The age of engagement – Taking the Hire Road

On this week’s episode of Taking the Hire Road, host Leah Shaver, president and CEO of The National Transportation Institute, sat down with Beth Potratz, founder and CEO of driver recruiting platform Drive My Way, and Leigh Sauter, founder of Glass Ball Consulting. 

Potratz and Sauter spoke about why they started their new venture, Spark Change Lab, how fleet personnel in any role can participate in their workshops, and the resources they’ll be providing to recruiting and retention professionals about critical topics.

“Change is hard,” Shaver said. “Not just navigating change when it flies at us, but also actively trying to promote change within our organizations to propel success. Enter Spark Change Lab.”

Founded by two longtime trucking and supply chain pros, Spark Change Lab seeks ways to tackle and spur change within supply chain organizations head-on. 

“I’ve spent my career leading change and transformation initiatives,” said Potratz. “I’ve always wanted to make a difference with our industry’s toughest challenges.”

Sauter and Potratz met at a seminar Potratz was facilitating, and they discovered that they shared a passion for driving change and helping people solve real problems. They wanted to improve employee capabilities and commitment at every level in supply chain organizations.

After discussing the major challenges in supply chain management and staffing, Sauter and Potratz considered how they might put their talents to work, and eventually they conceived the idea for Spark Change Lab.

“I was so excited to partner with Beth, because she wasn’t just talking to an audience at her seminar,” said Sauter. “She was sincere about getting to the bottom of people’s real problems and solving them.”

Spark Change Lab takes a three-pronged approach to getting its message out: widespread access via webinars, live labs and industry conferences, and internal audits at the company level, where the team works directly with leaders to figure out specific solutions to day-to-day challenges. 

“The online webinars introduce the methodology and help people understand the power of the format,” Sauter explained.

Spark Change Lab brings together industry experts from all over the country to tackle pressing issues. In May, they hosted their first major webinar – attracting, retaining and supporting veterans transitioning to civilian life in supply chain careers. 

“We want to bridge the gap and help companies tap into that valuable talent pool and make sure that they know how to support American veterans in a meaningful way,” said Sauter.

They also held a lab on managing mergers and acquisitions in the industry, which was particularly timely given the economic pressures facing many freight businesses this year. 

“It’s a critical topic for industry leaders to understand in the context of trucking companies so we can see the best outcomes,” Sauter said.

Excited to continue their momentum, Spark Change Lab will also be offering live events in the near future. “We will have two in-person labs, because it’s vital to bring that energy and collaborative spirit into this market,” Sauter said.

Spark Change Lab will be back at the Transporting, Marketing & Sales Association (TMSA) Executive Summit for 2024, focusing on how to take marketing from a support function to a strategic driver of growth for trucking companies.

“We’re thrilled about our upcoming live lab at Women in Trucking, titled No More Idling:

From Lip Service to Real Progress for Women in Trucking,” said Sauter. “It’s designed to address the disconnect between companies’ publicly stated objectives and the reality that many women feel working in the freight industry.”

“We also take Spark Change Lab directly into companies to address whatever specific internal challenges they’re facing,” said Potratz. “Our services are designed to leverage the wisdom from the company’s own talent, with our team acting as objective facilitators to spark change.”

“Those are dynamic, collaborative sessions that give employees at all levels a chance to engage and a voice in problem solving and decision making,” said Potratz. 

Spark Change Lab uses these different mediums in hopes that they can reach the variety of organizations around the country that have different needs. “We don’t want to keep all the insights to ourselves,” Sauter said. 

“We realize people all learn differently, so from each lab, we have takeaways,” said Sauter. “We summarize the challenge and how you might approach it within your organization. We produce resource guides and playbooks with specific instructions for how to take actionable steps.”

The problems that Spark Change Lab seeks to tackle are identified by members of the supply chain community itself. 

Some of the topics brought to the organization’s attention, according to Potratz, include creating a culture that fosters diversity, equity and inclusion, how to prepare individuals to assume managerial roles, and what skills and competencies new managers need to work both up and down in the organization as opposed to the skills they mastered as individual contributors.

“We also plan to talk about how to address better adoption and human behavior when adopting new technologies or processes,” Potratz said. “It’s important for us to be able to hear from ground-level talent in every sector and address their concerns head-on.”

“We can tackle any organization with the Spark Change Lab methodology,” said Potratz.  

Click here to learn more about Spark Change Lab.

Sponsors: DriverReach, The National Transportation Institute, Career Now Brands, Carrier Intelligence, Infinit-I Workforce Solutions, WorkHound, Asurint, Arya By Leoforce, Seiza, Drive My Way, F|Staff, Trucksafe Consulting, Seated Social, Repowr