We had the chance to participate in the 2025 SIA Executive forum. The session titled Achieving Excellence in Industrial Staffing brought together leading voices from the staffing industry to discuss the future of light industrial staffing, with a sharp focus on technology, business efficiency, and growth. The panel featured:
- Billy Milam, CEO, EmployBridge
- Kristy Willis, Chief Sales Officer, PeopleReady (TrueBlue)
- John Elwood, CEO, Elwood Staffing
- Stacey Lane, CEO, Staffmark Group
Below is a summary of the key insights and strategies that emerged from their discussion.
Leveraging Relationships to Navigate Uncertainty and Drive Efficiency
Billy Milam, CEO, EmployBridge
"What I can control is the depth of relationship, the communication I have with our clients... At the end of the day, they still want relationships. They want a person that can identify with their problems and help correct some of their opportunities."
Panelists acknowledged that while business optimism remains high, uncertainty—driven by macroeconomic forces and shifting client needs—continues to shape the industry. Billy Milam, CEO of EmployBridge, emphasized the importance of focusing on what can be controlled by deepening client relationships and addressing core concerns like employee retention and attraction. He noted that while external factors such as business environment, tariffs, and administration changes create noise, the fundamentals of serving clients and building trust remain unchanged.
John Elwood echoed this, stressing the value of authentic leadership and engagement with teams in the field. He reminded attendees, “The magic doesn’t happen in our boardrooms. The magic happens in our customers’ boardrooms or conference rooms or cafeterias or in their town hall meetings.” This hands-on approach, combined with data-driven decision-making, is critical for operational efficiency and business growth.
Technology as a Catalyst for Growth
Technology and automation were recurring themes throughout the conference and this session continued to underscore the importance of these topics. Panelists agreed that digital transformation is essential for scaling operations and improving efficiency in the light industrial sector.
Kristy Willis described PeopleReady’s approach: “We started with the end in mind of what we’re trying to accomplish... On things where we feel like we are a true differentiator, we’re going to build, and on things that will increase efficiency or improve revenue, we’re going to buy as much as possible.” Their proprietary JobStack app is a prime example—designed to reduce friction for customers seeking a digital experience, while maintaining flexibility for those who prefer traditional engagement.
Stacey Lane highlighted the importance of starting with business problems rather than implementing technology to follow trends. She explained how Staffmark Group leverages technology to solve real-world issues, such as using AI and machine learning for predictive labor models and workforce planning. This not only streamlines the hiring process but also helps tackle persistent challenges like no-shows and variable order volumes.
The Hybrid Model: Balancing Digital and Human Touch
Stacey Lane, CEO, Staffmark Group
"When you can take data and bring that to the customer, that will give them an opportunity to make better decisions about their employees and their workforce, you change the conversation and make yourself a much more trusted advisor, and beyond just filling a job."
A major takeaway was the consensus around a hybrid staffing model. While automation and AI can handle high-volume, repetitive tasks—improving speed, accuracy, and cost efficiency—panelists agreed that human expertise and relationships remain indispensable, especially in light industrial staffing.
John Elwood and Kristy Willis both pointed to research and field experience showing that the most successful approach combines digital tools with a strong local presence. Willis noted, “What has just been the shining winner over and over again, is that hybrid approach, where you’re meeting the customer where they want to be met... taking the people out in a people business is probably never going to occur entirely.”
Data-Driven Insights and Upskilling
Panelists stressed the growing importance of data analytics—not just for internal efficiency, but as a value-add for clients. Stacey Lane shared how providing clients with actionable workforce insights helps them make better staffing decisions and builds trust beyond transactional relationships. Giving clients the ability to be proactive in an environment as dynamic as light industrial staffing is invaluable as this allows organizations to adjust to ever-changing responsibilities and expectations.
Investing in training and upskilling was also highlighted as a growth driver. As automation takes over lower-level tasks, companies must focus on reskilling employees for higher-value roles, ensuring their teams are ready to adapt to new technologies and client requirements.
Competing with Digital Platforms
The rise of 1099 and app-based staffing platforms like Instawork and Traba was acknowledged as a competitive threat. Panelists agreed that while these platforms offer speed and flexibility, traditional staffing firms can differentiate themselves through deeper relationships, local expertise, and the ability to provide both digital convenience and human support.
Final Advice for Industry Leaders
In closing, the panelists offered actionable advice for navigating the current environment:
- Automate what you can: Use technology to streamline repetitive tasks and free up staff for higher-value work.
- Invest in people: Don’t neglect training and upskilling; your team’s expertise is your competitive edge.
- Stay close to clients: Regularly engage with clients to understand their evolving needs and provide tailored solutions.
- Be agile: Use this period to test and implement new digital initiatives, positioning your firm for growth as the market rebounds.
