Talent Report+THRIVE

By MRA - The Management AssociationBusiness Management Non-Profit

Talent Report+THRIVE episodes

December 13, 2023 What You Want and Need to Know About FMLA
Description:
FMLA is one of our top requested topics from our 30 minute Thrive podcast subscribers. We are glad to have this opportunity to talk about the complexities of FMLA eligibility, outlining who qualifies, and exploring the spectrum of covered events. This episode will help provide some clarity on navigating leave requirements!
Resources:
FMLA Toolkit
FMLA Made Simple - Training
HR and Employment Law Essentials - Training
FMLA: Tips for Tackling 5 Everyday Challenges - Training
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Guest Bio - Rob Lapota
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Rob Lapota
Host Bio - Sophie Boler
Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler
Transcript:
Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:03
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler and we are so glad you're here.
00:00:21:05 - 00:00:46:09
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Well, hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of 30 Minute THRIVE. FMLA is one of our top requested topics from our podcast subscribers, so no pressure on today's guest, but we're really glad to have this opportunity to talk about all of the complexities of FMLA eligibility, outlining who qualifies and exploring the spectrum of covered events.
00:00:46:11 - 00:01:12:21
Unknown
So our goal really for today's podcast is to help provide some clarity to you on federal FMLA. So I'm joined by Rob Lapota HR director, part of MRA Learning and Development Team. Rob, you have over 30 years of HR experience. You've answered more than 15,000 member calls on the HR hotline, and you're recognized as one of the top knowledge experts on our topic for today.
00:01:12:21 - 00:01:33:09
Unknown
And that's a federal FMLA scrub. I'm really excited to have you here today as the subject matter expert and thanks for joining us. Thank you for asking me to be here today. And welcome to everybody for our interesting talk. Yes, I like I like to tell people in our training program with FMLA made simple, get your notebook out because you're gonna be taking a lot of notes.
00:01:33:11 - 00:01:56:03
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. Get them out. Well, Rob, let's kind of start out with the big overarching question here, and that is what is FMLA. I know we have a lot of HR Professionals obviously, who listen to the podcast, who know what FMLA is, but some of our other listeners who may not be in that HR professional may not know exactly what FMLA is.
00:01:56:03 - 00:02:28:15
Unknown
So can you kind of just give us an overarching picture? So we start out the first acronym, FMLA. First, let's talk about that Family Medical Leave Act. So that took on a federal basis, that was a law. Those passed back in 1993. And it impacts employers that have 50 or more employees anywhere in the United States. Here's a kind of like a short definition of here's what the law is all about 12 weeks of unpaid leave with no penalty to the employee.
00:02:28:17 - 00:03:01:09
Unknown
Now, that sounds like a very simple one sentence definition of what is FMLA, but they're in wise the complexity, the no penalty to the employee. That's a challenging aspect of the law. And what qualifies as a reason for taking FMLA. That's the other big challenging portion. And then the overriding complexity of this law by the employee when I'm going to be off of work, I don't ask for FMLA.
00:03:01:11 - 00:03:19:15
Unknown
So, for example, if you are a supervisor, I don't call in and say, Hey, Sophia, it's Rob. Last night, my daughter, she was knocked unconscious in a soccer match, but she's actually been admitted to Children's Hospital in Milwaukee. That's where I am right now. I'll give you a call a little bit later today and I'll give you an update on what's going on.
00:03:19:17 - 00:03:48:12
Unknown
That said, I the employee is not mandatory under the law for me, the employee to say, and by the way, Sophia, why don't you give me some of the FMLA stuff? The way the federal law is written, it is the employer's responsibility in all circumstances to designate leave as FMLA qualifying. So therefore, because of the complexity, that's what makes it our number one call on our hotline.
00:03:48:18 - 00:04:14:22
Unknown
Yeah, I was shocked. Over 20% of our calls are just on FMLA. I was just going to mention that this is one of our top calls on the HR hotline and still remains to be. Yes. And we've had some topics on the podcast on FMLA, just because it is one of our most highly requested topics. And like you said, there's so many different complexities within that, even though that one sentence you gave us seems so simple, it's not as simple as you may think for experts.
00:04:14:24 - 00:04:42:16
Unknown
What factors and determine an employee's eligibility for FMLA, FMLA leave? And how does an employer ensure compliance with these criteria? So there's several criteria. And the first is I need to be working at a covered employer for FMLA. And a covered employer is one that has 50 or more employees on their payroll anywhere in the United States. And it also includes temporary employees from a temp service.
00:04:42:18 - 00:05:02:13
Unknown
So if I have 25 employees that are on my payroll and I use 25 from a temp service, I actually have 50 employees for federal employee purposes. I'm covered by the law. So for an eligible employee, first of all, I have to be working for a covered employer. Then I have several other criteria that need to be met.
00:05:02:15 - 00:05:24:20
Unknown
Number one, I need to be working for at least 12 months for that employer. Number two, I work at least 1250 hours in the 12 months prior to my need for leave. And third, I have to be working at a facility that has 50 or more employees within a 75 mile radius. Now, again, just like that, a little definition I can give you FMLA.
00:05:24:22 - 00:05:46:18
Unknown
Well, that seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it? But there's a lot of twists and turns within those definitions. So, for example, the 12 months service on a federal level, it need not be consecutive. So I could be working, for example, as a college intern. As for an organization, let's say, in marketing and work for four summers in a row of three months each summer.
00:05:46:20 - 00:06:12:17
Unknown
And we're recording this in December. So let's say that I'm graduating in December. I'm going to start with the employer January of 2024. Well, you actually cannot my three months of service going back four years because it's a seven year lookback period. Okay. So here's the strange thing. Effective January 2nd, 2024, since my official start date, I'll actually have 12 months of service for that employer.
00:06:12:19 - 00:06:38:19
Unknown
The same thing goes when people leave organizations. Let's just say I worked at an employer from 2015 to 2020 and then I get rehired on January 2nd, 2024, by that same employer. Well, again, there could be up to a seven year break in service. That's well within that. So I will actually have 12 months of service on my first day of employment reemployment, I should say, with that employer.
00:06:38:21 - 00:07:04:09
Unknown
Second of all, the 1250 hours that is paid time only, that does not include things like holiday pay, PTO, sick pay, self-funded short term disability payments. Those are not included. And that's it's just actual work hours. And then the third criteria, this is and again, another strange one. I work in a facility that has 50 or more employees within a 35 mile radius.
00:07:04:11 - 00:07:33:03
Unknown
Well, let's just take it for plain value. Let's say that we have an organization that has three facilities. They're all within 75 miles of each other. And one employs 30, another one employees 20 and a third facility. Employees 20 there, or that's 70 employees. So if I work at any of those facilities, I'm working in a facility that has 50 employees within a 75 mile radius.
00:07:33:05 - 00:07:57:02
Unknown
Now, that's also extended to include remote employees and all that's since COVID. You know, a lot of remote work going on. And still today, the little twist with that, I'm included in the headcount where I get my work instructions from. So here we are. We're in Waukesha, Wisconsin, recording our program. And this is our call, our corporate offices for me.
00:07:57:04 - 00:08:28:20
Unknown
So let's say that I live in Iowa and I work remotely, but I report to my manager, who is here in the Waukesha, Wisconsin, location for the 50 employees within a 75 mile radius. I'm actually counted in the Waukesha, Wisconsin, head count for FMLA eligibility. Now, some employers don't have that. They might have facilities for example, in one state that are not within 75 miles of each other.
00:08:28:22 - 00:08:53:11
Unknown
And we don't have 50 employees within that 75 mile radius. However, they still have 50 total employees. So they're covered employers under the law for now. What do you do? I'm a covered employer, but I literally I don't have any eligible employees because we don't work at a facility that has 50 employees within a 35 mile radius. What do we do?
00:08:53:13 - 00:09:14:08
Unknown
Well, if I was your head of HR What i would recommend is that we treat all of our locations as though we have 50 employees within a 75 mile radius. This could also become a little bit of an employer relations issue. Let's say that one of those facilities has 125 employees, and the other ones are outside of the 75 mile radius.
00:09:14:09 - 00:09:42:14
Unknown
Let's just say they have, you know, 40 employees each. Well, during employment meetings, I've had this happen before. Our plant that has 125 people that's going to be eligible employees, got 50 employees within a 75 mile radius, the location being C, we're not going to call you covered employers, eligible employees. Excuse me, because you don't work at a facility that has 50 employees within a 75 mile radius.
00:09:42:16 - 00:10:05:19
Unknown
So too bad, so sad you lose. Well, for an employer relations standpoint, we need to go have your employee meetings. The employees are company B and C are going to immediately throw their hands up in the air to go. Why does everybody at location, age, how come they get FMLA and we don't get FMLA? Well, you got to understand, you don't work at a facility that's 50 employees with a 75 mile radius.
00:10:05:21 - 00:10:29:16
Unknown
That's an employee relations disaster. So that's why I suggest mandatory. But I suggest you treat those locations as though they do have 50 employees within a 75 mile radius. Absolutely. And I love that you're giving those scenarios because that that helps helps a little more to, I don't know, understand. I'm sure a lot of people have these certain situations, laws to absorb.
00:10:29:18 - 00:10:54:19
Unknown
So are there any common misconceptions? And with FMLA eligibility that you often encounter kind of sees or working with members in, how can these kind of be clarified? Then the biggest misconceptions for the employee eligibility portion it covers around those the areas of tribute to a seven year break in service. So the example I gave that I'm a college student working in marketing Pimp.
00:10:54:24 - 00:11:14:16
Unknown
I work for you through 2020 Rehire Me. A lot of employers are not aware I have 12 months service effective on day one. And the other big misconception about eligibility, All of our members of MRA, they will work on what's called a temp to perm basis, or they'll have employees from a temporary service work for like 90 days.
00:11:14:16 - 00:11:41:11
Unknown
And if they work out, they'll put them on their payroll. Well, that's a situation called Joint Employment. So for those temporary employees that we put on our payroll, effective on day one, the hours that they worked and the months of service that they worked actually do count towards their eligibility of 12 months of service and 1250 hours worked through like a walking book of knowledge, you know, like that's what they're on.
00:11:41:11 - 00:12:00:05
Unknown
Tell me. Yeah. I've even had some people tell me I know a little bit too much about FMLA, I think, but that's why you're the perfect guest here. You can answer your question. So I have an advantage. I've been in here at Emory 25 years. Yes. As an instructor. We're not attorneys here, but I love the law. I read a lot of court.
00:12:00:06 - 00:12:19:11
Unknown
I mean, I've read thousands and thousands of court cases. Keep up with employment blogs, Talk about FMLA. Jeff Nowak is one of the top people in the United States at his blog FMLA Insights. And yeah, I just I actually find it very fascinating. Well, that's right. And you probably get a lot of calls, too, on FMLA, where you are.
00:12:19:11 - 00:12:42:12
Unknown
You want to kind of give those scenarios. And here's what I would do in that situation kind of thing. Correct. So next question here. In what situations might employees find themselves ineligible then for federal FMLA leave? And do you have any alternatives or options that may be available to them that you can suggest? So go back to the eligibility requirements.
00:12:42:12 - 00:13:00:04
Unknown
I worked for you for 12 months and I have at least 1250 hours worked in the 12 months prior. And we already kind of explained that 50 employees within the 35 mile radius once we don't need to hit that one. That would be a point of ineligibility that I don't can, you know, work there. So let's focus on those first two.
00:13:00:06 - 00:13:26:24
Unknown
So for the hours of work, let's say that I get what's the score? January 2nd, 2024, since it's right around the corner here. Let's say that it's my first day of work. Let's see. Then in March 2024, I'm diagnosed with cancer. They catch it early. It's not very advanced, but I do need to miss work or radiation treatments and then, if necessary, to recover from those radiation treatments.
00:13:27:01 - 00:13:50:22
Unknown
Well, I still have to send me as the new employee who's only been there for three months now, I still need to get an eligibility notice from the employer. There's three mandatory notices that need to go out, so I need to get that eligibility notice. It states you're not eligible for FMLA, federal FMLA. Why You haven't been here 12 months as of the date of your need for lead.
00:13:50:22 - 00:14:15:19
Unknown
This is on the eligibility notice. You've worked X months towards 12 months of eligibility, so the employer would write three months in their hours of work. If I am working part time, I could be working for you for over a year. But again, if I don't have that 1250 actual work hours, that could be our second issue, where I will not be eligible as the employee.
00:14:15:21 - 00:14:39:14
Unknown
Now in our training, I always told employers, if you can't give FMLA, if it doesn't qualify, it's an issue that's not covered by FMLA. We need to be much more flexible as employers today with time off and adjusting schedules and what other policies to you have as an employer so that employee can have time off. Maybe you have a policy.
00:14:39:15 - 00:15:06:01
Unknown
It's called a force substitution policy. You must use any accrued, unused PTO, whatever you're going to be missing work. Maybe that's what'll be implemented. Maybe there's a personal leave of absence that can be used now if it's for the employee's own medical issues. For example, the cancer that I gave you that's actually now going to fall under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
00:15:06:03 - 00:15:42:13
Unknown
Now we have an employee who's suffering with cancer, which is considered a disability, and they're not eligible for FMLA. So we would actually need to provide unpaid leave as an accommodation under the American Disabilities Act. So I'm going to get a eligibility notice. You're not eligible for FMLA, but then I'm also going to receive a cover letter I should from the employer saying, okay, although you're not eligible for FMLA, you are covered under the American Disabilities Act and we will be providing you with unpaid leave as an accommodation under that law.
00:15:42:18 - 00:16:09:24
Unknown
So it's very, very important that the employer state specifically what laws are applying during what time of their lives. Interesting. Yeah, well, that's great to know. And I know you've covered this a little bit in her past. Questions, uncertainty, examples of medical leaves. But do you have any other examples that are covered instances or events under FMLA? And are there specific nuance says for each type of leave.
00:16:10:01 - 00:16:13:21
Unknown
So how much time do we have?
00:16:13:23 - 00:16:37:00
Unknown
This is worth over a long problem. This is where we're getting into the nuts and bolts of the mechanics of FMLA that can get very, very complicated. We were very, very fast. So let's try to summarize this for our listeners and our viewers. So I like to refer to these as buckets of leave. So there's nine completely different buckets of leave.
00:16:37:02 - 00:16:59:23
Unknown
All of them can have completely different operating orders. For example, when does that one come into impact? You know, when are we when do we apply to excuse me, I said that when do we apply that particular need for leave? How do we certify it? How long will that individual be off of work? And here's again, another big misunderstanding on employers.
00:17:00:00 - 00:17:22:15
Unknown
And I hear this now. I've been doing this for 25 years. The law has been in place for over 30 years now. I will still have no, I'm not surprised. Managers and supervisors in our supervisor in the law, of course, are FMLA overview class and even HR People in our FMLA simple administration class for FMLA. So how long do you need to be off of work in order for FMLA to apply?
00:17:22:15 - 00:17:49:24
Unknown
Her hands go up and they go, I know, I know, I know. You have to be out of work. Three consecutive workdays, and then when you're out for three consecutive workdays, that's when FMLA applies. The answer is, No, it doesn't. But I was like, No, nice try. No, no, it doesn't. In fact, all of the buckets of leave except for one can actually be taken in our concurrence.
00:17:50:01 - 00:18:17:11
Unknown
wow. So let's talk about the one that you do need to have multiple days of absence, because this is a common one that happens in this particular book. It's called Continuing treatment. And part of this bucket of leave, i.e., the employee need to be out for four consecutive calendar days or I'm off of work taking care of the same family member for four consecutive calendar days.
00:18:17:13 - 00:18:36:21
Unknown
Now, it's tricky about this bucket is that this is the only one where the employee can actually just call in and say, I'm sick and it could be FMLA. You know, the reason why we said could be FMLA once it meets these requirements for these particular buckets, well, then the employer response. Remember I said earlier, the employee doesn't ask.
00:18:36:21 - 00:19:02:15
Unknown
The employer responds with all the mandatory notices, but all these absences need to be documented with a certification form. None of this is done verbally. It's all documented. So how we use that medical certification form. So, Sophia, it's Rob. It's Monday. Soviets. Rob, I'm sick. I'm not going to be in today. That's not FMLA Tuesday. Sophia, it's Rob.
00:19:02:15 - 00:19:27:07
Unknown
I'm still sick. I won't be in today no matter familiar. Now, Wednesday. Sophie Last night, my wife took me to urgent care. I don't have COVID, but I've got some sort of a respiratory thing that's going around. I actually feel worse not going to be in today. We're not there yet. Again, the way the law defines this particular bucket, it says more than three consecutive calendar days of incapacity.
00:19:27:09 - 00:19:55:15
Unknown
So literally what that means is I need to call in four days in a row. So now, Thursday. Hey, Sophie, it's Rob. I'm still not feeling good. I'm not going to be in today. Now use my manager. I notify our leave administrator. Could be HR Could be somebody else. Payroll, maybe. And that starts the familiar paperwork process. Okay, so once the employer's notified of my need for leave, which in this case would be Thursday.
00:19:55:17 - 00:20:20:06
Unknown
Now, the employer has five business days from that date to give me the eligibility notice. Then rights, responsibilities notice a medical certification form goes along as well, and that needs to be returned within 15 calendar days. And then after that time period ends, there's a third mandatory notice called the designation notice. So this is really it's a paperwork here.
00:20:20:06 - 00:20:44:01
Unknown
It really, really is. So we the employer, we act on that fourth day of absence Now for this particular bucket, in order to be covered by FMLA, the employee would have to go see a health care provider medical certification form and need to be returned within 15 calendar days. And on their certification form, it's documented. They were out for four consecutive calendar days or more.
00:20:44:03 - 00:21:07:21
Unknown
They saw a doctor in person tell the visits are included in that and they got a prescription medication that's like 90% of the certain forms I've seen in the past. The other could be they saw a health care provider two times in person. When that's documented, that then would be qualified and can be marked as FMLA for that particular employee.
00:21:07:23 - 00:21:29:11
Unknown
So the key there for consecutive days of absence calendar days. If I work Friday, I'm off Saturday and Sunday. Friday. So if it's Rob, I'm sick. I won't be in today. I don't work Saturday and Sunday. Monday. So if it's where I am sick, I won't be in today. Believe it or not, under the law, that's considered more than three consecutive days.
00:21:29:11 - 00:21:51:24
Unknown
I mean, capacity that actually starts the FMLA paperwork process. Now, the way that the employee says I don't want FMLA. Yeah. Is they never return their medical certification form. Their employer still needs to go through all the paperwork, all those monitoring notices. But eventually you're going to get a designation notice at the end that says absences for these four days, not FMLA.
00:21:52:01 - 00:22:14:19
Unknown
Why you didn't return a medical certification form. So that's that's just one bucket, the only one where you can call in sick. And these are short term illnesses and injuries. Now, there isn't a list that I can give you that does not exist, but this could be the area like colds, ear infections, pinkeye. COVID falls into this bronchitis.
00:22:14:21 - 00:22:40:08
Unknown
You strange your back moving grandmas are more. Over the weekend you went skiing and you broke both of your arms and you can't work. And it's going to be about 6 to 8 weeks for your bones to heal. So these are short term illnesses and injuries. And a remember for either the employee or covered family member, which would include a spouse, children or parents and then stepparents as well.
00:22:40:10 - 00:23:08:08
Unknown
So that's that's one particular bucket. Things like pregnancy covered by FMLA, even absences for prenatal visits or morning sickness, those are covered by FMLA. Anything to do with adoption or foster care placements, those are all covered by FMLA, any pre placement issues that need to happen, court medical evaluations, traveling to different countries, post adoption, post foster care placement, being with them.
00:23:08:10 - 00:23:32:03
Unknown
That's covered by FMLA to stay. So let's talk now about the number one headache. And I don't mean to be a pun with that, the number one headache under FMLA is a bucket called chronic conditions. So short term illnesses and injuries, that's the continuing treatment. It's got to have at least three consecutive days. I mean, capacity, chronic conditions.
00:23:32:03 - 00:24:01:20
Unknown
However, these are long term or permanent medical conditions. Okay. The employee or the covered family member are probably on some sort of a medication. And with our certification forms, it's very typical for these chronic conditions to be certified for up to a year. And what we need to look for on the certification form, it's actually the last question on the certification form, and it's the area called frequency and duration.
00:24:01:22 - 00:24:24:04
Unknown
So the number one medical issue that we get in our hotline is migraine headaches. So as migraines, we send them to their health care provider, they bring back the medical certification form. We're going to go look back at that frequency and duration frequency. How many times a month is this issue going to happen? Duration? How long will any event last?
00:24:24:06 - 00:24:48:05
Unknown
Well, the search form states 1 to 2 episodes per month, 1 to 2 days per episode. That means that that employee could be up to four days of FMLA per month, though. Here's why This is the most complicated bucket to deal with. And actually for managers and supervisors, the most frustrating bucket to deal with. When's that employee going to have the next migraine?
00:24:48:07 - 00:25:17:03
Unknown
When is their child going to have their next seizure? You don't we don't know. And there's never a good day to be off of work. Yeah. Now, sadly, this is also the bucket where occasionally we may have an employee that will be a little bit abusive with us. For example, Fridays and Mondays is a pattern of absences days before and after paid holidays, even vacation time to make some sort of an extended period of time offering.
00:25:17:06 - 00:25:40:08
Unknown
Now that does happen, but thankfully it's not a very large portion of our employees that are using FMLA, But it's going to be the most frustrating one that we have now. Please keep in mind that all these different areas that we're talking about do not require multiple days of absence. These can all be hourly, right? So I think right now it's about 10:30 a.m..
00:25:40:10 - 00:25:59:08
Unknown
I can give you a call or I can come over to you by your office and say, Hey, Sophie, I feel my IBS about to act up your irritable bowel syndrome. I need to get out here and get home. You know, I go home and if I work until 3:00, you can charge me 6 hours of FMLA. So I can charge half a million hourly increments.
00:25:59:10 - 00:26:25:21
Unknown
So it's not missing holidays, chronic back parking. It could be parts of days, leaving work early, coming to work late because of that chronic condition. And again, this is why that particular area of leave, that's the most frustrating for employers. These are long term. So I've been in Emory 25 years and let's say that I have the migraines up to four days a month of FMLA.
00:26:25:23 - 00:26:48:22
Unknown
Well, if I'm working 12 weeks of leave at my work schedule, that's five days per week, 12 weeks, that's 60 individual days. I work 8 hours a day. That's 480 hours of FMLA. Or if my health care provider certifies me as for four migraines a month for, you know, total days of migraines, well, four times 12 is 48 days.
00:26:48:24 - 00:27:11:12
Unknown
I didn't really use up all of my FMLA that I'm eligible for. I still have 12 days left. Once I'm eligible for FMLA for the next 24 years, I could be missing 48 days for migraines, unscheduled partial days coming in late. And there's very little that you can do as an employer. That's why that's one of the most frustrating.
00:27:11:14 - 00:27:37:18
Unknown
Now i always told managers and supervisors and HR People when we talk about this frustrating bucket that we take a little bit of pause here. Everyone struggles with this. They all know exactly what i'm talking about and we get upset with these employees and somehow we try to do something to make that person's life miserable. I'm leaving now of irritable bowel syndrome.
00:27:37:20 - 00:28:11:17
Unknown
You look at me and you raise your eyebrows and half by suppose under the law, there's two legal things that can happen interference of my ability to take leave and retaliation for taking that leave. So a story that I had an actual event, a manager for a manufactured usual. It's the last week of the month. We do a lot to get everything out, got to get our orders shipped and we're try to get as much as possible.
00:28:11:17 - 00:28:41:22
Unknown
So end of the month for a manufacturer, that's a big deal. So on the beginning Monday of the last week of the month, individual again suffered with migraines and this person typically was off at the end of the month because their migraines were stress induced. So on Monday, the manager has pre shift meetings always. So on this Monday morning meeting Cavs all the employees together and talks about the week and the jobs that they're working on right now.
00:28:41:22 - 00:29:01:09
Unknown
Then at the very end of the meeting he goes now as you know this is the last week of the month we got a couple new customers. We got to make sure that we get this out the door to make these people happy. And then he looked directly at the individual with migraines right into their eyes and said, and I'm counting on everyone to be here this week.
00:29:01:11 - 00:29:26:19
Unknown
Now, I do say kudos to the employee. Actually, congratulations. Employee they went right to their HR Department and they said the right thing. My manager just threatened me that i better not have a migraine this week. So i got that call on the hard line. And the member's question was, did her supervisor create any problems? Yeah. And the answer is, you bet they did.
00:29:26:19 - 00:29:51:03
Unknown
They are now interfering with that person's right to take leave. I think I forgot to mention this before when I was kind of going on with another explanation that's really tell about people. The chronic bucket. You might be frustrated with your employees understand you might be here one day right now. Although my time here at MRA, I've actually had three major surgeries, two shoulder surgeries and a major back surgery.
00:29:51:05 - 00:30:15:16
Unknown
So I was actually off of work and using FMLA, and none of that was held against me. The revenue lost my coworkers that need to substitute for my training aren't seats. They couldn't get booked because I was not available so that the lost revenue. None of that can be held against that employee. So again, that's that time off unpaid with no penalty to the employee.
00:30:15:16 - 00:30:37:04
Unknown
That's why it's a very simple statement. But there's a lot to that implication of the workplace. So we saw the continuing treatment, the chronic conditions at school. We see a lot of her mileage when you use now the other buckets. So we have the employee who literally needs to see something medical. For example, a parent has stroke and end up in the hospital.
00:30:37:06 - 00:31:04:13
Unknown
So inpatient hospitalizations, anything to do with nursing homes or hospice care, including home hospice care covered by FMLA? My mom has structures in the hospital that is way, way beyond I'm sick or opiate work today. It's very, very specific issues like dealing with end stage of life covered by FMLA. If the employee needs time off, not the bereavement part, but if I need time off to be with that family member.
00:31:04:15 - 00:31:31:13
Unknown
Severe arthritis and getting treatment, for example, physical therapy. How can you dialysis reconstructive surgery after an accident or a cancer? So the reasons for leave are very, very specific medical reasons. Yeah. Now under the law, there's actually two additional military related leaves. One's got a really unusual name called military exigency leave, and the other one's called Care for Recovered Servicemember.
00:31:31:15 - 00:31:54:08
Unknown
Now those are for family members of the employee of a covered employer that can take time off when that family member is either deployed on active duty or is injured or become sick because of their active duty deployment. Now, on our hotline in my training programs for the last several years, I have not had any examples of those.
00:31:54:10 - 00:32:11:02
Unknown
So if you have an employee that comes in and says, Hey, my son's being deployed in the military, can I get some time off? Well then that said military exigency. You deal with that at that point. But that that's the summary for those two conditions. Basically that is the area of the coverage and a quick summary for our familiar leave.
00:32:11:04 - 00:32:35:14
Unknown
All that was a lot. So I hope you all were writing the writing notes. TSA at the beginning, get your notepad out. I take a lot of notes like now would be a perfect time for a pop quiz or something. Right now, let's take a break and look at all your notes so far. But moving on here, what advice do you have for employers navigating intermittent FMLA leave requests and balancing business needs with employee rights?
00:32:35:16 - 00:32:52:23
Unknown
So here again with our examples with that chronic condition is probably we're going to see that most often with the intermittent leaves, it can happen with the other areas of leave as well. Let's focus on those products. Yeah, once I'm certified by my health care provider, there's actually very little that an employer can do to manage those situations.
00:32:53:00 - 00:33:16:24
Unknown
However, if we do have patterns of potential abuse, there are a few things that we can do as an employer to deal with those abuse issues, and it's a little bit too much for our little overview that we're doing today. But there's a couple things that we can do as employers other than just catching the person an outright fraud, fraudulent use of leave.
00:33:17:01 - 00:33:40:10
Unknown
Yeah, it's a bunch of hurdles that we need to come to deal with that specific issues. Yeah, absolutely. Well, kind of wrapping up here, Rob, we've talked a lot a lot today about FMLA and just kind of the overarching picture. But can you end with any insights and best practices for employers to ensure smooth and fair practice regarding FMLA eligibility in covered events?
00:33:40:12 - 00:34:04:19
Unknown
So, number one are HR People who are administering FMLA, you need to be trained on how to administer properly. Now that's what we here at emory. We have our FMLA made simple class where we deal with that issue for our managers and supervisors training as well. Not how to administer FMLA but understanding what do i need to listen for those buckets of leave that starts the FMLA process?
00:34:04:21 - 00:34:26:07
Unknown
And then also, what does it mean that I have no penalty under the leave and also of the basic rights are under the law. So training and awareness are two big compliance tools that we need to use. Yes, absolutely. It also lets mention about training employees. I've had this brought up many, many times during my training programs on FMLA.
