How People Work

On this episode of The BragWorthy Culture Podcast, Jordan talks with Tim Flanagan Jr. and Amanda Kramer of MassMutual Carolinas. Tim took over as General Agent of MassMutual Carolinas in 2004, and Amanda supports the firm's purpose of helping people win in all aspects of life by creating an environment of success, trust and belonging.

Tim and Amanda talk about the value of balance through COVID times along with everyday life, and how their other core values play a vital role in their company. They touch on the importance of mental health and why allowing the mind, body and spirit to be healthy in both a work setting and personal life is beneficial. Jordan asks them about ideas that came about during the pandemic and their thoughts on blending remote employees with in-person employees as things start to return to a state of normalcy. They also discuss their opportunities for recruitment and what an ideal review would be from someone working for MassMutual.

On this episode of the BragWorthy Culture Podcast, Jordan speaks with Fay Manolios, the Head of Total Rewards for Capital One. Capital One is on a mission to help customers succeed by bringing ingenuity, simplicity and humanity back to banking. Fay has held a variety of leadership positions across HR at Capital One. She was named Head of Total Rewards in 2017, and her role includes compensation, recognition, benefits global mobility, and TR marketing and associative experience for more than 50,000 associates worldwide.

Fay speaks on what led her down the path of HR and why she started in the field. She talks about how she listens to the needs of so many people and responds to them at such a novel time in history. She touches on the importance of listening to people and hearing their individual needs, along with how being flexible with those needs is important. She discusses how organizations should think differently about desired traits in future employees after COVID times, and she shares her perspective on the shift of hiring people for not what they know, but what they can learn on the job. She also talks about what Capital One plans to do post-COVID. She gives insight on how equity can be brought to people in and out of the office, what will happen from a compensation standpoint, the shift toward part-time work and how organizations can achieve their vision and aspirations.

On this episode of the Bragworthy Culture Podcast, Jordan meets with Cassandra Rose, Partner at Meritarc and former Global Benefits Director at Sprinklr. Cassandra has held roles in multi-billion dollar global brands and unicorn startups, and she often speaks on the topics of benefits literacy and centering the BIPOC employee journey for transformative employee engagement. 

Cassandra explains how the concept of belonging is brought up and how belonging is different from inclusion, along with recommendations regarding how to ask questions about belonging and how that is approached in surveys. She talks about how people notice a rich company culture and how the media plays a role in that. She also gives advice to those learning how to communicate representation and belonging, as well as advice for people getting involved with people strategy who are starting to build a culture. She explains how to create a common language, how to talk through employee benefits and what benefit equity is. She gives insight into what organizations should aspire to be and the importance of reviews. She gives her perspective on how the COVID-19 environment presented opportunities for growth and reset, along with her opinion on the ease of transforming the culture of an older company versus a new one.

Mentions/Links:

On this episode of the BragWorthy Culture Podcast, Jordan talks with Brandon Wood from Maestro Health. Brandon is the COO at Maestro and has over 20 years of experience in the benefits space. He joined Maestro to deliver a world-class experience through their self-funded solution. He has been in and around the benefits world for a long time and has been a leader at ADP, WageWorks and PayFlex.

Brandon explains what self-funded solutions are, how COVID has impacted the benefits space and how the benefits world will function after COVID. He touches on the importance of telehealth, and he speaks on the mental health data and evaluations that have been gathered in the past year. Brandon mentions how gig work benefits are changing due to more people picking up different jobs in their free time. 

He also discusses how Maestro has been taking care of their employees, how they have been virtually connecting through the pandemic and how cultural values come into play. While discussing the unique qualities Maestro brings to the workers, Brandon also speaks on their recruiting process and how they plan to expand in the next 12 months.

On this episode of the BragWorthy Culture Podcast, Jordan speaks with Lorie Boyd, CPO at Turo, the largest car-sharing marketplace. Lorie is in charge of everything people and places. 

Lorie tells Jordan about the best ideas that came out of COVID when the company was forced to figure out many challenges, such as supporting people while working remotely. She talks about how meaningful and rewarding it was to help people in the past year. She also talks about Turo’s employees and how engagement survey feedback has helped her be tuned in with employees. There are many types of feedback, and Lorie discusses how to identify which ones are essential to address. She gives insight into organizations’ perspectives that can be detrimental and what young entrepreneurs need to look out for. Lorie also mentions why people-strategy is essential and looks at the changes being made to people-strategy and employee brand these days. She talks about the next steps at Turo when COVID starts to turn around, along with advice on avoiding mistakes and creating a positive brand and culture. 

