Founded in 2016, CannabizTeam focuses all of its energy on human resources in the cannabis industry, which represents a remarkably complex and diverse arrangement of labor, especially when one works with the entire supply chain, which CannabizTeam does on a daily basis. As explained by founder and CEO Liesl Bernard in a recent interview with CBE, her years at Robert Half – the $8 billion NYSE-traded global human resource firm – may have set the stage for her entry into the cannabis industry, but it was her vision and unique abilities that turned an idea into the thriving business it is today. As she continually reformats the business to meet the needs of an ever-changing industry whose future is clouded in unknowns while keeping the core tenets of CannabizTeam intact, Bernard offers a perspective that can only come from someone who lives at the intersection of labor and business.

Not surprisingly, it was Robert Half’s rejection of a cannabis-industry opportunity years ago that lit the light bulb in Bernard’s head and opened the door to her new career. “I just love working with people and helping them find great new career opportunities,” she said of her years in the employment business. “I spent the first part of my career as a CPA, and then started working for [Robert Half] 20-25 years ago. I helped start operations in Australia, I lived in Singapore, and I also ran the operations in Hawaii for nine years prior to coming back to California to run the executive search division for Robert Half International, which has locations in 23 countries.”

Bernard had also worked with a number of different industries. “Because I was a former CPA, a lot of my earlier placements in my career were focused on finance and accounting, so I did a lot of CFO, Controller, VP of Finance searches for the first part of my career,” she explained. “Later on, when I started doing executive search, I widened my scope and worked on senior level jobs in various industries.

“In 2016,” she continued, “I was actually approached by one of the first cannabis companies in California to do a search for a CEO and a COO. But when I went back to Robert Half at the time, Robert Half said, ‘We cannot have you work in an illegal industry because we’re a publicly traded company.’ And a light bulb just went on in my head: ‘This is my opportunity to start my own company in a new industry that is emerging. I was a single mom at the time, I cashed in every bit of my 401K and took a big chance starting a staffing firm that’s focused on the industry. Six years later, we have 30 recruiters working for us, and we’re pretty much dominating the market as far as temp, direct hire, and executive search is concerned.”

Beyond the irony that the cannabis industry now includes many publicly traded companies, the industry Bernard entered in 2016 was very different from the one she services today. “Cannabis was still not legal in California for adult use, and so everybody that we approached for our initial searches was like, ‘No way, I’m not going to work in the industry. I might get arrested or lose my legal license or my CPA license.’ So, it was a very different market from today. We pretty much had to beg people to take a chance to work in the industry. Obviously, six years later, now it’s the sexy industry to be in and we’re inundated with people that are looking for opportunity. So, it’s the industry has come a long way as far as destigmatizing, and I think maybe I was just visionary in the sense that I knew that there was going to be a huge need for a professional staffing firm, and I took that chance.”

A Demand-Driven Business

Legally, employment is completely driven by demand from the employer’s side. “We work for our client,” explained Bernard. “It’s illegal actually to charge someone to help them find a job, so we are paid by our clients. They come to us and say they need someone with a specific skill set or a specific level of experience, and we go and find people that match that experience and the culture fit that they’re looking for. So, all of our searches are driven by our client’s needs versus helping people find jobs. Obviously, the result is that we’re finding a lot of people fantastic new career opportunities, but the focus for us is making sure our clients get the best talent possible.”

That said, the company is regularly flooded with requests from people looking for work. We get approached every day by hundreds – if not thousands of people at certain times – that are looking for jobs,” she said, “and we place people all the way from very entry level jobs for people with no work experience in the industry, to super-sophisticated positions where they have a very specific niche, and our clients are looking for that specific talent. We place everybody from entry level all the way through COO, CEO, and all the executive level positions as well.”

They also provide all types of employment provisions. “We are a full-service staffing firm, and that means that we place people both on a temporary basis, consulting, direct hire, and then we also do retained search, so we are able to service our clients regardless of what level they’re looking to hire for,” explained Bernard. “We also have a company called CannabizTemp, which places people on an interim or project basis, or a consulting basis. Anything that’s part-time or project-based or hourly based is run through our CannabizTemp company, and we work with almost all the MSOs right now in helping them find high-volume staff to start-up new locations as they get licenses in new states. We staff them with 20-30 people at a time, helping to start up their cultivation facilities or their manufacturing or extraction facilities.”