00:34:26:09 - 00:34:53:00
Unknown
Well, Rob, this is a really complicated law, so can you come to our organization and just do like a one hour overview for our employees? Well, first of all, the law doesn't state any mandatory training for our employees. In fact, it assumes that any mandatory training for HR People are mandatory. The supervisors but unfortunately, it's not required. You're putting the posters up, responding to the requests when they come in properly.
00:34:53:00 - 00:35:15:08
Unknown
That's the way that we deal with FMLA. We have to be very careful about training our employees because if we just did an explanation of what we just covered, literally, you're going to open a Pandora's box. Hey, do you know how to be off on FMLA? Here's how you do it. No, I'm not saying that with a cold shoulder or unsympathetic, but we don't want to encourage the issues.
00:35:15:10 - 00:35:35:19
Unknown
We've had a lot of situations in the past where the entire shipping department all of a sudden, though, has chronic depression. because that word spreads, right? So we don't need to encourage that. But again, the majority of our cases that we deal with under FMLA, people legitimately do have medical issues of themselves or a covered family member, and they really do need that time on.
00:35:35:19 - 00:36:04:00
Unknown
Yeah, that makes sense. I'm sure you've seen a lot and heard a lot of story. Well, Rob, I want to thank you for being on the podcast today and thank you for sharing your expertise on FMLA specifically, like I mentioned, this is a highly requested topic, so I appreciate you coming on the podcast today to cover that. And to our listeners, if you liked our chat and topic today, I would urge you to come and something new that you learned today or anything that you'd like to add on to this conversation.
00:36:04:00 - 00:36:27:15
Unknown
We'd love to hear, hear from you. Don't forget to share out this episode. Consider joining MRA If you aren't a member already. We have all the resources you need in the show Notes below, including resources on our topic for today and training links. So check those out. And we've also included Rob's bio and LinkedIn profile. So if you'd like to connect with him, we've got the resources for you to do that.
00:36:27:17 - 00:36:50:12
Unknown
Otherwise, thank you so much for tuning in and thanks again, Rob. Thanks for having me. Here's a lot of fun and we'll see you next week for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign them to connect. For more podcast updates, check out other Emery episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA 30 minute Thrive so you don't miss out.
00:36:50:13 - 00:36:55:05
Unknown
Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

37 min
December 06, 2023Succession Planning - Initiating the Process
Description: Join us as we unravel the key components of a successful succession plan, offering insights into:
Identifying and developing internal talent
Fostering a culture of continuous learning
Mitigating potential risks
Learn how to navigate leadership transitions and ensure the long-term success of your organization through effective succession planning strategies.
Resources:
The Business Case for Succession Planning
Succession Planning Program
Succession Planning Guide
Succession Planning Tracking Chart
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Guest Bio - Dana Vogelmeier
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Dana Vogelmeier
Host Bio - Sophie Boler
Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler
Transcript:
Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:03
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA, the Management Association. looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you're here.
00:00:21:05 - 00:00:45:18
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Well, hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of 30 Minute THRIVE. So today we're going to be talking about succession planning, and I found this stat a bit shocking. So every day in the US, 10,000 people turn 65. And to add to that stat, the average retirement age in the United States is 61, according to a 2022 Gallup survey.
00:00:45:20 - 00:01:07:17
Unknown
So those are all pretty significant numbers in the world of work. So the impact is huge. Today, like I said, it only makes sense now that we're here to talk about succession planning. So succession planning is a business necessity, and it's as critical to strategic planning for business as a whole. But succession planning is not just about retirees.
00:01:07:17 - 00:01:36:22
Unknown
And it's not just for CEOs in leadership. It's also a part of employee development. So it's a really great topic of discussion for us today. And I'm 30 minutes Right podcast. And a lot of you a lot of our listeners have actually requested this topic. So we will finally get into it and we're excited. And I'm here with Dana Vogelmeier, MRA senior instructional designer who's worked with our members to help develop and implement succession planning programs.
00:01:36:24 - 00:02:00:07
Unknown
So, Dana, I'm super excited to have you on today and thanks for coming coming on the podcast as the expert and really covering how to create that successful succession planning. Thank you so being happy to be here. So, well, let's just start out by defining what business succession planning really is and why it's essential for business owners. Okay, sure.
00:02:00:09 - 00:02:22:21
Unknown
So succession planning, as you mentioned earlier, it is it's critical and it is something that sometimes gets kind of pushed to the background because it feels like it's not important work. But if you think about the sustainability for an organization, it is really one of those critical things we should do. And succession planning is it's a process of talent identification.
00:02:22:23 - 00:02:52:02
Unknown
So we dedicate time to looking at all of the people in our organization and who has what kinds of skills, what kind of potential or performance do they have, what do they need, and then get them what they need. We'll talk about that too. But it's really just first about identifying what that what the talent is in the organization, what it is not is a process to go through for determining who you're going to hire for a role.
00:02:52:02 - 00:03:20:12
Unknown
That's that's different. This is about putting documentation together and determining what kind of talent and skills you have in the organization and then what people need and then getting them the development that they need. Absolutely. You highlighted a lot of good points there, and I feel like something to emphasize is to not put this planning on the back burner because I feel like we've heard that a lot with challenges on succession planning is, I didn't think of it till now or we're not ready.
00:03:20:12 - 00:03:52:06
Unknown
So I'm glad today we can help with those steps and kind of that preplanning process. So kind of the next step then, what are some key components of a successful business succession plan? Tongue twister. Yeah, it is a tongue twister. Yeah. So some of the kind of key components to think about are identifying critical roles that you might have in the organization where if for some reason there was a gap there and someone had left, the organization like that would really create a problem.
00:03:52:06 - 00:04:11:00
Unknown
So what kinds of critical roles do you have? What kind of niche roles do you have where it's hard to find a good pool of candidates with that skill set might be super unique. You know, you want to identify that. You also want to, as one of these key components, think about business challenges that you either currently have or are coming.
00:04:11:02 - 00:04:30:24
Unknown
So an example might be you currently have this issue of we're in the middle of expanding. Maybe we only do operations on the East Coast. We're going to expand to the West Coast or only in the U.S. We're going to go global, you know, like so that might be something you're in the middle of, but also looking out and that could be part of your strategic planning process.
00:04:30:24 - 00:04:55:00
Unknown
And you learned some information there. So bring that information in to your succession planning and think about there's a new law that's going into effect that might impact your industry. There could be a new competitor that is entering the marketplace. There could be some kind of restrictions or maybe you experience some supply chain issues or one of your big suppliers is going out of business.
00:04:55:02 - 00:05:25:08
Unknown
You know, those business challenges that are going to impact you, how does that impact your succession planning and some of the things? Well, some of the things may not, but do you have people with that knowledge about how this is going to impact the organization? So you're really kind of looking at the the areas where you might have some deficiencies in knowledge and skills, talent and how how we can maybe make a plan to start addressing that.
00:05:25:10 - 00:05:50:04
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. And you talk about plan and process. So follow up question to that is what would a typical process really look like? Yeah, so this is a good question. And what I will say about like the process to think about, I'm going to give you a good example of a process that I've used in the past, but the first thing to think about in your for any company and your own process is what makes sense for you.
00:05:50:04 - 00:06:12:09
Unknown
And if you haven't done it at all before, you want to start small and just maybe pilot with a role or a department and then kind of build off of that. But one the process or approach that I have used in the past is called the climb up approach. And it starts with and within the process you establish your meetings.
00:06:12:11 - 00:06:37:05
Unknown
But the first meetings are the first line supervisors meeting and someone's going to facilitate this conversation and they're going to talk about the high performing people on their teams and the high performing the high potentials and the high performers on their teams. And so who are those people? And somewhere we want to have like a database. So that we can document everything so that information goes in there.
00:06:37:07 - 00:07:11:10
Unknown
Then the next step is to have the second line leaders meet. They're going to talk about the first line leaders and who is a high potential, who's high performing, what people need, what do they do? Well, unique skill sets, but they're also going to have knowledge of the people that were talked about in the first round, because those might be people that fill backfill roles of first line supervisors, but also those second line leaders and every leader above that need to have some knowledge of these other folks that are in the database and what kind of unique skills or talents do they bring.
00:07:11:10 - 00:07:41:21
Unknown
Maybe they worked for a competitor in the past or maybe they worked for an organization that was like competitor adjacent, and they might have a different perspective that would be beneficial in a particular project or something like that. So everybody needs to be know kind of what's in there, especially with unique skills and experiences. So your your second line leaders may talk about first they see what who the first line leaders talked about and then go up to the third line or the executive team, depending on what your particular structure looks like and you do the same process over.
00:07:41:21 - 00:08:05:15
Unknown
But it's beneficial that everyone now have at that higher level look and see in the database who has what. So you go through your that's your climb up approach and you have all of your meetings now you have your data so you can work with that, but also something to think about in the process is your cadence of meetings and if you always have them in certain months.
00:08:05:17 - 00:08:30:19
Unknown
So people just know, as I need to be ready for that, like it's January and June or whatever, like do I need to be ready for that or do I need to be? And so I get my planning done and then thinking about the accountability piece and how you're going to how you as the executive leadership or whoever is kind of owning the process oftentimes is down through h.r.
00:08:30:21 - 00:09:00:19
Unknown
But how is that accountability going to happen and explaining exactly the process of what needs to happen there. But you know, one thing that i will just ask people to think about is if you're in a leadership role and you have this accountability or this succession planning meeting and you're supposed to do the work and you come to the meeting and say, so busy, my department, you know, this or that, but your people are missing out then.
00:09:00:21 - 00:09:22:14
Unknown
And how would you imagine those employees of that person who didn't do the work? And now no one knows that they have a unique set of skills, that they have an interest in going to another area or any of that. And so they may miss out. And as a leader, you would never want your people to miss out on a future opportunity, especially if they were the best candidate.
00:09:22:16 - 00:09:47:24
Unknown
So you have to do the work and have all of that information stored somewhere so that we have the knowledge. You know, it's like, garbage in, garbage out kind of thing. We had good data in there, so we can work from that. But you definitely want to dedicate time to doing the work. Yeah, and I feel like what you just described there is probably a common challenge for many organizations and just getting started in the accountability piece, that invention.
00:09:48:01 - 00:10:18:06
Unknown
So it's a perfect weekend or next question of what are some other common challenges that business owners face when it comes to the succession planning? Yeah, that's a great point because time is for sure one of the I would say one of the biggest issues is just getting started and kind of knowing where to start. And you have to just figure it, figure it out along the way if you've never done it, or if you don't have somebody who has done it somewhere helping you, but, you know, start small and then you can build on that.
00:10:18:08 - 00:10:41:22
Unknown
But getting started is one of the biggest challenges. And then the second thing is ensuring accountability and dedicating it at the time and working the plan because it doesn't stop after you've had the meeting. Now you have all that data from each of those meetings. You still have work to do after that. So it's working the plan. So Dana, you mentioned that a common challenge is really just starting the whole process.
00:10:41:22 - 00:11:00:20
Unknown
So where would you say a good place to start is? Yeah, and it could be like many things both feel kind of daunting sometimes, especially if you've never done it before. And it's like, where do we even begin? And and I would say get the right people in the room to have some discussion around why are we going through this?
00:11:01:00 - 00:11:21:22
Unknown
What's driving the need for doing succession planning? And it really is about preparedness and kind of being ready when something changes, getting ready so you're not caught off guard when now all of a sudden, we have to hire three new leaders. And who would they be? You might have some great people in there, but you can use the time to get people developed.
00:11:21:22 - 00:11:48:20
Unknown
So, you know, why are we doing this? What is it that we hope to get out of this? You know, answering that question now, everybody's on the same page. You've got some foundation set, then you can start looking. And I'm going to just say there's a metaphorical board here, you know, in the air. But put on the board and a like an employee journey map or a leader journey map, and it might look something like picture sort of a road map.
00:11:48:20 - 00:12:12:04
Unknown
How do we get from here to there? So for an employee, there may be a number of different career paths that they take. And I'll just use an example from one of my old experiences in an organization I worked for in the past. I was in leadership in a call center. We had customer service reps and they might become a coach, which is not a leadership role, but it's kind of a step up.
00:12:12:06 - 00:12:33:14
Unknown
They might become a trainer again, not a leadership role, but it's a step up. But they also then might go to first line supervisor and it could go those three things, but it could go right from customer service representative to supervisor, depending on the individual. No, there's never like it has to be this kind of path. I'll take that back.
00:12:33:16 - 00:12:55:19
Unknown
I won't say never, but in in generally speaking, people might take different paths to get where they're going. So you have this employee journey and in that journey map, you know what might be some skills that they like as a trainer, they're going to get great presents and skills experience, thinking on your feet, but also some planning for the class and things like that.
00:12:55:19 - 00:13:23:17
Unknown
And as a coach, they're going to get some experience coaching other employees, which is essential for leaders. So you could get some development along the way. Then when you think about the leader map in in my old experience, I'm going to use another example for later maps. We did things like you might have a first line supervisor who's only ever worked kind of in this area and we want to get them some experience in another part of the organization.
00:13:23:19 - 00:13:45:16
Unknown
They might lateral over into an analyst role and so they're not supervising people now, but they're learning some of the business problems and they're working on cross-functional teams. So they're getting a whole new set of experiences that help them learn more about the company. And especially if you're in a large organization, it can give them some different experiences.
00:13:45:18 - 00:14:03:05
Unknown
Then they might go to a second line manager or they might go to a manager of analyst or something different. But you could also go from first line supervisor to second line manager or something like that. But you just need to think about what are the needs and who has a unique set of skills and an interest in a particular role.
00:14:03:07 - 00:14:21:22
Unknown
So kind of figuring all of that out and you can start with your why statement, then go to your journey maps and that will help you once you do those individual development plans ultimately. So we've done the why now, we've done our journey maps and we've had some discussion. Then we had our meetings and we built all that data in our database.
00:14:21:24 - 00:14:49:21
Unknown
You can see what people need individually, but as a leader now, it's my responsibility for my people to get them what they need. So so there's kind of that leg, if you will, but then you'll have people in the database who have common learning needs, development needs. So for example, maybe they've never done any type of coaching or performance management or employment law.
00:14:49:23 - 00:15:11:18
Unknown
So if there's 20 people in the database that need that now, you can send people into a comment class and that could be something like RPA classes or it could be something you do on site. There also might be some some kind of really easy things to get off the ground. If you give everybody a link to a TED talk and say, watch content between now and 30 days, we're going to have a meeting and we're gonna talk about it.
00:15:11:20 - 00:15:31:04
Unknown
That's great development for people to come to the meeting and hear what other people's perspectives were and share their perspectives. So get some experience with all of that and collaborating on a project. Or it could be any number of things that you could do that could be quick hits within just within the company. You could do like a book club.
00:15:31:06 - 00:15:50:02
Unknown
But then there are other things that might be bigger, like a plex or a roundtable or going to a class on a law or something like that. But, you know, use that data to help you make your plans and do your the execution of the plan. No, absolutely. Those are great examples. I'm glad that you brought those up.
00:15:50:02 - 00:16:13:14
Unknown
And I loved hearing about your success in your past roles, too, and kind of just sharing your real life, your real life stories. So we talked about gaining new skills and some of that includes technology skills too. So I guess my question here is how do you use data then specifically to assist in succession planning in appraisals? Yeah.
00:16:13:16 - 00:16:50:23
Unknown
So I'm assuming that everybody, you know, the new hires are going in and putting their information into whatever your h.r. Software is about. However that process looks, that could be just through h.r. Maybe putting that information in, but again, garbage in, garbage out. So the data has to be in there, but there are usually your h.r. System has an element of, like, ways to search so you could search for, like, degrees in accounting, or you could search for people who have a certain certification or speak multiple languages.
00:16:51:00 - 00:17:16:06
Unknown
You could also use that information in your database to search for what's the age range as you kind of opened up with 10,000 people are retiring every day. So what is that age range? How many people are in that group and in what roles? And is it that one critical role or there's only one person with that institutional knowledge and you don't want to ask people like, Hey, I'm turning 65 or whatever, You don't want to ask that.
00:17:16:08 - 00:17:36:21
Unknown
You're just looking at the data and taking that to your meeting and saying, This is what the data is telling us. This is these are things that could happen and we should be prepared for these things. So use the reports and the information that you already have in there. If it's possible you might want to automate with some succession planning software.
00:17:36:23 - 00:17:53:00
Unknown
There are some great programs out there that make it so easy, very intuitive, user friendly programs. So again, you can put the information in and it can you can even set alerts and it will tell you like date of the meeting is next month and you need to be prepared to talk about your team members, that kind of thing.
00:17:53:00 - 00:18:19:01
Unknown
But you can also kind of move people from ready now, or maybe they're ready with development in the next 12 months or maybe ready with development 1 to 3 years or something like that, so you can set it up and whatever makes sense in your organization. But then, you know, educating everybody on what what all those things mean, ready now what does that mean?
00:18:19:03 - 00:18:49:11
Unknown
So if there's an opening and your names on the list, she's ready now. So we've got 35 people who are ready now for this first line supervisor job and great place to be if you've got a big pool like that. So you can use that data to kind of age you and in this process. Yeah, I'm glad that you brought up automation and automating the process a little bit more because I'm sure a few people are a little overwhelmed with the whole succession planning process.
00:18:49:11 - 00:19:22:06
Unknown
So at least now that there are tools to help you with the process, that's another one. Yeah. So we talked about in the beginning that planning isn't just for CEOs and leadership for retirees. So are there specific roles to priority prioritize or are there high risk roles that need more attention than other roles? Yes, and I would say think about three in particular.
00:19:22:08 - 00:19:42:10
Unknown
So one is if you have a particular role where only one person does it, and especially if one person has done it for years and they have all that institutional knowledge and you don't want to lose that and it's easy to just, you know, so and so it's always done and they've always been there, but at some point they're not going to be there.
00:19:42:12 - 00:19:58:22
Unknown
So what are what are the plans in place so that you don't have an issue when that person does leave? So you're planning for. That's why succession planning is so essential for organizations You want to be prepared for when these things happen that you're not caught off guard going, my gosh, what are we going to do now?
00:19:58:24 - 00:20:22:16
Unknown
And somebody could hit the lottery, right? And they're gone. So so that's the first one. And then the second one to think about is any of those niche roles, unique skills. There's not a big candidate pool. It's hard to hire. Think about like what are the competitors doing, What are they paying? Are they doing anything like signing bonuses or some things to attract people?
00:20:22:18 - 00:20:49:18
Unknown
And are those things that you need to consider? Maybe you've never done it in the past, but things have changed and it might be that now you need to change to accommodate that pool. So that you can attract the best talent. And then the third thing to think about really are your growth plans. So if you are going to expand, I mentioned going global or something like what are what are the needs there?
00:20:49:20 - 00:21:18:15
Unknown
If you're even just from a growth perspective, maybe it's not even going global or anything like that, but you're one of your strategic goals might be we're going to increase sales by 20%. Well, as everything increases. So do oftentimes the number of employees. So you might need to hire multiple leaders next year. Do you have anyone in the pipeline that's going to be a good leader in the meantime, if you know that's going to happen, if that's the plan?
00:21:18:15 - 00:21:42:01
Unknown
In the meantime, can you work on getting people prepared so you have all that great information from your meetings in the database and you see who might be the next first line leaders, particularly your people that have some potential and have been performing. So let's say there's 20 people in there. You could take 20 people and send them through some kind of a development class to get them prepared.
00:21:42:03 - 00:22:04:14
Unknown
And then you have a good candidate pool to choose from when you have that growth that you've been expecting. So those are kind of the three areas that I would, I would say to consider. Yeah, absolutely. We talked a lot on emerging leaders here on the podcast. So again, that's a great group of people to kind of get roped into this discussion to Absolutely.
00:22:04:16 - 00:22:30:19
Unknown
And we've also mentioned kind of emphasize the point that succession planning is not for one specific type of role or not for just leadership roles. And with so many baby boomer boomers, many of them may be in leadership roles leaving the workforce, there is a greater emphasis on the younger generation needing to fill in these leadership roles. So let's talk for a little bit about succession planning for these younger generations.
00:22:30:21 - 00:23:04:00
Unknown
Maybe they haven't been in the workforce very long and they don't really have a ton of experience or the leadership skills. So do you have any recommendations for developing this process? A little earlier on? Yeah, I would say, you know, a couple of things to think about when looking at sort of that, I'm going to use your phrase about next generation of leaders, because consider, especially for people who've been in the workforce for a long time, you know, about the evolution of the workforce itself.
00:23:04:02 - 00:23:37:17
Unknown
And currently there are the workforce is really looking for development and opportunities and not just, you know, getting hired to work in this one job forever, but it's the the workforce, you know, the people that you hope to retain that can see that they're you care about their development. You the leader care about their development and that there is going to be future opportunity, then that's a little more attractive to that that part of the workforce.
00:23:37:19 - 00:23:54:15
Unknown
The other thing about that part of the workforce, a lot of times you have people who they want to know their leader and they want their leader to know them as a whole person. There used to be an old adage back in the day that, you know, check your bags, your baggage at the door when you come to work.
00:23:54:15 - 00:24:14:19
Unknown
It's work time. But there really has been an evolution in the workforce about the whole person. You're leading the whole person and you can't often as as a human, we can't. There are certain things we just can't leave at home and things that might be hindering our ability to focus or whatever it might be. But, you know, that's attractive to help retain some of the workforce.
00:24:14:19 - 00:24:38:04
Unknown
So you're thinking about the next generation of employees. What's next? What is going to be the next part of the evolution? You may as an organization have a diversity goal and you might want to focus on that. You might also have new tech knowledge that's going to be coming into your work world, and you'll need people who understand that technology know how to do whatever it is.
00:24:38:06 - 00:25:01:06
Unknown
But you also could be just like in a growth mode. And so all of a sudden now you find it beneficial that you need to have a project manager on staff that could be part of your next generation. Maybe we've never had that before, but with all the change that we're going through and, you know, we're going to add this madness and that it might be beneficial to have somebody with that kind of a skill set to manage projects as they go through.
00:25:01:08 - 00:25:22:18
Unknown
So you just kind of have to think about what are those skills, what are some changes coming? There might be get lost, but you're looking at your next generation of hires and your next generation of leaders and what are they going to need to. Again, it's all part of the process going into leadership skills, digging in there a little bit more.
00:25:22:20 - 00:25:45:06
Unknown
How do you exactly know what is needed or how do you help develop those successful leadership skills specifically? Yeah, so a lot of that is really through observation, you know, so for example, if I am a leader and I have, you know, ten people on my team and I've worked with them, I've got some experiences and I can assess from my perspective.
00:25:45:06 - 00:26:24:10
Unknown
So so my observations are going to play a huge role in that, which back to what we said earlier about if the leader isn't going to the meetings and talking about so-and-so skills and abilities, sometimes they missed out. The other thing now can be through like cross-functional teams or cross-functional projects committees. So for example, if I am a sponsor of a new project and I have people from ten different departments that are on my project team, so I can see that person's work product, if you will, because they come to the meetings, are they prepared?
00:26:24:10 - 00:26:50:20
Unknown
Do they meet their deadlines? Do they work well with others? Just all those things. And then I can speak to that too. So their first their manager can speak to their their performance. I can speak to their performance. So there are some other examples. And in that too, I might have a different perspective because I might say they were great at these five things and you know, what they could benefit from is learning more about this other part of the organization, and that's a complement to their work.
00:26:50:22 - 00:27:12:22
Unknown
And if they understood more of the ins and outs over there, I think that it can help them understand kind of what levers to pull or when things happen, how that's going to impact another department, just kind of seeing the organization more holistically or that organization more as the system that it is. And that can really help when it comes to things like problem solving or cross training or anything like that.
00:27:12:24 - 00:27:39:07
Unknown
You know, really a lot of that is, again, through observation. But then, you know, you also think about what they need next and how do you kind of meet those needs. A lot of that is through the development plans and things. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like that's been a common trend of what we've also talked about this year is that cross training and the leadership development opportunities and all that great stuff that you mentioned.
00:27:39:07 - 00:28:08:01
Unknown
So I love those examples. That was great advice. But Dana, as we wrap up here, can you share any any real life success stories or case studies even of businesses that have effectively navigated this succession planning process? Yes, sure. So I will share that. There was a company that I worked with not long ago and they had a pretty good succession planning process already in place with their meetings and their documentation.
00:28:08:01 - 00:28:32:10
Unknown
And and it wasn't automated. They were they were using an Excel sheet. It worked for them. It was not a large organization. So as they continue to grow, they might want to automate. And that was one of the things we did talk about. And but what they really wanted to focus on were accountability and what kind of enhancements could they do to their existing process.
00:28:32:12 - 00:28:50:15
Unknown
So there were a couple of things that we talked about, and one was moving from meeting twice a year to for a while. Let's make four times a year and then people get it's it's closer, right? So you've done it more times and people are kind of more ready each time because it's like, that's three months now.
00:28:50:16 - 00:29:23:05
Unknown
Not six months away. So I've got to be ready. And what have I done from from this meeting to the next? And that's a reflection of me as a leader on my performance. Did I take time to dedicate to developing my people? So kind of making those meetings more frequently can really help with that accountability piece. But then the other thing that one of the things that I had had experience with in the past I recommended was make one of the leaders or the owner of a particular meeting.
00:29:23:07 - 00:29:43:09
Unknown
So if it was my turn to be the leader of the meeting, then I set the meeting. I sent out the invites, I pull up the database for doing it virtually, and I show it online and we have and I facilitate the conversation. That's a different level of ownership. You know what? If I know I'm going to be responsible for the meeting, I'm going to do all my prep work ahead of time.
00:29:43:09 - 00:29:59:10
Unknown
And it's just like anything else, like riding a bike, right? The more you do it, the easier it gets, the better you get at it, the more comfortable you are with it. So if I have to have ownership in a meeting, I'm going to work a little harder to get prepared and I don't want to go in ill prepared.
00:29:59:12 - 00:30:32:20
Unknown
But also it's a way to get more used to it. So you've got somebody that can kind of run that meeting. And then the other thing we did talk about was potentially automating the process and again, just making it easier for the leaders to to do that work. That's that's part of our work as leaders. So the executive team, if they need to approve like the purchase of some kind of software to make this work easier and better information, better data to work with, that might be part of this your succession planning work too.
00:30:32:22 - 00:30:56:10
Unknown
So that was a company that I worked with before or one of our member companies that I worked with, but in my own role before I came to MRA in my past. When our past lives, if you will, one element in our succession planning process that I liked was so you had accountability to your leadership to do the work, to come in to the meetings prepared.
00:30:56:15 - 00:31:20:16
Unknown
And if we were not prepared, our leader was having a conversation with us about not doing the work. But the other thing is kind of like dual accountability was the expectation was after those meetings and after the conversation and all, I would go back and have a meeting with the people on my team that we talked about the high potentials and the high performers, and to have the conversation around here is what you do really well.
00:31:20:18 - 00:31:38:03
Unknown
And here are some things we think you could benefit from. And so let's make that happen. But that was an expectation. So my leader would say, have you had your accountability meetings with your team yet? So it's kind of coming from both directions and it's just another way to kind of make the work happen. But it is a little bit of muscle memory.
00:31:38:03 - 00:32:05:03
Unknown
You know, again, the more you do it, the easier it gets and you start having those conversations and planning it and it just becomes part of the work after that for sure. Those are great examples too, and even some action steps that listeners can take away and start implementing right away too. Yeah, it's very. Dana, I want to thank you for being on the podcast today and thank you for sharing your expertise and your success with succession planning.
00:32:05:05 - 00:32:27:03
Unknown
Thank we yeah, and to our listeners, if you like the chat and topic today, I know a lot of our members and listeners request this topic, so I would urge you to comment something new that you learned today or anything that you really like to add on to this conversation. We always want to hear from you and your what you're doing specifically on this topic too.
00:32:27:05 - 00:32:49:03
Unknown
Don't forget to share out this episode and consider joining MRA if you aren't member already. We have all the resources you need in the show Notes below, including a number of succession planning resources in the show notes below too. So take a look at those. We've also got Dana's bio and LinkedIn profiles, so if you'd like to connect with her, Dana, I hope that's okay.
00:32:49:03 - 00:33:09:22
Unknown
You might be getting some good connections lately, otherwise. Thank you so much for tuning in, Dana. I appreciate you being here and we'll see you next week. And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign them to connect for more podcast updates, check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform.
00:33:09:23 - 00:33:19:15
Unknown
And as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minutes THRIVE so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.
34 min
November 29, 2023 Recruiting Trends to Look for in 2024
Description: It's time to explore the latest trends shaping the hiring landscape in 2024, and we're sitting down with MRA Recruiting Business Partner Lead, Katie Kestly, to do just that! With more than ten years working in recruiting, Katie has seen a number of recruiting trends come and go. Join us as we discuss the innovative strategies and technologies that are redefining the way organizations attract, assess, and retain top talent in the rapidly evolving job market of 2024.
