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Commitment to Community E43

February 12, 2024 by Karen

Arizona Good Business

Commitment to Community E43

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Commitment to Community E43

In this episode of Arizona Good Business, host, Thomas Barr discusses with Andy Shirk, CEO of Educational Services, Inc., their mission to address staffing challenges in schools amidst teacher pay issues and shifts in teaching perception. They emphasize the need for more educators and ESI’s role in supporting HR managers. Shirk remains committed to ESI’s mission, while also exploring the complexities of operating in the education sector and bonding over shared interests like playing the bass guitar. .

Barr and Shirk explore the complexities of operating a business in the education sector, including challenges such as teacher shortages and reliance on emergency certifications. Shirk shares his leadership perspective, focusing on empowering and supporting his team, while they bond over their shared interest in playing the bass guitar. Shirk highlights the value of community events like the Arizona Good Business Summit for networking and learning from others, emphasizing the importance of community engagement and collaboration in addressing complex challenges.

Serving Arizona for 25 years, Educational Services (ESI) is focused on helping solve the staffing crisis for public school districts, governments and colleges. ESI has a passion for helping people by making a positive impact in education and public service.

ESI’s featured services include a return-to-work program known as RetireRehire, and SubSource, the largest substitute staffing program in the state. ESI has proudly served over 13,000 of Arizona’s public retirees and actively employs over 7,000 substitute educators.

Andy Shirk is the President & CEO of ESI, delighted to lead a company where heart and integrity are cherished in a people-centered culture.

Prior to joining ESI, Andy lead TrueRoots Development for 7 years advising business owners throughout the Valley.

Kindness, curiosity and wisdom are his core values. His greatest joy is serving people with warmth and compassion which is the bedrock of his career. Whether as a business leader or playing upright bass in the local music scene, Andy genuinely loves to create the setting for others to shine.

Follow ESI on LinkedIn and Facebook.

About Arizona Good Business

What is good business? What are local businesses doing to build a better Arizona?

Join Arizona Good Business to hear from local companies who are:

Centering purpose at the forefront of business
Creating social well-being for the community
Prioritizing sustainability and positive environmental practices
Growing strong company cultures through building authentic teams
Ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion are involved in all business decisions

Arizona Good Business features local business leaders that are redefining what it means to do good business.

About Your Host

Thomas Barr is the Executive Director for Local First Arizona, the largest coalition of local businesses in North America. He advocates for a strong local business community that contributes to building vibrancy, equity, and prosperity across the state. A proud Arizona native and graduate of Arizona State University, Thomas leads the business coalition of Local First Arizona by advocating for the economic and cultural benefits provided by building strong local economies.

Thomas steers the strategic direction of LFA’s major programs and initiatives as well as the engagement of over 3000 businesses across Arizona. As Executive Director, Thomas guides a team of statewide senior directors overseeing the execution of LFA’s communication strategy, major initiatives and key partnerships, as well as the collaboration of over 30 staff implementing work in entrepreneurship programs, small business advocacy, local food initiatives, sustainability, urban development and community building. He frequently speaks to groups locally and nationally, presenting the impact of Local First Arizona and the importance of local economy work in building prosperity.

Outside of Local First Arizona, Thomas has participated in volunteering his time to many causes and organizations throughout the Valley including Young Nonprofit Professionals – Phoenix, Equality Arizona, Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits, Arizona Commission on the Arts, Heritage Square Foundation and Phoenix Legal Action Network. Additionally, Thomas is a 2018 Phoenix Magazine 40 Under 40 honoree, alumni of Arizona Leading for Change, and current participant in Valley Leadership Institute’s 40th cohort.

Connect with Thomas on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Honesty in the Workplace – Do Your Employees Want to Stay or Open Their Own Food Truck? E23

June 30, 2022 by Karen

Phoenix Business Radio

Honesty in the Workplace - Do Your Employees Want to Stay or Open Their Own Food Truck? E23

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Honesty in the Workplace – Do Your Employees Want to Stay or Open Their Own Food Truck? E23

Andy and Kristy were another perfect pairing for the Culture Crush Business Podcast. Kristy discussed what her team does to help leaders to enhance culture and optimize performance, while Andy gave us insight into the heart of his company and ways other leaders can support their internal teams.

According to Kristy and her team, the four main areas that individuals in the workplace are searching for is to be known, grown, included and inspired. These four pieces are areas that Kristy and her team focus on improving but these are four main areas that your team and company can start to focus on as well!

When improving company culture and focusing on your people, the ROI is there in the end. There are a handful of tips that came from the conversation that can help improve the company culture, increase retention, and attract the right new candidates.

So where do you start?

Take the time to know your people and who they are. Support and grow your people. Provide them professional development support and stop being afraid that they “might” leave the company. Guess what? They might stay too! Reach out to your staff and ask for their thoughts and input. Allow your staff the opportunity to feel inspired with the work that your company is doing.