Business for CannabizTemp will only increase, added Bernard. “I would say about 40 percent of our placements are temp staffing, and that’s increasing; going forward, 50 to 60 percent of our business will probably be temp services,” she said. “Those people work on our payroll, so it prevents the clients from having to deal with onboarding, payroll taxes or HR fees, and dealing with the cumbersome issues of hiring someone. Basically, they’ll say to us, ‘I need 10 packagers to show up on Monday,’ and we’ll make sure all of those people go through the right badging process, we get the background checks done, we make sure that we have all their payroll information. The client will get one bill for however many people that have worked for them on a weekly basis, and we take all the HR headaches of hiring away. We’re very unique in that sense, and there’s not a lot of other staffing firms providing that service in cannabis right now.”

The reasons why companies are leaning on temp are obvious, but that doesn’t mean it does not work out for the employee. “Especially with the economy being a little uncertain right now, a lot of our clients prefer to hire people on a temporary basis because then they can scale up or down without much hassle,” said Bernard. “I would say about 30 to 40 percent of the people we have working on a temp basis transition into full time jobs after a period of time, so they have an opportunity to make sure they’re the right culture fit, and that they have the right work ethic for that particular position. In some ways, clients can try before they buy someone on a full-time basis. That’s another benefit clients can have with flexible staffing; they can make sure someone fits in well before they might make them a permanent part of their team.”

To meet the increasing demands of an industry growing by leaps and bounds despite the headwinds, Bernard also has had to staff-up “In total, we have just over 30 recruiters now that are working on a national basis for us as our internal employees,” she explained. “They’re full time looking for talent for our clients either on a temp or a direct carrier basis. We have 12 locations throughout the U.S. right now, so we geographically cover the whole of the country, and with a lot of states on the East Coast going legal, we have a large team on the East Coast ready to serve those clients.

“I would say we work exclusively with six of the largest MSOs where we are their exclusive staffing partner both on a temp and a direct hire basis,” she continued, “and there are hundreds of people working under our payroll at these MSO facilities. Obviously, we work with single-state operators and smaller companies as well, but it’s really great that a lot of these MSOs see us as a staffing partner and rely on us to help them execute as they go into different states.

“On an executive level basis,” she added, “we place 200 to 300 people a year in very senior executive-level positions, and we see that probably doubling next year with all these new states coming on. Just in the three M states, what we call the three M’s – Minnesota, Maryland, and Missouri – we’re going to see probably another 150,000 jobs created over the next two to three years, so there’s a ton of growth going on in staffing for the industry.”

Has contraction eroded c-suite hiring at all? “With an economy the way it is right now, we’re definitely seeing some attrition as far as rolls are concerned,” replied Bernard, “Companies are looking at all of their expenses and saying, ‘Where can we cut costs?’ With that, there’s definitely some layoffs happening, but a lot of these companies are still growing and they’re hiring for sophisticated positions. For instance, we’re starting to see a lot more companies hiring people that can help with quality assurance and making sure products across all states that they’re producing in have a certain standard of production and manufacturing. So, we’re picking from big CPG companies and finding the talent in those companies and bringing them into cannabis.”

Other skill sets are also in demand. “Obviously, finance and accounting,” said Bernard, speaking in mid-December. “Every company out there right now is just holding on for dear life in terms of, can they continue with the lack of investment in the industry right now, so they’re looking at more sophisticated finance professionals, and we’re placing a lot of people at the senior level for CFO roles, VP of Finance, people that can handle compliance and audits, and maximize finance activity as well. Honestly, we’re still inundated with new executive positions that we’re filling even in December, which is supposed to be a slow month for us, but we have over 50 very active searches going on right now for executives in the industry. I don’t know if any other industries can say that in an economy where everything is slowing down, but we’re not seeing much of a slowdown in hiring at the executive level.”

Vetting for Cannabis

The hiring process is where a human resources company proves its mettle, and the cannabis industry offers both enormous opportunities and challenges in that regard. “I think the reason we are so well regarded in the industry is because we have such a thorough methodology in hiring talent for the industry,” said Bernard. “I think the benefit of having 20 years with the world’s largest staffing firm – considered the best staffing firm in the world – is that I’ve taken all the best practices from what I’ve learned over the last 25 years, and I’m applying them to what we do on a daily basis for our clients. So, we have a very thorough vetting process we use for every single position we place at an executive level – phone interviews, video interviews, background checks; a very, very deep vetting of prior positions, and making sure people have the right culture fit.