Resources:
MRA's Recruiting Services
Recruiting Toolkit
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Guest Bio - Katie Kestly
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Katie Kestly
Host Bio - Sophie Boler
Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler
Transcript:
Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:03
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you're here.
00:00:21:05 - 00:00:47:03
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Well, hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of 30 Minute Thrive. We're here and talking with Katie Kestly today, MRA's lead recruiting, business partner, partner and subject matter expert on the topic for today. So with more than ten years of working and recruiting, Katie, I know you've seen a number of recruiting trends come and go, so I'm kind of excited to talk about trends that you'll be seeing in 2024.
00:00:47:09 - 00:01:17:17
Unknown
Yeah, but today we're going to like I said, we're going to be talking about those recruiting trends that you need to be aware of and start planning for for 2024. So according to a Recruiter Flow blog, some of the top ten trends for recruiting in 2024 will be hybrid work model, proactive candidate engagement, use of recruiting automation, diversity and inclusion, branding, data centric recruiting and list goes on, but we'll cover those in the rest of the podcast.
00:01:17:19 - 00:01:42:10
Unknown
So Katie, let's talk about some of these trends and starting out with number one on the list that is hybrid work. So are our employees really still looking for hybrid work? yeah, absolutely. That's one of the biggest challenges right now is just, you know, to work from home, to not work from home. And it's something that companies are really kind of having that hard time trying to identify where are we going to go with this?
00:01:42:11 - 00:02:09:17
Unknown
But yes, absolutely, hybrid work is here to stay. So how can an employee really still recruit top talent if they're not going to offer hybrid work? Yeah, that's a really great question. And a lot of companies run into this and I think that the the biggest thing for organizations or the biggest thing for candidates is the number one primary motivator for candidates wanting to work from home is to have that flexibility.
00:02:09:19 - 00:02:31:23
Unknown
So if organizations are able to highlight what they can offer in terms of flexibility, that's something that will make them stand out if they're not offering that hybrid policy. So, for example, a lot of organizations are getting creative with their schedules, so they're doing core days in the office or core hours that they have to be in the office.
00:02:31:23 - 00:02:52:17
Unknown
So for core days, whether it's your group or groups and Monday one, Friday, Tuesday, Thursday and even core hours. So maybe they'll do you have to be in the office from 9 to 3. So that gives them more of that flexible schedule if they want to work, come in at seven and leave at three or even if they prefer more of a 9 to 5.
00:02:52:17 - 00:03:16:09
Unknown
So really highlighting that flexibility of what they can offer. If they can't offer the hybrid. Yeah, absolutely. I was just talking on and podcasts earlier this morning about hybrid work schedules and I had an example of a friend who was at a hybrid company and now they just moved to fully in-person and a lot of people quit because of that.
00:03:16:10 - 00:03:40:20
Unknown
So I guess that leads to the next question. Is hybrid really a critical no or no go offer? I would say do you think? Yeah. I mean, personally, I like the having the flexibility. I like coming into the office. I think for candidates in the market today, just when I reach out to candidates on LinkedIn, it's the first question I get is, is this remote?
00:03:40:20 - 00:03:58:24
Unknown
I'm only looking for remote or what is the hybrid policy? I even have gotten to the point now on to my email messages saying we offer a hybrid schedule. This is what it looks like. So I would say it's critical and I think a lot of organizations are adapting and adapting to this new work model. No, I totally agree with that.
00:03:59:00 - 00:04:24:24
Unknown
Yeah, it's good to know. Yeah. So I'm also curious what is meant by proactive candidate engagement as that's another item on the list. So can you give any examples of what it really means and any examples of good proactive candidate engagement? Yeah, so proactive candidate engagement essentially is just staying on top of hiring demand. So a big bulk of what recruiters do is sourcing candidates.
00:04:24:24 - 00:04:45:09
Unknown
So creating those connections with them, trying to get them to sync up with the recs that they're working on. But say, maybe a recruiter doesn't have a full plate at the time, but they see a skill set over and over again. That's where what it means by proactive engagement, making sure you're staying ahead of those hiring demands and just kind of building that pipeline or building that network.
00:04:45:09 - 00:05:08:12
Unknown
If you will. So an example of that is just simply networking. Recruiters have LinkedIn recruiter seeds where they can build those pipelines of of candidates now, or I should say pipeline, but network of candidates. So I think an example of that is just kind of from a networking perspective. But I think in terms of being having that candidate engagement, you want to be tasteful with.
00:05:08:17 - 00:05:27:19
Unknown
You don't want to just be like, Hey, what's up? How how's it going? How are you? It's moreso, Hey, I see you're an engineer in this skill set. We've seen this skill set regularly, kind of giving them that whiff. I'm like, What's in it for them? Sharing some market data and things like that. So absolutely having those meaningful conversations.
00:05:27:19 - 00:05:52:19
Unknown
Yeah, that's a good point. We also talked a lot about Canada experience overall on the podcast, so I'm curious to know what organizations are doing to enhance the candidate experience as part of their recruitment strategy for 2024. Yeah, that's a really good question. I think the candidate experience has been a hot topic for recruiters for quite some time now.
00:05:52:19 - 00:06:17:24
Unknown
You know, you want to make sure that the candidates are well taken care of, and I think companies are doing a lot of different things to help implement that. You hear a lot of like high tech, high touch. So incorporating technology into the forefront of the applicant tracking system process, whatever it may be. Another thing that candidates excuse me that recruiters are doing as they're doing more of like a fast reply when the application comes in.
00:06:17:24 - 00:06:43:16
Unknown
So as soon as the application comes in, they're connecting with them, saying, Hey, thanks for applying. I would love to schedule a phone screen with you or schedule the interview with you. It really shows that you have that interest there. Yeah, the last thing that I've seen organizations doing is focusing more on pre-boarding. So before the candidates are coming in for their first day, they're assigning them a buddy, if you will, or they call it like a warm welcome approach.
00:06:43:16 - 00:07:01:15
Unknown
So they either, you know, assign them to a coworker, the recruiter, or the hiring manager or whatever it may be, and it kind of stays with them, you know, every step of the way before their first day. So they kind of have that more sense of belonging when they, you know, feel you know, when you start a new job, it's it's wild.
00:07:01:17 - 00:07:26:11
Unknown
You don't know where you're going, what you're doing. So it's more welcome to. Yeah, no, I could see how that would better the whole candidate experience. And you also mentioned technology in there. So another item on her was is recruiting automation. So are we really talking about technology here or even the use of artificial intelligence? Yes, we are.
00:07:26:13 - 00:07:55:07
Unknown
We are. We are. AI is everywhere. It's it's a part of the recruiting process. And it's not necessarily to replace recruiters. It's to make us better, to make us faster, to make us more efficient. So we have to deliver to our members to our customers, to our candidates. So when you think of recruiting from start to finish, from, you know, putting the job out there, sourcing the candidates, contacting the candidates, sorting the candidates, AI plays a part into every piece of those.
00:07:55:07 - 00:08:19:04
Unknown
And it's really just to make us more efficient and effective. So there's things like auto generated, personalized outreach messages, auto generated search strings based on requirements. So you have technologies and tools where you can enter in a job or enter in a job description and it will auto populate candidates to you that you can reach out to. And then lastly, it helps.
00:08:19:04 - 00:08:38:21
Unknown
There's different like add ins with different applicant tracking systems where it can help prioritize the candidates that have come into the rack and maybe which ones are a fit or are not a fit. So and some of the ones that we've explored here internally too, it's like German German hire viewer, the two that really stand out and say to stay, yeah, that's half of my mind.
00:08:38:21 - 00:09:00:16
Unknown
But yeah, I love how you said that AI is not meant to like take over. Your job is going to help you because I feel like I've heard a lot, like AI is going to take over my job. Yeah, they're taking over everything, so. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree that it's just there as a tool and you can use it to make your job more efficient, right?
00:09:00:18 - 00:09:25:08
Unknown
So diversity and inclusion was also named as a top trend for 2024. How can employers really incorporate the AI into their recruiting? Yeah, that's a really great question and I feel like this has been a big buzz for recruiting and just organizations as a whole. And obviously a lot of it stems into the beginning stages of recruiting, so I can touch every step in the recruiting process.
00:09:25:08 - 00:09:54:16
Unknown
So whether it's creating gender neutral job ads, placing the said job on diverse boards because there's a lot that are specific to different diverse organizations, you can target diverse talent pools and when you're sourcing candidates as well, partnering with local diversity partners and doing different like blind hiring methods, things like that. So you're not you know, you're focusing on it, but you're not focusing on it.
00:09:54:16 - 00:10:18:09
Unknown
Yeah. So and I've seen some other organizations, too, to draw more attention to their diverse recruiting efforts, do more of like a Happy blank day on LinkedIn. Yeah, I'd say social media, but things like Happy like Day of the Dead or things like that, just to show that they're having that drawn towards more desire for diversity in their workforce.
00:10:18:09 - 00:10:43:07
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. And you just listed a bunch of great and steps that people can take even now right after the podcast. So we'll all link some resources to to help with that. Absolutely. The next one is branding for recruitment. And I love this one, obviously because I'm on the marketing team. So tell us more about why an organization's brand is so important in the recruitment process.
00:10:43:07 - 00:11:03:16
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. Well, marketing and recruiting go hand in hand. Like sometimes I like to play like I'm a marketing person, but I'm really not. I'm just I like to marry the person and the candidate and everyone to where they need to go. But the main goal for branding for an organization and recruiting is just how can you differentiate, differentiate yourself?
00:11:03:18 - 00:11:21:03
Unknown
How can you have that strong and input employer brand? It's very critical and it's to highlight that within the recruitment process. So again, a lot of what recruiters do is that active candidate outreach to get, you know, maybe you have a job posted, you don't have any applicants. So how am I going to attract people to this job?
00:11:21:03 - 00:11:41:08
Unknown
So when I'm reaching out to candidates personally, I always like to make sure my emails are fun, They're light and getting the point to what they want to know. Okay, yes, schedule and compensation. But if I can leverage other social media platforms and that's what a lot of companies are doing where they can highlight their culture, their values, what makes them unique.
00:11:41:10 - 00:12:03:21
Unknown
I was actually working with one organization where they have create they created a slew of day in the life videos. So when I was recruiting for those particular skill sets and maybe the candidates didn't know exactly what a day in the life looked like, I would enter that link into my email message. So the candidate could get a better feel and physically see what a day in the life looked like.
00:12:03:23 - 00:12:26:19
Unknown
So great idea. Yeah. So that's a lot of what branding and how it kind of falls into recruitment. Yeah, I feel like recruiters have to be more creative than ever now because I don't know, there's just so many different aspects that you could write be original on and everyone wants to say, Come to us because we have hybrid work, but everyone's going to say that.
00:12:26:21 - 00:12:47:12
Unknown
So like, like you said, what makes you stand stand out and stand apart? Yeah. So as the job market becomes more competitive, what strategies are employers adopting to attract and retain top talent? I think, you know, the biggest thing that employers are doing to adopt and attract and retain the top talent is they're looking at the market too.
00:12:47:14 - 00:13:06:21
Unknown
So they're looking at the market, seeing what the competition is doing, what the competition is paying, what they're putting out there, and they're making those adjustments and they're being very mindful of that. I think a lot of what we've talked about before here is they're also meeting their employees where they're at and kind of seeing what the benefits are.
00:13:06:21 - 00:13:34:11
Unknown
That would be a benefit to them, because a benefit for me is ever been a benefit to you. So I know a lot of organizations are doing a paid or unpaid elder care daycare or child care reimbursement and also embracing a long term work from home policy and offering those flexibility. So how about some of the skills and qualities that recruiters are really prioritizing in 2024 as the job market continues to evolve?
00:13:34:11 - 00:13:56:07
Unknown
Yeah, the market's pretty saturated right now in terms of candidates and people looking for work. So I think one of the main skills and qualities that they're prioritizing is culture fit. I think, you know, everyone was so hot to trot and hot to hire a few years back. And I think they've they've learned their lesson that at the end of the day, we got to make sure we have the right culture fed.
00:13:56:07 - 00:14:33:12
Unknown
So we're having, you know, these individuals longer term. Another thing they're looking to do is increase the skills of their recruiting team. So having them, you know, adopt different technology use are different skills trainings, factoring in AI as well. And then I think last but not least, kind of what we mentioned earlier is that too much meaning the employees, where they're at the meeting, the candidates where they're at in terms of communication, I was recently recruiting for a slew of interns and I was like, Hey, this is my first time recruiting Gen Z, and I know they want short, sweet to the point.
00:14:33:12 - 00:14:59:13
Unknown
So how what is my message going to be to them? So what I ended up doing was I put together a sourcing and mail that said, Hey, I have an internship, here's the company, here's the location, here's the pay. Are you interested? Ed If so, book a time on my calendar. And I sent them a link because it was all easy to do on their phones and things like that, I got zero responses, but nine candidates scheduled phone screens for me and they all showed up to their phone screen.
00:14:59:13 - 00:15:25:03
Unknown
Really? Yeah. So a big thing is of really just meeting people where they're at and where they need to be in terms of communication skills and things like that. So those would be, in my opinion, the key skills now. Yeah, those are great examples and great things always keep in mind. Yeah, well kind of wrapping up here and looking ahead at the same time, what challenges do you really anticipate recruiters will face in the coming year?
00:15:25:05 - 00:15:46:09
Unknown
And do you have any advice that you can kind of leave us with today to help navigate some of these challenges? Yeah, I think the biggest challenge for the upcoming year for recruiting is just going to be the job market itself. I think it's it's ever changing right now. Like I started last week with two active positions and now my plate is nearly full.
00:15:46:09 - 00:16:06:18
Unknown
So it's just it's ever changing again, for better or for worse. And I don't think anyone really knows the predictability for next year. So I think that's going to be the biggest challenge. My advice on that is as a recruiter, as an employee, as a supervisor, anyone in the workforce internally or externally, communication and having those clear expectations.
00:16:06:20 - 00:16:30:00
Unknown
And I think too, from a recruiter standpoint, the advice would be gaining the trust from candidates and building the relationship. You know, you there like I said, the market is very saturated right now. So, you know, you if you ghost candidates, you know, just follow up with candidates because if someone has a bad experience, yeah, they're going to LinkedIn and they're going to post about it.
00:16:30:00 - 00:16:50:11
Unknown
So you want to make sure that you're you're ensuring that you're genuinely there to help because as a recruiter, you're there to help the candidate, you're there to help the organization, and you really just want to make sure you're gaining that trust from the candidates. That would be my, my, my biggest one advice. That is great advice. And so thank you.
00:16:50:13 - 00:17:12:10
Unknown
Well, it sounds like recruiters definitely have their hands full this year and next year, but I want to thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing your experience and expertise with us today. We're curious to know what you're doing to get ready for recruiting in 2024, so feel free to leave a comment below for a chance to win one of MRA's new swag items on the podcast.
00:17:12:12 - 00:17:31:18
Unknown
And if you liked our chat and topic today, don't forget to share out this episode and consider joining MRA if you aren't a member already. We have all the resources you need in the show Notes below, including resources on this topic. Otherwise, thank you so much for tuning in today and thanks for joining us. Katie. Thank you. And we'll see you next week.
00:17:31:20 - 00:17:52:22
Unknown
And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign them to connect. For more podcast updates, check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minutes THRIVE so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

18 min
November 22, 2023 Future Trends: What’s Next for HR Technology
Description: Explore the intersection of HR and cutting-edge technology in this week’s episode of 30 minute THRIVE. Join us as our expert guest, Tricia Shields, VP of HR at MRA member company Naviant, Inc., delves into how AI and technology are transforming HR practices, addressing challenges, and shaping the future of work. Tricia shares valuable insights, examples, and tips for HR professionals navigating this exciting landscape.
Resources:
Naviant - Human Resource Process Solutions
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Tricia Shields
Host Bio - Sophie Boler
Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler
Transcript:
Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:03
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you're here.
00:00:21:05 - 00:00:46:12
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Well, hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of 30 Minute THRIVE. So episode 65, actually. So it's kind of a special one today. But today we're really going to be exploring the intersection of HR and cutting edge technology. So I'm joined with our expert guests on the topic. Tricia Shields. She's a vice president of HR at MRA member company NAVIENT.
00:00:46:14 - 00:00:57:14
Unknown
And Navient actually provides business process and digital transformation consultations. So it's a perfect topic to talk with you today. Tricia I'm excited you're here.
00:00:57:14 - 00:01:11:09
Unknown
Yeah. Thank you. Sophia. I'm glad to be here, actually. And i know you actually talked on this topic at our HR Conference this past year, too, and this topic has just been a really highly requested one from our listeners to on the podcast.
00:01:11:09 - 00:01:34:11
Unknown
So i'm excited to just hear your insights and tips and any advice you really have for professionals that are starting to or in the middle of kind of navigating this landscape. So could you provide just a quick overview on how technology has really evolved over the years and kind of where we are today with technology and in the field of HR
00:01:34:11 - 00:01:38:21
Unknown
Specifically? Yeah, that sounds great. Thanks again for having me.
00:01:38:21 - 00:01:59:17
Unknown
Yes, i kind of think about the history in a lot of ways. I feel like I've kind of grown up with technology now that technology's always been available to me. But if I think about the beginning of my career, which is just kind of over 20 years ago now, when I was first interacting with technology as it relates to HR, I really wasn't interacting with it at all.
00:01:59:17 - 00:02:25:06
Unknown
So, you know, I think about my first job out of college when I needed to do something from an HR perspective, from an employee perspective, I was walking down to the HR department and I was filling out a piece of paper. And that HR professional was taking that information and maybe just storing it in their filing cabinet. Maybe they were untreated it into the system.
00:02:25:07 - 00:02:53:17
Unknown
So certainly HR systems were around in that kind of late nineties time. Some organizations had adopted those and kind of the availability of the types of technologies that were available in them was vastly different across different organizations. So certainly we've seen a lot with the evolution of HR systems over the last 20 years and how we're utilizing those within our organizations.
00:02:53:19 - 00:03:26:12
Unknown
We've also seen a lot evolve as it relates to process specific technologies. So, you know, thinking about things like our applicant tracking systems or performance management systems, maybe our learning management systems, but we've seen a lot more technologies coming on to the market to help support some of those key focus areas within HR. And then I think about today and just the rapid expansion that's happened maybe over the last five, seven years.
00:03:26:14 - 00:03:46:20
Unknown
You know, we're talking about these more robust human capital management systems that are really taking care of a broad scope of a lot of the work we're doing within HR. You know, I commonly am in conversations about integrations and how do we integrate all these technologies so that they're talking to each other.
00:03:46:20 - 00:03:53:22
Unknown
Automation technologies is is huge. That's a lot of where we're seeing a lot of the time savings
00:03:53:22 - 00:03:58:17
Unknown
and and maybe more of the A.I. components of HR technology.
00:03:58:17 - 00:04:34:02
Unknown
And we're hearing a lot more around the automation technology space. So definitely, you know, seemingly more complex technologies. But their technology is nowadays that if we're able to adapt to them and lean in, they should be making our lives easier as HR Professionals know. Absolutely. And i, i would just add on to that just communication like in general, like, I'm just thinking of our HR team here, and, I mean, if our internal HR team needs anything from me or any employee in the organization, I'll get a little chat from them.
00:04:34:02 - 00:04:42:16
Unknown
It's not like they need to come walking down and grab me, right? It's just so quick and easy, like you mentioned. And even the two.
00:04:42:16 - 00:04:48:04
Unknown
Just like that. Quick, easy automated messaging, like you mentioned tools. Yeah, changed.
00:04:48:04 - 00:04:58:15
Unknown
We're kind of just going off of that conversation. Can you provide or do you have any examples of how these technologies today are being utilized in HR?
00:04:58:17 - 00:05:18:15
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, even maybe before speaking specifically to any sold technology, you know, I think digitization is a really big foundational piece in the HR space as it relates to technology and how we're going to use technology within our organization. So just that whole,
00:05:18:15 - 00:05:34:00
Unknown
you know, we made a commitment certainly at Navient and a lot of organizations have to digitizing their documents so that we're no longer kind of tied to paper processes and the manual process that really comes along with that.
00:05:34:00 - 00:06:01:15
Unknown
So just finding opportunities and this was always my question as I built out our automation and technology usage at Navient was, all right, I have paper documents. Do they need to be in paper form? I mean, I'm excited to share that we're 100% paperless at Navient. And, you know, organizations absolutely have the ability to do that. And once your documents are digitized, there's so much more that you can do with those from a technology perspective.
00:06:01:16 - 00:06:28:16
Unknown
So I would like to share that kind of kind of as a kind of based or within HR Some of the technologies and I'll just name a few. I mean, we're using technologies for all aspects of HR, so I could really rattle on like, the entire candidate and employee experience and how we're using technology. But one example that I'll give is performance management system at Navient, we call them our quarterly check ins.
00:06:28:16 - 00:06:52:13
Unknown
I know some organizations will do those annually, some different timeframes as we do those from a quarterly perspective. And I think about how did that look historically. When I started in my role at Navient 15 years ago, it was a piece of paper and I printed it and I walked it to the manager's office with their kind of stack for their employees, and they gave it to their employee to fill out their portion.
00:06:52:13 - 00:07:14:08
Unknown
The employee gave it back to the manager. Hopefully the manager gave it back to the HR Professional performance management was always such a big lift. And HR, like all HR Professionals that had to go through that had it in those historic days will speak to that. You had to be kind of a nagra department nagging people like i got to get these back.
00:07:14:14 - 00:07:40:15
Unknown
But now if i look at how we're utilizing technology, so we're utilizing and process automation technology that essentially is taking that digitized document and it's it's, it's re re rerouted that flow or not reroute it, but it's kind of it's designed that flow around how we used to do that manually. So I actually don't even see that performance management process in action.
00:07:40:17 - 00:07:44:18
Unknown
The forms are provided to the managers and the employees real time
00:07:44:18 - 00:08:12:10
Unknown
specific to some predefined dates and how we want that process structured. Now as an HR Professional, i'm no longer having a follow up on those manual processes, but i also have the information available to me if i do need it. So if i want to look in and maybe have access to the final results when those are completed each quarter or an annual result, i can create my access into that system to see that as well.
00:08:12:10 - 00:08:24:16
Unknown
So that's a great example of how we can use technology within that performance management space. I'll even just say on the employee data management side, and you made a great reference to that, Sofi, with
00:08:24:16 - 00:08:41:10
Unknown
how you're interacting with HR And I look at just these self-serve options that are available within a lot of the platforms that we're utilizing, whether that's your system or some other type of employee technology system that you've adopted organizationally,
00:08:41:10 - 00:08:49:07
Unknown
you know, back in the day, i used to, you know, fill out a piece of paper of my address, change and hand that into HR
00:08:49:09 - 00:09:15:00
Unknown
Well, I don't need that anymore. I don't want to spend time collecting that paperwork, needing to store it, doing the data entry into the different systems. Instead, I can utilize technology to give the employee a self-serve option that they can go in whenever it's convenient for them, make those changes, and then really train the technology to make the appropriate updates.
00:09:15:02 - 00:09:42:05
Unknown
Like I may never need to know if you just moved from one neighborhood within the same city to the next that navient We're 100% remote and hub remote company across the nation, so i do need to know or one of our HR Professionals does need to know if they're moving multistate and so we can set up that notification within the technology to really give us the information that we need real time for each one of those users.
00:09:42:07 - 00:09:49:13
Unknown
Yeah, I love that you brought up the notification aspect, too, because I know personally that's just something that's helped me a lot
00:09:49:13 - 00:10:06:17
Unknown
with any anything HR Related time sheets or goal setting or goal setting system. You know, you get your notification every week or so. Hey, make sure. Yeah. So it's not so much a job of nagging people anymore.
00:10:06:17 - 00:10:32:16
Unknown
It's like an automated. Hey, make sure you fill this out like an email each week, which is so nice and right. We don't have to, like, manually remember these things either. Yeah, absolutely. And like with our goal setting system, like my manager is able to tell when I go in there and edit something or change something. So I don't always have to be like, Hey, can you go in there and work and write my goals or anything?
00:10:32:16 - 00:10:36:07
Unknown
So yeah, examples. But
00:10:36:07 - 00:11:07:00
Unknown
kind of going off of that, do you see any specific challenges or really pain points in HR That technology is really helping to improve or address? Yeah. I mean, i would definitely say, you know, one of the key drivers is time. You know, just the scope of what HR Professionals has is working on has really evolved over all the time that all this technology has been available to us.
00:11:07:01 - 00:11:41:14
Unknown
You know, i would think back to kind of my early years of HR I was doing kind of the things that HR professionals typically do as far as managing, you know, specific processes. But our world has changed and we're being asked to find ways to be more strategic and how are we being strategic and bringing in really solid candidates to the organization and how are we being strategic to have a really whole employee experience so that we're retain in our top talent And so we need time to do that.
00:11:41:14 - 00:12:02:15
Unknown
So if we're still manually processing tasks and and entering things in multiple systems and trying to manage that data, we don't really have that time to be strategic. I just think about, you know, my interaction with other HR professionals during the pandemic and all the things that came up that were kind of additional duties for us to do during that time.
00:12:02:17 - 00:12:17:14
Unknown
You know, how do we have time to be strategic? And my answer is lean in and technology, because these pieces are available to help save you time so that you can, you know, spend more time being strategic. My kind of tagline or one
00:12:17:14 - 00:12:25:06
Unknown
piece that I always like to say is utilizing technology is allowing us to put the human back in human resources.
00:12:25:06 - 00:12:46:21
Unknown
So I don't want to spend my time updating an employee's address or moving, you know, a piece of data from one place in the organization to the other. I want to have meaningful conversations with our employees and with our candidates. And I really feel like, you know, leading edge technology allows us to do that.
00:12:46:21 - 00:12:51:07
Unknown
Just that. And the other piece I would bring up is just kind of the management of the amount of data.
00:12:51:07 - 00:12:57:12
Unknown
I mean, we are holding so much data within HR And it's hard to keep that all straight
00:12:57:12 - 00:13:07:22
Unknown
as far as where the data should be stored. How long should we be storing it for? Who should have access to the data, who needs it at these different periods of time
00:13:07:22 - 00:13:12:23
Unknown
to try to do that from a manual perspective or not utilizing technology?
00:13:13:00 - 00:13:21:02
Unknown
Maybe it's even in an Excel spreadsheet that you're kind of keeping track of this. There's just so many more opportunities for there to be error with that
00:13:21:02 - 00:13:33:19
Unknown
that I feel like, you know, that the managed utilizing technology to manage the data is a huge benefit of these HR Technologies. And I even think about that from a compliance perspective, right?
00:13:33:21 - 00:13:54:13
Unknown
It used to be that we would hand out employee handbooks in a paper form and then we'd ask them to sign a piece of paper to say that you received the new employee handbook for the year and turn that back into HR Well, did i get everybody's form back? Did I miss an employee that maybe started while i was doing that process?
00:13:54:13 - 00:14:20:08
Unknown
So being able to leverage technology for pieces like that from a compliance perspective is is priceless. Yeah, those are all great, great points. And I'm, I guess I'm curious to know what you're doing at Navient too. Can you share any examples of successful HR Technology implementations that have really positively impacted your organization? Yeah,
00:14:20:08 - 00:14:22:05
Unknown
you know, our applicant tracking system.
00:14:22:05 - 00:14:30:24
Unknown
So we're utilizing an applicant tracking system to manage our candidate experience. You know, historically, prior to utilizing that technology,
00:14:30:24 - 00:14:46:08
Unknown
we were manually managing that. So just, you know, thinking about the number of candidates that we see at any given time for our organization, we're getting flooded with candidates when we open a new requisition. I know that's not the case for everybody.
00:14:46:08 - 00:14:56:13
Unknown
And every industry, but certainly being a remote company in the technology space that's opening our candidate pool to the entire nation, that makes a significant difference.
00:14:56:13 - 00:15:10:17
Unknown
So that's a challenge. We need to figure out how we're going to manage all the data points that come with that. So, you know, this technology is handling the posting and its handling the communication with candidates.
00:15:10:19 - 00:15:33:08
Unknown
It's handling the communication with our internal staff. And that would always be kind of a exchange of emails. And did I send this person this email to communicate that or not about this specific candidate or that's all happening right within the it's platform. You know, this technology can handle scheduling, which can be complex, especially when you get multi interviewers and things like that.
00:15:33:08 - 00:15:40:21
Unknown
We're also using that technology for our offer management, so we want it to be paperless and seamless with that process as well.
