in her life and low self-esteem and she had some challenges she was dealing with. And she said, you took a chance on me and you put me in a job as a leadership role at that time. And, ⁓ she said, you know, because of that job, I now I'm back to, you know, for another one. She goes, but it changed my whole life. It changed the direction of my life. I now drive a school bus for my children. I was able to send my children to the schools I wanted them to go to. And it was a moment that touched me. And what it did for me is it brought to life what we do and the purpose of what we do. And I think that changed my leadership. I think it forever kind of changed the trajectory of my leadership because I realized that our job as leaders isn't just to set targets, but it's to tie them to something that matters. And for us in this industry, think purpose turns a team of people into a high performing team and compared to just a group of people working together. I think it really changed, ⁓ changed my leadership philosophy and forever had an impact. that's really interesting. Let me follow up. Purpose leads to high performing teams. What do you look for when you hire people to see if they have or are purpose inclined, if that makes sense? They may not know a lot about a Deco and maybe they are, but Do you interview for that purpose for the industry or does that come later? You know, sometimes both, I'd say, Stephen, because sometimes people find purpose in their work. You know, over the years, I mean, how many people say, I fell into the staffing industry? Yeah. You know, there's not really a staffing major in college. And I think at times both, but it's very simple. I like to keep things very simple. And you know, sometimes just Why do you want this job? Why do you work? And those types of answers can give you an idea of whether someone has a greater purpose for what they do. You know, I think, I think basically keep it very simple. that's a recipe for success. And speaking of that, I wanted to also follow up on something you said, because you're going to notice, Gino, today, I'm going to pay very close attention to what you say because I really value what you say. So one of the things you just said was I always got in early at 7 a.m. Tell us more about that. My kids, my kids would love that because I have a saying with my kids and you know, you're early, you're on time, you're on time, you're late, you're late, you're fired. I tell my kids all that. In fact, this morning, you know, I saw my boys get up about 6 a.m. I told them good afternoon. But you know, the The morning is a great time. I've always found the morning to be a supercharged time. It's a time of peace. It's a time of reflection. I usually do my reflections in the morning as well. And it's also a time to get work done undisturbed. That's fantastic. is that back when you were getting in early, when did you know this is ⁓ a lifetime for me? This is what I want to do with the rest of my life. This is an avocation. it's interesting, Steven, uh, and, and, you know, I'd love to hear about your experience too. I'll share. It kind of goes back to that story, right? I don't think there was like a tipping point for me, like a, inflection point that said, Oh, I want this industry forever. But what it was, was I always say that our job, that we have a sacred responsibility when we give people work. And I really have always believed that. And it was that story that sort of brought that to life. That was the first moment that it brought it to life for me. I think when we give people work, we help them realize their dreams. We enable them to have the most basic necessities that every human being on this planet has. I just, for me, that is so important. And I think Like the impact that we have on lives and society in the communities we're in. And at a Deco, we do that scale. And so you think about like, it's not just the impact on this one life. Even though we take that, we take that very seriously because every life matters. But now we do it across, across the United States, across North America and across the globe. It's a pretty amazing thing. It really is. It's a wonderful thing to be so proud of. You asked me about my story. My story is interesting. And it's kind of a case of make your own luck. And this goes back way back to 2001. So I, that was back when I was a lawyer still. And I was considering what my next move was. I had done the corporate law job, the big law firm job. And this was before. for Really the internet had taken off and my undergrad, my university Bucknell sent out a big, huge alumni directory. And I went through and I looked through every lawyer in the Washington DC area. And I called every lawyer in the Washington DC area. And I said, I'd like to learn more about what you're doing, your career and your perspective. Nine out of 10 said, let's get together next week. One of those people was Ed Lenz, former general counsel. And I'll never forget it. I looked up his name and I was home and I looked up the ASA website and I called my wife into the room and I literally said this to her. I know what I want to do with my life. Look at this. Look at what they do. This is amazing. So I called up Ed. He had gone to Bucknell. We both went to the same law school as well. And the rest is history. He actually said, we never have lawyers leave ASA. Two weeks later, one of his lawyers left. He called me up and then the rest is history. But it was really a case of serendipity and the rest is history. It's fantastic. Wow. So you knew right from