This episode features an interview with Kristin Hancock, Vice President of Community and Engagement at ICology. Kristin’s passion for communications fueled her career at organizations like Ronald McDonald House and Children’s Wish Foundation. Kristin has over a decade of experience connecting humans through meaningful messages. She also has a flair for astrology and offers birth chart readings for people and pets! 

In this episode, Amanda and Kristin discuss how ICology improves culture, how to make connections instead of network, and Kristin reads Amanda’s birth chart.

-------------------

“We carry with us experiences from our life, from our personal lives and our professional lives. Knowing those pieces of yourself before you start a role is, I think, the most important part of it so you can be self-aware when you have tendencies to respond in certain ways, for example. I think the other piece is connecting with your industry. Someone has been in your shoes before and someone will be in your shoes in the future. So, getting to know the folks who are in your industry, getting to know the people in your organization and also outside your organization, I think is the other big part of being in this industry.” – Kristin Hancock

-------------------

Episode Timestamps:

*(01:50): Kristin’s background

*(04:50): Kristin’s role at ICology

*(06:05): Segment: Story Time

*(07:09): Kristin reads Amanda’s birth chart

*(11:04): How astrology impacts Kristin’s view of internal communications

*(12:57): Segment: Getting Tactical

*(14:46): How ICology builds community

*(20:39): Segment: Seat at the Table

*(21:42): The importance of making connections

*(28:27): Segment: Asking for a Friend

*(30:06): Challenges IC professionals are facing

-------------------

Links:

Connect with Kristin on LinkedIn

ICology

Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn

www.simpplr.com/podcast

This episode features an interview with Michelle Press, Director of Corporate Communications at Envoy Solutions. Michelle has over 25 years of experience leading merger and acquisition communications, community relations, and change management. Previously, Michelle’s leadership roles include KemperLesnik, UL Solutions, and Golin.

In this episode, Amanda and Michelle open their playbooks on mergers and acquisitions. They discuss the dos and don'ts of a communications plan, the channels and tech that help navigate this shift, and what Michelle has learned throughout her career.

-------------------

“If you think about it from an acquisition standpoint, the thing that every business wants to know when requiring a company it's, ‘Do no harm and we want everyone to be able to do their job the way they've been doing it as much as possible,’ as change is happening. So if it's the importance of making sure that people feel like they can still do their job, overwhelming them with email is not going to help them because that's usually when people say is, ‘There's so much here, communication here, I can't get to my own work or I can't get to my own job.’ So how do we help facilitate that in a better way?” – Michelle Press

-------------------

Episode Timestamps:

*(01:42): Michelle’s background

*(03:41): Segment: Story Time

*(04:03): What Michelle learned during her first acquisition

*(06:53): Segment: Seat at the Table 

*(11:50): How IC can be successful without a seat at the table 

*(13:49): Segment: Getting Tactical 

*(14:15): Dos and don'ts of a merger and acquisition communications plans 

*(20:36): How Michelle uses channels and technology to help employees navigate a merger

*(34:00): Segment: Asking for a Friend

-------------------

Links:

Connect with Michelle on LinkedIn

Envoy Solutions

Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn

www.simpplr.com/podcast

This episode features an interview with Suman Gopalan, Chief HR Officer at Freshworks. Suman has spent her entire professional career in HR, holding positions at publicly traded companies like The Nielsen Company, Dell Technologies, and Whirlpool. At Freshworks, Suman pilots the global people strategy to develop and engage their employees.

In this episode, Amanda and Suman examine diversity in the workplace. They discuss Suman’s passion for women in the workforce, key elements of workplace culture, and why it's better to hire people that add to that culture versus fitting in.

-------------------

“There is no one size that fits all. Human experiences at the workplace is all about different moments that matter as an employee throughout your journey. How do you create experiences that can delight your employees? Just like how we talk about customer delight. We have different personas. Whether it's an early career employee, it's an experienced employee, senior executive, women and we try and create experiences for each one of these that are different and that are important to them. And to me, that's what it's all about. It's human experiences at the workplace that create delight.” – Suman Gopalan

-------------------

Episode Timestamps:

*(01:50): Suman’s career journey

*(03:50): Segment: Story Time

*(04:01): Suman’s passion for women in the workforce

*(08:41): Suman’s definition of employee experience

*(12:06): Segment: Getting Tactical

*(12:31): The key elements of a good workplace culture

*(15:45): Hiring to fit the culture vs adding to the culture

*(19:33): Segment: Ripped from the Headlines

*(23:38): How the pandemic affected women in the workforce 

*(26:25): Freshworks’ pledge for equality

*(33:47): Asking for a Friend

-------------------

Links:

Connect with Suman on LinkedIn

Freshworks

Amanda’s LinkedIn

www.simpplr.com/podcast

This episode features an interview with Stephanie Briggs, Director of Employee Experience at ivanti. She has over ten years of experience in digital and social media marketing, where she puts storytelling at the forefront. Stephanie’s passion for storytelling doesn’t stop there. She is also a published horror author of the “Sophia Rey” series, in which the main character goes undercover in a cult.

