How Employer-Sponsored Immigration Fits Into Broader Workforce Planning, with John Dorer

In this podcast episode, I talk with John Dorer about how employer-sponsored immigration fits into broader workforce planning. As the CEO of eb3.work, John Dorer leads a team of immigration attorneys and recruiters who specialize in providing effective solutions for employer sponsored green card programs and entry-level labor shortage. With over 23 years of experience, they have extensive knowledge and expertise in the field of global mobility and the EB-3 visa program. Our mission is to partner with employers to help them eliminate their chronic entry-level labor shortages. Their team of recruiters and immigration attorneys leverage proprietary technology and processes to streamline the EB-3 application and approval process, and to ensure compliance and quality. They work with employers across various industries and regions, including construction, manufacturing, hospitality, QSR, janitorial services, multi-unit restaurant franchise groups, warehouses, and distribution centers. are passionate about creating opportunities for both employers and workers, and contributing to the economic and social development of the country.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  Welcome to the HCI family of podcasts. We're your source for personal, professional, and organizational growth and development. We share our own original research, explore industry trends, and interview executives and thought leaders from across the globe. Join us for practitioner-oriented content around all things leadership, HR, talent management, organizational development, and change management. Maximize your personal and organizational potential with the HCI family of podcasts.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  John Doerr, welcome to the conversation today.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  I'm so happy to be here, John. Appreciate it.

• 0:39Speaker 00

  It's a pleasure to be with you. Where are you joining us from?

• 0:41Speaker 01

  New York, New York City. It's starting to get a little bit chilly. So yeah.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, same here. Same here. I'm in the Salt Lake City area. Fall weather is upon us. It's beautiful. And it's a pleasure to sit down with you. We've had to reschedule this. You've been so patient with me. And battling technical issues and travel schedules and all of that, now we finally get a chance to sit down. And I'm thrilled to have the chance to be able to chat with you about employer-sponsored immigration and workforce planning. And really, an important topic and an increasingly complex topic. I think it's always been complex, but I think, given the current political and social landscape in the US right now, it's extra complex and a sticky issue. And so, you know, we'll try

• 1:29Speaker 00

  to explore and unpack this a little bit together today. I just wanted to do a really quick and brief introduction for John and give him a chance to share a little bit about himself with everybody. John Doerr is CEO at EB3 Work, staffing solutions for employers with labor shortages. And as a CEO at EB3 Work, he leads a team of immigration attorneys and recruiters who specialize in providing effective solutions for employer-sponsored green card programs and entry-level labor shortage. With over 23 years of experience, they have extensive knowledge and expertise in the field of global mobility and the EB3

• 2:13Speaker 00

  visa program. The mission of EB3 Work is to partner with employers to help them eliminate their chronic entry-level labor shortages. I'll pause there. John, anything you want to highlight about your own background before we dive on in?

• 2:28Speaker 01

  No, that's fantastic, John. Appreciate it.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  Okay. Well, why don't you frame up for us, then, just the general kind of challenge here? You deal with it every day as you're helping employers. But what do you see as kind of the major issue here that employers tend to be facing?

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you for doing what you do. You know, I think that, you know, human capital and navigating human capital, if you're in HR, if you're in C-suite, is becoming increasingly complex and important, and very often can be either a competitive advantage or a disadvantage. And so, you know, we primarily work with employers who have entry-level worker labor shortages. So whether it is a, you know, in the hospitality space, whether it's a, you know, multi-unit franchisee, maybe, you

• 3:27Speaker 01

  know, the client will have 15 or 20 McDonald's locations and 400 or 500 employees, and they are chronically understaffed at their entry level, like the crew member level. Same thing with construction companies, with construction laborers, you know, home care, janitorial, and any industry with entry level. And the two big challenges and pain points are not finding enough workers in the local area, and the high turnover. And so, those are two things that we work hard to address through showing our clients how to hire international

• 4:12Speaker 01

  talent to fill those positions where they've tried to fill them with US workers, and there simply aren't enough available. You know, we're...

• 4:21Speaker 00

  To put a fine point on this, the, you know, there's lots of rhetoric, like, we're in a politically polarized kind of world right now, right? So socially, politically, there's lots of angst around immigration and lots of rhetoric, okay? And I don't want to make this like a big political thing. I don't think it should be. I don't think it needs to be. I think what you're saying is absolutely true. There's like this push-pull mechanism in the labor economy. And the reality is, no matter how much rhetoric there is going on politically, the reality is, there are labor shortages. There are labor shortages, especially in types of jobs that the average American just does not want to fill, right?

• 5:05Speaker 00

  And so, it's not a matter of, you know, immigrants coming to steal jobs away from Americans. These are jobs that companies cannot fill, that people don't want, right? These are often entry-level positions. These are the, you know, like you said, these are construction, these are, these are service industry, hospitality, you know, these are jobs that are good jobs, but these are jobs that frankly, you know, you and I and our neighbors, you know, probably aren't wanting to go fill. And so, but they, we need them, like, we need these jobs. We want people to be doing them, right? And organizations

• 5:50Speaker 00

  need to fill them. And so, the question becomes, how do we do that? How do we fill those labor shortages? And we have a couple of choices. We either like figure out advanced robotics to have like robots do it all, or we bring people in to do them, right? And we're not there with advanced robotics. So that means we have an immigration system, and we have a process to bring people in legally, so they can have visas and they can do these jobs, right? And set aside all the rhetoric, all of the, all of the, you know, extra stuff, you know, that people talk about. And there is like an actual system that works, and

• 6:33Speaker 00

  people can do these jobs, and organizations need them, and we want them, right?

