Member Spotlight | ARVID Staffing

Company: ARVID Staffing

Workhaus Location: 20 Richmond Street East

Website: ARVID Staffing | Service With Style

“You know, you can get so easily lost. In any kind of line of work, you can get so easily lost that we are dealing with people. They aren’t numbers, they aren’t fillers, they are human beings…and the privilege of what I do as a recruiter or a temporary staffing agency is that I get a chance to connect good people with good clients and make that symbiosis work. That part of what I do, I really really love and I’m really passionate about.” 

-Thomas Kylberg, CEO, ARVID Staffing

Our Director of Community sat down with Thomas Kylberg, CEO and Founder of ARVID Staffing, who told us the incredible story of how his company survived the pandemic, his advice for entrepreneurs, and the benefits of a coworking space. With everything discussed there was one common theme through the conversation with both Thomas and the ARVID team: the inevitability of a higher level of service when leadership has a people-first approach.

Without any prompting, Thomas brought up his gratitude for his team numerous times throughout the conversation. “ I’ve been blessed from the beginning meeting some very good people, and I’ve told them many times I would not be here if it wasn’t for them.” And after interviewing some of the team members at ARVID it was clear to see Thomas’ compassionate leadership style has translated into a passionate team that cares about how they make each person feel at their client’s events.  

 “I wanted to create a company that was for people and about people.”     

This was an especially enjoyable experience to interview the ARVID staffing team because their values and mission align with our own at Workhaus. Just as Workhaus was founded to create a hospitable, personalized experience rather than just another office space, ARVID staffing was also founded for reasons beyond the obvious. After working in staffing for the hospitality industry for the last twenty years, Thomas’ perspective truly evolved. “I was never really that interested in the food and beverage aspect of what we do. It was more the human experience of the people. When I decided to open my own company, I felt very strongly that I wanted to do things differently, and I wanted to build a company that was more focused and revolved around the human experience, as opposed to just food and beverage or anything that’s involved. I wanted to create a company that was for people and about people.”     

Thomas also highlighted the importance of valuing the individuals on your team for who they are. “In any kind of line of work you can get so easily lost that we are dealing with people. They aren’t numbers, they aren’t fillers, they are human beings…and the privilege of what I do as a recruiter or a temporary staffing agency is that I get a chance to connect good people with good clients and make that symbiosis work. That part of what I do I really really love and I’m really passionate about. I think people should remember that your business is as good as the people you hire, so make sure that you do your recruiting properly, as far as your core team.” 

“Pick the right people, and everything else will follow.”

Another quality that makes ARVID staffing stand out is the soft skill vetting they do in interviews. Hospitality requires a strong set of soft skills, such as problem solving, adaptability, critical thinking, an enhanced sense of independence, teamwork,  and an empathetic-first communication style. Although these skills can be cultivated within a workplace, they are difficult to teach to someone that has large knowledge gaps in these areas. This isn’t to say that an individual’s previous experience learning technical skills isn’t a valuable asset, but the learning curve is much shorter in teaching these skills.

As Thomas says, “One lesson that I’ve learned, when you’re looking for people, always, in my opinion, prioritize who they are, not what they know or what they’ve done before. Look at them as human beings, and evaluate, is this a person that I trust? Is it a person that I like? Is it a person who shares my values? That is what matters. The rest can be taught. I am a true believer in that almost any task that we perform in any sort of business can be taught, but people cannot be taught to be who they are. They are who they are, so pick the right people, and everything else will follow.”

After chatting with Olivia Grosso, Operations Manager, it’s easy to see that the ARVID team really does lead with these values. “ Working at ARVID is a lot of problem-solving and troubling shooting on the fly. That part is very rewarding in a way, because I love solving problems, but it can be a lot for some. I think it’s the right environment for me, because I thrive in that, and I like being able to teach other people how to think outside the box.”

“I like being able to teach other people how to think outside the box.”

Knowing where everyone’s strengths are, paired with a strong team culture, has given ARVID a competitive edge when fulfilling client event requirements. As Olivia tells us, “The way that Thomas runs things is much smaller and more boutique, and I think that helps set it apart from the bigger ones that have like 300, 400, or even 1000+ staff, where the staff are just kind of names and numbers. We know everybody, we know where people are good and where they will thrive, and it’s easier for us to adapt and meet the needs of our clients.”

Amy Tran, Junior Accountant, agrees with Olivia, noting that she feels included with all departments of the event staffing company as the accountant, where in previous roles it was easier to feel isolated to one department. “In all of my previous jobs, I’ve just been working in a corporate lifestyle. So we have a department and usually I just work a lot within that department. But being here I feel like it’s so much closer and we can actually communicate with each other.”

ARVID staffing has an extremely impressive client and event roster, including the National Bank Open (tennis), the Canadian Open (golf), and multiple mayoral campaign parties. “Even at tennis, in some of the suites, a lot of celebrities will pop in. In the chairman’s suite, the Olympic athletes from that summer will be in there, there’s different mayors from all over the cities that will be in there. So there’s a lot of exclusive and fun things.“ Olivia says.  However, their journey to success wasn’t without some bumps, or rather, mountains, along the road.