In this episode, Amanda and Stephanie discuss who owns employee experience in an org and how storytelling makes for powerful communications.

-------------------

“Employee experience, overall, either you’ll have a subset of employees who are highly engaged and it really comes down to the level of passion that they have to not just do their day-to-day and collect a paycheck. But it’s really about having that passion, coming each day, and really feeling that impact that you’re making as an employee. And that’s a tough one because as employee engagement professionals, it’s really in our areas to help with getting employees to that point of ensuring that they understand and they’re feeling the impact that they make overall. And that’s not an easy thing to do.” – Stephanie Briggs

-------------------

Episode Timestamps:

*(01:45): Stephanie’s background 

*(03:37): Stephanie’s role at ivanti 

*(04:58): Segment: Storytime

*(05:37): Why Stephanie loves to tell stories 

*(08:11): Stephanie breaks down her Sophia Rey book series

*(13:59: Segment: Getting Tactical 

*(17:10): How Stephanie supports leaders 

*(18:20): How Stephanie worked across her organization on an intranet revamp

*(24:31): How ivanti maintains a global employee experience

*(30:40): What’s the ideal org for employee experience?

*(33:36): Segment: Asking for a Friend 

*(38:48): Biggest challenges employee experience professionals will face in the future

-------------------

Links:

Connect with Stephanie on LinkedIn

ivanti

Amanda’s LinkedIn

www.simpplr.com/podcast

This episode features an interview with Mary Poppen, Chief Strategy and Customer Officer at involve.ai. With over 2 decades of experience in customer success, executive leadership, and business consulting, Mary is dedicated to advancing the next generation of CX leaders.

In this episode, Amanda sits down with Mary to discuss how a great customer experience can lead to happy employees and how to measure employee and customer satisfaction.

-------------------

“Early in my career, I realized that our most happy customers had a really strong relationship with an employee or employees in our organization. Whether it was sales services, exec relationships, it didn’t really matter they just had a strong bond. And the least happy customers were those that really saw us as a vendor. Those of you listening that do know me, know I hate the v-word. If you can be called a partner, a strategic advisor, that’s much better. But, I realized that those customers who were unhappy were the ones that saw us as a vendor. Just a transactional, reactionary solution. So, that’s what struck me as a differentiator where relationships and therefore, engaged and happy employees, really do make a difference in building a connection and providing value to customers. So, when you have happy engaged employees and happy engaged customers, there’s this crazy contagious enthusiasm that exists. And then the company benefits because what results is growth, expansion of customers, and referenceability. Talent out there wants to work for your company. So it’s just a lot of goodness that I call the ‘All In Zone’.” – Mary Poppen

-------------------

Episode Timestamps:

*(01:44): Mary’s background

*(04:22): Segment: Story Time 

*(06:41): The link between employee experience and customer satisfaction 

*(09:32): Segment: Getting Tactical

*(11:19): ROI when connecting employee and customer experience

*(19:13): Best practices for tracking employee and customer satisfaction

*(21:46): What involve.ai is doing to keep employees and customers happy 

*(24:22): Segment: Asking for a Friend 

*(27:48): Biggest challenges of connecting the customer and employee experience

-------------------

Links:

Connect with Mary on LinkedIn

involve.ai

Amanda’s LinkedIn

www.simpplr.com/podcast

This episode features an interview with Debbie Gunning, Vice President of People at Human Interest. Debbie has spent the last 24 years building powerful business teams through talent acquisition, employee relations, and workplace culture.

In this episode, Amanda and Debbie dive into employee onboarding. They discuss the relationship between onboarding and employee retention, the importance of culture during this time, and how Debbie’s team transitioned to a virtual onboarding experience.