On this episode of the BragWorthy Culture podcast, Jordan talks with Erica McMannes, COO and Co-Founder of InstantTeams and the InstantTeams Academy. InstantTeams builds high-quality customer support and operation teams for companies with military-connected talent, located globally and in every time zone, enabling 24/7 support. Erica has been an active-duty Army spouse for 19 years and found the mobility and freedom as a remote professional to be something she wanted to replicate for more people.

Erica discusses how COVID has impacted her and the InstantTeams employees and how the pandemic has opened the company up geographically. She touches on how her journey as a founder of a company and Instant Teams got started. She talks about the topic of mental health during the pandemic and alleviating the tendency of people overworking from home. Erica also mentions the importance of feedback and the InstantTeams’ recruiting process compared to other remote companies. She discusses the InstantTeams culture, their unique policy programs and how they get to know other coworkers while remaining remote. She ends with advice for young entrepreneurs, as well as the benefits of growing emotional intelligence. 

On this episode of the BragWorthy Culture Podcast, Jordan talks with Kimberly Morgan, the COO of LendUp. Kimberly’s mission is to evolve the company's operations to match the growing needs and goals of the organization. With over two decades of experience driving operational excellence, she is smashing barriers by building high-performing, diverse teams that focus on cultural awareness to increase communication and collaboration through human connection.

Jordan and Kimberly talk about the challenges and ideas that COVID brought to the table, and how her conversations and expectations about COVID have changed within the year. Kimberly shares how she checks on her people, ensuring that she monitors behavior in addition to listening to how they are feeling via employee surveys. She mentions what feedback has been the most helpful during the pandemic, along with how they have turned feedback into action, creating trust between management and employees. Kimberly also discusses how to create an environment where people won’t omit critical feedback and tips on developing a work-from-home people-strategy as well as a self-serve workplace. 

On this episode of the BragWorthy Culture Podcast, Jordan talks with Jennifer Garrison, Tinuiti’s Chief People Officer. Her talents lie in empowering culture and scaling organizations. Over the past 6 years, Jennifer has grown Tinuiti from a small agency of fewer than 100 employees to over 700. 

Jordan and Jennifer discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the business and what ideas were produced during the pandemic. Jennifer says that people are focusing more on mental health and how creating a safe space for employees to share feelings is defeating the stigma. Jennifer speaks about how important employee feedback is and how creating fun activities where employees can interact over Zoom is a great way to come together. She also mentions how important equality is in the workforce and why creating a safe culture where employees also feel passionate about their work is important to her. She gives her input as to what’s coming next in the HR space and discusses her desire to get back to in-person work, as well as offering advice to start-up companies.

On this episode of the BragWorthy Culture Podcast, Jordan talks with Paul Hughes, the Senior Director of Employee Engagement at Noble Network of Charter Schools. Noble is a non-profit organization that runs 17 charter public high schools and one middle school in Chicago.

Jordan and Paul discuss how the business learned how to function during COVID-19 and ideas that have come out of pandemic times. Paul talks about the unique challenge of having to work over the internet and how to foster a positive environment virtually. They touch on why people would want to work at Noble, what he looks for when hiring new people and the importance of company culture for employees. Paul states how essential employee feedback is and how that feedback needs to be collected, heard and responded to. Paul also discusses what he has done since the pandemic to bring teachers and the Noble community together, and shares advice for people and new organizations trying to establish their goals and missions. 

On this episode of The BragWorthy Culture Podcast, Jordan speaks with Karishma Patel Buford, the CPO at OppLoans. OppLoans powers banks to help middle-income, credit-challenged consumers gain access to credit. Karishma is responsible for setting up long-term visions, missions and an employee brand that will shape culture and fuel the next stage of business growth.

Jordan and Karishma talk about powerful ideas that came out of COVID-19 and how the pandemic highlighted the importance of flexibility and maintaining positive mental health. Karishma shares her interview and recruiting techniques, along with insight on creating and implementing an employee brand. They touch on how to deal with toxic traits in the workplace and how to create a genuine image of a company that includes both triumphs and downfalls. Karishma discusses how consumers care about how a company treats its employees and shares insight on how employees should be viewed as customers. She also mentions how important it is for a company to establish values and embed them through various parts of the company.

References:

Radical Candor Training