Eduardo Figueroa - The next level of training – Spanish Language Leadership Training - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an live interview with Eduardo Figueroa of Better Employees. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast. 

Speaker 1:
Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi, explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long-term professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews, and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Hello everybody. This is Heidi Ellsworth and this is a Roofing Road Trip coming to you from RoofersCoffeeShop. Decided we'd road trip down, virtually, to Southern California because we are working with a new initiative that I am beyond excited about. In fact, we just had a webinar where we talked about how that we are now seeing cultural pauses that are happening and one of the biggest ones is with our Latin X community. So we are fortunate today to be with Eduardo Figueroa, and he is with Better Employees. He is new to the coffee shop but has been working with Antis Roofing for months now and doing some amazing things. So Eduardo, welcome to Roofing Road Trips.

Eduardo Figueroa:
Thank you very much Heidi.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Thank you. So good to have you here today. Can you tell us ... Maybe introduce yourself again because I think I probably said your last name wrong and I apologize. We're going to get this right. But introduce yourself, a little bit about your company, and what you're doing.

Eduardo Figueroa:
Sure. Yeah. Thank you. So my name is Eduardo Figueroa and I'm from Mexico, originally. I have more than 20 years doing leadership development training for Hispanics. So I have been teaching Latinos how to be better leaders, better supervisors, better managers. And I'm helping companies, in some ways, to profit by bringing out the best of their employees. So that's what I do, and I enjoy it, and I love to talk about this.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it too. I think this is amazing. Well talk to us just a little bit. Your company, Better Employees, how did you start? How did you start it and what is it ... Give us a little bit of history about Better Employees and what you're doing today.

Eduardo Figueroa:
That is funny because I was teaching Latinos how to start businesses, and I have been doing that for more than 25 years, and some of my students in entrepreneurial came to me, said, "Can you give a talk to my employees about customer service? A kind of motivational talk?" And that moment I said, "Sure. Yeah, I can." And so I have to prepare. I didn't even know how much money could I charge because I was working for a government agency, the Small Business Development Center as a consultant. So when they asked me to do a talk I said, "How much should I charge for one hour?" So I prepared my session. It was an insurance company. So I did my talk and I think I charged like that a $100 at that time. And I-

Heidi Ellsworth:
[crosstalk 00:03:01] Wow.

Eduardo Figueroa:
Even the guy told me, he said, "This is great, but I'm going to be honest with you, this was very cheap. You charged very low." It was like for $100, one hour, I was, "Oh, that's a lot of money." But even I say, "Well, you can tell me more than [inaudible 00:03:22]."

Eduardo Figueroa:
That was my first client, as in that, as a trainer. Then I started developing more material, more in the leadership. I always like to learn. I have my master in business administration and my engineer degree. So I have a lot of information and I love leadership. So I was developing my own material and going ... I started promoting myself and then some companies they find me and I start like growing my profits higher, and higher, and higher. So that was good things. So that's how it started.

Eduardo Figueroa:
And it's something that I see not many people is doing leadership training in Spanish. I'm not the only one I know, but I also work very hard in what they call search engine optimization on my website. So when the people search for training in Spanish I'm pretty much in the first page of Google. And sometimes even with two of my pages, my home page and my landing page. So that's part of my story, how it started.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it. I love it. And, I mean, there is just so much content on your website, so much that people can learn. I mean, just start there to be able to understand your program and the value it brings. But I'm a little bit curious too ... As I've told you before I have a hard time with languages. I don't hear things the right way, but I'm very intrigued about the thought of how much more impactful it is to train people in their first language, the one they were born into. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Eduardo Figueroa:
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. You see immediately the result. I'm going to tell you a very quick story. This is a construction company in Orange County and this company found me through the internet. Then I went and interviewed the CEO. And he told me that he had hired another leadership training for his crew, they preferred to speak in Spanish or learn in Spanish, and they were translating. The guy was very good, but they have somebody to translate what he was saying and he noticed that the guys were not getting the information, so he hired me. He said, "Well let's do one session. I will see how it works. If I like it I will hire you to do more sessions." "Oh sure." So I did a session and immediately he said, "Yes. Now I see the big difference. People smiling, paying attention, they're engaged, they ask questions. That didn't happen before because now they feel comfortable."

Eduardo Figueroa:
And I believe it's not only that I speak Spanish, culturally I'm part of that. The participants are Latino, are Mexican. So maybe it's my skin, the way I talk, so that there is the connection that makes more effective any training. It happen with any language. So it's not just the language but also that you identify with that trainer.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes. And you know it's not just about language either because I know that when I'm going out there to get additional continuing education or training on running a women-owned business, or working with other women, it's hard sometimes when I have someone kind of sharing with me what I should be doing as a woman and they're a man, right? And so I just like ... But when there's another woman up there I can be inspired by that and what she's done, and what she's accomplished. And it gives me that like, "Oh yeah, I totally get that." I think it's the exact same thing and it's something we just haven't thought about. And that it needs to be a part of our training programs, people that people can relate to and understand.