“I think what’s really unique about this industry,” she added, “is that you can have an executive that has all the right skill-sets and experience that has worked for a big global company, and on paper they look amazing, but you put them into cannabis, and they are not used to having no infrastructure, no assistant, no marketing department, or no HR department. In cannabis, you have to have an entrepreneurial mindset and be able to wear multiple hats in any position, and we have to vouch for those personality fits as well; someone who is going to be able to handle being in a startup environment, because even very large MSOs are functioning like a startup.”

Is it difficult finding the right mix of entrepreneurialism, professionalism, and people who understand scaling and big business, but also cannabis? “There are so many factors that go into it,” said Bernard. “I always say, there’s an art and a science to hiring the right executive in any position, and the science is really easy. You can match someone that has the right skill set and background and experience for the job, you can almost match that to the job description, but the art comes in and the intuitive aspect – the emotional intelligence needed in order for someone to be able to work in the cannabis environment – is very unique to any other industry out there. We look for people that have maybe worked in a startup earlier on in their career, or someone who expresses a desire to be an entrepreneur or make a difference beyond just the box that they used to live in in a previous job, but someone that’s willing to take a risk and that’s not going to get fazed by a lot of change and chaos, because that’s certainly the environment in almost every company that we work with right now.”

The industry also has its share of people who have worked for several cannabis companies. “The wonderful thing about cannabis is there are a lot of people that work in the industry, because they’re just so passionate about cannabis and what it can do for the community,” said Bernard. “Maybe they have a personal experience with cannabis or have a family member that benefits from it. I find that one of the wonderful things about working in this industry is that it’s a group of people who are passionate about cannabis, and very often those people are lifers, and they want to make a difference. They may make a jump from one company to another, but their internal motivation for working in the industry remains, and we’re seeing a lot of executives making their second and third move in the industry right now.

“I always say that one year in the cannabis industry is worth five years in any other industry,” she added. “You’re drinking from a firehose, and there’s very few people that really have deep experience in the industry right now, so if you have two or three years in the industry, you’re worth a lot because compared to someone that’s still an unknown in the industry, companies definitely lean on people with previous cannabis experience when they make hiring choices right now.”

As the Market Tightens

Interestingly, as many ancillary companies in the cannabis space are feeling the pinch of a bear market, human resources seem to maintain its own, and even thrive in a downturn even as some companies find their own staff. “I think a lot of companies are trying to find talent on their own right now, which I totally understand,” said Bernard. “As the market tightens, companies want to avoid paying recruiting fees. But at the end of the day, a lot of these clients still come back to us because they don’t want to sift through 200 applications that they might get on the job and figure out which one is the right one, and they are being very selective. So, companies are still using us because everyone is so overworked right now in the industry.

“I think you can you probably speak to a lot of these executives, and everyone’s just making sure they can get through the next year until these changes come on a national level that can help give the industry some relief,” she added. “There’s just not a lot of spare time and energy among executives in the industry right now, and so they’re still using us to find key executives for specific jobs. A lot of clients are now switching to temp, which is becoming a better option for these clients because they can scale with flexible staffing both at an entry level and on a consulting level, they can hire experts, and they don’t have to hire the full time. They can get someone to come in for one day, a week, or two days a week as a CFO or a marketing person. So, they get the benefit of that without having to pay $200-300k a year for someone.”

As far as compensation goes, the industry is finally coming into its own in terms of parity with other industries, albeit in a patchwork depending on what state you are in, explained Bernard, who pointed out the salary guide published by CannabizTeam annually. “We put it out every year towards the end of January, and for the last three years consecutively the salary guide has shown that there have been increases in executive pay,” she said. “For the first couple of years, cannabis [pay] was below other industries for similar positions, and over the last three years it’s crept up to be in line with a lot of other companies for similar positions. I think [in 2023] we’ll see a stabilization of that as companies become a little more conservative, and there is also probably going to be a bigger talent pool available as companies have to lay off some people with a slowdown.”

Are there any discernible trends in terms of certain jobs in greater demand? “For the most part, there’s still a huge demand in cultivation,” said Bernard, “but there’s also still huge demand for people with sophisticated extraction experience, and all the way to retail. So, it’s still a very exciting industry, and there’s still a huge opportunity for people to get careers in the industry.”

Is she seeing any refugees from any particular industries turn to cannabis? “Obviously, there’s been a huge wave of layoffs in tech, and I think we’ll start seeing those people come knocking on the doors of cannabis companies, and maybe that’s good timing, because the cannabis industry is slowly becoming more sophisticated, and jobs are not as rudimentary as they were five years ago,” she said. “Maybe some companies are ready to become more tech savvy or have some more sophistication so they can take advantage of these layoffs that are happening in other industries.”