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And, you know, look, this is not a bad problem to have as a society. You know, you want your kids to be educated and to have a fulfilling career and high-paying job, right? And so, that's where we are. And so, but because of that, we don't have people to fill the entry-level first-time jobs. And, you know, countries around the world use immigration to do that. And, yeah, and in terms of, you know, I refuse to be dragged into a political debate, because this is, this is, you know, not political

• 7:22Speaker 01

  to me, or to our, the employers that we work with. This is a, this is a problem-solving issue. And our, you know, the employers that we work with expect their elected representatives to help solve the problems. And they don't really care what side of the aisle they're on.

• 7:40Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. So let's set aside any polarized rhetoric and just like work the issue, right? Work the problem. And the reality is, we just have workforce planning needs, and we have labor capital needs, and we need people. And that's what you do, and it's a, it's a great need, and it's a great opportunity for organizations and for these workers. So that's wonderful. So talk us through how it works. As you work with organizations, you partner with them to identify the needs. What comes next?

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, let me set the stage a little bit, a little bit more, and why we have this problem. And one of the big reasons is demographics. We have an aging workforce, which I'm sure you've, you know, are aware of and spoken on before. And we simply have more people leaving the workforce than we have entering the workforce. And so, it's, you know, our employers are finding it more and more difficult each year to have people apply to their help-wanted ads. That's a problem. And then, and then also, just kind of, as I alluded to before, you know, a lot of the hospitality jobs in the QSR space

• 8:55Speaker 01

  used to be filled, at least seasonally, by high school kids. And we're just seeing a general trend away from, from, you know, a 15 or 16-year-old wanting to work at McDonald's, for example, you know? There's a general negative connotation on trade schools in our country, which is not the case in European countries. And so, you know, you hear that talk a lot about how the narrative over kind of blue-collar work needs to shift, because it's a, it's a very viable career path.

• 9:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it's just shifted, it's kind of shifted both ways. I don't know if it's a post-pandemic thing. So I have six children, and my wife and I both come from large families, and we both like had teenage jobs growing up. And so, I always encouraged my kids to have teenage jobs. And my oldest three children all did, like, and we live in Utah, and in Utah, you know, with parent permission, at the age of 14, you can start to work. And so, my three older children, at the age of 14, all went out and got jobs. And they all worked, you know, ever since they were 14, and they've worked ever since. However, by the time my younger three children, actually, I still have one that's 13, so he's not old

• 10:12Speaker 00

  enough anyways, but like, my two kind of middle children, by the time they hit 14, nobody would hire 14-year-olds. Like, it went, it went from being, like, there were lots of companies, you know, often fast food, right, or whatever. But there were lots of places that would hire younger kids to do menial jobs, but like, lots of options. And now, nobody will. And, and now, they still will when you're 16, but not when you're 14. And so, and maybe that's, that's a subtle shift, but it's a shift nonetheless. And I wonder if that's something you've seen? Is that a trend? I don't know. Maybe it's a Utah thing? I don't know.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  You know, I'm all for, I'm all for working as a teenager. You know, one of my first jobs, you know, this is back in the day when there were paper routes. So, and then I was a bagger at a supermarket, you know? And I still, yeah, I still think those are, were some of the best life experiences that I could have had, that, you know, that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. So, would love to see, would love to see more of that, you know, with us as a, as a society.

• 11:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. Anyways, just, just interesting and curious just about these subtle shifts that are happening in society. And like you said, clearly, there are fewer and fewer from the, from the labor side, like from the employee side, fewer people wanting those jobs, right? But perhaps there's fewer employers wanting young teenagers in those jobs, or maybe they just feel like younger teenagers are less equipped to do those jobs. Maybe that's a post pandemic thing. I don't know.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  Maybe. I'll tell you what's, what's funny and what does not get talked about enough. And I don't mean to kind of stay on the fast food industry so much, but you know, so many franchise, franchisees, franchise owners tell me they started working in a fast food restaurant at the age of 15 or 16, and they moved up and they, you know, went through their franchise program, got accepted, and now they own, you know, 15, 20, 30, and are hugely successful.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  So it's, I think that, that needs to be amplified, in my view. But, but yeah, but you know, getting back to, you know, to the problem of not finding enough local talents.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  There are, there are a couple of immigration pathways that some people may or may not know about. There are, you know, immigration, employer sponsored immigration in general is sponsorship based. And so there's, there's an employer who petitions with the government, with USCIS, to get a specific worker, either, you know, a temporary work visa or a permanent residence, depending on if it's a temporary job or permanent full time, year round job. And so, for example, the H2B visa is very common in the hospitality space and construction,

• 13:28Speaker 01

  and it's for kind of seasonal peak load, temporary positions. And then the EB3 visa is for permanent, full time, year round positions.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. And so you, you work with an organization, you identify the needs, whether it's seasonal, whether it's more long term, you identify the right pathway. What are the next steps?