Both Know Your Talents and ESI are perfect examples of companies that are doing great things and allowing their staff to feel inspired with what they are doing. The next step is honesty. This means that leadership is honest to the staff and they provide a space for the staff to be honest as well. This opens the opportunity for staff to be open with their bosses and management about their goals and future growth. Maybe the employee wants to grow in the company or maybe they want to have a food truck someday. You’ll never know unless you give them the space to open up.

This podcast is for any level leader that understands culture is going to happen whether you work on it or not. So why not work on it and make it better? You don’t have to be sick to work on your health and your culture doesn’t have to be bad to want to work and improve it.

All in all- when you start to focus on improving the company culture at your company, once you start you have to keep going. You can’t talk to employees about their feelings, thoughts, and ideas and then not consider them as you grow and improve. Andy put it simply, “You can’t put the genie back in the bottle.”

In the end- as a leader- be bold, courageous, purposeful, and mindful.

Know Your Talents (KYT) is a management consulting firm that enhances culture and optimizes performance at every level. Our expertise is centered around four key principles: helping businesses know, include, inspire and grow their employees.

Kristy Bach serves as the President at Know Your Talents, a premier management consulting partner working with leaders to enhance culture and optimize performance at every level. Know Your Talents is the corporate division of LearnKey, a workforce education solutions provider. Kristy leads the corporate division enabling the company to offer a complete “enterprise development solution” that aligns people strategy to business strategy.

Kristy brings her success to immediately connect with, consult, and inspire individuals across every level and discipline, building trust and authentic relationships with clients, team members and peers. Prior to joining KYT, Kristy was with BestCompaniesAZ a leading Arizona Marketing Company. Additionally, she served in a COO capacity for over ten years at The Finders, a local staffing and recruiting firm, specializing in Technology, Human Resources, and Finance/Accounting.

Kristy currently serves on the Board of Directors for a local non-profit organization, Career Connectors and serves on the GCU Technology Advisory Board. Kristy is a graduate of the University of Arizona and she enjoys spending time with her husband and family, friends, community involvement, running, biking and hiking in her free time.

Follow Know Your Talents on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Educational Services (ESI) is the leading provider of employee staffing solutions for Arizona school districts, as well as assisting governments and colleges. Founded in 1999 by three educators, ESI has a passion for helping people by making a positive impact in education and public service.

ESI’s featured services include a return-to-work program known as RetireRehire, and SubSource, the largest substitute staffing program in the state. ESI has proudly served over 10,000 of Arizona’s public retirees and actively employs over 6,000 substitute educators.

Andy Shirk is the President & CEO of ESI, delighted to lead a company where heart and integrity are cherished in a people-centered culture.

Prior to joining ESI, Andy lead TrueRoots Development for 7 years advising business owners throughout the Valley.

Kindness, curiosity and wisdom are his core values. His greatest joy is serving people with warmth and compassion which is the bedrock of his career.

Whether as a business leader or playing upright bass in the local music scene, Andy genuinely loves to create the setting for others to shine.

Follow ESI on LinkedIn and Facebook.

About Culture Crush

Culture is not just a tag word to be thrown around. It is not something you throw in job descriptions to draw people to applying for jobs within a company.

According to Marcus Buckingham and Ashely Goodall in their book Nine Lies About Work, “Culture is the tenants of how we behave. It’s like a family creed. This is how we operate and treat each other in the family.”

As a growing company- Culture Crush Business Podcast is THE culture improvement resource that supports companies and leaders. Our Mission is to improve company cultures so people WANT to go to work. Employees and leaders should like where they work and we think this is possible.

Within the company: Culture Crush has Vetted Resources and Partnerships with the right people and resources that can help improve your company culture.

On this podcast: We focus on everything surrounding businesses with good company culture. We will talk with company leaders to learn about real-life experiences, tips, and best practices for creating a healthy work environment where employees are finding joy and satisfaction in their work while also striving and growing within the company. We also find the companies that offer resources to help improve company culture and showcase them on the show to share their tips and tricks for growing culture.

About the Host

Kindra Maples is spartan racer, past animal trainer, previous magician’s assistant, and has a weakness for Oreo cookie shakes. Her journey working with people actually started working with animals as a teenager (don’t worry we won’t go that far back for her bio).

She worked for over 15 years in the zoo industry working with animals and the public. Her passion of working with animals shifted into working with people in education, operations and leadership roles. From there her passion of leadership and helping people develop has continued to grow.

Then came the opportunity for leading the Culture Crush Business Podcast and she jumped on it. Leadership, growth, and strong company cultures are all areas that Kindra is interested in diving into further.