Is it hard to find enough people to fill all the possible positions in demand now or in the future? “We have over 300,000 individuals in our database now that have applied for cannabis jobs and are interested, so over the last six years it has really become very deep,” said Bernard. “We get thousands of applications every week for candidates that are interested in jobs, and I think we do a really good job in evaluating [people], and even if someone is not a fit today, they’ll be kept in mind for an opportunity if it comes up in the near future or in the future.

“We’ve invested a lot in technology and AI internally for our recruiting purposes,” she added, “and we have the ability to identify people that have the right skill set within our database that have shown an interest in working in the space very quickly, so that if we get a position that requires a specific skill set, even if someone applied a year ago, we’ll be able to go back and say, ‘Okay, now we have an opportunity for you that’s the right fit, and we’ll reach out to them.’ That’s one way we respond to our clients very quickly with the ability to place so much talent at any one time.”

The industry is also seeing increased unionization. Will we see more or less of that going forward? “Unfortunately, more,” said Bernard.

Does it impact her business? “Absolutely,” she said. “We actually work really well with unions depending on the state and the company. In some cases, someone can work on a temp basis for a certain period of time before they have to become full-time and become part of the union. We accommodate that and we work with our clients and the unions in order to make sure that we have a good relationship, and we work within what they require as well.”

In terms of placement, the company anticipates growth as the industry expands. “On a temp basis,” said Bernard, “we’ve placed over 2000 people in the last year, and then on the direct hire and executive basis, it’s close to about 300 to 400 a year. I think our temp business will probably double in 2023 as companies become more aware that temp is an option,” she added. “I think a lot of companies are going to choose flexible staffing as an option just because nobody really knows what’s going to happen with the industry or the market over the next 12 months, and I think people sleep a lot better when they know they can scale up and down on staffing easier.

“So, I truly believe that business for us is going to explode in the next year,” she added, “and on an executive level, what’s exciting for us is that we’re starting to see a lot of international interest in hiring talent from the U.S. Just over the last few months, we’ve been approached by European and Asian companies that are saying, ‘Can we get talent to come and teach us how to do cannabis for two or three years at a time?’ So, we’re seeing longer contracts for international talent as well.”

That said, the U.S. will continue to experience growth, said Bernard. “We haven’t maximized the opportunities in the US,” she asserted. “There are many states that are going to go legal over the next couple of years, and who knows what’s going to happen at the federal level. But these are not just inquiries in Europe. We’ve made placements in Europe in the last year, and we’re actively doing searches in Asia right now, so the globalization of the industry is around the corner, and no business can function without people.

A People Business

“This is very much a people business, and every company out there is going to need the right talent,” said Bernard of the employment big picture in cannabis. I mentioned to Bernard that despite the many jobs available in cannabis, people think of the budtender as an essential employee in the value chain.

“I think for the general population that’s what they think a job in the cannabis industry is, because that is what comes to mind first – budtender jobs,” she said. “But if you stand back and look at the industry from the minute that seed goes into the ground and starts growing – the process of cultivating the plant, then drying the plant, extracting, and then it has to go through whatever form is going to be manufactured, and then testing – there are so many jobs in this industry if you look at each vertical individually. So, it’s a misconception that budtenders are the main job in the industry. In our salary guide, we list the top 52 jobs that we’ve placed in the industry. It’s broken down into every vertical and those are just the top 52, but there are hundreds or thousands of positions in the industry, and retail is just what the public sees.”

What about the perception of cannabis as a good industry to work in? Has that been impacted by the recent wave of layoffs?  “I think every industry deals with that to some extent,” said Bernard. “You can look at the cup half-full or half-empty. It’s really, I think, a mindset, and every person has their own mindset about a certain environment or an industry. And the cannabis industry is not for the faint of heart. It’s not an easy industry to work in right now in any respect. There are a lot of challenges, so people can complain about that, but I also believe that there hasn’t been an industry in a very long time with as much opportunity in it, and also that connects with people at such a deep level that their personal passion and drive to participate and make the industry successful goes beyond a paycheck and a job.

“I just don’t think there is any other industry out there that has the same component that connects with people’s hearts, and I think that’s why people want to work in this industry,” she added. “The people that stay working in the industry and are dealing with the challenges head-on do it because it’s not just a job. It’s a passion and a connection that people have with a plant for so many different reasons, and that’s what I love about this industry and why I think so many people are so excited to work in the industry.”

