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Scott Erwin
Workforce management specialist. Dynamic staffing SaaS ex founder and CEO (successful exit) intelligent matching tech ideal for shifts that change and last minute drops. Healthtech | Consultant | ex McKinsey
Professional Background
Scott Erwin has built a remarkable career that bridges the realms of theology, political science, and business management, showcasing his diverse skill set and profound understanding of complex global issues. With a unique blend of academic achievement and professional expertise, Scott has carved out a niche for himself as a thought leader and innovator in various sectors, including consulting, public policy, and technology.
Career Highlights
Scott's professional journey began with a strong foundation in public service and research. He served as a Policy Advisor at the United States Department of Defense, where his insights into governmental operations and international relations played a crucial role in shaping strategic decisions. His experience here paved the way for his subsequent position as a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he contributed to essential research efforts and developed a deep understanding of foreign policy and global affairs.
Following this impactful tenure in public service, Scott transitioned into the corporate world. He joined McKinsey & Company as an Engagement Manager, where he harnessed his analytical and strategic thinking skills to help clients navigate complex challenges. His time at McKinsey not only solidified his reputation as a trusted advisor but also equipped him with invaluable insights into organizational dynamics and industry trends.
Scott's entrepreneurial spirit truly flourished when he founded HireHand, a cutting-edge platform designed to streamline workforce management, particularly in the gig economy. As CEO, he drove innovation and growth, positioning the company as a leader in dynamic scheduling solutions. This venture exemplifies his ability to identify market needs and create effective solutions, demonstrating a blend of business acumen and technical savvy.
Currently, Scott is engaged in dynamic scheduling efforts at Reverence, where he continues to explore new methodologies for enhancing workforce efficiency.
Education and Achievements
Scott's academic journey reflects his deep commitment to understanding complex theological and political landscapes. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Theology/Theological Studies from the prestigious University of Oxford, where he delved into profound questions regarding ethics, morality, and the impact of belief systems on societal structures. This rigorous academic training has not only enriched his worldview but has also informed his professional engagements, particularly in the fields of public policy and ethical considerations in business.
Before his doctoral studies, Scott completed his Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Political Science and Government at the University of Richmond. This undergraduate experience laid the groundwork for his understanding of political systems and governance, principles that have been pivotal throughout his career.
Additionally, Scott's formative years were spent at Park Hill High School, where he began to cultivate his interests in politics and social sciences, setting the stage for his future academic and professional pursuits.
Key Achievements
Throughout his career, Scott Erwin has garnered numerous accolades and recognition for his contributions across multiple domains:
- Thought Leadership: Scott has been a sought-after speaker and commentator on issues of public policy and management, leveraging his extensive knowledge to influence discussions in both academic and professional settings.
- Innovative Solutions: Through his work with HireHand and other ventures, Scott has been at the forefront of implementing innovative technologies that enhance operational efficiency in various industries.
- Strategic Advisor: His experiences with high-profile organizations such as McKinsey & Company and the Council on Foreign Relations have solidified his status as a trusted advisor to a range of stakeholders, from government agencies to corporate clients.
Achievements
Scott continues to contribute significantly to the fields he is passionate about. His dedication to fostering effective workforce solutions, coupled with his profound understanding of policy and ethics, positions him as a unique player in today's dynamic professional landscape.
Highlights
Retention vs. Turnover - The words companies use when communicating with employees matter, especially when talking about their core objectives.
A core objective for companies, particularly those with large front-line workforces is keeping their employees, rather than having them leave.
Most companies will track their performance against this objective by measuring “turnover” with a minority also placing emphasis on “retention.”
From a mathematical perspective, retention is of course the inverse of turnover and vice versa. If a company retains 60% of its employees annually, it is “turning over” 40% in that same period.
Given this relationship, does it matter which a company is measuring?
The answer is yes because it can reveal the true values of a company and practically the initiatives adopted as a result differ widely.
A company focused on improving “retention” is likely one that sees its employees as having intrinsic importance and as being critical contributors to its overall mission.
Practically, the initiatives that result from a “retention” mindset are typically more systematic and proactive - effective onboarding, well defined career progressions, consistently flexible work schedules, at (or above!) market compensation and benefits.
Alternatively, a company exclusively focused on reducing turnover can be one that takes a more mechanistic approach to employees - seeing them as small cogs in a larger process.
The initiatives that result from a “turnover” mindset can be more piecemeal and reactive - an over-reliance on sign-on and retention bonuses and limited onboarding and training (why invest in this person when they are going to leave anyway?).
To be clear, this is not a black and white issue but rather a matter of degrees. Every company will have a mindset that is a mix of both and that mix will change at different points in time.
For those operators out there, however, I’d suggest tracking whether your teams are talking more about “retention” or “turnover” in your next people strategy meeting - words matter!
As the old saying goes, “It doesn’t matter how much water you fill your bucket with if your bucket is full of holes.”
I am thrilled to have joined Reverence and in particular to bring the HireHand dynamic staffing solution to the home health space.
The staffing challenge in home health is truly staggering with providers today rejecting up to 40% of new patient referrals due to shortages of nurses and home health aides.
If 40% of new clients were being turned away in other industries, I have to believe this would be bigger news - but in healthcare it seems to be BAU for some reason.
What surprises me about the current staffing deficit - estimated to be up to 400,000 nationwide - is that I thought the pinch was coming tomorrow not today.
Like many of you, I’ve read about the demographic “silver wave” in the US with the % of the population over 65 set to double in the next 35 years. I certainly buy the fact this senior population is increasingly likely to prefer “in home” care for longer periods of time. What’s difficult to accept is that many will not have this choice.
I’ve spent the last decade working in industries with labor shortages.
A common mistake operators make is addressing the shortfall by focusing on new recruits rather than keeping the employees they have.
It’s counter-intuitive, I know, but when (annual) churn rates exceed 50%, the primary result of onboarding more people is seeing more walk out the door.
Most operators know this but, frankly, they also know it is easier to execute a recruitment drive (even in a tight labor market) than address the underlying reasons why, in the case of home care, a reported 65% of front-line employees churn out each year.
On that reported churn total - another common mistake I’ve seen across industries is operators repeatedly (and to be clear honestly) underestimate annual turnover numbers.
If the home care industry is reporting 65%, odds are the annual churn is closer to 80%.
This means that home care practitioners are having to replace up to 80% of their total workforce each year BEFORE hiring new people to attempt to address growing demand.
As the old saying goes, “It doesn’t matter how much water you fill your bucket with if your bucket is full of holes.”
Needless to say, I’m excited to bring some of my previous “hole-plugging” experience to bear in the home care setting and share a few tips and tricks with you all along the way.
#staffing #homecare
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.
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