Eduardo Figueroa:
Yeah. Yes.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, go ahead.

Eduardo Figueroa:
They feel more confidence, so they ask questions. It is not clear. Sometimes they don't want to ask a question because their English is not that good, so they don't want to look stupid, that they cannot pronounce. And I know I have a heavy accent, so ... But those participants, even their understanding maybe the English, they don't feel comfortable asking the question or making a comment, so they just get quiet. So that's another thing, that different level of communication there.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well and I also think retention, right? That how you retain it and how you remember it, it's if you are just struggling to understand the language, or maybe if you don't even ... You were not even struggling to understand the language, you're still going to retain it better if it's in the natural pathways, so it just makes sense across the board.

Eduardo Figueroa:
Right.

Heidi Ellsworth:
So one of the other things that I just love is the fact that you're teaching leadership and management skills. In roofing we have tons of training on the technical, how to put down a roof, all the different things technically what to do, but we just have not done for our teams leadership, and management, and overall even other soft skills. What are you seeing that direction and how important is that for roofing companies?

Eduardo Figueroa:
Well I think it's very important because it's not just, again, the technical part. Most of them they have the experience, they have the knowledge, or they can acquire it. But if they don't know how to communicate with their crew, they don't know how to communicate with their supervisor, sometimes with the clients, they don't know how to behave. So there is a lot of things that it's going to help to be more effective, more productive, avoid mistakes. Maybe sometimes if I am a bad leader, they ... I'm a rude guy, I'm aggressive, the people they don't want to work with me, and they're going to leave the company, and go and find another company that treat them better. So there is a lot of good impact, positive impact, if companies develop their employees.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes. You know, I see that because the communication and ... I always say, "Well it starts with the CEO," but it also starts with the foreman and the project manager on the roof, if you're going to be able to retain your labor. We talked about this earlier, if you have more of a culture or an environment on the roof that has bullying or hazing, or just no communication, in this day and age of labor shortages you're going to lose those crews. They're going to go somewhere where they're respected.

Eduardo Figueroa:
Right. And it's very expensive. Just the process of hiring a person there is a cost, but also the training. When there is a high turnover there is a lot of negative impact. It's just the cost of hiring, the training, but also the quality goes down because now the few people that's there, or maybe there are new employees that they don't know still how to do the job, the quality go lower. And that impact the image of the company. Sometimes, "Okay. I don't like the quality. You were doing great. Now you're not doing that well, so I'm going to look for another company," as a client. So there is all these costly impacts, mistakes, maybe wasted of resources because I don't know. So when a person with experience leave the company there is going to be a very costly effect in the company, in general.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes. Well and those are, a lot of times, the unseen costs to not doing something that people, business owners, don't realize. I know that you've also shared with me that by doing this type of training there is some huge ROI. Just, I mean, hard dollars. Maybe talk about that a little bit.

Eduardo Figueroa:
Sure. Yes. Because the same team, I was telling you about this story of this company, that the HR they were spending a lot of hours just trying to investigate some complaints about the leaders of the department because there was, "Oh my leader does this," or, "He's rude," or, "He does respect me." So the investigation, all the hours, times, the documentation, when they cost that end of year it was more like $20,000 of just that time of HR dealing with that, besides losing good employees because the poor leadership. So they have to do ... When they did that training they saw immediately that economic impact, positive impact, of that, reducing that time. Now turnover reduced, also productivity increased, so now they don't have.

Eduardo Figueroa:
And another thing that's also important is what they call the opportunity costs. If I'm dealing with problems, complaints or maybe the errors that's happening, I don't have time to do more profitable projects, to do something ... How to improve the process because I need to have the time to deal with the problem. So that's another thing, sometimes the opportunity cost is huge. It's like, "Okay, I didn't do this project because I was dealing with these problems."

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. No, that makes so much sense. I love how you talk about the fact is when you empower your leaders in your company, on the roofs, whether that's foremens, project managers, however that may be ... When you empower them they start making better decisions on their own and they also communicate those decisions in a better way. I would love for you to share some of those stories.

Eduardo Figueroa:
Yeah. Yes. This is a different industry, this is [Tortilladora 00:13:37], when I was doing training for the managers, the supervisors. In one of the sessions I was asking the participants to tell me about what were the costly situations of the company, so they started giving me a lot of issues, like the waste of materials, maybe the productivity, the turnover. So I just was putting it in a flip chart. And then I said, "Well what is the cost of this? How much are we talking each ones?" So they didn't know. "Well, yeah, there is waste here in the production or maybe here," but they didn't know the numbers. Fortunately for me was one of the owners observing the session, and I turned to him and said, "What is the cost of the waste here in the company?" And he said, "50,000." "Okay, so $50,000. Yeah, it's a lot of money. A year?" He said, "No a month." So when he say a month I was like, "What?"