As our time wound down, I asked Bernard if there was something she wanted to make sure was communicated to readers. “I think the most important thing I’d like to get across is to make sure that companies out there know that temp and consulting is a real option for hiring,” she said. “I think a lot of companies still think that because it’s cannabis, flexible staffing is not available or is not a real solution, so we’re trying to educate the market that is an option and that we have made it possible with what we’ve built over the last three years with our temp business.”

The temp level of employment reaches up how high? “We can go all the way to c-suite for contract work,” replied Bernard. “A lot of our placements right now are entry level. So a lot of the bigger MSOs, like Trulieve, Jushi, Acreage, are hiring temp people from us to staff up their operations in cultivation, manufacturing, and extraction. Even on a retail level, we’re placing budtenders on a temp basis, but I think a lot of companies don’t know that is an option, so getting the word out about that is part of our mission right now.

“And then on a consulting basis, we have fractional consultants – people that come in once a week, or three times a month, to help with marketing or the finance aspect of things, or even legal work. They are what we call people on the bench, so that they can get off the bench and go work for a company a few days a week.”

Are those 1099 independent contractor jobs? “They can either be on our payroll – all of our temps are in our W-2 payroll – but at the senior level, we are happy to work with consultants on 1099 as well,” said Bernard.

Is remuneration ever negotiable? “Absolutely,” said Bernard, “and that’s part of what we do. We help candidates and companies negotiate packages for people they hire, and a big part of our service is to make sure that we get acceptance on both sides, and that everyone onboard is happy with the arrangement. One reason why we can respond so well to our clients’ needs is that over the last six years we’ve added verticals within our organizations, so that people have become specialists in certain areas within the industry. We have recruiters that just focus on cultivation, or manufacturing, or retail or the c-suite, and just the level of sophistication and knowledge that we’ve built up in the industry sets us apart from our competition.”

Another service CannabizTeam offers is helping offboard employees when a company is faced with layoffs. “As companies consolidate – and we’re seeing a lot of this in California right now as companies get bought up or acquisitions happen, or they just have to lay off people based on what’s happening in the industry as the price of flower is forcing a lot of people to downsize – we provide an outsourcing service where we help these candidates that are being laid off get a softer landing, or find another job in the industry very quickly, because we have the connections.

“We also have an opportunity to place these people on a temp basis very quickly,” she added. “A lot of companies come to us and use us for outsourcing, which means that we will individually connect with the people that are being laid off, we will help them with making sure their LinkedIn profiles look the best possible to get the next opportunity, we will make sure their resumes are well presented, and in any we can we will help them set up another interview for another job or get them in a job on a temp basis so they have a very fast transition to another job opportunity.”

A handful of companies use the service. “I would say we currently have four clients that have laid off between 10 and 100 people that are using that service,” said Bernard. “The company pays for it. It’s a very small fee, less than $1,000 per employee, for us to provide that service for them. It’s a great way for companies to maintain a good reputation in the market, saying, ‘Listen, we’re taking care of the people that we’re laying off.’ And we’re happy to help because we have so many jobs open, and we’re only doing cannabis, that’s all we do, so often these people with experience are actually highly regarded even though they got laid off from their previous job.”

As much as she has going on, as relentless as it must be meeting the demands of companies under intense pressure, and as easy as it might be to distance oneself from the heartache that comes with losing a job, Bernard comes across as a businessperson who cares, someone who is as emotionally invested as she is professionally. “I feel super grateful, because I don’t think there are many other jobs in the world that give you as much satisfaction as what we get on a daily basis,” she said. “We’re the best staffing firm in the industry, but I think what drives all of us is the fact that we are giving people a new opportunity in life and finding our clients great talent that’s going to accelerate their business, that’s going to make the day-to-day easier, that’s going to give them a competitive advantage over their competitors in the market. We’re helping these companies succeed by helping them find exceptional talent, and at the same time we get flowers delivered to the office, or I get a card sent to me or an email saying, ‘Thank you so much for this incredible job that I just got. I can’t be more excited to get up every morning, and you’ve increased my salary, and it’s helped my family, and I’m so excited about life again.’

“To me, that’s the biggest reward of what we do,” she repeated. “Giving people a new lease on life and giving them a new job is one of the biggest things that you can do to help someone have a better outlook on life.”