• 13:53Speaker 01

  The next steps are, you know, if you have an internal team that can do the recruiting and then either have inside counsel or retain outside counsel, an immigration attorney to, to represent you and file the petition on your behalf. That's what happens. You know, with our model at EB3 dot work, we provide that service for people that don't have those in-house teams. And so we have a kind of a HR side of our business and then an immigration attorney side of our business. And so we do the, kind of provide the full service for,

• 14:32Speaker 01

  for entities. And we kind of specifically work in the full time, year round EB3 space. And I'll tell you, you know, illegal immigration gets so much press, you know, you know, we have to fix, we have to secure the border, et cetera. Interestingly, the legal immigration process, which has existed, you know, the current version has existed since 1990, really doesn't get, doesn't get much press because it's not, you know, as flashy in terms of newsworthiness as, as, as illegal immigration. But some of the challenges with, with the

• 15:15Speaker 01

  current system, and you hear calls for immigration reform and support for that, is that the process, especially for the EB3, for the EB3 visa program for permanent employment, takes too long. It's kind of an inefficient process that has been neglected by policymakers. And so, you know, if an employer wants to sponsor somebody right now, it takes, you know, 48 plus months for that worker to be approved and then start working. So that's, that's kind of the big challenge in the, in the, you know, legal immigration space. We're

• 15:57Speaker 01

  pretty active in DC in advocating for legislation and also creating legislation to offer solutions to make that process more efficient for employers. So that's something we're kind of proud of. It's a, it's a, it's an interesting space, you know, working in DC. But, you know, we feel like it's kind of necessary, necessary work to, that will have outsized benefits for our economy.

• 16:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, I agree. I think there's, there's a lot of reform that's needed in the legal immigration space. And certainly, in, in all aspects of immigration, I think, you know, there's a lot that's broken and a lot of reform that's needed. But in the legal immigration space, yeah, I think, I think there's plenty to do there. And, and in the meantime, we need lots of, of, of people like you out there to help, help organizations navigate their labor needs. You know, we as consumers, you know, just as citizens and consumers, we want the products and services, you know, that, that these organizations offer.

• 17:12Speaker 00

  And if, for anyone, let's just take hospitality, for example, anyone who's traveled to a resort or a hotel, and, and you've experienced an understaffed, you know, circumstance, you know, that's not great, that's not pleasant, you paid a lot of money to go on vacation with your family or whatever. It's not those people's fault, right? Like, it's under, they're understaffed. Like, maybe they're working their third overtime shift in a row, like, they're, they're, they're pulling weight of like, you know, multiple people instead of like, they're just their own job. Like, it's, I feel bad for them, on the one hand. On the other hand, I'm like, I'm paying a lot of money to take my family on vacation, you know, like, but it's not their fault. It's, it's, it's, and, and even the organization

• 17:54Speaker 00

  is probably trying to do the best they can. It's just, there's like legitimate labor shortages.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  And it's just, it's just a really hard situation. And so, like, I think for everyone's sake, you know, these are the types of things that we, we want to try to fix, so that everyone can have better experiences. And yeah, I think it'll be better for everyone all the way around.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll tell you, and it doesn't end just, you know, your experience of, you know, waiting, waiting in line to check in, realizing that, you know, the dining room is closed. What doesn't get talked enough, that we're trying to kind of amplify, is the inflationary impact that this had. Because, you know, if you're the employer, and, you know, you've got, you're, you're going to pay more for maybe contract work, you're going to have people working overtime. And you ask any employer, costs get passed on to the consumer. And you multiply this by the tens of thousands of businesses that

• 18:56Speaker 01

  are experiencing in the US, and you have, you have a real source of inflation.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  100%. And I mean, it's simple labor supply, demand, right? You don't have enough workers, of course. There are all the things you just said, plus just simply labor supply, demand issues. And, you know, it, it just, you have a shortage in labor, it's going to cost more, right? Yeah. So 100%, I think, all the way around. John, this has been a really great biopening conversation. I think there's a lot for us to consider. And you provide a really important service and a really great resource. As we wrap up, I just wanted to give you a chance to share with the audience how they can connect with you, find out more about what your team does, and, and give us the final word for today.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Thank you so much. And again, thank you so much for, for all you do for this community. You know, it's a great, great platform to, to discuss really meaningful HR and human capital ideas and topics. You could easily reach me on, at EB3 dot work. I'm also on LinkedIn, under my name, John Dorer, J O H N D O R E R. And I'd love to, love to speak.

• 20:12Speaker 00

  Wonderful. Thank you again. It's been a real pleasure. I encourage the audience to reach out, get connected, find out more about what John and his team can do for you. And as always, I hope everyone can stay healthy and safe, that you can find meaning and purpose at work each and every day. And I hope you all have a great week.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  Thanks for joining us for this episode of the podcast. We hope you stay healthy and safe, and please join us again soon.