Outlook on Light Industrial Staffing
Kristy Willis, Chief Sales Officer, PeopleReady (TrueBlue)
"Flexibility and agility is key, and to be actively talking to our customers as market experts during this challenging time, so that they see us and they see the value, and when they're ready, they'll see it as a risk mitigation tool and select contingent labor as a next step."
The light industrial staffing sector is at a crossroads, where technology and human expertise must work hand-in-hand. Companies that embrace hybrid models, invest in workforce development, and leverage data-driven tools will be best positioned for efficiency and sustainable growth in 2025 and beyond.
Q&A
Question 1Are you seeing 1099, platforms like Insta work or Traba treba eating into your business? And if so, how are you addressing it?
Speaker 3 I would just say that if you're not experiencing that, that we probably are living under a rock, right? So there's a lot of competition right now with these digital platforms. And I think, again, I think it comes back to a lot of what we talked about is we have a responsibility to get our cost structure to a place where we can be more competitive, because that's going to continue to creep up in our industry. That's number one. Number two, I think it's about the presence these a lot of the digital apps have limited to know, in person, presence and relationships. And I think that's the starting point, certainly for us, is really addressing, hey, we will be on the ground with you, helping you through this. So that's just some of the things that we've done to address it.
Billy Milam
Yeah, you know, Kristy said it a little bit ago earlier. When you talk to your clients, what are the things they really want from a staffing company? One they want to be a bit of face with that company. They want that relationship, the depth of that relationship, as I mentioned a little bit ago. They also will be quick to say flexibility. And that's a really big term, too. And I always say, Well, what are you talking about when you get to flexibility? What does that mean to you? What does flexibility mean to you? And it's obviously very different based on the different client profiles, some of them do say, look, I want remove all friction. I want an app, I want visibility. I want to be able to do three clicks and put that in for 820 people to start Monday morning at eight o'clock. We'll need steel-towed boots and be able to drive forklifts, or whatever the case might be. I want that kind of visibility, that kind of flexibility, and some of these 1099s, can do that for them. We've got Blue Crew, a company we acquired two years ago that enables us to be able to at least blunt some of that, to be able to have somewhat of that little more frictionless experience from our clients, give them that flexibility where, where they want to get more flexible with their relationship with us.
Question 2
In the segments you play in – health and safety, compliance is paramount. How do you work with your customers and share best industry practices?
Stacey Lane
I mean, I can take that. We have an entire Risk and Safety Department. It's interesting how that evolved, because we were able to deliver against that function virtually during COVID, and we learned that and exercised that muscle. But that's still an important value add, because protecting the health and welfare of our employees is so important to the health of our workers comp, so we address that through a team of safety directors across the company, and then we do we handle this internally, all the claim administration for workers comp.
Question 3
Quick question, as we were talking about different operational issues for light industrial one of the issues is no-shows of workers, when the worker signs up for a shift and doesn't show up, how are you managing that with technology, business processes, best practices?
Speaker 5
My roundtable this morning, we got a lot of conversation about this. So we're doing a lot of different things. We're doing predictive labor models so that we're looking at machine learning and how those order volumes come through over bookings. A number of things that we're using, we're using technology to try to figure those things out, all the things that you and I had spent some time talking about before, and I don't, I don't think there's any magic answer, but you have to solve for the fact that not everyone is going to show up for work, and a multi channel approach is what I think everybody in this room needs to be thinking about.
Kristy Willis
Yeah, I think that's a great point. The only thing I would add to that is also just a strict attendance policy, because that word travels really fast. We've done that recently, and it certainly has helped reduce, not eliminate, never, will eliminate, but reduce.
John Elwood
Yeah, Kristy, I think that's an excellent point. I think there could be a different approach on that and that could be that the attendance policy is too strict.
With light industrial, we're talking about blue collar, gray collar, manufacturing, and warehouse workers. Sometimes the leniency on attendance and showing up for work when life gets in the way is stricter in that segment of our workforce than it might be for mid level management or higher. So I think we have to sometimes take a step back and be consultative with our clients. I don't think you can just, you know, say, hey, that's the first sign they looked at me strange, and now I'm going to get rid of them. No shows are going to be a part of our business.
I sat through sort of an interesting presentation recently from a firm that is entirely remote, and besides the call center and wherever they're headquartered, all of their instances are done through through the app, and it's not for everybody, but as long their theory is and their go to market strategy is, if a worker doesn't have to be the same one on the same shift, Monday through Friday, or whatever the shift is, if the work gets done, and this is probably particularly helpful, or, I should say, particularly appropriate, or would be a good fit, when you can't have five first days, if there's any training involved, you can't have five first days of brand new people. There's no productivity. But if they had had a little bit of training, or people could sort of sign up for their shift and be there, then their theory was, hey, I've got a pretty happy client, and I've got a pretty happy workforce, because they may not want to work 40 hours this week, they may want to work 24 so there's just different ways to do it, and it was eye opening and a learning opportunity for me, because I'm like, there are different ways to approach light industrial and no shows. And they had a way to rate their candidates pretty effectively with a quantitative or a numerical rating based upon if they were going to call off. Did they call up four hours before the shift started, or were they courteous enough and self aware enough to call off 24 hours before they were going to miss so that the shift could be covered?