“We didn’t really know how long this would last.”

After working in hospitality staffing for years, Thomas was ready to open his own company in the fall of 2019. Needless to say, we all know what comes next. “We were hit almost immediately with the pandemic. I would say about six months or so into opening my business. Pretty much overnight Toronto shut down.” Thomas explains. “It essentially meant that our whole business, everything collapsed. It was very difficult, and I’m not going to lie, there were times in the beginning where, especially the first six months of the pandemic, where I wasn’t sure if we would survive. I had put a lot of my savings into the company and invested a lot of my personal assets, so I am taking a big risk, and in the beginning it was very stressful. I didn’t know if we would make it through, and I personally thought about potentially getting into another industry. We didn’t really know how long this would last.” 

Fortunately, ARVID’s overhead was low and they were able to cut costs where needed. Thomas gives some credit to others helping them get through, stating that “some of the people we worked with were very good to us. They were able to give us a temporary freezing of some of the software we were using, so we didn’t have huge bills to face.” 

Thomas also addresses the sad truth of the great losses to the Toronto food and beverage industry as a whole. “Some of my clients weren’t as lucky. A lot of the catering companies I worked with, the restaurants I worked with, couldn’t handle all the bills they were stuck with during these times, and they had to fold. So we lost a lot of good restaurants, good catering companies, and those stories are heartbreaking, because people have had these businesses for 25 years and they lost everything. I was lucky in that sense, I could stay nimble, my overheads were low, and I could kind of survive on quite little, really, until things opened up.”

“There’s really nothing like having your own business.”

As for the future plans for ARVID? After a fantastic year of taking on a lot of big projects that were milestones in their company, they’re taking the next year or two to stabilize and to consolidate the business they have, making sure they can repeat what they do every year in a successful manner. “Then, hopefully, after that, we can look at, look at some expansion. Reaching out to other cities outside of Toronto is obviously something that we’re excited about. We’ve had quite a few clientele reach out about Montreal and Vancouver and Ottawa; potentially that would be our next step.” says Thomas.

When asked if he has advice for other entrepreneurs, Thomas says “I would say to any business owner out there, that we’re going to face some of these initial challenges that are very disheartening, but I would just encourage everybody to push through that first year that is so difficult, and there’s so much doubt. Once you push through that, there’s really nothing like having your own business.”

And on a final and heartwarming note, Thomas reminds us again why valuing your team as human beings rather than cogs in a wheel is truly a special thing. “ It’s so funny, because you know, at the end of the day, what motivates people, and what makes people work, and what makes people passionate about what they do, it’s rarely just a paycheck. It’s rarely the company they work for. Most people, I find, are motivated by the people they work with. They don’t want to let their colleague down. They want to help their colleague finish a project. They’re doing it for each other. I think if you can create that sort of spirit within your company, where people feel that they are not just an employee, they’re part of a family. Then you’ve created something that is so much more powerful than a business; you’ve created a group of people who will do anything for each other. Not necessarily for me, or for my business, but for each other. And that is the most powerful thing, I think, about human beings and what amazing things they can achieve when they come together. It’s a really, really beautiful thing.”

Check out our Instagram for some snippets from the interviews

Wait! Before you go, learn how ARVID uses the Workhaus space and how it has helped strengthen their team culture.  

Olivia: “It does come in handy having the big rooms, because I can have up to 15 staff that come in for that. We have certain periods where we do orientations every week, and then say now we’re done, because we have a ton of staff, we don’t need to do orientations anymore, but our office is here as like a drop-in for people to come pick up a shirt if they need it. We have a little coat rack, and we have shirts there, and extra uniforms, or Thomas has extra bar kits in the office for people. So it is kind of useful that there’s a drop-in vibe around here, because we do have staff just in and out, or I’ll come in to do office work and be doing shifts. It just feels really useful.”

Amy: “I used to come here for the full week, but then I just switched back to some work from home days, so I’ve only been coming here one to two days. It’s really great to have the flexibility, especially around the winter time!”

Thomas: “I previously worked for another company, and that was based out of Workhaus’s first place down on Front Street, and I always remember it being a fantastic experience, a great crowd, very social, fantastic work environment. It was my first experience of a coworking space, but it made so much sense; fellow entrepreneurs sort of like exchanging ideas, you know, providing daily inspiration, and obviously we all deal with similar issues, so it was good to have people to bounce ideas off of and so forth.

So, I always kept this in the back of my mind during the pandemic, that once things did open up again, I would love to get back involved with Workhaus. I believe I came in and I met Adrian and yourself one of the soft openings, and then there was another lockdown, and I think I was in between and we had a chat. Then once things really did open up, we decided to move in, and it’s been a fantastic experience ever since. 

The whole concept for a startup business is, I think, invaluable to have that support of other entrepreneurs around you, and that social aspect, because sometimes having a business can be quite isolating. You’re still working out and trying to get your clients, and as a business owner also, in general, it’s a bit isolating, because you have people who report to you, but essentially, you’re there by yourself. I think to have other business owners around you in the same position is very, very helpful, and very supportive. Highly recommend it to anybody starting a business.”