the moment that you were introduced to the business. That's a great story. I mean, it just captivated me. was all the stories on the ASA website of changed lives, things that you just talked about. So it just drew me right in. So let's kind of pivot and bring it a little bit more to present day and talk about, you know, your leadership and particularly in an industry with highs and lows and so much volatility variability. You know, what do you think your most critical responsibility is in these changing times? Not only with volatility but changing market dynamics and everything that's going on. I think and Stephen, I'm going to get back to you. A lot of what we'll talk about is keeping things simple. And I think, you know, responsibility of leaders today, number one is never forget that we have to deliver results and, ⁓ you know, both top and bottom line results. And those help to secure people's jobs. Those help to You know, it helps because you are impacting people's lives, more people's lives. So I think always keeping results in front. That's number one. think number two is making sure that people have purpose, making sure that people are inspired, ⁓ you know, having lofty ambitions. And then, you know, the third thing, and I mentioned this about inspiring, we're in a people business, Steven, and we're going to talk about technology, I'm sure. an AI. But at our core, our core is still a people business. You know, we want to use technology to enable that. And I think because we are a people business, it is really important to make sure that people are inspired, they have purpose, they're motivated, they're excited to come in every day. People have to ⁓ You know, they have to find that within themselves, but as leaders, we can provide a backdrop to really inspire people. So I think, I would think it would be those three things is results orientation, deliver results, purpose and inspiration. How do you, what specific steps do you take to foster that energy with your employees at every level to want to make them come in every day to love what they're doing every day? It's interesting. It's a lot of things, right? It's not just one simple recipe. It's a lot of things, but when you give people purpose and you have ambition and you have lofty ambitions, like if you look at some of the greatest, like that was one of the things that Vince Lombardi, he's one ⁓ of my ⁓ great coaches that I always admired. And he always said the loftiest of ambitions. And when you set lofty ambitions, you achieve those. It's kind of like ⁓ Michelangelo. told the story about if you want to hit the bullseye with an arrow, you have to aim very high and the arc comes and that's how you hit the bullseye. so I think, you know, that's number one, like, ⁓ you know, it's the beginning of the year. And if you look at a deco, we had a deco, we, we invest in what we call kickoffs, kickoffs to really motivate, inspire, share stories, recognition. And we do that across the world because we recognize the importance of having a motivated, aligned team of people. You know, I always say with our leadership teams, motivation plus alignment equals unstoppable. And I've proven that over the years, many, many times. You know, you speak of purpose and alignment. I think that's so important and very astute. You know, one of the things that I focused on when I took over as a SA CEO was just that. And what really I focused on was ASA has a lot of disparate parts. Gee, no, you know, we, as you know, and our members know, we're a trade association and we do lobbying and legal. We do research. We do education. You know, we do a whole bunch of different things. And what I needed to do as one of the first orders of business is help define for our staff. What is it that what's our why? What's our purpose? Right. And ultimately it is to fuel member growth. That is our purpose at AASA. And once we define that, everything, not everything, nothing's perfect, but a lot fell into place for the staff because now we had the North Star, right? And we had the why, then we did the how, and then the what. But we always keep that in mind. Is this furthering our members' growth? I love that, Stephen. And that's exactly. exactly what I was, what I was talking about. That's what we, you know, what I aspire to do as a, as a leader as well. it simple. As you just said, it's not brain surgery, but it's important. You know, it's, it's important to define that. Now you just mentioned a few minutes ago, the hottest topic perhaps in the world today. So we're going to address that and that's AI. and your thoughts on artificial intelligence and how it will impact our industry. know, ⁓ it's interesting, Stephen. I had an opportunity to go to the Wharton School ⁓ last year and took a course and got a certification on AI. And the Wharton School defined AI as a tool to help humans make better decisions. so, which is... which is interesting that AI will actually help us make better, faster decisions, more informed, more data available. And, you know, what we've seen, I remember, Stephen, in 2024, we had done a global study and AI was saving people about an hour a day. In 2025, that increased to two hours a day. Every recruiter has been saved two hours a day. and all the positions in our industry. And this year we're confident it's going to grow even more. And one of the things that we don't do well, because we also found in that same study that time is not really being repurposed in a productive way. That people, they didn't have a strategy for how they were using that