Eric Chester, CSP, CPAE

Description: The biggest threat facing today’s business owners and managers is not how they can get new customers and improve sales, but rather how they can find, develop, and keep qualified employees to do the tough, vital work that keeps them in business. The kinds of jobs you rely on to keep the wheels of your business moving. They’re also the kinds of jobs where employee turnover is pandemic. Employers need to find and retain competent workers, but those workers are hard to find-hard to train-and even harder to keep. 

In this high-stakes hiring environment, employee engagement expert Eric Chester has gone behind the curtain to interview thousands of owners, managers, and leaders of small companies and franchises in order to uncover the best practices for attracting, developing-and yes, even retaining-amazing employees at all levels, often for jobs that aren’t considered sexy by today’s standards.

Discover how savvy employers have made bold moves, implemented guerrilla-recruiting tactics, and transformed the way the hiring and retention game is played. Eric’s presentation – live and virtual — will delight, surprise, and get you thinking-and the strategies and methodologies he illustrates will inspire you to change the way you recruit, hire, and lead your employees so you, too, can proudly say you’re FULLY STAFFED. 

Take-Aways: Participants will discover the secrets and proven strategies to:

Why good employees are so much harder to find.

Why you must stop fishing for employees…and start hunting.

How to be the best place to work in your community.

Creating, developing, and reinforcing the “7 pillars of an On Fire workplace culture” i.e., Compensation, Alignment, Atmosphere, Growth, Acknowledgment, Autonomy, and Communication to improve productivity and ignite performance.

Get your top-performing employees recruiting for you.

Recruit from high schools, colleges, trade schools, ex-military, retirees, etc.

Stabilize application flow even when compensation is less than what is offered elsewhere. 

How to determine ‘better fits’ to ensure those workers that are hired are safe bets for long-term employment. 

Incorporate onboarding tactics guaranteed to slash costly turnover.

Targeted Audience: Employers, Business Leaders, Franchisees, CEOs, C-Level Execs, HR & Operations, Senior & Mid-Level Managers

Targeted Industries: Retail, Food Service, Financial, Insurance, Healthcare/Senior Care, Hospitality, Maintenance/Cleaning/Sanitation, Construction, Manufacturing, Skilled & Professional Trade Associations

Description: After interviewing highly acclaimed C-level leaders across all industries, Eric has uncovered practices and principles Best Places to Work award-winning companies and great leaders are using to go beyond merely engaging today’s rapidly changing workforce, but to ignite what he terms “On Fire performance.” Through an entertaining multi-media presentation, participants discover best practice ideas, tactics, and strategies these esteemed employers use to consistently attract and retain top talent, encourage innovation and collaborative thinking, and inculcate the desire to out-perform yesterday’s best. Based upon the groundbreaking research in his fifth leadership book, On Fire at Work: How Great Companies Ignite Passion in Their People without Burning Them Out (Sound Wisdom, Oct. 2015), attendees take away actionable ideas for building an invincible army of entrepreneurs who take pride and ownership in their work.

Take-Aways: Participants will discover secrets and strategies renowned companies and legendary leaders are using to: consistently attract top talent with minimal recruiting; onboard new employees to make a lasting impression & cement their commitment from day one; create, develop & reinforce the “7 pillars of an On Fire workplace culture” (Compensation, Alignment, Atmosphere, Growth, Acknowledgment, Autonomy & Communication); eliminate employee burn out, significantly reducing costly turnover; remain relevant with the emerging workforce as young talent is developed into future leaders.

Targeted Audience: Employers, Business Leaders/Owners/Operators, Franchisees, CEOs, C-Level Execs, HR and Operations, Senior and Mid-Level Managers

Targeted Industries: Retail, Food Service, Financial, Insurance, Healthcare/Senior Care, Hospitality, Maintenance/Cleaning/Sanitation, Construction, Manufacturing, Skilled and Professional Trade Associations

Description: The Golden Rule instructs us to treat others the way we want to be treated.  But what if the other person doesn’t want the same things we do? What if treating others the way we want to be treated only creates friction between us?

In a perfect world, business leaders would employ a workforce that’s engaged, enthused, and ethically unassailable. The reality, of course, is that the new emerging workforce is streetwise and techno-savvy, but they’ve not been taught how to succeed in the workplace, at home, or at school. 

Eric’s presentation will illustrate why the work ethic in America has declined, and he’ll provide solid, actionable ideas and tools for developing the young worker and restoring the pride of a job well done, instilling within them the work ethic they should have received at home and in school – but didn’t.