Billy Milam
That actually reminds me a lot of and I never would have thought about an overlap on these two segments, how some companies in per diem nursing are filling shifts. Maybe we want to look at what they're doing a bit at some point in the future too. Might get some ideas for ourselves. Anyone else have some comments there?
Kristy Willis
I think I'm addressing the question, but maybe an expansive version. I've been in staffing for almost six years now. Prior to that, I was in a retail environment for 20 plus years and studied deeply the mindset of the workers at convenience stores, and gas stations, and so a lot of the same employees we would hire to, work shifts in a convenience store or gas station, are the same folks that we put in a to work in a facility. Today, it's that same mindset, same demographic. And I've always been stunned when you have retail apps on your phone that you're vigilant about getting scanned when you go through the drive through you walk into the store, the person that would turn left or drive 10 miles out of their way to another gas station because they knew they could save a penny per gallon or five cents per gallon, makes sense, but they're not valuing their time appropriately. What we, I believe, have an opportunity as an industry on is to think about that gamification. So you show up to work 10 days in a row through your app. Boom, you get 100 points. When you get 1000 points, you get a digital gift card deposit into your account. That's sort of thinking, that mindset, your team productivity hits a certain level for 10 days in a row. Boom, more points that point accumulation, just like you might at a Hilton. Or Marriott bonvoy, or Chick fil A or McDonald, whatever that app might be. Thinking about it on those terms, and driving some of those no shows, driving some of those other ways to incent for a little bit of I think incentive dollars, you can go a long way with some of the things that are meaningful to our client base.
John Elwood
I mean, I can start I think that, look, our business is very resilient. We're going to bounce back. I'm probably a little more pessimistic than my other panelists, because I do feel like we have a lot of threats, and I think it's time. My advice would be, automate what you can it's an easier time to think about disrupting your business right now. When things are down, manage your costs and be smart. If you're thinking about restructuring, do it now, and be aware that your client is your largest competitor right now. And if there's opportunities for you to provide relevance and technology to continue to make yourself essential. Do it now.
John Elwood:
Love that. To add on to that, everything Stacey just said, and I would say, number one, there are verticals that are growing in our industry or in this industrial more than others. So know what those are specific for you, and focus on those. Number two, in terms of a delivery model, make sure that you have the right delivery model for your customers and your associates that is heavily emphasized with sales right now and helping them realize the importance of listening. And then finally, leverage technology and automation where you can but remember, going into AI data is critical. What goes in if it's not good data, it's not good for anybody, so pay attention to that as you're looking for those types of products and services.
Speaker 2 I think COVID was a big lesson. A lot of us, because we went into COVID, we there was no playbook for it. We had to do things very differently than we did before, but as soon as we got back to whatever normal was, post that, COVID recovery, and we started seeing things going nuts again, we kind of regressed back to our old ways of doing things. We had a lot of good ideas. We had a lot of good processes that were modified a lot of us with higher dynamics.
Dan Campbell sitting right over there at the time. We leaned heavier on technology during that time period. We revert it back? And I said, Hang on a minute. Let's not do that. I don't know that I'd say this is the same opportunity now, but kind of where Stacey and Kristy were both going now is an opportunity to try some of these things.
Don't be paralyzed, don't be stagnant. Bullets and cannonballs, I think, is the right right thought, right mindset, right approach. And when you do see something working, and things do start to it'll recover. Temp penetration rates are lower than they've been since COVID and since the great financial crisis. Over time, we saw that slide yesterday morning. Lowest it has been since those two events happened. It'll come back. But now's the time we have an opportunity to really be able to take advantage of some of these tests and learn theories.
Stacey Lane
In the remaining couple seconds, I think I may be stealing this a little bit even from the other panelists, or maybe it was Billy that said it, but we're in a people business. Don't forget our people. Don't forget training and making sure that our people can are there. Because I'm a little bit more, I think of the half glass half full, but I think it'll come back. I really do, and I think we need to be poised to take advantage of it. A lot of us can remember 2008, 2009. Boy, there was a hell of a slingshot coming out of that. And when you automate and when you digitize, make sure your process is right. Don't do the wrong thing faster. Make sure your processes are right, and make sure that when you're taking advantage of that, that it's still core to your culture and what your original mission is. So I think that's all I would say.