00:15:40:21 - 00:15:48:17
Unknown
And then we have other built in integrations with that for like our assessment tool that we have all new or all candidates complete
00:15:48:17 - 00:16:15:18
Unknown
as well as our recorded interview. So that's another one that I'll share. So in this came off of a partnership with Amira is we were introduced to the idea and the concept of utilizing video technology in lieu of recorded or in lieu of phone screenings, which is kind of how all of our organizations, I think historically did that was have an HR professional call and ask questions, not really sharing
00:16:15:18 - 00:16:26:03
Unknown
a lot at that time, but just asking questions and receiving the information, Well, why wouldn't we utilize a video technology to do that instead? There are so many wins that come along with that.
00:16:26:03 - 00:16:28:19
Unknown
So that's another one that I'll mention.
00:16:28:19 - 00:16:37:18
Unknown
And then I guess the last piece just kind of on talking specifically about the Navy and technologies that we utilized is really our employee process automation.
00:16:37:18 - 00:16:41:10
Unknown
So in it's candidate and employee, but
00:16:41:10 - 00:16:42:15
Unknown
it's a little,
00:16:42:15 - 00:17:06:04
Unknown
you know, I guess I'll explain it like these are the technologies like Navient specifically is using a technology called OnBase and OnBase is what is flowing our data through our organization. And you can have different applications, but what's really creating the process flow that in a professional or somebody else in the organization would historically be doing.
00:17:06:06 - 00:17:18:18
Unknown
So this automation technology, we've kind of trained it to do the manual repeatable things that HR Professionals or others in the organization have historically been doing.
00:17:18:18 - 00:17:33:09
Unknown
So it's everything from the higher process through retire. So it's our performance management system. It's where our new hire surveys are tracked. It's where HR Is communicating with our internal i.t. Team to say we have a new employee.
00:17:33:09 - 00:17:55:11
Unknown
Let's make sure that all their i.t. Things are set up prior to their first days. So that's been probably the biggest component of our technology offering and really what's made a big significant difference on an hourly perspective. Absolutely. That's those are awesome ideas and that's great to hear that they're there working out for your organization. They're successful.
00:17:55:11 - 00:17:58:22
Unknown
And I know working with technology isn't always easy.
00:17:58:22 - 00:18:25:18
Unknown
And some people may say they are like tech savvy or some people are just uncomfortable, or some organizations even are uncomfortable with kind of moving forward with technology. So do you have any or I guess have you seen any like common misconceptions or concerns that HR Professionals have about adopting technology into into their work? Yeah.
00:18:25:18 - 00:18:29:24
Unknown
I'll address this one in a really short way and hopefully this is reflective.
00:18:29:24 - 00:19:04:04
Unknown
And it's not just any it's not just HR Professionals. I think it's anyone that might be a bit hesitant. Technology. One of my favorite quotes that i heard kind of just working in this space is we're not going to be replaced by technology. So if that's a concern that maybe the technology is going to do my job going forward and the organization will need me, we're going to be replaced by people that have adopted technology and leaned into it and really explored how they can use it, because technology is here and just more of this is coming.
00:19:04:04 - 00:19:24:02
Unknown
So your ability to adapt and be open minded to how you can utilize technology and how you can use it to your benefit to potentially be more strategic is a huge benefit to each of us. That's that's a great point too. I feel like I hear that all the time. Like we're all going to get replaced by tech, right?
00:19:24:04 - 00:19:53:03
Unknown
But that's like the opposite. Like you want to know everything you can about technology to use that and better yourself and in your organization. Yeah, absolutely. So we've talked about how technology has evolved throughout the years, but how about the role of HR Professionals? How has how is that evolved with the integration of technology and what new skills are really becoming essential now nowadays?
00:19:53:05 - 00:20:25:04
Unknown
Yeah. Good question. I think about that even with the question prior, you know, our our role has how that's evolved is we're no longer managing data at a micro level. So hopefully. Right. That's the case and that's certainly how our HR kind of experience is evolving. You know, I may never touch someone's benefit election form where that was likely a multi-touch historically before I was utilizing technology
00:20:25:04 - 00:20:35:09
Unknown
and then really kind of what skills can we adapt to be more essential in our roles is becoming more technical and strategic.
00:20:35:09 - 00:21:01:16
Unknown
And I know that's kind of a very generic answer, but, you know, HR is not doing what HR used to do. Yes, those core functionalities fall within our space, but our day to day work is really changing. And so finding ways to kind of think outside the box and I think we'll talk in a little bit as well about some of those key skills about how to embrace and engage technology.
00:21:01:18 - 00:21:30:08
Unknown
Absolutely. And how about now looking at kind of at a different angle, are there any ethical or privacy considerations that HR Professionals need to be aware of one kind of going through this technological landscape and process. Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, i think about that ethical and privacy consideration. It's huge in HR Right. We are holding some of the most confidential data within the organization.
00:21:30:08 - 00:21:54:14
Unknown
You know, people's personal information is kind of within the realm of what we have in our systems. And really it's the same rules apply as have always applied. You know, we've always had that sensitivity piece and actually it's many more rules because there's a lot more state and federal compliance pieces that are coming out around employment law that we need to track and sure, we're being sensitive to.
00:21:54:14 - 00:21:58:20
Unknown
So, you know, I think that piece absolutely still applies.
00:21:58:20 - 00:22:13:03
Unknown
I think our own s as HR Professionals as really to ensure that we understand those and ensure that they're supported within the technology cases that we're using and ask those questions of the vendors and partners that we're working with.
00:22:13:03 - 00:22:16:12
Unknown
You know, I think about even just digitizing filing cabinets.
00:22:16:12 - 00:22:40:03
Unknown
And i think i spoke a little bit to that earlier. And what technology are you going to store that data and who's going to have access to the different types of file? Certainly not always the same people to all the different types of data. How are you doing document retention in a digitized system versus how we used to do that and more of a paper system.
00:22:40:05 - 00:22:45:21
Unknown
So certainly employer employee filing cabinets is a significant piece of that as well.
00:22:45:21 - 00:23:08:06
Unknown
I'm going to give just a little warning here. So I would say don't avoid technology and the benefits that you can get from utilizing technology because of these fears almost heighten your experience and your curiosity, the technology that you're going to use or thinking about using based on that fear.
00:23:08:06 - 00:23:31:01
Unknown
Right. Ask questions, do research, you know, talk to your peers, talk to other partners, like Emory is a great partner. You know, what are they doing from a technology perspective? Certainly when I'm looking to evaluate a new technology, I'm ensuring that I'm feeling pretty confident that those things are answered prior to investing in that technology.
00:23:31:01 - 00:23:34:24
Unknown
Absolutely. And I guess that's a perfect way into the next question.
00:23:35:01 - 00:24:00:08
Unknown
Some organizations or HR Teams may have not tapped into any technology yet. So do you have any best practices or advice for teams looking to start incorporating technology into their organizations? Yeah. And actually, when we did the MRA conference last year, we did a poll to kind of see where people at from that technology adoption or adoption perspective.
00:24:00:08 - 00:24:26:09
Unknown
So, you know, kind of core is digitizing and like finding opportunities to digitize. Are there documents that are in paper form that can be digitized and identifying what those are and kind of moving forward with that? I would say utilizing your vendors so vendors, partners, you know, who is really speaking in that HR Technology space trusted partners that you can lean on to help
00:24:26:09 - 00:24:28:05
Unknown
help you with that incorporation.
00:24:28:05 - 00:24:49:10
Unknown
You don't have to be a technology expert, but you need to have kind of the right partners and the right vendors that kind of talked about, you know, be curious, you know, look at look at your current processes. I think about that almost every day. Is there a process that I'm doing that I don't need to do because it's very manual and it's not using my human element in order to achieve that?
00:24:49:12 - 00:24:53:02
Unknown
Is that something I can put within one of the technologies that are available?
00:24:53:02 - 00:25:06:22
Unknown
Yeah. And so kind of that B curious piece. The other thing I'll add to that real quick is, you know, like I remember last year everyone was talking about or me was earlier this year, everyone was talking about techy beauty and what does that technology mean and how are we going to utilize that?
00:25:06:22 - 00:25:27:05
Unknown
And I mean, that was true for me too. I was asked by a fellow up here, what did I think about chat and how that was going to change the landscape of human resources and how we adopt technology. And I don't know. So then I look into that. I talk to people who's using chatbot for HR What are they using it for?
00:25:27:07 - 00:25:50:05
Unknown
Are there opportunities? You know, and i kind of ask myself these questions rather than why shouldn't i use that you and how should I use that? Or how could I use that? And who else is using it in a really successful way? And would that make sense within our organization? Yeah, absolutely. I always be curious and always be reevaluating your current processes.
00:25:50:07 - 00:26:07:10
Unknown
Absolutely. So we've talked a lot about HR Technology implementation with the organization and the employer specifically. But how about from an employee perspective, what are really the benefits of an employee using technology?
00:26:07:10 - 00:26:22:17
Unknown
Yes, i think two things i would point out here. One, we've kind of already cover, which is the self-service piece. I mean, there's such a huge value in employees being able to have the data that they want real time, whether that's going in to have access to a system to update their address or is it?
00:26:22:17 - 00:26:34:05
Unknown
I want to see what my manager and I collaborated on around performance management last quarter, just to refresh myself, if I'm, you know, kind of keeping up with what we had talked about,
00:26:34:05 - 00:26:46:09
Unknown
there's just a huge value in them having real time information and self-serve options. The other piece that I would say is a potential benefit is really how HR
00:26:46:09 - 00:27:07:04
Unknown
Can be utilized within your organization. You know, i don't really want to talk to employees about like, here's a copy of last year's w-4. I want them to have access to that so that I can be having really meaningful conversations with our employees. You know, my day is primarily spent talking to employees about, you know, how are they driving their careers forward?
00:27:07:06 - 00:27:35:19
Unknown
Are there communication challenges that they're having within the organization that we can walk through and help to strengthen that development for them? How are they learning and growing or things like that that are more of the human element side of HR For sure. Well, you kind of mentioned this chat to bettina. Last question, but everyone always wants to know, like, what's the next biggest technology thing?
00:27:35:19 - 00:28:08:00
Unknown
What's the latest and greatest thing? So I guess what trends do you really foresee in the future of our technology and do you have any advice on how HR Professionals can really prepare for these changes? Yeah, you know, i don't know that i would speak to any one specific technology. I think we're going to continue to see more growth in some of our more robust like the risks or hcm technologies we're going to be hearing more about.
00:28:08:02 - 00:28:37:01
Unknown
I mean, I think we've just cracked the surface and I don't even know that we're fully utilized in that to its full capabilities within HR So i think more around that artificial intelligence, certainly the automation space as we see our organizations adopting to more automation type technologies for their core line of business. I think our professionals are going to have opportunity to really tap into that, to provide automations for the work that they do.
00:28:37:03 - 00:28:40:12
Unknown
Definitely more around integrations. We're seeing a lot with
00:28:40:12 - 00:28:58:07
Unknown
technologies that have the ability to integrate with other technologies, but we're also still using some technologies that won't integrate, or they have very limited integration capabilities. So I think we're going to see more around that. And then certainly some of these emerging technologies, you know, and catch up would certainly be an example of that.
00:28:58:07 - 00:29:01:01
Unknown
And then I guess maybe I'll answer on the preparing for,
00:29:01:01 - 00:29:03:13
Unknown
you know, and I think this kind of just goes back to,
00:29:03:13 - 00:29:23:15
Unknown
you know, lean in now so that it almost eases that lift later on. So what aren't you familiar with in the technology space right now, or what gives you hesitation in the technology space? Have, you know, have dialog and learn more about that now because it's not going to get scaled back and it's not going to stay the same.
00:29:23:17 - 00:29:43:19
Unknown
We're going to continue to grow this technology experience as we're seen in kind of all areas of our lives. And so kind of jumping on that and starting to take just some initial steps will absolutely benefit folks as they can to as we continue to go. Yeah, absolutely. And there's great resources out there and we'll provide some resources on
00:29:43:19 - 00:29:47:10
Unknown
just specific tools or different HR
00:29:47:11 - 00:30:08:10
Unknown
Technologies that you can learn more about. But as we wrap wrap up here, are there any other specific platforms, tools or resources that you want to recommend to our listeners and our HR Professionals who are interested in kind of exploring technology in their work. Yeah, absolutely. So, i mean, i would say some of the standard ones, you know, HR
00:30:08:12 - 00:30:35:23
Unknown
I asked tools, whatever that might be. Explore what you have, explore what the offering is within that certainly app our applicant tracking systems. I will kind of do a shout out for the recorded interviews where using a technology called badge and we got that through. We got that partnership through our partnership with MRA. But it's been a game changer on the candidate side, both in the candidate experience as well as our internal experience.
00:30:36:00 - 00:30:52:04
Unknown
And then I think just this whole piece around document management technologies and automation technologies. So I mentioned we're utilizing OnBase as the technology that we're utilizing. But I think just leaning into those automation processes, it's it's a significant
00:30:52:04 - 00:30:59:00
Unknown
value on the side. Yeah, No, that's helpful to hear kind of where you're at and what's been successful for you.
00:30:59:00 - 00:31:19:17
Unknown
So that's that's great. But Tricia, I want to thank you for being on the podcast today and really sharing your expertise and tips on the latest in HR Technology. So to our listeners, if you liked our chat and topic today, i would urge you to comment something new that you learn or anything that you really want to add on to this conversation.
00:31:19:18 - 00:31:43:00
Unknown
We want to hear what you're doing. What are your trends? What are your ideas? And don't forget to share out this episode and consider joining MRA. If you aren't a member or member already. We have all the resources you need in the show Notes below, including resources on our topic today and Tricia's contact information. If you want to get in touch with her or ask any follow up questions otherwise.
00:31:43:00 - 00:32:03:03
Unknown
Thank you so much for tuning in today. And Tricia, thank you again. And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign them to connect. For more podcast updates, check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minute Thrive so you don't miss out.
00:32:03:04 - 00:32:07:21
Unknown
Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

33 min
November 15, 2023 November Talent Report with Jim Morgan
Description: 🎙️ Tune in to our latest podcast episode on MRA's November Talent Report for the latest insights and trends in the world of talent. From innovative recruitment strategies to emerging skills in high demand, join us as we explore what's new in the month of November and gain valuable insights to stay ahead in the competitive job market!
Resources:
Talent Report+ Webinar Series
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Guest Bio - Jim Morgan
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Jim Morgan
Host Bio - Sophie Boler
Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler
Transcript:
Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:03
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you're here.
00:00:21:05 - 00:00:44:10
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. All right. Welcome, everybody, to this episode of 30 Minute Thrive. It is time to go over this month's talent report with Jim Morgan, MRA's vice president of Workforce Strategies. So we'll dive into what he's been seeing this month in the world of business. So thanks for joining us again, Jim. Well, this month we focused on tomorrow's talent strategies.
00:00:44:10 - 00:01:08:08
Unknown
Today, meaning what worked five years ago is no longer applicable. And in fact, what worked five weeks ago might not even work today. So starting out with the recruiting and retention innovations, where is the focus here? What's going on here? Well, I think a lot of time is being spent right now on pay transparency. And we talked about this a little bit after our comp trends event a month or so ago.
00:01:08:10 - 00:01:29:23
Unknown
But it's now, you know, really getting the attention, I think, of a lot of the people we're seeing states and communities start to put trade pay transparency policies in place. And so now I think these are folks, though, that are, you know, ready to go, that have good job descriptions, a good pay structure, a good pay philosophy. I don't think it's going to be all that big of a deal for them.
00:01:30:00 - 00:01:46:17
Unknown
But for those who, you know, have been winging it and just said, well, we don't really have a structure, we just kind of make it up as we go or we don't really have a pay for lots of fee or job descriptions. You know, we're kind of there, but not quite, I think are now seeing that this is a good time to get all of that in alignment to.
00:01:46:17 - 00:02:11:20
Unknown
Then we do. If you come in to ask me about where am I and what's going on and what's the schedule for my job, I should be able to at least, you know, give you that information. And I think because employees now are coming in so much better equipped, because they're looking at all kinds of data, too, and saying, hey, I read, yeah, I should be making this, I should be doing this, I should be getting this, which may be accurate, may not.
00:02:11:22 - 00:02:31:22
Unknown
But they're trying to build their best case for saying, I deserve this. And as a professional, I think you have to be ready to come back with we use these salary surveys, we collect this type of data and this is really where your salary is at. And that's great that you found this one job in downtown Los Angeles where they're paying seven times what we're paying.
00:02:31:24 - 00:02:55:16
Unknown
But if you really look at that job, it's not really your job. It's in a different type of economic climate, in a whole different situation, in a different industry. So that doesn't apply. So I think we're really just seeing the people arm themselves and get themselves organized to really be able to handle those employee questions. Yeah, absolutely. And we have a podcast actually coming up with a recruiter for memory, so that'll be interesting to see what she kind of says.
00:02:55:18 - 00:03:15:04
Unknown
On pay Transparency within like the recruiting recruiting world. Yeah, and I'm sure that she'll have some stories about, yeah, you know, I'll see an inside job where they say this job news $500,000 and you're sort of like, that's not what people are really offering, right? Or well, kind of going off of that recruiting and retention and moving into talent thinking.
00:03:15:06 - 00:03:45:11
Unknown
You highlighted the fact that the role of the manager continues to evolve and where those are responsible for hiring, supervising and leading are now being asked to do more and do their job. Even better. So can you kind of expand on that, that idea and that thought and any examples that you're seeing? Yeah, they are becoming sort of the shock absorber in this whole organizational structure and a lot of it is falling back to them, which is probably the place that it should be because they are the closest to their to their folks.
00:03:45:13 - 00:04:14:19
Unknown
But a lot of them didn't sign up for that, you know, 25 or 30 years ago. And so now we're seeing the emphasis on performance reviews and having conversation with your employees, staying in touch with them. The annual review is not a surprise when you it's the one time you talk to them, but you're really communicating with them every single day, knowing not only how their work is going, but how their life is going and understanding who the people are that are working for you.
00:04:14:21 - 00:04:37:12
Unknown
We're seeing a lot of it in communications where there might be some disruption on the on the floor within your team or there's disagreement. It's not our I'm going to run day and have them fix this. And is our expectation as you will deal with it, you know, as it happens. And so we're seeing a lot more pressure on them to, you know, just kind of keep things within your team and you've got the skills to do it.
00:04:37:12 - 00:04:57:18
Unknown
So you figure out what's the best way to deal with some of those things. Facilitating conversations across with other teams and within the people within their team, like making sure they're talking to each other. And if there's a difficulty, you're in there trying to help them, you know, figure out what that is. We're now seeing it in artificial intelligence.
00:04:57:20 - 00:05:26:02
Unknown
Do you know what your people are up to? Does your company have a goal? Is an objective statement out there making sure your people are using it for good and not evil and just understanding what some of the ramifications of it might be. So they're really being called on to be the thought leaders right on the spot with their people, helping their people, helping them with performance, helping them really with everything that's affecting their ability to do their job.
00:05:26:04 - 00:05:44:17
Unknown
And that includes, you know, work life balance and all the remote work and the flexibility. There's a lot on their plate right now. Yeah. They're also a full time therapist for their team. And that's very true of the mental health aspect. Yes. And really, you know, it's like your family. You got to get in there and deal with the goods and the bads.
00:05:44:23 - 00:06:15:19
Unknown
yeah, absolutely. There's a lot on their plates. There is. And more coming. Well, let's talk about our creativity now. So you mentioned how employers are continuing to try different ways to engage employees in the DIY space specifically. So do you have any plans or initiatives that you're seeing here around DIY initiatives? You know, I think people are always just looking for a way to take what they're doing and make it a little bit better and what are the opportunities for us to do that.
00:06:15:21 - 00:06:34:13
Unknown
And we're seeing a lot of it. Food's a big deal, you know, I mean, it's used for rewards. It's used for bringing people together, you know, all the breaking bread at the table sort of, you know, allows people to have conversations. And so we're seeing, you know, companies now that they may use those as diversity equity and inclusion opportunities.
00:06:34:15 - 00:07:07:08
Unknown
Maybe they're bringing in food from a certain culture and maybe they have people who work for them that are in that culture. So rather than just, here's food from this, right, This this culture giving people the opportunity to say, here's the history behind this, here's what it means, here's what food means in my culture and some of the different things that go with that and using it as almost an educational opportunity and to say, this is great, we're all getting to eat, but let's learn a little bit more about what this means and how important it is to to different groups.
00:07:07:10 - 00:07:26:14
Unknown
We're seeing the HR people now get more involved in the hiring process and even down to what are the questions we're asking in interviews and what are we looking for just to see? Is there any unconscious bias in there? Do we have people who maybe have been asking the same question for a long time and the meaning of that question maybe has changed.
00:07:26:14 - 00:08:01:09
Unknown
And so really taking kind of a top to bottom look at what's happening as we're bringing people in and as we're beginning to to onboard them. And we've seen them move with our companies that, you know, the holiday schedule or the days off schedule isn't quite as strict as it was where it's Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, traditional things that maybe did apply to a wide variety of the workplace at one point, but now giving the people the flexibility to say that may not be the holiday that meets their their ethnic or cultural needs.
00:08:01:09 - 00:08:22:18
Unknown
And so you have floating holidays to use for the things that are part of you and your culture and your family history. So just understanding that that might be, you know, obviously not the same for everybody. And the last one we're seeing again is people are just taking a look at their handbooks, which maybe have been around for decades.
00:08:22:20 - 00:08:52:19
Unknown
But things that were written 25, 30, 35 years ago have a different meaning than they did then than they do in 2023 and 2024. So scanning it with an eye towards unconscious bias, I do these things still apply. Are they appropriate? And again, no. You know, male intent can, you know, intended, but nobody's looked at it. And so before that becomes an issue, getting out in front of some of those things.
00:08:52:21 - 00:09:20:02
Unknown
So just being ever vigilant to make sure that everything we're doing in the DEI spaces is up to par and an up to date. Yeah, I love all those ideas and I think those are great action steps too that people can take away with right after this podcast. Even I think a big question is what C-suite leaders are thinking right now and where their thoughts and concerns really lie heading into this next year, 2024.
00:09:20:04 - 00:09:45:21
Unknown
You know, we've talked about this several times, too, with the C-suite. If there's one thing that they hate, the uncertainty and if there's one thing that's out there right now, it's uncertainty. So there's a variety of things that they're, you know, kind of got their eye on as we head into 2024. Employee engagement is one, you know, all of the surveys will say, well, you know, employee satisfaction is one thing that means, okay, you know, I'm showing up, I'm doing my job.
00:09:45:23 - 00:10:09:12
Unknown
But engagement means I'm I'm into it. I am a part of this and I own it. And, you know, for most companies, that number might be in the 20, 25, 30%, which sounds extremely low. But if you start thinking about the people who really, you know, are coming to work every day, fired up, ready to go, ready to take on the new challenge, you do, you know, maybe not have a vast majority.
00:10:09:12 - 00:10:29:24
Unknown
It might be they're doing a good job. There's no doubt about that. But are they really looking for that next opportunity for the organization? So I think that that's a big one. Finding and attracting talent continues to be one. And then, you know, hanging on to them, developing, developing their hiring managers to be great leaders. And this goes back to what we just talked about a couple of minutes ago.
00:10:30:01 - 00:10:49:15
Unknown
Who are those people that are willing to take on all of those tasks, do it willingly and on their own and are willing to take the next step because those are the people that we're going to build our organization around. So what's our obligation as the employer to make sure that those people are getting all of the the benefits and the training that they need?
00:10:49:17 - 00:11:13:06
Unknown
And so benefits are a big deal. We talked about this I think, last month. We're at that generational tipping point where the millennials and the Zs are going to outnumber the boomers and the Xers, and there are certain benefits that mean something to everybody. But, you know, if I look at the 25 year olds, if I look at your generation coming into the workplace, you've got a lot more student loan debt in your generation than we did in mine.
00:11:13:08 - 00:11:34:23
Unknown
So that's a bigger deal for you. The life work balance is a bigger deal. The flexibility is a bigger deal than when I started. So are there benefits along that that matter? We joke about pet insurance, but there's a lot more of you that have animals than kids. So, you know, is that a bigger deal? And and some of them are kind of silly, but they mean things to people.
00:11:34:23 - 00:12:09:23
Unknown
And so I think as we try to figure out how do we make our benefits have value to people, companies are taking a hard look at, you know, what matters to our incoming people that we make sure that we're keeping them satisfied, you know, with the things that they're what they're getting. And then I think, you know, trying to build that culture of family within their organization, within their team, within their company, what are the things that we can do that our current employees are welcoming to the new people that are coming in or providing opportunities, whether again, that's around food or whatever it might be for people to get to know each other, not
00:12:09:23 - 00:12:32:08
Unknown
only within the workplace, but what some of their interests might be outside. It also, you and I might be in different departments, but if we both love dogs, love volleyball, went to the same college, it gives us additional things to talk about and we get to know each other a little bit better. And that becomes, you know, part of the workplace and part of making me want to be there.
00:12:32:10 - 00:12:52:11
Unknown
And so I'm not. We build some of that family and that trust within our organization. Yeah, I'm just going off of that culture piece. It's funny because I just had a friend the other day. She's four, she's fully remote and now her company wants to build on their culture. So now they're requiring all those employees to be in the office four days a week.
00:12:52:11 - 00:13:10:00
Unknown
And you know, she's not too happy about it. But it's to build their culture. And they weren't happy with how their culture was at that current point. So, yeah, and that's a, you know, a 100% legitimate issue for a company that's, you know, whether it was the pandemic, whether it was going to a mall, whatever it might be.
00:13:10:02 - 00:13:33:11
Unknown
But some companies, that's a big part of, you know, who they are. And then I think the challenge for the employer becomes how do we make this a place where she actually wants to come to work? Exactly. And whether we're doing fun things, we're getting to know each other. We've got a coffee bar and milkshakes on Friday. I don't know what it is, but, you know, how do you create that as the place that it's like I want to be because it's better for me.
00:13:33:11 - 00:13:59:18
Unknown
Yeah. And that's, you know, that's just another challenge for employers. Well, from the field, it looks like you've pulled some stats from an air survey on workforce retention. So can you kind of summarize what's seen here in the survey? Yeah, a couple of more. We just talked about that balancing act for employers to find the benefits that have the greatest value, the satisfaction and understanding of those benefits and what does each generation want.
00:13:59:20 - 00:14:22:17
Unknown
So I think you're going to see a lot of play in that. It might not be dramatic. We're still going to have retirement savings. We're still going to have days off in vacation, we're still going to have health care. But where do we work? Around the edges on some of those and even within those around health care, especially the digital space, how much of it is on my phone, how much of as an app, how much of it is telemedicine?
00:14:22:18 - 00:14:42:23
Unknown
Yeah, those are things that, you know, that matter to people. So I think you're going to see some of that. The burn burnout, it was interesting. The headline was All the younger generations. I have this incredible, you know, burnout rate. And if you actually read through the data, it was high for for millennials and Gen ZERS but it was high for everybody.
00:14:43:00 - 00:15:07:03
Unknown
And I think, you know, one I think that's human HR? to say, boy, I got more going on than I know what to do with. I'm burnt out. I do think we're going through a world of adjustment right now, post-pandemic or changing the role of the manager. We've got this whole remote thing, we've got this culture thing. There's just a lot going on right now and I think people just feel like I got a ton on my plate and I have to figure it out.
00:15:07:03 - 00:15:30:21
Unknown
So, you know, that maybe is to be somewhat expected. And then the digital space, not only, as I just mentioned, for health care, but how do we make that a good place, whether that's what's our, you know, our video conferencing experience, what's our team's experience, what's the culture of our own group? How do we not let the distance and the digital separating us from things?
00:15:30:21 - 00:15:54:17
Unknown
But to your friends point how do we, you know, make her understand that that collaboration, the face to face to human matters without alienating her from the job that she's like, I don't want to be here again today. Right. Managing that I think remains and will be for quite a while. A big one for supervisors, hiring managers and employers in general.
00:15:54:21 - 00:16:18:11
Unknown
Yeah, that's a good point. You also had Alicia Kaiser, vice president of HRA and three insurance, join you for this talent Report webinar, and she gave some insight into talent strategy, best practices, and she specifically gave a lot of great advice on career paths. So do you have any key points from her presentation that you want to share?
00:16:18:13 - 00:16:46:04
Unknown
Yeah, this is a very talented individual. She's a lot of fun to have on and just very smart, you know? And she was just talking about how they in trying to develop a learning culture in their organization. Part of it was career mapping that for every employee we're sitting down and trying to figure out where do you want to be, where do you want to go, and then what's the learning and development You have to do to get there and not dictated by AM3 and the employer?