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow!

Eduardo Figueroa:
$600,000, I just grated on that. And everybody was like, "Wow, $600,000." Okay. I think we can reduce some of this. It's not going to disappear but let's work. So what we need in that moment was teach them how to brainstorm ideas. I didn't know the technical part, but I taught them how to brainstorm ideas, how to bring solutions, how to present them to upper management. In fact, just to make the story short a month later I went ... Maybe it was even maybe only 25 days later I went back to the company to do more training and they had already implemented some of the ideas, and they were expecting a reduction on the waste of 20%. So meaning $120,000 savings just in implementing ideas. So that's the economic impact of training the employees how to see, how to solve, how to present ideas to upper management. It's not, "Here is an idea." No, it's you have to know how to present it and talk about numbers. So that's the benefits of just training your employees.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. I love that. I mean, that's across the board, right? They should be doing that, employers should be doing this, across the board for all of their employees. But when you really then put in the ... Whether it's a language barrier or cultural differences then by bringing this kind of training in you're really getting down to it and creating an amazing culture for your company that solves problems and saves money. I mean, it's ... Yeah. I love it.

Eduardo Figueroa:
Win-win situation for everybody. Yeah. Yes.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right. How can contractors start incorporating this type of training into their business? What are some of the things, steps, that they should take in ... I mean, obviously calling you or someone like that, but-

Eduardo Figueroa:
Yeah. Number one.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's number one, but there are also other things that they kind of need to do first. What are some of those things?

Eduardo Figueroa:
Well normally when they contact me or call me my first question is why are you looking for that training? What are the main issues? So of course I learn a little bit about the company, "Oh I do construction site, landscaping, so give me some feedback." And because I have been doing this for more than 20 years pretty much I have covered all industries. Kind of, not all of them. But then I ask questions, "what's happening?" So it's, "Oh yeah, I have complaints about they don't know how to communicate. They don't work as a team. They are very protective of their own department, so they don't want to share the employees with other departments." So I just trying to get feedback, what are the situations, the issues? And sometimes I ask questions, "How is your turnover?" "Oh, it's okay," or, "No, it's hard."

Eduardo Figueroa:
So that's give me a feedback to say, "Okay, I think I can help you through these training." Maybe it's an in-person, maybe it's online, maybe it's a hybrid version. Now I'm working on that one. Some companies hire me to do in-person and then they will go with an online program, and then we go back maybe and do another sessions in person. So that's the flexibility of this program. And I'm trying to always help them to go through the whole process of implementing the training.

Eduardo Figueroa:
And one of the things in the online is when I created this program I develop it like if I were in front of the group teaching to a small group. It's not a traditional E-learning that you have a person watching a video, going through a test, and continues with the program. This is to learn as a team, to teach them how to work together, solving small problems there, maybe just asking ... Because I ask questions during the videos, say, "Pause the video and everybody there explain what is responsibility or what is a change for you? How do you feel about change?" So the idea is that they pause the video, they talk about that, and continues with the video. And then I talk about what is change or responsibility.

Eduardo Figueroa:
So that makes them work. So they have to do exercise together. They have to do the test together. There is a test of knowledge of what they learned. And I believe in a memory test, I say, "No, you watched, do the homework or the test together. If you look for the answers in the handouts or watch the video again." So that's how it's building that team and learning. So that's how it's created this program.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I like it. I like it. That makes sense too, because there's times that you just can't be in-person but now you still have this opportunity for small groups to build teams, to train together. Because I've done that before, I've done training in teams and you do learn so much about each other. And it's so powerful. I also think one of the things too that roofing contractors should be doing is even before this training, like you said, visiting and talking to your employees, asking them what they think, what's important, what problems do you see? Because then that's going to empower the trainer to get to do more. But for those that maybe have a hard time, you never know with language barriers or just maybe they don't have that great of communication skills, do you do evaluations before? Like will you come in and visit with the different employees, and kind of help give that information back to management?

Eduardo Figueroa:
Yeah, sometimes we do like the 360, the management analysis. So okay, let's evaluate how is their attitude, their communication, their leadership skills and see where do we need to work? And that's one, sometimes the companies, they just want to jump on the training because they know, the say, "No, we know that they need everything, so let's just not even go there." But it helps to see what are the skills that they need. Because, again, I have been doing this for many years I've already created a program that is working for most of the companies. And sometimes I tailor it a little bit. So that's what we do for the training.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. That's cool. So what are you hearing from contractors? Not just roofing but overall? Like you said, landscaping, manufacturing, what is the feedback once the employees go through this program? And I know there's ongoing continuing education, but as they go through that what is some of the feedback you're getting from them?