-------------------

“If you are a first-time HR leader entering into this, my takeaways from the last three years of having this huge scope that I’ve been covering, and part of it was very new to me, is just get ready for the ride of your life and don’t take things personally. There’s always going to be a critic. Critics are loud. And don’t worry about it because people are always going to have different feelings and let them have them, and get super comfortable being uncomfortable. Because, being an HR professional in today’s climate, every day there is going to be something that comes up that you’re like, ‘Hmm, didn’t see this coming. Don’t really know how to handle this. It’s uncomfortable, but I'm going to figure it out.’ So just get comfortable living with the discomfort and you’ll just continue to grow and thrive.” – Debbie Gunning

-------------------

Episode Timestamps:

*(01:44): Debbie’s background

*(04:14): Segment: Story Time 

*(04:37): How Human Interest is tackling the pandemic world

*(06:12): Segment: Getting Tactical 

*(07:24): How a good onboarding experience leads to employee retention

*(12:34): How Human Interest switched to virtual onboarding

*(22:47): Don’ts of employee onboarding

*(25:52): How Debbie is bringing culture into onboarding

*(29:31): Segment: Asking for a Friend

-------------------

Links:

Connect with Debbie on LinkedIn

Human Interest

Amanda’s LinkedIn

www.simpplr.com/podcast

This episode features an interview with Danielle Tabor, Chief People Officer at Emburse. Danielle has over 15 years of human resources experience in the biomedical, architecture, and financial industries. She also holds a Bachelor’s in Psychology and a minor in Education from Clark University. 

In this episode, Amanda sits down with Danielle to discuss work-from-home burnout, HR’s ability to adapt, and the importance of an equitable employee experience.

-------------------

“I really think the future of work is all about employee experience. Everything shifted with the pandemic. And as leaders, what we need to understand is what employees truly need and how we can realistically meet those needs. So, we need to consider the whole employee here. There are basic needs that must be met. At absolute minimum: stability. People don’t need to have anxiety about whether or not their job is stable. They need a healthy income, they need healthy benefits. But we also need to start thinking about family, community, social and environmental impact. It just expands. Previously, it used to be Human Resources that was focused on policy, procedure, compliance. Those things are obviously still incredibly important and they need to be focused on as well, but it goes so far beyond that. Where we really need to win over the hearts of our people if we want an engaged workforce. That’s going to be incredibly important as we go forward. And it's challenging, it’s not obvious all the time. And so, we need to be open-minded and we need to be able to adapt.” – Danielle Tabor

-------------------

Episode Timestamps:

*(01:42): Danielle’s background

*(02:48): Danielle’s role as Chief People Officer at Emburse

*(03:23): Segment: Story Time

*(03:39: How Emburse shifted during the pandemic

*(09:26): Danielle’s partnership with the internal comms team

*(10:43): Segment: Getting Tactical

*(12:46): Ensuring an equitable employee experience

*(17:46): How Emburse is combating employee burnout

*(20:47): How Danielle’s degree in Education influences her job

*(22:24): Segment: Asking For a Friend

*(26:15): How Danielle is getting better at her job through feedback

-------------------

Links:

Connect with Danielle on LinkedIn

Emburse

Amanda’s LinkedIn

www.simpplr.com/podcast

This episode features an interview with Parag Kulkarni, Chief Technology Officer at Simpplr. Parag has nearly 25 years of experience as a technology industry leader. Previously, Parag was the Senior Vice President of SaaS Engineering at Nutanix where he developed modern SaaS applications covering the customer and partner lifecycle. 

Parag is now heading Simpplr’s engineering and technology teams to create more value for its customers.

In this episode, Amanda and Parag discuss Simpplr’s new employee communication software Live EX, intranets and employee engagement, and the personalization of communications.

-------------------

“When we talk about engagement and connection, the big component of that is communication. How do you communicate? Who do you communicate to? Can you properly explain the why? Can you communicate at the right time? The product [Live EX] really focuses on that communication aspect as the first step of employee engagement or employee experience. Once that communication has happened, the next piece is to actually have a way of listening back to the feedback. Which is where surveys, the analytics that I talked about came into play. So, you really understand, ‘If I’m falling short in terms of engagement in certain areas, why is that? What can I do?’ And then the third component, which is where we are moving towards, is using that to inspire. Which is where things like recognition comes into play. If you see certain cultural values being exhibited that will drive more engagement, more connection. Then those are the ones that you really want to communicate to the larger group. Those are the ones that you want to recognize. So between connection, listening to the feedback for the connection that was provided, and then ultimately inspiring using recognition is how the platform can really help. And we are seeing a great uptake in that. We are seeing companies who are looking at employee experience and saying, ‘I really want to invest in my current employees.’ Hiring a new employee is so much more difficult and so much more money than focusing on the existing employees and keeping them happy.” – Parag Kulkarni