free time. And I think that as leaders, we have to make sure that saving that right time, is focused on the right things. you know, we, I just really believe that AI, AI has the potential not to replace jobs in our industry, but to supercharge them. And, you know, technology scales, but it still comes back to our purpose decides the direction. And so for me, and for a Deco, we believe that AI Will will supercharge our business but at the end of the day it will free us up to do more Human centered work and you think about Steven the magic in our business the magic still takes place when we're face to face When we're face to face with our customers with our candidates and every day I see proof of this because I hear about all these great successes and there it's always the face to face interactions and ⁓ You know, AI enables us maybe to do more, to do more impactful meetings and to have smarter engagements. And, but that's kind of, I would say that that would, that's how we feel about AI. That's how I personally do. That's very helpful. Let me ask you your perspective on this. You know, in terms of where we are today and how I view AI, particularly with respect to ASA, I'm kind of, and the team is using it. Well, first of all, let me back up. I'm, we've instituted a mandatory AI training policy for everybody in the entire organization, because I just think it is the most profound tool at least that I'll see in my lifetime. But the way I view it for ASA is twofold. to increase efficiencies. our internal operations, but Two, and I think this is where at least some organizations may not be using it in an optimum fashion. And that is using it more holistically to help leaders chart the future of their organizations. We're so focused on the operational efficiencies and the day-to-days. I think the big play could be or equal play. how to help us evolve into our next iteration. know, just this morning, was, I mean, it was 45 minutes on ChatGPT going back and forth about where ASA is gonna be in three and five years. And it was fascinating stuff. I don't know, what are your thoughts? Does that resonate? Yeah, it really does, ⁓ Steven. You know, it's interesting, because if you look at the AI, you know, most companies are using it, but it's very targeted small use cases, they're piloting it. And actually most pilots today are not, they're not producing the intended results. And most of them are, you know, are either, you know, they're moving on to the next or they're not working and people are still staying with it. And so I think that's really, really insightful, Stephen, to use it to chart in a big picture way. For us, it is our industry. You know, our industry has been a human resource ecosystem. It's been a very traditional industry, very slow to change. And I think we are at an inflection point and if we could somehow harness AI to help chart our course in the future, I think that ⁓ has tremendous potential. Where do you think that you just mentioned inflection point? Where do you think, what do you think the potential of this industry is? Where do you see it going? Are we going to do the same things? Are we going to evolve more into statement of work? Are we going to do something completely different that we don't even know about right now? All those things are possible. You know, and Stephen, this is the fourth industrial revolution, right? AI and automation is number four. Now we've had three industrial revolutions. Every single one of them was, you know, when we were in it, it was uncertainty and maybe there was some you know, initial job loss in certain areas, but every single one was followed by a period of tremendous prosperity, growth, and new jobs. And in every case, it changed the types of jobs that were being done. And so, and even like just advances in machinery, advances in automation, and I have so many stories about... You know, automating warehouses, those same warehouses. Now we have more people working in and because it increased the productivity, it increased the throughput. So, so I think, yes, we are at an inflection point. For me, I think I don't, I don't have a crystal ball. Will it become more SOW focused? We're certainly seeing that trend. MSP as a technology is growing as ⁓ a, you know, greater market share in our business. There are some trends that we are seeing. But I do believe that rather than the fear of AI replacing work, that we should, you know, they say, and I think this was ⁓ at one of our meetings, I forget who said this, but you won't be replaced by AI, but you will be replaced by someone using it. So I think we have to identify what are the skills that will change in the future and make sure that ⁓ we're helping people to skill up. And we're helping people to be able to adapt to a new job. Yeah. What would you say your biggest challenge is right now? My biggest challenge? know, I think I probably would have to say the the macro environment that we're in. It's still an uncertain environment. Uncertainty causes decision delay and the industry has been down for now over three years, which is unheard of. That's what I talk about with the inflection point and that backdrop doesn't provide headwinds for us or it doesn't provide tailwinds. It's headwinds that we're, we're facing and, and, ⁓ you know, some of our customers in an uncertain way or an uncertain environment, you know, it causes them to make certain types of decisions. so I would say, ⁓ I'd say that's probably the biggest challenge. And in that kind of environment, how do you keep your people? motivated