00:16:46:04 - 00:17:12:19
Unknown
But really saying to the employee, You own this, yeah, we will help you, we will get you there, we will provide the resources, but you need to own where you're trying to get to and know the skill that it's going to take to help you. So they've engaged their own employees. I think she said like 99, some percent of the training they do is by their own employees that they're people are interested in teaching and training the other people that come work for them.
00:17:12:20 - 00:17:33:04
Unknown
So if you're in the customer space, they've got the customer skills and how to deal with their folks and how to get there. If you're a representative to some of their clients, what do you need to know and how do you need to get there? And we can, you know, take you through that. And putting in place now a learning management system so they can see these are all the offerings we have.
00:17:33:06 - 00:17:51:01
Unknown
It's pretty clear that if you want to get from Spot A to spot B, this is the training that you're going to have to go through. And that doesn't guarantee you a spot, but it puts you in a position that if that spot is available, you've done what you can to position yourself to be the next choice. And so it's really it's always in front of people.
00:17:51:01 - 00:18:12:24
Unknown
It's a day to day thing, but that continuous learning, continuous to get better is a big part of who they are and how they function. And so that's something that they just keep in front of their people at all times. Yeah, I something I took away was sometimes the younger generations. Jen's ears are looking to the employer to say, Hey, what opportunities do you have next for me?
00:18:12:24 - 00:18:37:17
Unknown
Or How are you going to help me grow now? But she kind of, I don't know, gave good insight into, like you said, it's it is about the employee owning that career growth and career path in career mapping. So they have to be completely serious on it too. It's not all on the employer to say, hey, you're going to do this next year and get this the following year and this this year.
00:18:37:17 - 00:19:00:21
Unknown
But it's on the employee to kind of take that first step or initiative on those projects. Yeah, And those are the kinds of conversations I think people have to have because I could do a project with you and maybe you are a with is an Excel spreadsheets. I was really impressed with your analytical whatever and say, Hey, we're going to have a finance position, open it up and you're looking at me like that's the last thing in the world that I want to do.
00:19:00:21 - 00:19:19:14
Unknown
And so I think the more that the employee takes ownership of it and as an employer and as a manager, that speaks to me this day. All right. At least she's taken the time to invest in herself. Or Marissa's looking at me to say, Why don't you tell me what you want me to do? Yeah. That initiative, I think, is a big first step, too.
00:19:19:14 - 00:19:50:23
Unknown
And that that resonates with Matt. Absolutely. Well, this month in charts, you've included some data on population and some projections there. So what does the data exactly show? I think the big the biggest one in the first one was look, it was a look at the US population around race and ethnicity between 2010 and 2050. And you see you know, the white non-Hispanic go from 65% in 2010 to 46% in 2050.
00:19:51:00 - 00:20:12:04
Unknown
That's a pretty dramatic drop. Takes it below the 50% line. But the bigger point that I was trying to make, and that is the difference in the generations, is going to become very dramatic. And if you look at what's the makeup of the people that are in our schools versus what's the makeup of the people that are in our nursing homes, those are two very different populations.
00:20:12:06 - 00:20:32:11
Unknown
And for schools, for employers, it's going to be a different distribution that's coming through. And, you know, are they prepared for that and are they getting prepared for the large growth that we're going to see in the Hispanic population? And that might be language issues, it might be culture issues. And are you prepared to welcome those people in and to be able to retain them?
00:20:32:13 - 00:20:51:22
Unknown
So, you know, just kind of keeping an eye on the future that says we're going have a pretty dramatic turn over the course of the next couple of decades and how are we preparing ourselves for that? So that was the first one. And the second one we've been talking about is, you know, especially the upper Midwest. We are aging and we're aging, you know, relatively quickly.
00:20:51:24 - 00:21:14:22
Unknown
And we're not an attraction area for a lot of young folks. And looking at the United States, I think it was about 20, 20, 34 where the number of people we have over the age of 65 passes, the number of people we have under the age of 18. And it might be, yeah, okay, you know, whatever. Well, not only do they cross, but then they continue to spread and get further apart.
00:21:14:22 - 00:21:39:19
Unknown
And so that means we're going to have a larger older population and a smaller, younger population. So what does that mean? What does that mean for Social Security? What does that mean for health care? What does that mean for a holding on to people? Maybe that they don't retire at 60 or 65, They may be old and home to 70 or 75 and figure out what to do because there's going to be a a numbers gap there again.
00:21:39:24 - 00:21:57:12
Unknown
Plus, there's going to be a needs gap because that just changes who's going to take care of all of these people. You really want to, you know, get down to it. And so I don't know. We may go back to grandma and grandpa moving in with Sophie. You know, for the last 15 years of their lives. So, you know, are we ready for that?
00:21:57:14 - 00:22:16:05
Unknown
So it's just, you know, so the things that are on the horizon are not that far out. The population is going to change by ethnicity, by age. And are all of us ready to to deal with that? And are employers preparing for it so that it's not all of a sudden one day they're like, what just happened? I hope they're preparing.
00:22:16:07 - 00:22:34:08
Unknown
Well, as we wrap up here, Jim, can you tell us what the last report of 2023 is going to cover? We're going to take a look at what's coming for 2024, and that's what we're going to focus on. We're going to do it both from a economic outlook point of view as well as an outlook point of view.
00:22:34:08 - 00:22:57:11
Unknown
So I think we'll have some really interesting discussions on that. And then next on the docket, we'll be talking about artificial intelligence in HR and then kind of revisiting the whole internship, how to find them, how to attract them, how to keep them, how to manage them, and how to make sure that you're setting them up to keep them on their staff going into into the future.
00:22:57:11 - 00:23:20:07
Unknown
So I think we should have some interesting conversations. Yeah, we've got a great lineup coming. Yeah. Well, Jim, thank you so much for all that great content today. And kind of recapping what you've been seeing in the world of business with an emphasis on talent this month in to our listeners, if you liked our chat and topic today, I would encourage you to comment something you learned today or anything that you want to add on to our conversation.
00:23:20:07 - 00:23:40:17
Unknown
We definitely want to hear from you too. Don't forget to share out this episode and consider joining MRA if you aren't a member already. We have all the resources you need in the show notes below, including resources on this talent report. Otherwise, thank you for tuning in today and we will see you next week. And that wraps up our content for this episode.
00:23:40:18 - 00:23:59:00
Unknown
Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign them to connect. For more podcast updates, check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minutes THRIVE so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

24 min
November 08, 2023 Generation Alpha: Educating Tomorrow’s Leaders
Description: Never before have there been five generations in the workforce. Each generation has its own quirks, styles, likes, dislikes, and ways to work, communicate, and even learn! In this podcast episode, we are going to focus on the newest generation joining us in the workplace—Generation Alpha!
Resources:
Learning & Development
A Multi-Generational Workforce Is a Force for Good
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Guest Bio - Amanda Mosteller
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Amanda Mosteller
Host Bio - Sophie Boler
Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler
Transcript:
Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:03
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler and we are so glad you're here.
00:00:21:05 - 00:00:44:20
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Well, welcome, everybody. We are so glad you're here and I hope you're ready to talk generations today, specifically on one that you may have never heard before. So never before. There have been five generations in the workforce and each generation, as you know, has their own quirks, styles, likes, dislikes, ways to work, communicate, and even learn.
00:00:44:22 - 00:01:11:06
Unknown
So in this podcast episode, specifically, we're going to be focusing on the newest generation joining us in the workplace, and that is Generation Alpha. So it looks like Gen Alpha is the group of generation following generation Z. So Gen X’ers are born in the early 2010’s going through the early 2020s. So we know and are finding that each generation brings something really unique to the table.
00:01:11:08 - 00:01:47:13
Unknown
So. Amanda Mosteller, MRA's director of talent Development, is joining me today to talk about Gen Alpha how you should really update your L&D strategy to include these Gen Alpha learners. Make sure to stay tuned throughout the episode and we'll tell you how you can win a podcast swag item at the end. Just exciting little note there. But Amanda, we know we now know who Gen Alphas are, but really my first question to you is why is it essential for organizations to now adapt their training and development strategies for this generation?
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Unknown
When I think about Gen Alpha, I have this case study across the hall and it's my kids. They were born in 2010. We all went through this interesting thing, maybe you've heard of it called a global pandemic. And that pandemic expedited lots of things for all generations. One of the things that expedited for Gen Alpha that is different than other generations is integrated learning in school.
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Unknown
So
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Unknown
I'm not talking about adult learning theory principles versus child learning theory principles. We're not going into Andrew versus pedagogy here, but what we are going to talk about is being used to what the source of knowledge plays a part in for for these kids. So
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Unknown
in most of Gen Alpha was fourth grade or younger when the pandemic hit.
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Unknown
Prior to that, teachers in the classroom did a lot of teaching to the whole group from the front, doing activities, walking around and helping. They weren't putting elementary school kids into these Google class type structures at such a young age. They were doing that more in high school and certainly in college.
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Unknown
But the pandemic launched an expedited ETD, putting kids at younger ages into these platforms to learn things.
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Unknown
What that has done is changed their expectation of what the knowledge expert in the room's function is and how they learn. So Gen Z would have started doing that in college, mostly older. Gen Z. It wasn't until college younger, Gen Z, maybe in high school, some certainly not in elementary school, but now it's embedded in elementary school from like third and fourth grade on.
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Unknown
Because the schools put money into these platforms. They have licenses, they might as well use them. Right. And so the reason it's important for us to think about is because a lot of organizations are still hanging on to e-learning or instructor led training, possibly blended where we do some e-learning, pre class and post class. But that's as as diverse as we're getting in our strategy.
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Unknown
But Gen Z doesn't is looking for something different and Gen Alpha won't even understand it. Let's say. Why on earth are you doing it this way? That's not what the source of truth does. That's not their role in my learning. So it's time now because we have four years before they'll be the oldest part of that generation. To your point of the early 20 tens.
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Unknown
My kids are born in 2010 and depending on which sociologist time range, you look at 2010, somewhere between there and 2012
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Unknown
is Gen Alpha. So so they're halfway through eighth grade, everybody.
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Unknown
But it's, you know, four years until they are eligible for full time work. And so we have four years to really look at how we deliver training now, recognize how it might not even be meeting Gen Z and really not diversified in our strategy to meet Gen Alpha.
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Unknown
So that's why now's the time to be thinking about this. Well, absolutely. And I know you you kind of touched on some of these points, but I'm interested in knowing some of the key characteristics and really preferences of Gen Gen Alpha when it comes to learning and development. Yeah,
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Unknown
they're wanting
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Unknown
more and more
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Unknown
for the knowledge expert to be their guide to where to find the information and to bounce ideas and discussion off of, to make sure that they're understanding it, but they're not looking for the instructor or the facilitator, or for the learning strategy to be a source of truth, teaching it to them in an in-classroom or B in E learning lengthy E
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Unknown
learnings, overproduced E learnings, and they check out they're not looking for that. What they're looking for is and I'm going to age myself here,
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Unknown
my generation might remember and maybe remember Sophie, the Choose Your Path books. So you would read a book and you would get to a page and they would say, okay, you can choose to walk into the scary woods or turn around and go back.
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Unknown
If you choose to walk into the woods, turn to page 37. If you choose to go back, turn to page 46, and then you would go read if you essentially like, made it to the next stage or something horrible was usually it was a creepy book. It was You should it's something that ends the story for you and you have to go back and choose the other way.
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Unknown
But younger Gen Zs and Gen Alpha, they're looking for that kind of choose my path in learning. And I don't mean my career path. I mean how I want to learn, how I want information delivered to me, what helps for me and let me make those choices. Let me control that.
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Unknown
And the knowledge experts are there. Guide in how to find that information.
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Unknown
What might be helpful. They might come back and say, you know, as I was watching this short, short video or I was reading that blog, you you had the internal blog you have and I want to talk to you about this because I'm trying to understand this concept and how it works in my role. That's what they're looking for.
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Unknown
They want guidance. They don't want to have to rely on the person to come on Tuesday from 8 to 4 and tell them because they're that they're in class now in school. My kids, for example, are being shown where all the resources are to find the information within like the first 10 minutes of a new subject. And then they might have three days where they're meeting all different kinds of things all on their own.
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Unknown
So all through
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Unknown
90 million different platforms that I have to try and follow to make sure they're doing their homework. But
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Unknown
that's what they're used to. Their their teachers are learning partners now. They're not the single source of truth. So that's what they're expecting when they come in to a learning strategy of you go to these classes during the first week and then after your first 30 days, you go to these classes every Monday and then you have these E learnings to finish between it between 30 and 60 days.
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Unknown
And look how diverse we are because we do some in class and some online
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Unknown
and they would be like
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Unknown
certain article about that. There are some thing I can go find that without having to do either of those prior.
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Unknown
Well I know we talked about that Gen Z is similar to Gen Alpha in a lot of ways, but what would make this new Generation Alpha different from Gen Z and how they choose or their content and how that content is really delivered?
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Unknown
Yeah, a couple of key differences.
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Unknown
One is I mentioned it kind of in the beginning of our chat for a Gen Z.
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Unknown
This the source of truth being the guide and lots of resources and we don't come to a room five days a week for this. We do it in lots of ways. That really kicked off for older Gen Zs.
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Unknown
We're talking college like that just didn't happen until college for younger Gen Z sort of in high school.
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Unknown
And the difference, like I was mentioning in Gen Alpha, we're talking elementary school now you're doing this as they learn how to learn, which I think is really important for us to recognize. These are the shaping years where they learn how to learn.
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Unknown
I'm teaching my kids how to study. I am teaching them what deadlines mean.
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Unknown
You get homework done in a certain time. A lot of a lot of our kids, depending on your districts and stuff, but they don't possibly do homework or not until they're kind of older. So deadlines and turning things in on a certain time for my kids over the past couple of years has been like that is in and of itself something I'm teaching them the importance of
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Unknown
even that
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Unknown
is negotiable.
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Unknown
At my son's school, there's a time that it's due and then the teachers will say, Hey, it's missing, and then he'll have like two weeks to go and go get that finished and turned in and he gets full, quote, grades for it throwing me off. But
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Unknown
that's one one key difference is this is happening much younger than the other generations.
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Unknown
And for the other generations, it was just kind of nice and part of being an adult. Now. And for our for Gen Alpha, it's shaping how they learn because this is what's happening at this still early stages of their life.
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Unknown
The second key difference is everyone talks about, you know, tick tock or YouTube shorts or these types of things less
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Unknown
produced
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Unknown
shorter snippets, much more
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Unknown
authentic, much easier to connect to the person
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Unknown
for Gen Alpha that is part of everyday everything, including now they're not going to tick tock in school.
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Unknown
I don't think. I don't think not right. I don't think teachers are saying that, but they have, you know, as his wife, my son will they'll be introducing a new history thing and his teachers will have copied and embedded in their discussion boards these really short little like YouTube shorts kind of videos of somebody with their phone introducing a topic.
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Unknown
And they might have do cutaways to different scenes from a movie or something
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Unknown
very much like that. Gen Z While they are totally on the Tik-tok train and Facebook is for old people and all of that jazz stuff where the YouTube generation actually they're more younger, millennials and Gen Zs are more into the YouTube source, which while still my own video system, I'm
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Unknown
still accepting of green screens, still accepting of that kind of sort of produce, not overly produced, but that's kind of okay,
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Unknown
younger Gen Z.
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Unknown
And certainly as you get into Gen Alpha, as is, I try to show my son really neat produce created videos. He completely checks out and walks away. If I pull up something that someone did with their phone, he's like, sucked in. Yes.
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Unknown
It's going to change how we create that video content, I think. And where organizations invest their learning strategy dollars to create some on demand content, what does that need to look like?
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Unknown
Does it need to be as as fanciful as we make it? I don't know that it does. Yeah. No, absolutely. I feel like they they want the content that looks like a
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Unknown
not an over over sort of or overproduced, like you said, Tik tok like
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Unknown
something that they can relate to and they can relate to a Tik Tok of someone who just pulled out their phone and started talking and showing them how to do something, but they might not necessarily be able to relate to someone who is put together a whole production with, like you said, along a longer video showing you how to do something.
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Unknown
So I totally understand that and get that. Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned that organizations do need to start thinking about this now and they have a few years now to start kind of rethinking their strategy. So going after that, what is really a primary difference in how an organization's development strategy currently would want to consider adjusting to integrate this next generation?
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Unknown
Learner What I love that you use the phrase integrate because what I would never encourage an organization to do is pivot
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Unknown
that generation and completely exclude the fact that, as you said in our opener, there are four other generations work for us still here. Just added one, right? We're bringing in some new folks that don't learn at all the way I mean, the way they're looking to learn in the way Gen X is looking to learn and how we're used to it.
00:14:01:19 - 00:14:05:19
Unknown
I should say it's not even looking to learn. It's what we're used to and therefore comfortable with
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Unknown
polar opposites. Right? But Gen X is still there. Elder millennials like myself, we're still here, Baby boomers are still there, and
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Unknown
on boards at least, you know, the traditionalist generation, my father
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Unknown
that may even be on a board. It would be terrifying, but he would be on board.
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Unknown
They're still around, right? So how are we
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Unknown
a What I have seen success in and what I am encouraging organizations to do is integrate strategies that will include that next generation while not throwing the baby out with the bathwater and getting rid of your existing strategies that include the generations that are still within our workforce,
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Unknown
that what we need to do and I was having a conversation a couple of weeks ago with a young lady newer into the industry, newer into the work career field, and she and I were talking about this topic actually, and she said, I just wish that organizations would give options, so I don't want to go to this
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Unknown
leaders program.
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Unknown
She's branding the organization. So we're talking new hire, kind of get to know the organization program where you've created this schedule. And I go do all of these things at these times. What I would love to do for me is have my resource person
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Unknown
that is like my guide and how I learn. And then I could we offer this information in this class on these days, if that's of interest, we do have some short video options to go over the same information and you can talk with your manager in between.
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Unknown
We have some great talking point guides at the end of each video and you could do it that way. We also have these articles over here if you want to read them and kind of learn about our culture that way and talk to your manager. So why I referenced that Choose Your Path book when we first started chatting is because that's what started blinking in my head while she was talking is, my gosh, we could deliver the same information in a multitude of ways and to be inclusive of all generations, let your learners choose their learning path.
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Unknown
Let them decide what makes sense for how they like to get information and who are their sources of truth to help them connect it all together. We do need that, you know, administrative control and understanding that you are learning this stuff, that we are making sure you're walking away with what we want you to walk away with. But that the concept that it has to be
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Unknown
built by a learning strategist or built and led by an instructor to accomplish that would be outdated thinking.
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Unknown
I think there are other ways that we could provide it, because what we are talking about makes sense for ABC Learner. What others might be talking about makes sense for deaf learner, and we need to help learners through Zeke So
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Unknown
don't get rid of the content you have.
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Unknown
Take the time now to look at all the content that you've identified as an organization is important for us to develop our employees on or in.
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Unknown
How can I take this instructor LED class or this 30 minute e-learning
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Unknown
and distill it into something different? Can we create blogs? Do we have podcast recording approaches? They're all internal. They're in a bank, a resource bank, and they can go in and click on, you know, episode one episode to episode three, and they have a week to listen to them all.
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Unknown
And that's how they that would be great for them. And then at the end of each podcast episode, you say, okay, so
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Unknown
we encourage you between now, when you listen to your next episode to talk to your manager about and then you put in those three talking points and then they would go chat with their manager and the manager knows what they are and just same information delivered in a multitude of ways and let the learner own what makes the most sense for them.
00:18:05:17 - 00:18:11:17
Unknown
That's what adapting to include these other generations
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Unknown
should look like.
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Unknown
Those are all great points and great ideas. You think of God choose your path or choose your pathway, and I just immediately think of the tic tac sound. Choose your fighter. Like that just comes up in my head. I know where that comes from, right? Where is that wrong with your line?
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Unknown
And I can picture the sound in everything. Mortal Mortal Kombat
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Unknown
is a very, very, very. There's a Gen Z statement for
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Unknown
those. Fantastic. I loved it. But yes, that's what we're talking about.
00:18:43:00 - 00:18:57:02
Unknown
Well, moving on here, the phrase authentic city often comes up with when we hear about the next generation or what does this really mean in terms of content development and curation and.
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Unknown
So I was mentioning, you know,
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Unknown
they get disengaged with overly produced stuff talking about what in the industry we often call the happy path,
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Unknown
where in training class we talk about the perfect this is the perfect scenario and here's how you would do this and then you would do this and then they will respond this way and then you would do this and everybody's happy.
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Unknown
Conflict resolved. And
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Unknown
what folks are looking for in terms of authenticity is tell me what it really looks like. How does it really go?
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Unknown
Can you not look perfect while you explain this to me? And can you not be in front of some green screen? I don't mean our beautiful logo backgrounds. I mean in these in these trainings are like these green screened, amazing modern corporate offices that, you know, they're not actually standing in because, you know, very few offices actually look like that in the world.
00:19:51:13 - 00:20:11:21
Unknown
And any all of those layers together make the whole learning disingenuous. And they tune out because this person has no concept of what it's really like or this person doesn't. Yeah, doesn't speak my language and I can't connect with them. What they're looking for is
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Unknown
and I call them selfie selfie videos, like I could hold my phone up, just do a chat, a five minute chat or less on
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Unknown
the six behaviors, adaptive leadership behaviors, and then say, try this one next time you want to be direct, try this when you want to flex into coaching and they that feels more real.
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Unknown
You standing there. I'm a I'm a person. I'm not in the most perfect setting and I'm having a quick conversation with you about what it looks like and and how it works. And that feels more real. I am a leadership coach, so it makes more sense that I would talk about that. It would make no sense if I made a video about marketing strategy.
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Unknown
I don't do that.
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Unknown
But having a marketing person pop on and say, Marketing hot tip of the week and they know who they are because they're in their organization, it just is a quick hit and it's one of them. It's one of my team members. It's a person I know
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Unknown
in a space that I feel like if I walked up to their desk, they would say it to me in that exact same way.
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Unknown
And that's authenticity. Yes. And I can relate to that. Even being a younger, a younger employee, like that's the type of learning that I want to or that I want to see so be prejudged. So we get in there
00:21:31:12 - 00:21:38:17
Unknown
just I mean, I'll just interview you. You tell what you want. Exactly. So tell me if I'm wrong. Okay.
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Unknown
You know what? You are 100% on. Right on.
00:21:42:09 - 00:22:02:24
Unknown
Well, we're we've been bringing up phones a lot and Tic TAC and all this, so we've got to bring up technology at some point. So how has really technology shaped the way that Gen Alpha learns and what role should other digital tools play in these modern training programs? Yeah, I mean, Google Classroom
00:22:02:24 - 00:22:05:21
Unknown
is part of elementary school.
00:22:05:23 - 00:22:26:13
Unknown
Google Classroom becomes they all those all of them have like an online platform. All of the kids have Chromebooks instead of books. But all of the kids most of the kids schools have that by junior high. My son had that by seventh grade, but up through sixth grade, a lot of stuff was done on these interactive whiteboards in the room or something like that.
00:22:26:13 - 00:22:53:06
Unknown
Now, I know every district is different. I know every private school versus public school and all of it can look different. My son goes to public school. I can all look different. But all of the districts are using these platforms for where the content is held. So he'll go to a platform and then there's I kid you not 12 different apps
00:22:53:06 - 00:22:58:12
Unknown
that he would be clicking in and out of to get his classwork done.
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Unknown
His math class alone has three apps that he uses. The only class that feels even remotely like how I used to learn is his social studies class. And that's because they only have one app they use. I didn't have any apps, but like
00:23:13:22 - 00:23:20:16
Unknown
that's how he expects to go find content and he finds it on his own with the teacher being the guide.
00:23:20:16 - 00:23:28:13
Unknown
If Here's the things I want you to accomplish today, here's some resources to do it. His English teacher is teaching them how to use chat gpg
00:23:28:13 - 00:23:43:04
Unknown
coming into an organization when he gets into full time work that doesn't even use any type of technology like that in any way would feel very weird to him because he's been really will at that point have been using it for five years in school, you know,
00:23:43:04 - 00:23:46:02
Unknown
so they're looking for a source.
00:23:46:08 - 00:23:54:23
Unknown
They're looking for. I always say you just have a pond and the teacher tells you what to fish for and you go fish for it, which makes no sense to him. And he tells me he doesn't fish, but
00:23:54:23 - 00:23:56:12
Unknown
the point being,
00:23:56:12 - 00:24:04:18
Unknown
that's how it's being done. Right? And we have these technologies in our or in our organizations right now.
00:24:04:20 - 00:24:16:18
Unknown
So many organizations have some sort of collaborative tool they use, whether it's teams, whether it is WebEx teams, there's Microsoft teams, there's WebEx teams,
00:24:16:18 - 00:24:24:04
Unknown
whether it is even Google Slack or Google Hangouts. Right. Some free version of a tool to collaborate.
00:24:24:04 - 00:24:34:16
Unknown
Organizations are doing that. It used to be colleges used Blackboard. Right. And that was again pre me I didn't use I did the Dewey Decimal system and I went to library but
00:24:34:16 - 00:24:38:11
Unknown
there was blackboard and that was kind of it and it was in college.
00:24:38:13 - 00:24:46:06
Unknown
Now we're talking just how I get my assignments work done in sixth grade. So
00:24:46:06 - 00:25:03:01
Unknown
we have these capabilities in our organizations right now. We don't think of using them. Not every organization, I should say. I have some of our members that do, but not every organization thinks about how do we use this as part of our learning strategy and not just as part of our collaboration tool.
00:25:03:03 - 00:25:06:18
Unknown
That's where I think we can. You can do this
00:25:06:18 - 00:25:18:00
Unknown
utilizing a lot of tools that you have at your disposal, and you should utilize all of them. Because remember, I'm talking about creating a learning path, not pivoting, integrating.
00:25:18:00 - 00:25:22:20
Unknown
And I would say going off of that. Then follow up question to that is,
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Unknown
do you have or have you seen any organizations that have already started to kind of to where they're more integrate their training and development programs for general hire already?
00:25:38:02 - 00:26:00:09
Unknown
Yeah, Yeah, we do. We have a couple of members. It's interesting they're in the one is in the of Rackspace so they started doing this not for Gen Alpha but because a lot of their team members are in their vans and on the road. So they're not you can't do a atria system e-learning because we don't give them computers and yes we all have mobile learning.
00:26:00:09 - 00:26:27:24
Unknown
But if you look at mobile learning and an L.M. learning management system, platforms that are mobile enabled, it's the same video on a smaller screen. That's the only difference. It is a completely redone for your phone. It's still a video and you still might have quiz questions that pop up in between and you just are doing it on a smaller screen so it's not actually redone for mobile.
00:26:27:24 - 00:26:40:15
Unknown
So it wasn't really working for them. So they started creating these things because they did have certain pieces of content that were hands on. And so you have to come to the warehouse to do it,
00:26:40:15 - 00:26:49:14
Unknown
but we offer it a multitude of times because of schedules. So I might have an installation scheduled that day. And we can't stop all installations as a business.
00:26:49:14 - 00:27:12:08
Unknown
We aren't going to do that. That's silly. So well offered and multiple times to fit your schedule. So people were starting to choose their own path already based on that. That works for me. And then they all had teams and so they started creating teams channels for content. There are two new create a channel. Here's a lot of ways this can benefit a learning strategy.
00:27:12:10 - 00:27:16:05
Unknown
One, it's a it's a mobile. You can install teams on your phone, right
00:27:16:05 - 00:27:31:07
Unknown
When you have a channel that you belong to, let's say new employee channel or emerging leaders channel or customer service channel. And it's not us talking with the members, it's learning how to be great at our customer services. We're at their homes and we're doing these installations.
00:27:31:07 - 00:27:55:10
Unknown
What happens is they get added to the channel because either say they want to or everybody does. For the first year, whichever their strategy is, the channel has a chat. So they would have ongoing discussions all the time in the moment, coaching with the the guide there, but they also have their cohort of learners of other people. So they've just dealt with this situation, you know, not knowing if I did it right.
00:27:55:10 - 00:28:34:23
Unknown
What's your opinion and the groups chatting about it then another tab for the channels, those files and they would have procedures. F.A. Qs, all kinds of sources of information there for them. They also could have videos in that file and they, there's a lot of different apps you can add on to any team's channel. So they would have all these different things, including a scheduler, so that if they did have in-person classes coming up on this topic and it was something that you feel like you needed more help in, you could go to the scheduler, click it, it linked to the LMS to register so you can track.
00:28:35:00 - 00:28:39:04
Unknown
Like I said, you still going to have some sort of tracking system to the stuff
00:28:39:04 - 00:28:53:01
Unknown
and people that wanted to go to the in-person class and they, they would have the multiple sessions and they would click it and they would come, but you didn't have to. And some people the way the the soapies, some videos and the chat function worked for them
00:28:53:01 - 00:28:54:22
Unknown
and they didn't do it for that generation.