-------------------

Episode Timestamps:

*(01:44): Parag’s background

*(05:02): Segment: Story Time

*(05:16): Simpplr’s Live EX function and what makes it different

*(08:00): How Live EX helps drive employee engagement

*(13:55): How Simpplr personalizes data to communicate with employees

*(19:24): How people use Simpplr to get to know each other

*(23:14): Segment: Ripped From the Headlines

*(23:27): How organizations can use Live EX to minimize employee turnover

*(25:36): Segment: Asking For a Friend

*(28:10): Parag’s advice for those hesitant to change the employee experience

-------------------

Links:

Connect with Parag on LinkedIn

Simpplr

Amanda’s LinkedIn

www.simpplr.com/podcast

This episode features an interview with Annette Reavis, Chief People Officer at Envoy. Annette is an HR and business leader with over 20 years of experience. After spending 10 years at Facebook as the Vice President of HR, Annette retired. But not for long. She soon became the Chief People Officer of Root Inc. and now, Annette holds the same position at Envoy. 

In this episode, Annette and Amanda dive into work-life blend versus work-life balance, the modern employee experience, and how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion functions can improve.

-------------------

“I know it’s controversial to say, but I truly believe that if you are 100% remote, it is going to be harder and that you have to work harder. The company can only do so much. You have to work harder to make sure that you are making the right connections because people in the office will be able to do it over coffee, over lunch, and all those experiences that you won’t have. [...] We are really focused here at Envoy on the hybrid experience, so that you get a little bit of both. We do have talent that is 100% remote, for example. We’re going to bring them into the office and do an all hands once or twice a year, so that at least they can have that exchange, understanding. They can have that experience working in the office with people and sitting across from them at the desk. But, it’s something that we’re going to have to continue to work harder at for that talent that’s remote because I do believe it’s just a little bit harder.” – Annette Reavis

-------------------

Episode Timestamps:

*(01:55): Annette’s background

*(06:45): Segment: Storytime 

*(06:55): How Annette handled the pandemic at a new company

*(10:46): The value of “unstructured skill-building”

*(12:27): Annette’s journey as a Black woman in leadership

*(15:00): How DE&I functions can improve

*(17:18): How Annette handled COVID and social justice issues as a leader

*(19:08): Segment: Getting Tactical

*(21:09): Why Annette loves coaching leaders

*(23:19): The modern employee experience

*(28:40): Work/life balance vs. work/life blend

*(34:27): Segment: Asking For a Friend

-------------------

Links:

Connect with Annette on LinkedIn

Envoy

Amanda’s LinkedIn

www.simpplr.com/podcast

This episode features an interview with Sophie Hamersley, Manager of Internal Communications at HubSpot. With over a decade of experience under her belt, Sophie has held positions at fully integrated agencies such as RF|Binder and Image Unlimited Communications. Sophie joined HubSpot in 2018 as the Communications Manager of the Culture Team where she helped attract talent through storytelling.

In this episode, Sophie and Amanda dive into all things related to company culture. They discuss why HubSpot treats culture like a product, who the best brand ambassadors are, and why communications should be delightful.

-------------------

“I think at the very foundation of it, you want your employees to feel really proud about where they work. You want employees to feel excited to come to work every day, to feel energized by the hard problems that they’re solving and know exactly how they’re making an impact on the business, on our mission, on the millions of customers that we’re helping to grow better. And so, you want to build a company that people feel really proud to work at, that’s the biggest goal. As part of that, when you are feeling proud to work somewhere, you end up talking a lot about that to other people. [...] Your employees are absolutely your biggest brand ambassadors and the more that they feel proud and excited to work somewhere, the more they’re going to talk about that to other people. And so, at the very core foundation, you want to build a culture that enables people to do that.” – Sophie Hamersley

-------------------

Episode Timestamps:

*(01:57): Sophie’s current role at HubSpot

*(03:36): Segment: Storytime

*(06:41): Why HubSpot treats culture like a product

*(10:19): How Sophie is building an internal comms function around transparency

*(19:53): Why employees are the biggest brand ambassadors

*(21:49): Segment: Seat at the Table

*(22:01): Advice for internal comms folks struggling to get buy-in on employer brand

*(26:40): Delightful communications

*(28:30): Segment: Asking for a Friend

*(30:36): Challenges internal comms will face in the future

-------------------

Links:

Connect with Sophie on LinkedIn

HubSpot

‘Internal Communications Has a Communication Problem’ by Sophie Hamersley

Amanda’s LinkedIn

www.simpplr.com/podcast