and positive. So, Stephen, you know, it's interesting. Like, ⁓ I remember COVID, right? Yeah. Remember COVID? ⁓ yeah. Everybody was laying off thousands of people, thousands of people, thousands. And it was a time of great uncertainty. And when that happened, I sort of had this epiphany and I saw it to myself. We are going to be in a state of crisis, a permanent state of crisis from this point on. It kind of has been. It's gone from one crisis to another, geopolitical, trades and tariffs, know, correction, COVID correction, especially certain, ⁓ sectors of our industry. Now our industry has been down now for three years and plus. you know, what I, I sort of had developed what called crisis leadership skills. And so there's a couple of things with that. course, always, you said it earlier, Stephen, always stay true to your North Star. Okay, that's number one. Stay true to your North Star. Stay grounded in your purpose, no matter what. And I would say calm, calm, steady leadership is important. And I'll tell a couple of stories like during COVID. And these are things that stayed, ⁓ stayed with me since then. ⁓ You know, when COVID hit us, everybody was laying off like crazy. You know, our temp business dropped by 40 % in many cases and our temporary, number of temporary employees. And I remember everyone was laying off and you know what? I didn't lay anyone off in my previous role as a CEO. Didn't lay anyone off. We held on. We stayed the course. And what was the result of that? The result of that was we had a a loyal group of employees, and we rocketed into the recovery at a much higher rate than any of our competitors did. And another thing that we did was we launched daily meetings. And I remember when I first said that, our team was, they were like, but it ended up being a blessing in disguise. And you know, since then, like our leadership team, our executive leaders that run North America, we get together. We get together consistently every week. And we don't have these crazy last minute meetings all the time because we know we have a standing meeting every week. We have an agenda. People are able to contribute to that agenda. And I think having that's part of like calm, steady leadership, having a good, you know, good communication, transparent communication and not reacting, not always having this knee jerk reaction every time something happens. ⁓ That's critical. And I think many companies in our industry do react, you know, every time the quarterly earnings come out. I think it's important. North Star, and I always say eyes on the horizon. Stay true to what your long-term plans and ambitions are. What do you think? ⁓ I'm sure you've seen other leaders make mistakes that you've learned from. And if you could... share with our listeners some of those mistakes that you've seen and said, okay, I gotta not do that. I gotta stay away from that. Anything jump out at you? That's a really good question, Steve. And I'd say two things, right? One is not always reacting. Stay calm, stay grounded, and make your decisions based on ⁓ careful, pragmatic, analysis. And I think that's number one. Number two, I'd say, and Stephen, this is another, it's a really simple one. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Make them over and over. But be relentless about learning from them and don't do it again. And, you know, don't make the same mistakes. And I think that's a lesson if I think back, you know, on my career, that's a lesson that I learned early on that mistakes were really one of the the golden nuggets and that we should encourage, we should encourage people to make mistakes or to fail, but do it fast, move on to the next and learn from it relentlessly. let's come back full circle. We started by talking about you early in your career. You have a number of young workers, obviously in a deco. You mentioned you have kids. Your advice to early professionals now, any advice that you have for them in terms of advancing their careers and success? ⁓ would say, I'd say probably three things. Understand what drives you. Not to sound colloquial about understanding your purpose, but understand what motivates you. Why are you working? Understand your why. And so it comes back to purpose. That's number one. I always say in our company, believe or leave. Believe in what you do. Find the love in what you do. If you can't find that, it's okay. Go do something that you have that. That's number one. If you have that, everything else works out. Number two, work hard. We talked about getting up early. Work hard. Work harder than anybody else and you'll be successful. And then the third one would be always understand what the objectives are on your job and exceed those. When we talk about results, whatever your job is, understand what your objectives are, how you measure, and do your best to exceed those every time. that was something that has served me well throughout my career. That's fantastic advice. It really is. It's tremendous. I'm new to being the CEO, and I'm fascinated by When you stepped in at a Deco to be president, know, I'm sure change was coming at you left and right. Your executive team looking at your executive team, looking at a whole bunch of things. How did you prioritize? How did you get through it all? Steven, I know you know this, right? Drinking out of the fire hose and you picture that this giant fire hose water splashing everywhere. And yeah, that, that first. For certain, was the case. And you know, it was interesting. I did a couple of things, Stephen. Think about Lake