00:28:54:22 - 00:28:58:19
Unknown
But I told them, I said, Well, you're in luck. You're already set up thumbs up. My
00:28:58:19 - 00:29:03:24
Unknown
early start. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and, and they did a lot of their
00:29:03:24 - 00:29:05:18
Unknown
they would reach into the chat
00:29:05:18 - 00:29:14:07
Unknown
channel and say, hey, we're looking to update our videos. Anybody want to come? So to that authenticity point, they were just shooting them with their own.
00:29:14:09 - 00:29:18:09
Unknown
I don't know if it was their phones probably a little bit fancier, but their own like handheld
00:29:18:09 - 00:29:42:19
Unknown
videos with volunteers of team members. So so people are showing up. We're not producing. We knocked around an hour and then within like a half hour it was up and in the in the team's channel on that subject. So using teams not just for a collaborative tool, but as a development piece of the strategy and they just did it beautifully.
00:29:42:21 - 00:29:45:06
Unknown
I was like, You're good. High five here.
00:29:45:06 - 00:29:50:05
Unknown
that's a great it's a great example of a good success story. So yeah,
00:29:50:05 - 00:30:13:20
Unknown
I do also want to reiterate the point I know we talked about, but that there are are also other generations in the workplace simultaneously. So can you just kind of reiterate the point or talk about how this strategic adjustment or integration, what that really means for for those learners of different generations?
00:30:13:22 - 00:30:50:11
Unknown
Yes. And you used the pivotal word again, integration, right? Don't throw out what you already have. Just use it. You already have a strategy that is identified important information that you as an organization, agree. You should invest your time and energy into developing your people on. Because whatever learning strategy you have that involves a person coordinating it, people spending time outside of their daily work to learn it means you as an organization have determined it's worth the time investment and possibly depending on what it is, the financial investment.
00:30:50:14 - 00:31:11:11
Unknown
So don't get rid of any of that. It's saying how can we also deliver that in potentially more of a choose your own path kind of way? Can we take that information? And what are the exercises that for someone that doesn't need to or want to go to a learning for workshop approach we can take out and still give them that information.
00:31:11:12 - 00:31:13:11
Unknown
It's more of like a
00:31:13:11 - 00:31:36:15
Unknown
like an article kind of thing to read. And then instead of exercises, we finish it with those talking points that you go chat with your manager about. Don't expect people to read it and retain it. You have to kind of let them in and they need to let the manager know. They read this, they want to talk about these points, but how I integrate it into my job role, the threat that other people might go to the class on the same content, but
00:31:36:15 - 00:31:48:19
Unknown
it's taking what already exists because it's been determined as important and then spending some energy in providing it in some different ways so that as other generations
00:31:48:19 - 00:32:10:11
Unknown
and other learner preferences, you also might find you. I don't want to assume that there aren't, you know, my mom as she's a boomer, she's a boomer like the first year, the baby boomer. But she and I talk about it and she's like, man, there was a lot of stuff. I would sit through glass and think, this could have been like a quick walk by my cube and tell me and I would have been fine.
00:32:10:11 - 00:32:18:09
Unknown
She's a math mathematician and engineer woman, so most things she felt could have been handled through a quick conversation. But
00:32:18:09 - 00:32:27:11
Unknown
so you might be surprised as to who you see take advantage of more of that self-guided, not even just self-paced, self-guided
00:32:27:11 - 00:32:36:07
Unknown
learning strategy. No, that's a good point To just mention that some gen zers or gen alphas may not all take the same approach or.
00:32:36:07 - 00:33:00:22
Unknown
They're all the same way. So that's a good point to bring up. But kind of wrapping up here, do I know we talked about a lot today, but do you have three main takeaways that our listeners can kind of walk away with in terms of how they can really start integrating learning and development strategies for Gen Alpha learners?
00:33:00:24 - 00:33:08:14
Unknown
Absolutely. Stop throwing so much money into production for any of your video stuff. You don't have to
00:33:08:14 - 00:33:21:17
Unknown
sow more authentic content that feels more real. So embrace the fact that you might be talking about the happy path and spend time talking about reality.
00:33:21:17 - 00:33:28:13
Unknown
Diverse. Don't get rid of what you have. Diversify how someone can access the information shared and what you have.
00:33:28:13 - 00:33:39:22
Unknown
And the third one, and this is going to be the hardest for any organization potentially it was the hardest for me, and I like to think I'm pretty progressive learning views
00:33:39:22 - 00:33:43:15
Unknown
Embrace empowering the learner.
00:33:43:15 - 00:33:48:16
Unknown
I'll say that online again. Embrace empowering the learner
00:33:48:16 - 00:33:52:01
Unknown
so who knows how it. So if you would like information shared best, I don't
00:33:52:01 - 00:33:53:15
Unknown
know if you knows that so
00:33:53:15 - 00:33:57:04
Unknown
too that diversifying then let go features.
00:33:57:06 - 00:34:13:07
Unknown
Here's the things I need you to know. I need you 30, 60, 90 to know it. Here's the different ways you can learn it. Let's sit down and myself as the learning leader, person or whatever. Right? The trainer assigned to you. You're your Sherpa through your learning guide.
00:34:13:07 - 00:34:18:04
Unknown
As we sit down, let's map it out. What makes the most sense for you?
00:34:18:06 - 00:34:32:05
Unknown
And you might be like parents. It's kind of hard. I think that one, I would like to go to a class on. I'm pretty good at that. And this is embracing adult learning theory. This is my whole career and we hire experts and then we train them how to do it. Steve Jobs is like that is so ridiculous.
00:34:32:07 - 00:34:52:23
Unknown
And I agree with the man. If you're a marketing expert, I'm not going to train you on like how to market and social. Come take our social media marketing. Sophie Who's done social media marketing for forever? I'm not going to do that. So you might be like, I just want to read your policies on that. I'm good. You know, let me sit you down with the options.
00:34:53:02 - 00:34:54:02
Unknown
Let you choose. A
00:34:54:02 - 00:35:17:13
Unknown
it's a great, great ending point here and some great action steps that our listeners can start implementing today then, or at least thinking about it, you know? Yeah, well, you just heard from every subject matter expert on educating general flow. But to our listeners we also want to hear from you. So we're curious to know what you're doing to kind of revamp or
00:35:17:13 - 00:35:21:19
Unknown
I guess, revamp your training programs for the next generation.
00:35:21:21 - 00:35:38:13
Unknown
And so we are giving out one of our new podcast merch swag items. So we're encouraging you to send in your comments on this question for a chance to win that podcast Souvenir you'll want. I have one and I want it. I want one. So can I comment? I'll give you a one.
00:35:38:13 - 00:35:41:07
Unknown
But otherwise, thank you so much for tuning in today.
00:35:41:07 - 00:36:09:10
Unknown
Thank you, Amanda, for all that great information. As always. Don't forget to check out the resources in the show notes below on MRA membership and Resources on this specific episode. So I hope you have a great day and we will see you next week. And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign them to connect for more podcasts updates, check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform.
00:36:09:11 - 00:36:19:03
Unknown
And as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minutes THRIVE so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

39 min
November 01, 2023 How HR Helps Managers Manage
Description: In this episode, we delve into the crucial role of HR in empowering managers to excel in their leadership roles. We explore the various facets of HR support, from department alignment to performance management and employee development, providing listeners with actionable insights and practical steps to enhance their management skills and foster a thriving, engaged workforce. Join us as we unlock the secrets of "How HR Can Help Managers Manage"!
Resources:
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Guest Bio - DQ Spencer
Guest LinkedIn Profile - DQ Spencer
Host Bio - Sophie Boler
Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler
Transcript:
Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:03
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you're here.
00:00:21:05 - 00:00:49:14
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Well, hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of 30 Minute THRIVE. Thanks for joining us today. I'm excited for our conversation today because you get to hear from DQ spencer. DQ is an mra. HR Business partner located in our golden valley, minnesota location. But i know you come with a lot of experience and enthusiasm, especially for our topic today, how our can help managers manage.
00:00:49:16 - 00:01:06:08
Unknown
Sounds like a big topic, but I'm excited to kind of break it down. I know we're going to run through a lot of aspects of HR and kind of give our listeners some good action items and stuff so that they can walk away with. So I know this is your first time on the podcast, so I appreciate you come on and excited.
00:01:06:10 - 00:01:26:20
Unknown
Awesome. Me too, hi podcasters. I know that you recently spoke at an event on this topic actually. So before we kind of kick things off, I'm just curious to know why is this really an important topic for our listeners? Yeah, I know you're right. I did speak on the event. It was an awesome event.
00:01:26:20 - 00:01:49:13
Unknown
A lot of energy and enthusiasm. This is a very important topic because a lot of organizations are still struggling with aspect of the function of HR organizations talking about people and people assets being the most important aspect of the company. But they have a hard time showing that people are, because they're the only nonrenewable asset that organizations have.
00:01:49:15 - 00:02:15:23
Unknown
You can't copy the processes, equipment, technology, terminology, but you can't really copy people. So that's why this one is very important. Yeah, that's a great point as we kind of dive in. Now, can you explain how HR really collaborates with managers to emphasize their functional strengths? And kind of part two of that question is how can they use those strengths with their teams to achieve those organizational goals?
00:02:16:00 - 00:02:37:16
Unknown
Yeah, So as you know, I don't know. I don't know. I have a football background. I like to use sport terminologies. That's great. Yeah, Yeah. So, I mean, HR is part of a team, right? HR is one of the few functions that truly supports the whole organization. So they have knowledge throughout each function, but they're not be the subject matter expert on that function.
00:02:37:16 - 00:02:50:12
Unknown
Right? So to probably collaborate with them, you have to just include that clue to include them in our communication conversation and work to collaborate and build that functional component.
00:02:50:14 - 00:03:19:12
Unknown
Speaking of teamwork, we're in a world where teamwork is crucial. So how can HR departments kind of facilitate collaboration among their employees and help managers foster that culture of cooperation and teamwork and collaboration? Yeah. So that collaboration comes from that communication, right? And so a big part of HR is communication, and it's talking to the employees, talking to the supervisors, the managers, the leads.
00:03:19:14 - 00:03:43:09
Unknown
It's really getting to know your people, your biggest assets. HR is a science and that you'll understand that. I mean, as HR, you have that strength, you have that background of understanding people behaviors, thought processes, patterns and processes. But as a as a functional leader, let's say, in accounting or finance, your your, your function, your strengths are going to be with that.
00:03:43:11 - 00:04:03:17
Unknown
So you can you can collaborate with them and to partner with them, engage them. You have to communicate, you have to get in there, you have to go to them. You have to understand what the culture is and how you can THRIVE that. Those behaviors in and and processes to to and build and engage their culture properly. Absolutely.
00:04:03:17 - 00:04:26:22
Unknown
And I know as an HR business partner, you work with a lot of different companies, a lot of different HR department. So do you have any examples or success stories, I would say, of kind of where the HR departments work with teamwork and kind of fostering that collaboration? Yeah, I don't know. Somewhere along the line, HR has gotten such a bad rep as as the good Lord.
00:04:27:01 - 00:04:48:07
Unknown
Yep. And I've been in HR for about 16 years. I have my my Bachelors of Science in HR McMaster Science and during my doctorate business in HR. And through that, I've learned a lot. But I've also learned just as much through my experience. For example, I worked with an organization known, as you mentioned previous to me joining in.
00:04:48:09 - 00:05:21:12
Unknown
It was a very strong union environment and that created a kind of trifecta. Three headed obstacle course because it was the union, it was the business, the factory manufacturing, and it was HR and that's how they viewed it as three different portions, three different aspects of business. And that was a very tall task. So I really had to go in there and work on our collaboration first, partnering with the organization, the plant manager, building that relationship, and then partnering with building that relationship.
00:05:21:14 - 00:05:41:10
Unknown
And I was kind of that liaison that brought it all together, you know, that that organization lacked trust amongst the three. So that was that was very challenging. But just working with them, showing my commitment, my dedication, my, my, my, my processes and my procedures, showing them that, hey, you know this, we're a team. We want the same goal.
00:05:41:14 - 00:06:11:01
Unknown
We set different paths to get there. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of our listeners can kind of resonate with that and relate to that story too, and how their organization like that. So that's good advice. But we also know that compliance is also a critical aspect of HR, too. So do you have any insights on how HR can support managers and ensuring their teams adhere to the regulations and policies that always seem to be changing and updating?
00:06:11:03 - 00:06:36:13
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to kind of get off topic, but get back to topic is going to be. So when I first started in the HR, I tried to assimilate to that that stereotype, that prototype of a human resource manager saying no and yes, and you can't do this and you can't do that. And I wasn't truly myself and I truly started being successful when I started, you know, venturing on and being original.
00:06:36:15 - 00:06:54:04
Unknown
So I took the mindset of that. I wasn't going to tell leaders and managers, No, you can't do this Right off the bat. I was going to tell them, Hey, I want to get that goal that you want, but here's how we can do this. Here's how we can get it done versus knowing. Yes. So it's compliance. It's the same kind of issues in that aspect versus telling them no or yes.
00:06:54:06 - 00:07:13:06
Unknown
I'll give them parameters and say, Hey, I see what you're trying to do. This is the most compliant and best way to get there. So let's get it done together. Yeah. So, so running through kind of the task of all the tasks of HR, another one is to motivate employees, which can be kind of difficult. So how can HR
00:07:13:06 - 00:07:41:05
Unknown
Professionals and managers work together to keep their teams engaged and motivated? That's that's a tough one, right? Because, you know, I say this all the time is that we're called individuals for a reason. So we're usually created in the we have individual values and views and perspectives. So to have that motivation, it's going to take really knowing and building a relationship with your organization, your culture and your employees.
00:07:41:07 - 00:08:00:07
Unknown
So know your employees. One thing I told a member that I talked to, you know, he asked me, how can I motivate my employees? What's going on? They're not gauging. And I you know, I sat there and I said, Hey, you mind if I watch it for a little bit? Watch for a little bit? No problem. No problem.
00:08:00:09 - 00:08:21:09
Unknown
So I sat down and took half the morning and just kind of watch his interactions with the employees. And I literally told him, I said, I saw four separate times where people were trying to talk to you and you didn't talk to people trying to walk. My actually, I didn't even look at and on two separate times we were trying to talk to you and you said, you know, you're busy with tomorrow.
00:08:21:11 - 00:08:42:10
Unknown
I said, Engagement goes both ways, motivation goes both ways. You have to go and engage with them. Right. As a position of authority. Naturally. I think the way people are going to be timid to engage with you so that you have to said that you're setting a standard. Like I said, the engagement and motivation goes both ways. Show them that you're willing to do what you're asking them to do.
00:08:42:12 - 00:09:02:17
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. I feel like that's a good point. I know a lot of companies right now just have to kind of reevaluate what they're doing. Like you kind of sat in as a fly on the wall and you were able to see it. The HR department may not be able to see it because they're in it. So sometimes you kind of need an outsider almost to come in and see that.
00:09:02:17 - 00:09:32:14
Unknown
ALL Yeah. So when it comes to achieving results, alignment with an organization is key, obviously. So how can HR create that alignment between different teams and departments? Yeah, so alignment comes out. You know, I talked about inclusion, communication, conversation alignment comes with understanding the goal, right? And creating processes and procedures that align with that, that THRIVE toward that goal.
00:09:32:16 - 00:09:55:11
Unknown
A lot of companies have processes just because they happen. They said, we always have this or this is what we were always. But your goal changed, the business changed. You know, the world of business is very dynamic. It's always changing for you to keep the same processes. It might not make sense to achieve that goal. So I always tell the people, you know, look at what you're trying to achieve, work backwards and this is what we want it.
00:09:55:14 - 00:10:15:18
Unknown
This is what we want to achieve. So let's do this. This, this is to get there versus, well, let's do this and go kind of around it, you know, align toward that goal, direct your process, your behavior and your diet and your actions toward achieving that ultimate goal. And just what you said right there, the world of business is very dynamic.
00:10:15:18 - 00:10:47:18
Unknown
So I guess that kind of brings us to our next point of how can our assist managers in adapting their strategies and tactics to meet new challenges when business is always changing? Yeah, it's just constant reassessment, right? So like I said, I've been organizations all different functions and industries, and the thing I hear the most is this is how we've always done it or this is what they told us to do versus, you know, having that critical thinking skills, thinking about, hey, this is what they told us to do.
00:10:47:18 - 00:11:03:20
Unknown
And so I was done it. But it doesn't kind of make sense. We're trying to do so we're going back to think about this is what we're trying to we're trying to achieve organic business. We're trying to grow. We're trying to we're trying to set customers and employee satisfaction. So what can we do to get better? Understanding your culture.
00:11:04:01 - 00:11:26:13
Unknown
Culture is big, so I don't know if you know that I'm a teacher as well. Professor There's that. There's perio, pedagogy and anthropology. The type of learning that adults when when they learn, they want to learn by seeing what you do and looking what you do versus when you're a kid, you do this because you're told to do because you have to go through this.
00:11:26:13 - 00:11:43:23
Unknown
You have to work through school, you have to go to high school as adults. They're there because they only want to be there. So let's make it a department that they want to be there right there. It's going to be changing. Not everyone's going to be the same, just like business is going to be evolving. It's going to be dynamic.
00:11:43:23 - 00:12:12:02
Unknown
It's going to be contemporary. Some things may stay traditional, but it's going to move. You have to move with flexibility. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I should have mentioned that you were a teacher in the beginning too. I got so many different perspectives now from, well, we've kind of mentioned this throughout the whole podcast, but it seems like employee engagement is often one of the biggest concerns for managers.
00:12:12:04 - 00:12:44:19
Unknown
So and you've touched on this briefly, but how can it really assist in measuring and improving employee engagement then to enhance team performance in an organization? Yeah, and that's that's a tough question, right? Because everyone is going to be different. But the thing it can say is, you know, just like business and sales engagement is building relationships, then understanding where you're talking to, what you're talking about, understanding the optimal goal and just building everybody should go toward it.
00:12:44:19 - 00:13:09:14
Unknown
And earlier, making that effort to engage with their employees, making that effort to be as transparent. That's transparent as possible. And so you can't be completely transparent all the time, but be as open as possible because more people understand them more than want to THRIVE that goal and helping them get those fingerprints and open and get that engagement and touchpoints within that plan.
00:13:09:16 - 00:13:28:24
Unknown
And that also helps, you know, they have a little skin in the game that will help them engage and help them. So, you know, I'm a part of this, right? But it starts and starts with the culture. And how is your culture is an engaging culture. Is it an open door culture? Is it, hey, I know we're business here, but how is your day and how are you doing?
00:13:29:01 - 00:13:45:18
Unknown
Look at the example I gave previously. When a manager, you know, shoot people off or was too busy to talk to people or, you know, he walked from his office right to where he needs to go at to engage. You have to show them this is what engagement looks like. You have to show that, hey, I'm motivated to do my job.
00:13:45:18 - 00:14:13:12
Unknown
You have to think, what do you think about this? Talk to them and increase that communication, increase that inclusion and then kind of full support. HR Is a big portion of that because a lot of people really don't have that perspective or understanding or mindset. And as a human resource manager, we understand that people are our business and people should be everyone's business because that's what business is created on.
00:14:13:14 - 00:14:40:05
Unknown
Even even technical businesses, even process oriented businesses. They're all about people, right? We understand our people. The more we can utilize to take advantage of how great that asset can be and how much we can get to them, how much they can get does Yeah, absolutely. I love that you emphasized the importance of culture and having a good culture because that honestly THRIVEs your organization.
00:14:40:05 - 00:15:07:23
Unknown
And you can tell on day one and even probably both before you work at the organization what their culture is because she's a very prominent thing in an organization. So it's like, you know, example that I give, which I've seen many times, is when you're interviewing people, show their best in the best of times and say, Hey, we're going over their culture where, you know, we want to hear everything you're saying.
00:15:08:00 - 00:15:40:02
Unknown
But when you start, it's absolutely And I walk down the hall, every door was closed, closed door meetings, Everything feels like it's secretive. It feels like you're very being excluded. And that's absolute culture. So part of my research for my my doctorate was how to decrease turnover. The intention was really, truly millennials because I do my research on generation, but in how to decrease turnover intentionally with the number one decrease, there was the culture right?
00:15:40:04 - 00:15:56:16
Unknown
Are you saying you do or are you being transparent? Are you including is are you hiring and retaining people? You need to cultivate that culture and that's a big thing is if you don't have a culture where you if you don't have what you want now, that's not a big deal. A lot of lot religion are in there.
00:15:56:20 - 00:16:18:03
Unknown
They don't have what they want to go. They want to achieve. So but how are you going to get that right? What's your plan and how are you communicate and really in that plan, to your people, to your to your managers, and how are they acting on that? Well, you know, it's one thing to say it, but it's another thing to actually let them go.
00:16:18:03 - 00:16:43:00
Unknown
I know you've given a ton of best practices and advice and tips throughout this whole podcast, but do you have any best practices for HR Professionals to really identify and leverage the functional strengths with within their organization to THRIVE that success that everybody wants? Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of times i will say this is a very known saying, but get comfortable with being accountable.
00:16:43:04 - 00:17:15:01
Unknown
Right? So a lot of times when you talk the functions this is my first experience with my career when I taught the different functions and I wasn't prepared to talk to them about their business or their function. And so that decreased their trust and decrease their trust in me. So the more time to understand it and functions, I can have a direct conversation with about what their strengths were and and they can see that I'm taking that action to really understand what their strengths are and what their function is and what their goal is.
00:17:15:01 - 00:17:43:14
Unknown
And the more I understood how they act, how they behave, what their processes were, the more I could create strategy to more insert myself into their function and help them grow. And it helped me grow so much. Understand business financially, understand business through the processes of manufacturing, understand business details and marketing. But I just, you know, like I said, part of the reason why I got my BBA was because I had a master's in science, which is great.
00:17:43:17 - 00:18:11:11
Unknown
But I want to understand business as a whole more holistically. And that helped me grow so much, helped me grow immensely understanding different functioning business. And that's what I would give to each age and professional in any, anyone, any function. I try to learn business. Don't try to, you know, obviously, you know, you do. You're your expert at what you do, but be an expert at understanding the business and that will help you grow with your organization.
00:18:11:11 - 00:18:30:01
Unknown
There's so much that is great advice. That's something that I'm trying to do too, is just even shadowing an apartment for a day to see what their day in the life is. And that, like you said, will help you understand the business as a whole and will help you do your job better, too, on the long run. Yeah.
00:18:30:01 - 00:18:48:20
Unknown
Yeah. And with that is I know it sounds boring, but you know, what do you what's, what's going on in that meeting. I said in that meeting where. Hey, you mind if I, you know, tag along with you? Like I said, Do you mind if I show you? Do you mind if I hang out and kind of the following a little bit and understand what you're going through so I can better help you, better assist you and better support you.
00:18:49:01 - 00:19:09:00
Unknown
And that's what it's about. You know, selfishly, I was trying to grow the business, not trying to grow myself, so I was trying to be a better project, better employee and a better person and more advanced to business. Absolutely. Well, as we wrap up your last question, can you share any key takeaways for our listeners on how HR
00:19:09:00 - 00:19:38:00
Unknown
Can really be that strategic partner in helping managers manage effectively and achieve the optimal results in their organizations. Bring it full circle here. We'll circle sort of our circle like i would say, kind of like I said, understand the business more. You understand that business and that function and that environment, the more alignment you can create, right? So again, help them understand processes that they don't know the process of, hey, this is what we're doing.
00:19:38:02 - 00:20:08:20
Unknown
Is that process, that HR Role. When i don't understand it, then they probably won't rule it out to the best of their ability. They probably won't engage in it to the best of your abilities. So help them understand it, right? Understand their business. They can understand your business. Say that that alignment, that inclusion, you know, still in their meetings, our conversation with them, engage with them, go out of your way, you know, go beyond a little bit to make them feel, you know, that they trust you, that the understanding that they believe in you.
00:20:08:22 - 00:20:30:23
Unknown
Because the more trust, more understanding, the more inclusion you have, more transparency, you'll get more engaging, you'll get, the better you be able to help them and support them. And the more the business will be able to grow and that's what it's about, is creating that organic growth and that internal growth as well as that external world. So you can be successful in the business, can be successful decades.
00:20:31:00 - 00:20:54:01
Unknown
This was great. I want to thank you for being on the podcast today and sharing all that great content and all the advice on how HR Can really help managers manage. So to our listeners, i would just encourage you if you liked our chat and topic today, comment something new that you learned today or something that you're going to start implementing or anything else that you'd like to add on to the conversation.
00:20:54:01 - 00:21:18:04
Unknown
We want to know your thoughts, what you're thinking. If you have any new ideas on this topic. And don't forget to share out this episode, of course, and consider joining MRA if you aren't a member already. We have all the resources you need in the show notes below. We've also included resources on this topic and DQ's contact info and LinkedIn profile if you want to connect with him.
00:21:18:06 - 00:21:39:18
Unknown
Otherwise, thank you so much for tuning in today and we will see you next week. And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign them to connect for more podcast updates, check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minutes THRIVE so you don't miss out.
00:21:39:18 - 00:21:44:11
Unknown
Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

22 min
October 25, 2023 Embracing Authenticity: The Key to Immediate DEI Progress
Description: Join us as we explore the transformative power of authenticity and immediate action in the realm of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) with leader, speaker, and author, Jess Pettitt. In this thought-provoking episode, we delve into the “Good Enough Now” philosophy, its impact on personal growth, and its potential to create positive change in companies, relationships, and communities.
Resources:
MRA's DEI Toolkit
Jess's Website
Jess's Book - Good Enough Now
If you are interested in a complimentary copy of Jess Pettitt’s eBook, Good Enough Now, please email [email protected] to get your code and details on how to download the book for free. There are a limited number of codes so don’t delay!
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Meet the Guest - Jess Pettitt
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Jess Pettitt
Host Bio - Sophie Boler
Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler
Transcript:
Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:03
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you're here.
00:00:21:05 - 00:00:51:05
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Well, hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of 30 Minute THRIVE Thank you for joining us today. I am so excited for our conversation today because you get to hear from a very talented and experienced individual. Jess Pettit suggests a top facilitator and educator in the diversity and inclusion space. She spent the last 20 years teaching, motivating and entertaining more than half a million people just in North America alone.
00:00:51:07 - 00:01:17:16
Unknown
And speaking of that, Jess is actually one of our keynote speakers at MRA's 2023 DEI conference this year. So, Jess, I know your main goal is to kind of start that conversation while also ensuring that people feel at ease and really feel safe to learn and ask these questions. And I. So for our episode today specifically, we're kind of going to delve into the world of good enough now.
00:01:17:16 - 00:01:42:10
Unknown
And that philosophy and really its impact on personal growth, its potential to create positive change in companies, relationships and communities. So before we dive into that topic, I'm really kind of curious to know just what got you started on your DEI journey. Well, first off, thank you for having me and what I get asked quite often like what got you started?
00:01:42:10 - 00:02:05:17
Unknown
And there's kind of two answers at the same time. The quickie answers are, number one. I was lucky enough to grow up in Texas with parents that were very curious. So any time I would ask a question, I was sent to the library to go find out all the different kinds of answers and then did presentations to my family on the fireplace about whatever it was.
00:02:05:19 - 00:02:31:09
Unknown
So I think most of the questions I asked seemed to be kind of around what I think collectively we would refer to as the underdog or hypocrisy or things that just didn't make sense. And I wasn't raised in an environment where like, Nope, this is it. Don't ask any more questions. So I think that is a significant part of my curiosity.
00:02:31:11 - 00:02:55:13
Unknown
I think the other part is, is that when I had real jobs, I often was advocating. I worked, as I called an administrator. My first masters is in higher education Administration with an emphasis in crisis management. So I worked on college campuses, advocate ing for underrepresented students, and how the college or the university could better serve its surrounding community.
00:02:55:15 - 00:03:22:18
Unknown
And in doing that would often point out what the university was doing to impact the community in a negative way or how they were under serving students. So I would get fired, go to another one, get another job, get fired so I kept getting fired. And eventually I know it's in our conference, but high HR, I spent a lot of time with you, but mostly I got fired because I was advocating for something that the university didn't want to do differently.
00:03:22:20 - 00:03:51:19
Unknown
Spoiler alert. I would say that in my younger years, I didn't understand managing up and maybe would use like a different font in how I advocated, but I would do it all over again because I have just always attempted to advocate for those that didn't have a voice at the table. So here we are. Yeah, I love that and I love that you stayed curious and that's kind of helped you with your DD journey, and that's a big difference.
00:03:51:21 - 00:04:14:23
Unknown
So just we mentioned that you're also the closing keynote speaker at our DEI conference this year, and your session is titled Good Enough Now. So can you kind of explain what is good enough now? Can you kind of share your thoughts on waiting to change versus taking that immediate action to kind of be the best version of ourselves?