Shout Outs

We want to thank a few people for their behind the scenes effort in helping this relaunch to come to life. James Johnson with Tailored Penguin Media Company LLC.– It is a small, but powerful video production company with a goal to deliver the very best by articulating the vision of your brand in a visually creative way. Gordon Murray with Flash PhotoVideo, LLC. -Flash Gordon has been photographing since high school and evolving since then with new products that will equip, encourage, engage, and enable. Renee Blundon with Renee Blundon Design – She is not only one of the best free divers (that’s not how she helped with the podcast) but she is great with graphics design and taking the direction for the vision that you have while also adding creative ideas to bring to your vision to life.

These are just a few of the folks that supported the relaunch of the podcast. If you would like to be part of the Culture Crush team or would like to support underwriting the show- please reach out: info@culturecrushbusiness.com

Andy Shirk with ESI E1

August 27, 2020 by Karen

Phoenix Business Radio

Andy Shirk with ESI E1

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Andy Shirk with ESI E1

This could not have been a better start to the launch of the new CCAZ Podcast- People and Profit- Elevating Humanity through business. Andy Shirk, the Executive Vice President of ESI, was an absolute delight to have on the show. Not only do the listeners have the chance to learn about ESI and what the company does, but we have the opportunity to learn about Andy Shirk and his connection and growth.

Andy has had many years advising with a few companies in the valley before leading to his current role. We had the chance to learn about Andy and the journey that he has had with Conscious Capitalism and how that journey let him to his role with ESI. ESI is about more than just placing substitute teachers in needed roles. Through the conversation, as well as the Conscious Capitalism Stakeholder image in the background of Andy’s office, we are able to gain an insight on the company and how they align with the CCAZ movement.

Educational Services Inc. (ESI) is the leading provider of employee staffing solutions for Arizona school districts, as well as assisting governments and colleges. Founded in 1999 by three educators, ESI has a passion for helping people and making a positive impact in education.

ESI’s featured services include Arizona’s premier return-to-work program known as RetireRehire, its SubSource program, the largest substitute staffing program in the state, and International TeachAlliance, an innovative teacher cultural exchange program.

Andy Shirk is the Executive Vice President of ESI, delighted to lead a company aligned with the principle of Conscious Capitalism and supporter of Local First Arizona.

Prior to joining ESI, Andy lead TrueRoots Development for 7 years advising business owners throughout the Valley.

Follow ESI on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

About Our People and Profit Co-Hosts

Sarah McCraren is an Arizona native with a strong sense of community. Sarah spent many years in the corporate finance world specializing in the operational analysis, measurement and accountability systems, project management and software implementations. However, Sarah wanted to do work which was meaningful and would positively impact her community.

She found that saving lives and reducing injuries through comprehensive safety programs fit that bill. Sarah currently leads the McCraren Compliance team by keeping everyone focused on their primary purpose, creating workplaces where we all watch out for each other, and balancing the needs of all their stakeholders.

Sarah serves on the Boards for Conscious Capitalism Arizona and the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration Tucson Chapter, and is also active with the Arizona Builders Alliance, Arizona Rock Products Association , Arizona Transportation Builders and Women in Mining Az.

Sarah McCraren
Part of an Awesome Team
www.McCrarenCompliance.com
Creating Workplaces Where We All Watch Out for Each Other

Jeremy Neis is an Investment Advisor with Retirement Evolutions and a small business operator fueled by the desire to enrich the life experience. He grew up in the Chicago area and chased the sun to get a degree at the University of Arizona in human and organizational communications. After doing so, he returned to Illinois where over the next 15 years he would find joy in co-launching and growing a technology solutions company and establishing a family.

In 2014 he returned to the desert to join his current venture, Retirement Evolutions, where his focuses are: (1) Conduct planning with individuals and families so that they can maximize the likelihood of leading secure and comfortable retirements. (2) Through the business services arm, Resourceful, empower business leaders to care for the people that they will rely upon to be thriving, sustainable organizations.

Jeremy is a proud contributor to the Conscious Capitalism movement as he views it as a powerful vehicle to bring about greater prosperity and reduced suffering for our human family. Over his career he has had the privilege to work closely with hundreds of different enterprises across many markets and industries. A common theme emerges among those firms that he’s seen excel and that is to be great not just with what they are bringing to market, but also with the manner in which they are doing so.

About Our Sponsor – Conscious Capitalism Arizona

Business has the potential to be a powerful force for good.

Free enterprise capitalism has served to lift more people out of poverty than any other socio-economic system ever conceived – empowering social cooperation, human progress, and elevating humanity.

Good business is the answer to many of the global issues that humankind is facing. This is what we will dive into on the show.

We are working to change the capitalism narrative by shining a bright light on good business – telling the stories of conscious Arizona companies and encouraging others to follow in their footsteps.