Colman steady, right? But I did a couple of things. Number one, as an industry expert already, an industry veteran. So I had to consciously say, I'm not going to have any preconceived notions. I'm not gonna come in and start solutioning right away. I'm not gonna think I have the answers. And that didn't come natural. Right? Because I've been doing this for so long. ⁓ you have a problem. I know how to solve that. It didn't come natural. I had to work at that. So that was number one. And I think that the second thing was really taking the time. I call it a listening tour. Anytime I get a new responsibility and even I think even just like, think I probably, I'm probably going to do it again this year, but going on a listening tour at every level in the organization and asking questions and really listening to the answers. And that was a source of I got completely different feedback from the branch recruiters, from the mid-level managers, from the executives, from our executive committee in Zurich, Switzerland. I got completely different answers depending on the people I was talking to. So I really didn't want to make assumptions. You know, really wanted to learn. After that, I did a diagnosis. And I spent about 90 days on that. I did a diagnosis. Here's what we're doing well, here's what we're not. And then really embraced and engaged the team in helping to determine what we were going to do to, you know, double down on the stuff we're doing great and, and improve the things that we weren't. What were the things that you were doing great that jumped out at you right away? There's, there's so many, Steve. And, know, some of it is kind of. There is some secret recipe components to it, but I'll give you a couple right, right off the bat. Like the first thing I noticed was the, the customers that we serve, our customer list is unbelievable. It's, it's, you know, it's probably the strongest customer list in the industry. Some great, great customers that we serve and we do it at scale and we do things like on sites, we do really, really well. And we have, you know, hundreds of those across the country and And filling orders, we do really, really well. And so matching people with jobs. So you think about those things. How do you harness that to really, this was our theme for the year was level up, to level up what we're doing. I'd say those, those were probably some of the, and then another thing that I, that I really love about a Deco is we, I always say it like our hearts beat red. Our hearts beat a Deco red. And there's an amazing culture here. Sometimes you have, you can have things like change fatigue when you change and you can have people that are tired. But at our core, we have an amazing culture. And I say, those are the things that I noticed right away. everybody, many CEOs, presidents, leaders, corporate leaders talk about that culture and It may be one of the most often talked about things and many leaders think they have a great culture when in fact they may not. And so how did you foster that great environment and how do you keep it going? You know, that's a great question, Stephen. You know, it doesn't happen overnight. Culture is not something you can flip a switch, right? It takes time. I've been in this job for three years now and we, our leadership team has worked really hard on this. think, you know, a couple of things. Remember like what Peter Drucker said, culture eats strategy for breakfast. You know, when you think about what that means, it means that culture is is more important and more impactful to a company's results than their actual strategy. It also means that a company could have the best strategy in the world, but if somebody comes along with a great culture, they can win against that company with great strategy. So it is really, really important. think you have to be consistent. You have to listen. You have to be transparent. You have to be authentic and humble and vulnerable. Your leadership team has to be approachable. You know, you just have to, you have to understand what are the things about your culture, embrace those, embrace them and recognize them. And I think, you know, every opportunity you have to recognize when people are doing things great and that really helps to build culture. But it has to be done, it has to be done over time and it has to be done constantly. It has to be done every day. Well, a lot of the traits you just rattled off. And I'm being sincere, transparent, humble, accessible, whatnot. You have been during this program. I mean, I can see it. can hear it. I'm sure our listeners can hear it. And I just want to say how much I appreciate it. Your time, your wisdom, your transparency. It's been great. I could speak with you for hours and then you wouldn't get any business done. but I really mean that and I want to sincerely thank you, Gino. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much, Steve. And it's been a real pleasure to be with you on this podcast and ⁓ I look forward to ⁓ great careers together. Absolutely. As we navigate the stormy waters of the future. Yes, to success. Amazing. What an incredible conversation. Thank you, Gino, for joining us. We will be releasing new episodes of the ETE Podcast on the first and third Tuesday of every month, so be sure to subscribe on your favorite platform. And if you've enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review. We love to hear from our listeners. Thank you again. One more big thank you to our incredible guest, Gino, and we will see you next time on the ETE Podcast.