00:04:15:00 - 00:04:43:13
Unknown
Absolutely. I think that I should probably full disclosure, I'm a Virgo and a really anal retentive person, which means that I have perfectionist tendencies. Definitely have experienced some imposter syndrome in my life. And as I was listening to my audiences, to be frank, I was kind of burning out on talking about vocabulary and approaching diversity and kind of this way, old way, that I used to do it.
00:04:43:15 - 00:05:13:08
Unknown
And I was burning out because I wasn't noticing a lot of progress. And then being a perfectionist, if you can't solve this problem, then it's very un motivating. And in my kind of sinking burnout stage, I started listening to my audiences in a different way and I kept finding them coming up with a reason or an excuse to not engage in a conversation or to not truly go and start something or do something.
00:05:13:08 - 00:05:36:19
Unknown
Or they wanted to. There was a want there, but they they couldn't like just go because they didn't feel adequately prepared. They were waiting for all the correct variables to be in place. And I realized that kind of the intersection of what I would call my burnout because of perfectionism, there was this You need to do it anyway.
00:05:36:21 - 00:06:06:12
Unknown
And if we're waiting to solve this problem, wouldn't you think somebody amazing ahead of us would have already solved it? And the I think it's an excuse is to wait until you have it perfect, because we feel entitled to the success or feel entitled to winning. So when I kind of noticed this as my own cure to keep me in this work, I realized in my kind of mantra is, do the best you can with what you've got.
00:06:06:14 - 00:06:36:16
Unknown
Some of the time, frankly, because it's better than nothing. Never. And obviously, this does not apply to, like, surgery or things where accuracy is really important. So talking about advocating for someone trying can be frankly, trying. It can be exhausting. But when you don't know how to start trying, what you end up doing is you start trying to try and ultimately trying to try is good enough place to start, right?
00:06:36:18 - 00:06:59:14
Unknown
I feel like it's all about kind of just taking that first step. And I know a lot of perfectionists out there who probably appreciate this, this kind of concept, but how do you personally relate to the concept of feeling that imbalance between who you are and kind of like what you mentioned, who you think you should be, where you think you should be in the context of DIY?
00:06:59:22 - 00:07:20:15
Unknown
I think what's at the root of diversity, equity and inclusion is either kind of those of you not watching the video have two hands up, right? So one of them is recognizing all of the pain and suffering that you have experienced in your life, has made you who and how you are in the world. And that is a really important thing to acknowledge.
00:07:20:17 - 00:07:47:17
Unknown
There are also a lot of privileges that have made you who and how you are. And most of us kind of enter this advocacy or DIY work because of our resilience or our survival, which includes like code switching at work, doing things that you need to do to hide certain parts of you or cover certain lived experiences or identities, you have to navigate the workplace.
00:07:47:19 - 00:08:27:01
Unknown
I totally get that. I understand from my subordinated or marginalized identities, the organization that I've done to stay alive or to thrive is very personal to me. I totally get that. However, if we were to enter from our privileged identities, there's no risk. It's not about thriving. It's about just trying to do the right thing. So I try to really inspire her, myself and others to enter these conversations from their dominant or privileged identities, because that's the place where we have all the tools and the resources to actually do something, even if we can't do it perfectly.
00:08:27:03 - 00:08:50:19
Unknown
And we might not actually notice when we're doing the right thing because it's the right thing in the right way, regardless of how our life has taught us how to be. I try to role model that I tried in my book. I try to like create a pathway for people to gain their own self-awareness of what it is they could be doing and encourage people to try to do just that.
00:08:50:21 - 00:09:39:05
Unknown
Absolutely. Or I feel like sometimes taking these steps may kind of produce some challenges. So what are some kind of common challenges that you've seen people face when striving for better relationships, bettering themselves, fulfillment, stronger teamwork in the realm of DEI? I mean, I think the answer is in good enough, people don't feel good enough, and also at times have experienced what it does feel like to be good enough and that they're actually the same feeling, right, is like, I'm kind of sucks, but I guess I can give this a whirl of even if it's something outside of a DEI context, you're driving around and you get a flat tire.
00:09:39:07 - 00:09:58:24
Unknown
I don't know about you, but I don't consider myself a flat tire handler expert. Right. So then there's this kind of incompetence moment where you're like, I don't wait, what do I do? And then, like, every tick tock you've ever seen comes, like, flashing back to you, and all of a sudden you're, like, lug nuts. That's a word I haven't used in forever.
00:09:59:13 - 00:10:19:07
Unknown
lug nuts. I need one of them sticky things to get the lug nuts off while you're fumbling around in the trunk of your car looking for the. Is it a crowbar? Is it a jack? I don't know. The key things that you do, the lug nut twisty bit This, like a little kernel of information, comes where you're like, Do it in a star.
00:10:19:09 - 00:10:43:02
Unknown
Where did that come from? I don't know, But you undo it in a start. Now, all of a sudden, you know, this. That methodology, you're. It's okay. It's good enough information at the time because you're in a pickle. You got a flat tire. You got to figure it out. When we start interacting with other people, even when we call it DIY work, most of us think we're only doing DEI work at work.
00:10:43:04 - 00:11:10:07
Unknown
So then we clock out of work and we're at a grocery store. We're not employing those same skills. And what I'm here to talk about is not new skill development, but it's really recognizing when you choose not to use them, right? I mean, you do choose to use them because it's good enough to try. The other thing I would say is this is a little bit more of a longer answer, but often when we think of challenges, we think of challenges outside of ourself.
00:11:10:09 - 00:11:34:17
Unknown
And my challenge to everyone is to think of the challenges inside yourself. And when you are most challenged or most confronted, how are you showing up and how do you expect other people to show up? And you can actually adjust how you show up instead of waiting for other people to show up differently? So this is the I'll talk about this in the keynote.
00:11:34:17 - 00:11:57:15
Unknown
This is the head heart action model. And once you can figure out kind of where you lean particular lean when you're challenged or feeling confronted or trying to decide to use the skills you currently have or to like take them off ramp, it'll be really helpful for you to know that I believe our lives have taught us who and how to be, and there's nothing wrong with that.
00:11:57:20 - 00:12:32:05
Unknown
We just we're responsible for this kind of like net zero of how we begin a conversation. So we've got a lot of self-reflection to do after this podcast. It seems like hopefully. Well, you've kind of embraced and highlighted just kind of being your authentic self and how contributing that authenticity really kind of helps the effort. So in your experience, how does the authentic self contribute to these efforts and initiatives?
00:12:32:07 - 00:12:57:17
Unknown
It's your base level foundation. I think everyone in this maybe this goes back to even perfectionism, but I think everyone knows how they are supposed to ought to be right. Like you're supposed to show up this particular way, but you're you're responsible for knowing how you're actually showing up and then citing taking ownership of the gap between the two.
00:12:57:19 - 00:13:26:24
Unknown
And do you want to be showing up in a different way or do you not want to? Like we often talk about and I call this an Instagram fight, but of giving grace to other people. And we don't necessarily know what that means, but we also don't even give grace to our self. And so but I think giving grace means is that person, whoever you're thinking of that's annoying their life taught them that that's the way to show up.
00:13:27:01 - 00:13:49:11
Unknown
Similarly, your life taught you that this is the way to show up. Neither one guarantees that you're accurate or correct, but you did learn this in your life. And do you want to keep that learning or do you need to upgrade? That's great. So we've talked a lot of it, just a lot about the good enough now philosophy.
00:13:49:14 - 00:14:17:17
Unknown
But do you have any examples or just any real life stories on how individuals or organizations have applied this philosophy to enhance their DEI initiatives or existing strategy? A little bit. I think that I'm working on a new book right now, and I have a case study sampling that y'all are welcome to download. Look, give me feedback, give me your ideas, etc..
00:14:17:19 - 00:14:39:16
Unknown
But I think what's interesting is, is there's not a lot of room for failure. And if there is failure, we want to fix it as quickly as possible. But I think failure is a way of looking at a step in the right direction that didn't quite make it right. And so my new book is called Almost or It's Almost finished.
00:14:39:18 - 00:15:06:01
Unknown
But it takes the Good Enough Now principles and applies it to an organization instead of your own individual sense of life or decision making. But on an organizational level, I track 56 different case studies of my own clients where something was attempted and it didn't quite work. And my premise is that it didn't quite work because it didn't use the full model.
00:15:06:01 - 00:15:32:06
Unknown
It only kind of enters in one place. The tagline is when the answers need to ask more questions and there's a lot of quote unquote best practices within DEI that are not necessarily successful, but it's kind of what everybody does. And so what else could we do to flush out one of these initiatives or programing ideas or response ideas or diversity statements or whatever?
00:15:32:08 - 00:15:54:13
Unknown
Can we flush it out in a way that's paying attention in this three sided model so that it's set up for success instead of just being a reactionary response? And I find that to be probably the most debilitating thing that I work with, with organizations when I do consulting work is back in 1984, they tried something and it didn't work.
00:15:54:15 - 00:16:26:06
Unknown
And so then we're done. We just don't. We already did it. Or maybe they did something and it didn't work that one time. But there's still pain and suffering happening. And if we're talking about diversity, equity, inclusion, and we keep adding more letters, now we're adding belonging. The reason why we have to add more letters is it's not working because we haven't actually dismantled the systems inside of our workplaces to actually include everyone who is there, everyone we serve along our entire value chain.
00:16:26:08 - 00:16:46:14
Unknown
And in order for those people to really weigh in to part of the office culture, they have to buy in. And in order to buy in, they have to feel like they belong and are valued. And that's the real work we need to be doing. Well, I'm looking forward to that book almost. And that'll be interesting to read those case studies, too.
00:16:46:14 - 00:17:12:10
Unknown
And we've included dresses, a number where you can text, ask any questions, give her feedback, and also her contact information. So do you want to get in touch with her about that book? We've got the resources for you. But kind of talking about this whole belonging, how does self-acceptance play into the whole journey of being the best version of oneself in the context of DEI?
00:17:12:12 - 00:17:39:01
Unknown
It's a really tricky question, but it mostly resides in internal responsibility. And there is nobody who isn't a hot mess, right? And often when we engage in these conversations, we want to point fingers at somebody else who is a bigger hot mess than somebody else. But this is a weird suspension of gravity, not gravity. Don't suspend gravity. Suspension of grammar.
00:17:39:01 - 00:18:17:06
Unknown
What's so close? It's so close. But if, like, I'm pointing my finger at you because I think you are a mess, I'm somebody else's mess. Right. Somebody looks at me and is like, I don't know what is wrong with her, but if she'd clean up her act, then it would be much better. So if I actually were to do that and to become more self-aware, to be responsible for myself and quote unquote, clean up my act, whatever that means, I'm role modeling for other people how to do it, and forcing other people to realize that I've become more responsible for my behavior, not just when I'm at work, but when I am in a
00:18:17:06 - 00:18:38:08
Unknown
car wreck or at the grocery store or talking to a stranger at some festival. I'm still responsible for everything I do, everything I say, and who and how I am when I show up. Yeah, that's a good point that these these ideas and these philosophies, they don't only apply when you're at work, they should apply all the time.
00:18:38:10 - 00:19:01:18
Unknown
But so I think a lot of people are probably wondering, how can I improve immediately? And I know we always talk about the DEI journey, that it takes steps and sometimes it takes a lot of time in practice. But do you have any ideas on what can individuals take away right now that they can start making those positive changes kind of immediately in the DEI space?
00:19:01:20 - 00:19:28:16
Unknown
Sure. So two answers again. So the first one is stop looking for the finish line. So like a lot of us think that once we get a certificate or enough different friends or have updated our vocabulary enough, we are then done. That's not how this works, right? This is a forever and always thing. So the the progress, is it becoming more natural and being able to think about what are your responses right.
00:19:28:16 - 00:19:51:22
Unknown
Like there's a gap between your knee jerk reaction or response and the actual response. And that moment in between is where responsibility and reflection come in. So that's when you're actually working. It is when you take time for that little second response instead of just your knee jerk reaction that's actually making progress, but it doesn't get you somewhere.
00:19:52:02 - 00:20:16:17
Unknown
It helps you decide where you're going to get. So that's the first thing I would say. The other thing I would say is one of the links that you have is to a survey. And the survey will help you identify how you right now are showing up across difference or in conflict. And it's either going to be very detail oriented, very idea oriented, or I don't have time for any of that business.
00:20:16:17 - 00:20:38:18
Unknown
I just want to do something. And when you figure out how it is, you're showing up and you get a little bit more used to or comfortable with your own showing up habits, then it's a lot easier for you to adjust how you're showing up based on how other people showing up habits are happening. Those are the two immediate things let go of winning or finishing.
00:20:38:20 - 00:21:09:14
Unknown
And how are you right now? Because that's your responsibility kind of part two of this question. And I would just add, if you have anything to add on this. Any strategies or just basic practices that our listeners can adopt to align their personal growth with their DEI goals and values? The hardest one, and I'll talk very specifically about this in my keynote as well, but the hardest one is what I would call the 100% responsibility.
00:21:09:16 - 00:21:32:22
Unknown
I do not recommend trying to do this 100% of the time because it is exhausting. But notice when you're not doing it and when it's easier to do it. And what I mean is, is that before you say something, email, text, whatever, can you prepare yourself to be 100% responsible for whatever it is that's about to occur? Once you say text, send the thing.
00:21:32:24 - 00:21:55:09
Unknown
And a lot of people will say like, I'm only 50% responsible. But frankly, that's on marriage therapist type job security. And I'm going to ask you to take some time to be 100% responsible so that no matter what it is that comes back at you as anything, you're way less defensive about it because you had made a solid 100% responsible choice before doing something.
00:21:55:11 - 00:22:19:13
Unknown
Just try that every once in a while. Or like I like to say, do the best you can with what you've got. Some of the time it will be a life changing way of blending what you think is a diversity equity inclusion kind of mindset with your authentic self in every interaction you have with other people. That's a great mentality to have.
00:22:19:14 - 00:22:46:12
Unknown
I'm definitely going to try that out after this. Well, as we kind of wrap up here today, Jess, I know you've given a lot of great advice and actionable steps, but do you have any last kind of might drop moments on how leaders and listeners today can just take that take that step to create a more inclusive and equitable environment based on all the principles that you kind of listed out for us today.
00:22:46:14 - 00:23:10:04
Unknown
Honestly, the hardest thing for people to actually do, if I'm having a mic drop moment, is I double dog dare you to stay in touch. You would think that that'd be pretty easy. Like, she's accessible. I can text or any time I can, you know, connect with her on LinkedIn or whatever. But people don't do it because it's hard to hang in your own space.
00:23:10:06 - 00:23:38:07
Unknown
And what I would might drop a moment is who else is going to hang in your space if it's not you? So we have to stop looking at this as just something external to us and step into ourselves because no one else can do that. To do the best we can with what we've got. Some of the time, I mean, if you want to learn from other people's failures, notice external to you, read my studies, give me some feedback, see what your thoughts are.
00:23:38:13 - 00:24:03:10
Unknown
If you want to stay in touch, feel free to connect on LinkedIn or text me the numbers. 2026704262. But the truth is you won't. Maybe you'll connect with me on LinkedIn, but then that's it. And we don't hang in our own space. And if you happen to notice that you are in your own space, do the survey again.
00:24:03:12 - 00:24:23:14
Unknown
Go do the survey again and find out how in that moment, how are you showing up? Is there a pattern of who and how you are? And then what is that like for other people witnessing or interacting with you? You can take responsibility for that. And I'm here to help you along the way. So I double dog dare you stay in touch.
00:24:23:16 - 00:24:48:05
Unknown
Do my job. Right. Well, Jess, I want to thank you so much for being on the podcast today. And thank you for sharing all that great content. I can definitely walk away with a lot of great, impactful, actionable steps into our listeners. If you liked our chat and topic today, I would just urge you to comment something new you learned today or anything that you'd like to add on to our conversation.
00:24:48:07 - 00:25:09:03
Unknown
Don't forget to share out this episode. Consider joining MRA if you aren't a member already. We have all the resources you need in the show notes, all including resources about us in our topic today. Otherwise, thank you so much for tuning in today and thanks again, Jess. We will see you all next week. And that wraps up our content for this episode.
00:25:09:04 - 00:25:27:11
Unknown
Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign up to connect. For more podcast updates, check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minutes THRIVE so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

26 min
October 18, 2023 October Talent Report with Jim Morgan
Description: 🎙️ Tune in to our latest podcast episode on MRA's October Talent Report! Discover the insights you need to stay ahead in the dynamic world of business, with a special focus this month on "Building the Generational Bridge." Don't miss out on the latest trends and best practices that will elevate your talent management game!
Resources:
Talent Report+ Webinar Series
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Guest Bio - Jim Morgan
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Jim Morgan
Host Bio - Sophie Boler
Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler
Transcript:
Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:03
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you're here.
00:00:21:05 - 00:00:22:21
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive.
00:00:23:00 - 00:00:40:14
Unknown
Welcome to this episode of 30 Minute Thrive. It is that time again to go over this month's Talent report with Jim Morgan, MRA's vice president of Workforce Strategies. So we'll dive into what he's been seeing this month in the world of business in October. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Always a pleasure to be here.
00:00:40:16 - 00:01:01:02
Unknown
All right. So let's go over what you're seeing this month. Women have been coming back to the workforce in high quantity. So what's driving this? What's the deal with this? I think there's a couple of things going on. Obviously, women have always been in the workforce, but I think post-pandemic, what we're starting to see now is women are still the primary childcare provider.
00:01:01:02 - 00:01:18:19
Unknown
And so I think they may have been at home more or might have been in a profession that allow them to work from home more. And now everything is sort of leveled out. Again, everybody's trying to figure out, you know, exactly what they're going to do. But right now, we've got women in the workforce or at least looking for a job at 77.8%.
00:01:18:19 - 00:01:40:03
Unknown
That's the highest it's ever been in the United States. So that is a as another opportunity, I think, for people, you know, to go find folks. And that totals 815,000 people this year. So in terms of companies that are trying to say, you know, where is the talent? What is going on? We are seeing a little bit of a shift in that women for a whole bunch of different reasons.
00:01:40:03 - 00:02:05:01
Unknown
But I think primarily post-pandemic are coming back into the workforce and in larger numbers than they ever have before. So going into your talent thinking section, you highlighted what was found by the PDC Employer Benefits Perspective Survey on companies wanting their health plans to improve the employee experience overall and really meet the needs of diverse employees over four generations.
00:02:05:03 - 00:02:45:03
Unknown
So where do these employee concerns really lie within benefits? There are a couple of things that that really stood out. One was this desire for digital health care. And you know, we never did telemedicine until the pandemic and actually found out that that was pretty effective for certain things. There are times when obviously you want to come and see your doctor, but the opportunity to use digital to use that type of technology, whether that's in telemedicine, whether that's apps on our phone, whether that's collecting our own biometrics, I mean, you have wristwatches now that can collect all kinds of different data for us.
00:02:45:05 - 00:03:07:13
Unknown
And then having your data available in such a way that it can move from care provider to care provider. And you will see my doctor and then I have to go see a pharmacist and maybe have to see a specialist that it's easy for the employee to say, Here's where my information is, you will get it. So the digitizing of a while that has been a big thing.
00:03:07:15 - 00:03:32:17
Unknown
The second one was employers trying to look at what's the clinical value of whoever their provider is. So if I'm using ABC Health Care, how easy is it for me to get to a clinic? What's the cost for me to visit the clinic and what are their results? Do they have good outcomes from visiting the clinic? So companies being one a little bit more critical about what's the value of the investment here.
00:03:32:23 - 00:03:56:11
Unknown
And secondly, how easy is it, how convenient is it for our employees so that health care is not a half full for them? Yeah, it's something, you know, that they're easily able to do. They also are starting to look at what's being called diverse benefits. You know, are we unconsciously biased against certain types of benefits that maybe would be good for folks in obvious one is holidays?
00:03:56:17 - 00:04:22:02
Unknown
You know, you may have a company that traditionally was you get Christmas. You know well, not everybody celebrates Christmas. And so moving to floating holidays to say, look, you've got two holidays to celebrate, whatever your beliefs might be or just whatever your interests are. If there are beliefs that you want to follow. So that accommodates. You know, almost everyone also starting to look at, you know, child care is something that's a bigger deal.
00:04:22:02 - 00:04:45:20
Unknown
It's very expensive. How do we accommodate some of that financial planning? Some people had access to financial planning maybe more than others. And so how do we sort of level that playing field So all of our employees have that sort of opportunity. You know, and then lastly, I think looking at the workforce of the future flexible benefits, we'll talk about that a little bit later when we talk about generations.
00:04:45:22 - 00:05:11:13
Unknown
But you want different things in Iowa for a whole bunch of reasons. Not just because you're cooler and more here than I am, but lifestyle. Yeah, it isn't that I'm looking for right now. So being flexible with what our parents or what our employees are looking for and then on the recognition side, really starting to hear more of from companies about how much their employees value, whether it's being recognized for birthdays and anniversaries is for jobs.
00:05:11:13 - 00:05:31:22
Unknown
Well done from project to completed the swag, the lunches, all that stuff matters to people, and it actually matters again to the younger generations for sort of this sense of belonging. So we're seeing more. How do we prepare for that next generation? How do we make sure we're offering the things that they truly want? Looks like each hours got a lot of work out there.
00:05:31:24 - 00:05:53:14
Unknown
And they do. They always do it. Just keep getting more. Yeah. Well, let's talk about some other recent survey results. What were some of your findings this month in terms of C-suite happenings? What are they currently focusing on right now? Yeah, we looked at the Fortune Deloitte CEOs survey just to see kind of what's going on. And then we've done our own survey data on the Fortune Deloitte one.
00:05:53:14 - 00:06:17:12
Unknown
One of the interesting things was for the first time in few years now talent was displayed by geopolitics and that was the number one concern and is been talent for as long as we can remember. But just the things that are going on around the world, whether that's in Israel, whether that's Ukraine and Russia, there's just a lot of things up in the air.
00:06:17:12 - 00:06:40:00
Unknown
There's a lot of disruption and that has caught the attention of the CEOs in looking at their outlook for things. About half of the people in their survey said they think there's a recession coming within the next year. This recession has kind of been six months away for two years now. And I think everyone's waiting again for that other shoe to drop.
00:06:40:02 - 00:07:03:23
Unknown
And we keep thinking, well, that might have been it and that might have been it. And yet it doesn't quite happen yet. And within our own surveys here at MRA, it was amazing the number of companies that were budgeting from better times next year, but thinking the economy as a whole was still headed for a recession. So that dichotomy is really interesting that my company is going to do okay, but the economy is not.
00:07:04:00 - 00:07:27:20
Unknown
And I don't know if that's an upper Midwest thing. We have a kind of a talent shortage here still, and so if people are working, you know, I'm looking like must be good out there. Yeah. But they still think overall that there's this potential of a recession on the horizon. And then lastly, the whole technology area, technology in general in terms of how do we use it for efficiency?
00:07:28:00 - 00:07:49:11
Unknown
How do we use it maybe for automation in manufacturing? How do we use it for better processes and moving things along quicker? And then, you know, the big monster on the block right now, artificial intelligence. What does that mean for us and companies now scrambling to put together what's our policy in artificial intelligence? How do we make sure our employees know what it is?
00:07:49:16 - 00:08:05:11
Unknown
How do we use it for good and not for evil? And that's causing again, you know, I think HR, because a lot of times are the keepers of this type of policy on the forefront to say, how are we going to build this? We have people that are already using it, people who probably still don't know what it is.
00:08:05:17 - 00:08:28:14
Unknown
And we've got to kind of give them the guideposts that say this is where it can be used, this is how we think our company can benefit from this. Here are the cautions and making sure that everybody sort of up to speed on what's going on. Yeah, absolutely. And I guess now's a great time to plug. We do have an upcoming podcast on HR technology and using kind of the new innovations in AI and in HR.
00:08:28:15 - 00:08:52:23
Unknown
So stay tuned for that. And then great timing on your part, because it's really companies trying to figure out a AI does these wonderful things, but it's got its own biases and occasionally it hallucinates in terms of creating its own information. So I think, you know, just the smart money is on. Use it for things to get you started, but you still got to take a look and you got to know where it came from.
00:08:52:23 - 00:09:11:01
Unknown
You've got to sort of has to make sure it's accurate. And I think a lot of HR departments are looking at it. And I would say what where is a good place to use this and where should we not? Yeah, absolutely. And we're also talking about technology outside of AI because all eyes are on AI right now, but it's like, what else do we need to be aware of right now?
00:09:11:01 - 00:09:34:20
Unknown
So that'll be a good one. Yeah, but kind of moving on from your from the field section, you lost some key factors that U.S. workers consider when considering a company for employment. So what did you find with like what were some of those factors. Yeah, this was some of this was from Eagle Hill Consulting and they were looking at Gen Z and millennials primarily to say, you know what matters to them.
00:09:34:24 - 00:09:58:09
Unknown
Yeah. D y is big with these two groups bigger than their predecessors. it came up as a key factor in 77% of the Gen Z folks, 63% for millennials. They grew up in a different world. They're more culturally, I think, aware of what's going on. They grew up in a more diverse society certainly than I did. And so that's important to them.
00:09:58:09 - 00:10:28:03
Unknown
And they're seeing it in their everyday life. They see it in the workplace as well with those groups. Again, things that matter to them around collaboration, safety, a sense of belonging, culture, employee resource groups, all of those are designed really around making them feel at home in their workplace and that matters to them. And so companies really are taking a hard look at how do we make them feel comfortable here, how do we make them want to be here?
00:10:28:03 - 00:10:47:07
Unknown
That's sort of the work life balance and the remote work that they're looking at, try to making their workplace attractive place to be, whether that's let's make it look like a Starbucks and people want to come in or let's make it look like there are things going on here that are really of interest. So it's not even a decision whether you want to stay home or go to work.
00:10:47:09 - 00:11:07:13
Unknown
I kind of want to go in there and see what's going on and still have that option of remote work. So how do we make people feel comfortable? How do we make them feel? Part of the team is really where they're spending an awful lot of their time. Yeah, absolutely. Well, kind of continuing that generational conversation. I know this month you featured the topic on building the generational bridge.
00:11:07:13 - 00:11:28:01
Unknown
So do you have any kind of key points that you can summarize from that presentation or conversation in the teller part? Yeah. And where this one came from, as were a couple of years away from the generational tipping points, for lack of a better set of words. That's when the Gen Z and the Millennials will outnumber the baby boomers and the Gen Xers.
00:11:28:01 - 00:11:50:02
Unknown
And, you know, obviously this always happens one generation that's older and moves out and a new one comes in. But I think the characteristics of the two younger generations around technology, cultures, society is just very different than the two that are, you know, the actors and the boomers. And so I think that does make a difference. And companies are now having to pay a little bit more attention to that, to say, you know, what does that mean?
00:11:50:02 - 00:12:10:10
Unknown
And the couple of examples that we talked about on the talent report were, you know, what? What do you value? So if I think about it from a benefits point of view, and again, going back to what we were just talking about, you may be thinking, you know, I've got some student loan debt, I would like some help in paying back that it doesn't really matter to me all that much, but I am closer to retirement.
00:12:10:10 - 00:12:29:07
Unknown
So how much money do I have in my 401k? I'm neither one of us. Probably. Health care may not be the biggest deal for us. You could still be on your parents for a couple of more years. I don't have three kids running around that are in their accident years. Yeah. So I'm looking for a different health care plan than I would have been ten years ago.
00:12:29:09 - 00:12:49:04
Unknown
And so how do we get in touch with what our folks are looking for? Because the benefits are a big deal. And I've said it before, it's not a benefit unless I think they benefit. And so if right now Netflix is of great value to you and maybe to everybody across every generation, they I want a screen, I want a streaming service that's a relatively cheap benefit.
00:12:49:04 - 00:13:10:06
Unknown
And if people really value that, well, good for us. And what are we offering that? You know, it no one's taking advantage of that and we're paying good money for that. Maybe we should reevaluate. So I think there's a real emphasis right now for companies to really know what's important to their employees. You know, try to be a little bit more flexible in their benefits and then providing the things that really matter to them.
00:13:10:08 - 00:13:38:05
Unknown
So I think benefits is a big one. And I think there are big differences with different generational groups. We've got up. Yeah, cross generational teams we spent an awful lot of time on and companies kind joyously trying to say, you know what, if you and I are on the same team, we're going to bring very different perspectives then if it's by people who look like me or find people who look like you and I can quickly stereotype, okay, well, I've got more experience.