Eduardo Figueroa:
Yes. Let me start with this, most of the companies, that's in general, they promote a good worker, loyal worker, hard worker, hard working guy or girl to a leadership position, and then they lose a good worker and gain a bad leader. That is creating a lot more problems. And my suggestion is I hope companies realize, "Okay, I want to promote this person I think has potential to be a leader, so let's train that person first to see they can be the leader, the new supervisor, the new manager of this department. Normally they'd promote the person and then try to fix him because now it's created more problems, so that's one other piece.

Eduardo Figueroa:
Now what I hear about a participant, especially, is that they see a transformation in themselves. They see sometimes that they have a better relationship with their family.

Eduardo Figueroa:
I was doing a training for another company a long time ago and I have a exercise that they have to talk about how they're making the other person, in this case their employees or their boss, feel happy or feel uncomfortable, have pain, so happiness or pain. So I did the exercise, "How are you doing? What are you doing that makes your employee feel pain? And what are you doing that makes your employee feel happy?" Also with your boss and with your customer, so they have to do a whole analysis. But this guy took the exercise, and went to home, and use it with his wife. He said, "Okay, I just learned this today in a training, so let's do this exercise. From your point of view, how I'm making you happy and what is making you feel pain, uncomfortable"-

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it.

Eduardo Figueroa:
And so they both did this exercise. They changed the paper. And they realized that yeah, he was doing some things that he thought was making her happy but she said, "Yeah, that's okay. But no, what I would like to see is this." So they say, "We improve our relationship amazingly, just for that exercise." Learning how they creating pain and happiness to each other, and then, of course, to change. So that's one of the things that you hear from the participants, "I get better with my coworkers. My crew is listening to me more, collaborate with me better now." So that kind of things. And the managers, also, they're happiest. You see Charles, he says, "Okay, see the impact, the positive impact, of the guys."

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. That makes so much sense. And you know what I love? Is that it's common sense. I love how you put it into happier pain. So often you go into continuing education or classes and they speak at so many levels over your head, and I'm just like, "I don't get what they're saying. I don't get it." But that, that'd be something I would take home to my husband too. That is a great ... And I mean, such a good ... For all of you listening what a good example of some of the things you can expect, common sense but yet impactful. That's huge.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Okay, Eduardo, how can contractors get started? How can they get ahold of you? And how can they kind of start work ... Visit with you, consultations, whatever it may be, to be able to start down this important path?

Eduardo Figueroa:
Okay, so they have a different ways that they can contact me. One is they can call me. My number is 714-516-1111, 714-516-1111. So they can leave a message there. Sometimes I'm doing training or meetings, but they can leave it and I will return. The other one is my email. And my email is eduardo, E-D-U-A-R-D-O, @BetterEmployees.net, BetterEmployees.net. So also they can send me an email or visit my website BetterEmployees.net and there is a different ways to contact. Maybe they can see some of my videos, they're free, they have a lot of information: blogs I post, I'm doing. So they can start using some of the information to improve themselves and their teams.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And all of that, that Eduardo just said, is on RoofersCoffeeShop, so look for the Better Employees directory, all that information is on there. We're going to be able to also start bringing articles. So we are working together. We already have videos on there. We're going to be bringing new articles. We just did a webinar with Charles Antis and Susan DeGrassi from Antis Roofing that's going to really talk to the heart of why this is so important for roofing contractor ownership to do. So there is a lot of different ways to kind of start educating and learning. And if you already know this is what you need and you are like what we heard from Susan and Charles, that they just didn't know where to go and they found Eduardo, now you already have that contact too. So it's perfect.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I am very, very excited about this. I'm very excited about the common sense of it and the inclusion, the equity, all the things that we work on in this industry to make us better. So Eduardo, welcome to roofing and thank you. Thank you for the gift and this special training that you're bringing to our industry.

Eduardo Figueroa:
Thank you Heidi. I'm very happy to be part of this now initiative with the roofing companies and the roofers.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah, it is great. It is great. Well, thank you again for being here today and thank all of you for listening. These podcasts this is exactly what we're doing, we're bringing thought leadership, we're bringing new ideas, and we're tripping around the country on our Roofing Road Trips to make sure that you hear everything that is out there and all the possibilities. So be sure to listen to all of our podcasts. You can find them on RoofersCoffeeShop under Read, Listen, Watch. And be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast channel so that you are always getting notifications and you can always hear the next one. And, I have to say, we are starting a huge initiative on YouTube, which you will see Eduardo on with that recent webinar. It will be coming out soon. So be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel also. Thank you all for being here today and we'll see you the next time on Roofing Road Trips.

Speaker 1:
Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi from the RoofersCoffeeShop.com.