Some of the key topics areas covered and learning objectives include:

• Discover the 7 Indisputable Core Values every employer demands from every worker, and why they are getting harder to find but are essential to develop.
• Find out how to promote a workplace culture rooted in reliability, professionalism, integrity and respect.
• Learn how to be an ‘up and over’ leader, moving employees from “Idle,” “Lucky,” and “Cheating” behaviors into the “Valued” Quadrant.
• Improve customer service in your business to break free from a “vending machine mentality” by learning how to instill an attitude of gratitude across your front line.

Targeted Audience: Employers, Business Leaders/Owners/Operators, Franchisees, CEOs, C-Level Execs, HR and Operations, Senior and Mid-Level Managers

Targeted Industries: Retail, Food Service, Hospitality/Entertainment, Maintenance/Cleaning/Sanitation, Construction, Manufacturing

Description: Research proves that most business leaders are not satisfied with the performance, productivity, and the service they are getting from their emerging workforce. The problem is not so much a skills gap as it is a values gap, which is apparent when analyzing the core work ethic values a growing number of employees are bringing to the job. This is the cause–and the effect–of Eric Chester’s compelling presentation based on his breakthrough leadership book, Reviving Work Ethic – A Leader’s Guide to Ending Entitlement and Restoring Pride in the Emerging Workforce. With his hilarious and unconventional style of delivery, Chester will help you build the seven essential work ethic values within your people to ensure their success and the success and sustainability of your business.

Key Take-Aways:

• An understanding of work ethic, how it has diminished and eroded over the past 100 years, and why.
• Identifying the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors today’s emerging workforce carry toward employment, careers, and work-life balance.
• A methodology for how to instill, develop, and reinforce the 7 essential work ethic values that business leaders see as “non-negotiables.”
• Seven proven strategies for increasing productivity and performance while decreasing costly absenteeism and turnover.

As workforce practitioners, one of the biggest challenges we face is bridging the gap between employers who are seeking skilled workers and workers who are equipped with those skills. Though many job seekers can be equipped with hard skills – those taught from books – most are lacking soft skills-those that involve self-management or “people skills.”

Eric Chester is a former HS business teacher and football coach-turned motivational speaker who spent 10 years speaking exclusively to students as an invited presenter at more than 1000 schools in North America. However, for the past 12 years, Eric has been speaking to and working with employers who are feeling the effects of an emerging workforce that is woefully prepared with the work ethic necessary to succeed. 

In his exciting multimedia keynote address, Eric will illustrate why the work ethic in America has declined, and will cover practical, proven ways you can develop and inculcate the soft skills that all employers demand.  You will learn how to teach your program participants the fundamental values of work ethic to increase job sustainability and employer satisfaction.  You’ll leave with a firm understanding of the seven fundamental core values of work ethic and proven strategies to make these “old school” values relevant and long-term.

Eric’s presentation will furnish you with an arsenal of proven techniques to develop work ethic in your job seekers and encourage better on-the-job performance and retention.

Targeted Audience: Employers, Business Leaders, CEOs, C-Level Execs, Contractors, Foremen, Senior and Mid-Level Managers and Supervisors 

Targeted Industries: Skilled Trade Associations, Construction, Manufacturing, Equipment Handling, Printing, Warehousing, Transportation, Fabrication, Electrical, Plumbing, HRVAC, Roofing, Carpentry, Flooring/Tile, Agricultural, etc. 

Description: Eric’s inspiring program for leaders, employers, contractors, etc. in skilled trade industries shows them what it takes to break through to the mindset of the emerging workforce. In this high-energy, dynamic, content-rich presentation, he reveals today’s best practices for recruiting, training, managing, and motivating the under-30 demographic to jobs many young people don’t consider ‘sexy’, and how to get them to perform up to their remarkable potential.

Throughout his program he integrates best practice examples that have been successful in increasing interest, building application flow, and developing an enigmatic generation of workers from the inside out. 

Take-Aways: Participants will discover the secrets and proven strategies that renowned companies and legendary leaders are using to:

• consistently attract top talent with minimal recruiting.
• onboard new employees to make a lasting impression and cement their commitment from day one.
• create, develop, and reinforce the “7 pillars of an On Fire workplace culture” i.e., Compensation, Alignment, Atmosphere, Growth, Acknowledgment, Autonomy, and Communication.
• eliminate employee burn out, significantly reducing costly turnover.
• remain relevant with the emerging workforce as they develop young talent into future leaders.
• become the ’employer-of-choice’ in their respective industry.