00:13:38:09 - 00:13:56:05
Unknown
I've probably seen more things. We've tried these different things. I know what worked and what didn't work. And so I can bring that, you know, you can bring a whole new perspective. You can bring probably some technology that I've never heard of. I might say we tried to do that before, and you'll be in a position to say, Yeah, but did you try it this way?
00:13:56:05 - 00:14:16:16
Unknown
Yeah. And so the benefits of bringing together different groups of people, one, it's a great way to build a team within the organization. It breaks down some stereotypes, and the more that I get to know you, the smarter I see you are done. Sort of. yeah. 23 year old kid think she knows everything. Well, she does know stuff.
00:14:16:21 - 00:14:40:06
Unknown
And by working with you, that's how I begin to find that out. And you can look at me like, God, this guy's a dinosaur. He'll never brand a new idea to the table. And you might find out, No, I've got a couple. So there are benefits to that. Then there's the managing of it and how we look at work, when we work, how we work, you know, making sure, you know, the team members that I might like to I don't know.
00:14:40:06 - 00:14:57:08
Unknown
I need to be out by 3:00 on Wednesdays because I've got some group I go to. Yeah, you are a big biker in Friday afternoon to your biking tag. You know, little things like that. They just say, okay, let me know my people and they know the best time to maybe get this group of diverse interests together. Yeah.
00:14:57:10 - 00:15:24:22
Unknown
And then, you know, I think looking out for the potential roadblocks, though. Yep, we've got stereotypes. We've got to break through some of those things. The challenges of biases that are out there. Communications might be different, the technology might be different. So how are we going to communicate with each other? But then in the end, you know, we do start seeing using the even reverse mentoring to say, what can I learn from selfie?
00:15:24:24 - 00:15:51:20
Unknown
And that's not a way that you really if the two of us showed up, you could ask the vast majority, okay, who's was mentoring who Traditionally, it'd be okay. I'll mentor Sophie. What does Sophie have for me? How can Sophie help me better understand social media so I can better promote some of the things that I'm doing? What has Sophie learned as a more recent graduate from college of how people are using some of the things, different leads that I might be working with every day?
00:15:51:22 - 00:16:17:01
Unknown
How can she teach me how to use Tik-tok to promote my videos? And you know, the speeches? I'm so, you know, two ways. I'm happy to share what I know, but I have to be open then to learning a little bit more about, you know, what it is that you know. So I think it was really talking about all the different things that we bring to the table and how do you get those generations to utilize the skills that each one's got.
00:16:17:03 - 00:16:39:07
Unknown
It's issue that is all this time. Yeah, but I think it's even bigger now and we've got more opportunities. That bridge is a big one to cross, right? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I hope I can be a reverse mentor for you. Jenny Patrick, you play well, and I have to bring up your quote to your quarter of the month as it relates to this times of rapid technological or social change divide generations.
00:16:39:11 - 00:16:58:09
Unknown
Right now we have both. So can you explain why you chose this quote for this month? If you take the technology part out of it? Let me just start with the social part. If you think of the last few generations, you know, my grandparents race was pretty much segregated. And with my parents, they started to see some of the integration.
00:16:58:09 - 00:17:26:12
Unknown
There was women's rights, there were people of color's rights. Then my generation, there were protests and yours early on, assassinations. And it was very, very much turmoil. And then you start moving into generations that are growing up together. We have different social issues now. We have Black Lives Matter. So, you know, things just keep changing. And that social world, as we evolve and hopefully try to get better, then you throw in the technology besides that.
00:17:26:12 - 00:17:47:21
Unknown
And that's the part I think, that had never been there. Social really changes the way we do things and now technology in the last two generations and even just the last generation, it changed everything the way that we communicate, the way that we go out and see people. You throw a pandemic in there. We all learned how to do zoom and video and everything else.
00:17:47:23 - 00:18:17:24
Unknown
And you combine those two things and all of a sudden people have access to all this information. They have the ability to communicate in 100 different ways. And you have all of these social issues at play. It really is another it's another place where it can either divide us or bring us together. And so I can either have my views on social issues and yours are a couple of generations later, and I have my ability to manipulate technology and year to generation and later you can see how that would Thrive things know further apart.
00:18:18:01 - 00:18:35:15
Unknown
And so that was I've heard that on a webinar and I just thought, you know, when you put those things together, that has the potential to really separate everybody or, you know, if you did forget it as a chance to bring us together, how do you manage both at the same time? Because I view it well this month in charts, you included some data around memories.
00:18:35:15 - 00:18:56:17
Unknown
2023 compensate in turn survey in webinar as well as data from Memories 2020 through National ID and Engineering survey. So can you explain what was shown in all of the charts and graphs that were on the talent report, like an hour long seminar, put it end to 2 minutes here for you. Go take a look at the Talent report if you have it, and then you'll understand.
00:18:56:19 - 00:19:16:09
Unknown
You know, I would say, you know, the biggies were as everybody expected on this, the total overall compensation was a little about 4%. You know, for those who have filed this forever, it was 3%, 3%, maybe to nine, maybe three one. Last year. We went over for this year, you know, over for I'm guessing next year will probably be close to four.
00:19:16:09 - 00:19:42:00
Unknown
But I think it might settle down a little bit. But over 4% was sort of the comp trend for the general population. The engineering was a little bit higher at engineering and industrial, you know, high level. Those folks are getting harder and harder to come by. And so that drove that a little bit. Probably. We spent the most time talking about pay transparency, that being Thriven by a couple of things.
00:19:42:00 - 00:20:09:07
Unknown
One, younger generations that are a little more open with their pay and their benefits. You know, they find I am going to make $62,000 and next thing you know, it's posted on four different social media platforms and everybody knows, whereas few generations ago it was like, don't tell anybody. Yeah. So that's happening. There's now some legislation that's out there that's starting to tell employers you need to release pay ranges or you need to, you know, be able to explain all that.
00:20:09:09 - 00:20:27:18
Unknown
So we're not there right now by our own employers. Survey results that most of them are at a level where they hope their employees can understand how to read their paycheck and know what the deductions are. And we're quite a ways away from does everyone know their pay range? Do they know where they fall in it? Do they know your pay philosophy?
00:20:27:20 - 00:20:52:11
Unknown
And so how do companies move if there's the legislation continues to roll and it's out already in some states, some municipalities, cities and counties have put in place, how do you begin to explain compensation to the average employee so they understand your philosophy, They understand ranges because the first is that will be, if you tell me I'm at 90% of my rage, I'll be talking about I'm way better than average I should be.
00:20:52:11 - 00:21:12:22
Unknown
And I'm wondering 10% and trying to explain what the data is for compensation. So I think that's going to be a big one. And I think you're going to see more and more companies talking about pay transparency. Where are they going to fall in that? And keeping an eye on statehouses and federal issues to see what other legislation they pass in the future.
00:21:12:23 - 00:21:30:19
Unknown
And I actually know a friend who they're looking for a job and as they're scrolling through job openings, they won't even look at the jobs that don't list the salary or the salary range. So I guess, yeah, that is a big deal. And yeah, and then you get some of the services out that are out there. Some are much better than others.
00:21:30:19 - 00:21:48:10
Unknown
But somebody in one of our roundtable said, Yeah, there was a job and the pay range was 50 to $300000. God, yes. All right. Well, where do I fall about to cover it, you know, So that's not a real helpful either. Yep. So you're going to be up against all the data that's out there, all the different organizations that are putting it out.
00:21:48:13 - 00:22:08:24
Unknown
Some are very good, are not so good. But as an employee now, one of the examples we used in comp trends was they can go into Chad GPT and go into some other artificial intelligence and say, I'm 42 years old, I have 15 years of experience, I have a degree in engineering, I'm in Shawano, Wisconsin, and I want to know how much money I should make.
00:22:09:01 - 00:22:29:04
Unknown
And it's going to give them an answer, whether it's good, bad or indifferent. But they're looking at it like, well, artificial intelligence told me i think they should make and they walk into HR And so now HR is up against artificial intelligence plus other people's survey results, plus people taking data from new york city and comparing it to shawano, wisconsin.
00:22:29:06 - 00:22:52:12
Unknown
So that's just another area where the human resources people really after themselves be prepared with data and information and now have to start educating their hiring managers so they too can answer some of those questions when their staff members come to them. Right. For health. There's another thing on the plate, another saying, well, as we wrap up, we're always going to ask, can you give us a sneak peek on what November's talent report will be?
00:22:52:12 - 00:23:08:02
Unknown
The topic? Yeah, we're going to talk about talent strategies. And I know we've talked about that a thousand times, but we're going to try to take a little bit different look at it and look out to the future a little bit and say, you know, what are innovative companies doing to attract and retain and what does the future of work look like a little bit?
00:23:08:02 - 00:23:28:24
Unknown
And so as companies, we're starting to make some adjustments in whether that's work life balance, remote work benefits, all that type of stuff. What are innovative companies doing to make sure that they're going to have the talent supply chain? Gotcha. Well, you heard them. You got to tune in for it. Well, Jim, thank you again for the recap on this month's talent report.
00:23:28:24 - 00:23:48:02
Unknown
I appreciate it. And to our listeners, if you liked our chat and you like the topic today, I would urge you to comment the most valuable piece of information that you learned today or any current trends or topics that you've been seeing this month in the HR world. Don't forget to share out the episode and consider joining MRA if you aren't a member already.
00:23:48:04 - 00:23:57:24
Unknown
We have all the resources you need in the show Notes below, including resources on this Once Talent report. Otherwise, thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next week.
00:23:57:24 - 00:24:14:07
Unknown
And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign them to connect for more podcasts updates, check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minutes Thrive so you don't miss out.
00:24:14:08 - 00:24:19:00
Unknown
Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

25 min
October 11, 2023 Inbox Intelligence: Choosing Email for Effective Business
Description: Unlock the art of strategic business communication in our latest episode, 'Inbox Intelligence.' Dive into the world of email correspondence and discover when and why it's your most powerful tool. Explore effective practices, enhance your professional connections, and master the finesse of choosing email for impactful business interactions. If you're looking to harness the potential of email for impactful interactions, this episode of 'Inbox Intelligence' is a must-listen.
Resources:
Effectively Using Email in the Workplace Video
Business Email - Write it Right Course
Business Writing for Impact: How to Write So People Will Read Course
Overcoming Inbox Overwhelm: Streamline Your Processes Course
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Guest Bio - Andy Marris
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Andy Marris
Host Bio - Sophie Boler
Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler
Transcript:
Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:03
Unknown
Hello everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever changing world of HR. MRA has got you covered. We'll be the first to tell you what's hot and what's not. I'm your host, Sophie Boler and we are so glad you're here.
00:00:21:05 - 00:00:48:22
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Well, hello everybody, and welcome to episode number 59 of 30 minute Thrive. Today we're going to dive into the world of email, specifically inbox intelligence and discover when and why it's your most powerful tool. So today I'm joined with expert Andy Marris, MRA learning and development instructor, as he runs through his tips and tricks on using email in our professional lives.
00:00:48:24 - 00:01:14:14
Unknown
So thanks for being here today to be here with you. Okay, so let's start out with the positives. Andy, what are the key advantages of using email as a form of business communication and in today's digital landscape? Well, email is really fast. You can reach a mass audience very quickly and it's documented forever. It's a great follow up tool at a conversation or a meeting so that we talked about this before, right?
00:01:14:15 - 00:01:38:15
Unknown
People know what to do when. But it's also a great way to inform people of things that are easy to understand. Right? If it's confusing, though, I wouldn't put it in email. And then, of course, it's a great documentation tool. So now let's flip that question. What are the biggest challenges of email? It's really fast. You can reach a mass audience really quickly and it's documented forever.
00:01:38:16 - 00:01:57:03
Unknown
Literally, the pros are also the cons because once you hit send, yeah, that's gone. But anything that's real complex or difficult to understand, that's just going to make it a difficult concept and then they're going to not get it. You can't watch somebody react. You can't read their body language and if they get it or not, you can read that in someone's face when we're looking at them.
00:01:57:03 - 00:02:20:24
Unknown
You can't get that out of an email. And it is a big one when you're emotional. Right. Be very careful to take a break, get yourself collected and cool, because if you type in your emotional, it's going to come way worse on the other end than even you intend. Sometimes you got to, you know, go take a walk, yell at the trees, whatever you got to do, take a deep breath.
00:02:21:01 - 00:02:40:08
Unknown
But you want to make sure you're careful with those emotional emails because it comes off the way worse than you than you originally intended. And then anything that's not for public consumption or confidential, as we said, email is never gone. Yes. Great point. In addition to that, tone is really difficult to read. You know what? What a cliché.
00:02:40:08 - 00:02:55:18
Unknown
I'm using my mother in law as an example, but when she says I'm fine, she's fine. When she says I'm fine, I don't know what I'm going to find out later, but it's going to be a while. Yes. Before she reveals that, Right. Well, you can hear that in someone's tone. You can't read it very well in an email.
00:02:55:20 - 00:03:26:12
Unknown
And so that's also a problem. And then even the mechanics. I had a woman I worked with years ago who had a she was really into grammar to be in the grammar police, and she had a really funny sign on her desk that said, I'm silently judging your grammar in my head, and these make me chuckle. But even something as silly as, you know, using a colon instead of a semicolon or a comma after your greeting, that's supposed to be the business way to do it.
00:03:26:12 - 00:03:45:22
Unknown
I couldn't care less. I'm not the grammar police. But you know, something that like that simple could set your email sideways. And then also the design really matters. We've probably all seen somebody as a very stylized background, and because of it, it's really hard to read. Sometimes you please a whole block of text and it just, yeah, your eye doesn't know where to stop.
00:03:45:24 - 00:04:05:14
Unknown
And so there's lots of things that can go wrong with it, even though it's a wonderful tool and use. Well, yes, I'm like picturing now the worst emails I've ever gotten or written, but I feel like I all I'm like an emoji person. So in my emails I will always add an emoji to help with tone so that they know like, Hey, I'm not meaning this in a bad way.
00:04:05:14 - 00:04:29:24
Unknown
And that's good. Emoticons are invented for then. Is it a smart alec smiley face or a happy smiley face? And how professional is that? Right? So you've got to know your audience when you're sending that out. Yeah, but that is the purpose, right? To add tone to text. And that's, that's not soft serve. Sophie So what examples do you have on when tone was maybe misinterpreted with email?
00:04:30:01 - 00:04:49:03
Unknown
I've got a funny one from several years ago. I had a participant in one of my classes and we were talking about how difficult tone is to read. And I was in in Chicago, and I remember as we're discussing that she kind of starts laughing and she says, Well, I've got kind of an embarrassing one that just happened to me.
00:04:49:03 - 00:05:08:19
Unknown
And I said, Well, you comfortable sharing? And she said, Sure. And she said, And folks, this is not necessarily the people at your company. But she said, my my I.T. guy is kind of the stereotype on Saturday Night Live or makes me feel bad for doing his job because over in like, click, click, click. It really? Yeah. Did you even plug it in that guy?
00:05:08:19 - 00:05:27:20
Unknown
Right. So she's like you. It's alter the computer kind of thing. That was her relationship with him. And so there was a vulnerability. There was a virus going around, and he wanted to save some time. And this was many years ago. And I remember when I was in the IT industry years ago, these are called the sneaker netting because the I.T.
00:05:27:20 - 00:05:41:10
Unknown
Staff would put their sneakers on and run from computer to computer. This is before I had all these things behind the wall. They could just fix it. Yeah, well, he sends out an email because he's going to try and get to each computer, but it's going to take them a while to get to everybody. So he sends out an email.
00:05:41:10 - 00:05:57:04
Unknown
So if they can install this patch to keep them from getting the virus, all the better if they can beat him to it. Right. So he sends out this this email and I'll quote unquote read it to you. It says, hello. There's been a huge virus going around the country. You want to we want to make sure we don't get it.
00:05:57:06 - 00:06:12:01
Unknown
Here are the steps to install the attachment. He did Remember to attach it, by the way. Yeah, that's always a new right here are the steps. And then in bullet points, which I love, right? I want it to be one pane of glass. Bullet point. Bullet point. Bullet point. Bullet point. All of the directions on how to do it.
00:06:12:03 - 00:06:33:08
Unknown
Thank you, Jim. It said please. It said thank you. Should they sprinkle in a little tone? She was so angry after reading that she went running to H.R.. Look what I have to put up with from this jerk. She had it in her hand as she printed it out. Any. Any idea why? It's pretty funny when she realized what had happened.
00:06:33:14 - 00:06:55:15
Unknown
I don't know why, Because, you know, the human resources, the person's looking at the thing and go, What's wrong with it? It's very technical. There's nothing emotional about it. And she read it and she read it. I'll give you a hint. It was just one word. It was at the very beginning. Do you remember how that email started?
00:06:55:17 - 00:07:16:03
Unknown
Hello? Yeah, hello. It's a greeting. Right? So a feeling. Hello. How are you? What's wrong with that? Well, can you think of any other interpretations of Hello? Maybe you've seen the movie Back to the Future. I guess. Hello, McFly. Buddy Holly. She read the entire email as if he was knocking on her head like she was an idiot.
00:07:16:03 - 00:07:35:16
Unknown
Oh, wow. And it wasn't based on one word. Based on one word. We read tone into our messaging, and that's what we're up against. I think it's scary. I also think it's a very funny story that is fun. But wow, right? This is what we're up against. And that's why your idea about the emoticons or any of the emojis.
00:07:35:16 - 00:07:54:24
Unknown
Yeah, that's why we use them. Maybe he needed to add a smiley face. Yeah, I don't know. And then she might have thought as a smart aleck smiley face. So who knows where that would have gone, but. Well, that's what we're up against. So good story. So are there certain situations then we're using email might hinder rather than enhance business communication?
00:07:55:01 - 00:08:11:15
Unknown
Yeah. If anything has to be confidential, don't put it in an email. There is no such thing as a confidential email. Which is funny because there's even a little button you can push that says confidential. It's not defensible in court at all, and anyone in the world who has an email address can have that sent to them. Exactly.
00:08:11:21 - 00:08:33:22
Unknown
We've seen so many examples over the years of people getting in trouble because of email be in ink. It's found even if you you know, there's been stories of people using software like bleach bit to get rid of emails and sure that got it off your server and in your computer, but it's still on the server or the network or the computer, the people you sent it to or the people you sent it to, who sent it to somebody else.
00:08:33:24 - 00:08:54:09
Unknown
And so it really has no no end in mind digging the one forever as long as somebody has an email address. So that is kind of frightening. Don't put it in email if you wouldn't want anybody to read it outside of, you know, normal conversation. It's kind of like the tree falling in the woods, you know, nobody hears it.
00:08:54:09 - 00:09:26:03
Unknown
Did it really make a noise? Well, everybody here's an email because it can be forward to any anyone that has an email address. I also run into different relationship things, right? So once you hit send, as I said, they can change the relationship forever. And so we see people using false urgencies, urgent and exclamation point and red and all caps and all those things can really set people off if it's too long on one hand, too wordy, and then if it's too abrupt, not wordy enough.
00:09:26:05 - 00:09:46:22
Unknown
It's funny how this really can have a lot of problems in typing an email when we're emotional. Really, that can really cause problems because tone is so hard to read. Yeah, it comes off way worse than even we were anticipating. And if we're heated when we write it, it comes off isn't serious. Yeah. Going back to your that emails are not confidential.
00:09:46:24 - 00:10:11:08
Unknown
It's kind of like social media to whatever you put on social media. Don't expect it there forever. Yeah, exactly. It's going to be there forever. It lives forever. But we talked about some of these challenges. How can you overcome them? It's a good question. One of the things we had that podcast, a few podcasts ago, we talked about meetings and I talked about can this meeting be an email if it's something really simple and easy to understand?
00:10:11:10 - 00:10:37:12
Unknown
Well, you can ask the opposite question Should this email be a meeting? Yes. If it's more complex, we better do that right. Emails for simple concepts or to follow up is when it's best, right? So we use. I learned this from my colleague Janet. I love this. She calls it the grandma or judge rule. If you're going to make grandma blush by what's in there or you got to stand in front of a judge, don't put it in an email.
00:10:37:14 - 00:11:00:04
Unknown
And so I think that's that's something to really remember when you're considering what you're what you're hitting send. Yeah, absolutely. Any other scenarios where you should not definitely send an email or I know we talk about here if if you're writing and writing and writing and you can't just quickly send it, you should just pick up the phone and call that person.
00:11:00:06 - 00:11:16:18
Unknown
Yeah. If you have to explain something, it's so much easier just going in person or picking up the phone. I like to call that the three thread rule that if I've sent it, they've replied, I've sent another one. It goes back three times, pick up the clock, pick up the phone and call them if you can see them.
00:11:16:18 - 00:11:41:03
Unknown
Even better yet, go see them face to face. You're just going to pile on the confusion. Yeah, the lack of clarity. The more you try to explain something email, if it's not, if it's not understood. I think everyone here in who's listening can agree that we simply get way too many emails, though. Sure. And that means that a lot of emails can also be missed too, because our inbox is so big.
00:11:41:05 - 00:12:04:06
Unknown
So how can you make your message stand out among the mass amount of emails that we already get? Lots of lots of ways that really, really help. You really want to think of your readers perspective. You know, I tell this joke in class, it's lame. Sara I heard it before, but w I have them in the morning. It's what everyone is listening to.
00:12:04:07 - 00:12:25:22
Unknown
I do my radio voice there, but it really does. It is not a radio station. It's it's what's in it for me is what that stands for. And that joke doesn't work. West of the Mississippi, by the way, everything starts with K. But anyway, we want to put our our tone in our in our message, in their reading perspective right now.
00:12:25:24 - 00:12:43:21
Unknown
How do I want to best send it? It you know it. You've got your message to your head. How will they best receive it so they can act? And so I haven't kind of put myself in their shoes. How does this make sense to them? Yeah. Is there a meaningful and searchable subject line? I encourage people actually to fill that out second to last.
00:12:43:23 - 00:13:00:24
Unknown
People usually type it right away. We'll talk about that in a little bit, but it's actually something that I prefer to do once I've written the whole thing. Because sometimes if I start out with any with a subject line in the email, I could change significantly by the time I've typed it in, by the time it hit send, maybe I need a new subject line any way.
00:13:00:24 - 00:13:20:24
Unknown
I think I want to make sure that it's searchable in case somebody is looking for that in the future. That's easy to find and it's not, you know, just to get their attention. You know what you'd see and you cry wolf because it really wasn't that important. Right. And there's that urgency thing again. Yeah. So that makes me think of like you customize your emails based on different people, too.
00:13:20:24 - 00:13:43:23
Unknown
So I know some people who would just like, want one word in the subject line, No, open it. Or I know another person who would want like a detailed subject line. So it's like it's also funny thinking about the person who you're sending the email to, how it changes. Basically, there used to be people would use it like instant messenger before the thing and would say poem for end of message and everything was in the subject line.
00:13:44:00 - 00:14:04:13
Unknown
Yeah, don't do that anymore. We moved on right now, but that was a thing years ago. One of the things I always suggest is to make sure your message as much as possible is on one pane of glass. And of course, you've got your your surface in the view pane of glass is about this big. What about cell phone?
00:14:04:13 - 00:14:22:13
Unknown
Right. Can can you get it so small that they don't have to endlessly scroll now that's not always possible. Yeah, you need to give them enough information that they can take action but the shorter the better. Yeah. And I even prefer if I can get away with it. Bullet points as opposed endless paragraphs. Right. They're going to scroll and scroll is probably not to get read.
00:14:22:13 - 00:14:48:16
Unknown
Absolutely. Well, we talked about one. You should not send an email or use Email is the best form of communication. So do you have any specific scenarios where email is proven to be the superior choice for professional interactions? It's an awesome follow up tool. I love after a phone call or after a meeting or even a face to face conversation.
00:14:48:18 - 00:15:05:14
Unknown
Here's what we spoke about. Bullet point, bullet point, bullet point so that, you know, the person can take action and we can remember and it's documented, right, So that people can say, Well, you didn't say that or we didn't agree to do that. Well, here's what we agreed upon and that they disagree with it, then we can have that discussion over the follow up email.
00:15:05:14 - 00:15:29:17
Unknown
Yeah, but I think it's a tremendous tool for that. I love that. It is great when you reach a mass audience. Yeah. And so we can do that really quickly, really efficiently. Just be just be really sure that it's ready to go before you hit. Send in with like follow ups. Like you said, the meetings, you can include resources than in the mail to Great idea.
00:15:29:19 - 00:15:55:17
Unknown
Great. Are you one of my favorite things with helping people tailor an email message is to help them understand that if you know the communication style of the person you're emailing that can really help you. Folks that are very analytical want lots and lots of information, folks that are what are often called Thrivers or dominant communication styles. They want it as short as possible, right?
00:15:55:19 - 00:16:15:01
Unknown
Well, how can you how can you make both happy, Right. If you're sending to a mass audience? Right. Well, what I suggest is you have it short, but then have a link is best if you can have a link or second passes an attachment. But you've got to make sure you remember to send it. Yeah, attach it right before you send.
00:16:15:03 - 00:16:33:18
Unknown
We had that oops moment before, right. But then anyone that wants to swim in all that data and information can go to the attachment or go to the link. Yeah. And a person that couldn't care less doesn't have to read all that. Still gets what they need to be able to act on that email. And I think it's really important to remember business email should be actionable, right?
00:16:33:20 - 00:16:56:06
Unknown
It's it's for accomplishing things and so there should be some action tied to it. It can be just to make something clear, to follow up, which I think is also a good tool, but usually following up on something that needs to be acted upon. Yeah, that's a great point. So how does email contribute to effective collaboration, especially when working with remote or international teams?
00:16:56:06 - 00:17:15:05
Unknown
It's a great question, right? Follow up is so critical when you're in different time zones. I mean, it's critical even in the same building. Yeah, but it really helps us to make sure everybody is literally on the same page, is doing the right things at the right time by the due dates. Email makes that really easy and it can be asynchronous.
00:17:15:08 - 00:17:35:22
Unknown
Somebody could open it on the other side of the world and it's instantaneous, right? So that is a really great factor with it. You can add the little at symbol in somebody's name and then you can actually send it to several people, but actually have individual call outs where they have different action items they have to do. And so that can really use it.
00:17:35:22 - 00:17:53:00
Unknown
You can use it that way as a collaboration tool and people can read it when it's most convenient to them, their timeframe, their time zone, Right? Yeah, I just kind of a funny little ad I try to tell people don't put. Good morning. Good evening. Good afternoon. Because you don't know when they're going to read it. It might be that time when you send it.
00:17:53:00 - 00:18:11:11
Unknown
It's just a little awkward. It's not a big deal. But I want I want to make sure that that is your maybe has a greeting because I think that sprinkles in some tone. I like using people's name if I can, or my colleague Cheryl says it's the most beautiful sound to a person's ears. And I say, I say that the way they like to be, call it too.
00:18:11:11 - 00:18:29:13
Unknown
I. Mandy Somebody calls me Andrew. I think somebody is mad at me. So especially Bob Right. But, but yeah, I think that's how we sprinkle in a little tone because it is really hard to read. Yeah. And, and I think it's really considerate when they can read it when they're able to. Yeah. And the email allows for that in a clever way.
00:18:29:15 - 00:19:01:24
Unknown
So how about then some of the other email etiquette rules that people may not know or just generally think of? Great question and there's no Emily Post Guide to email etiquette. There's nothing like that. Yeah, but I think most people will agree on a lot of these because they've just seen it abused so many times and they get irritated when they see this one thing, especially that you just mentioned about international, for example, I want to reflect the formality of my reader.
00:19:02:01 - 00:19:23:20
Unknown
If it's a first time conversation or, you know, email read with somebody in another culture, I probably would start out with Hello, Miss Bowler or Hi Mrs. Bowler. And I'd Hey, Sophie. Right? It just it it's not as professional. But if they are, if they then reflect back a more casual tone, then I think that that's a good place to start.
00:19:23:22 - 00:19:44:05
Unknown
Limit those emoticons in those emojis that we talked about, you know, is it professional here? It's okay if you've got that type of relationship and they know you. But here's the biggest one for me as far as etiquette. We've got to watch out for that reply to all button. I am so tired of somebody saying we're ordering from cousin's subs.
00:19:44:05 - 00:20:06:12
Unknown
What do you want? And somebody replies to, Oh, I'll have the turkey with extra mail. I don't care. I didn't ask. Raised me up this way. So we reply to all and everybody needs to know. Well in there's like emails where people are like just reply to me and then it's like implied all Hi, I got to give some people some grace on this.
00:20:06:12 - 00:20:25:23
Unknown
I understand that there's certain phones that if people reply from their phone it automatically replies to all, Well then we should talk to that company and get them to fix that. But that's beside the point. So then assume good intent that they didn't mean to send that to everybody. But good gracious, I don't care about your turkey sandwich if I didn't have.
00:20:25:23 - 00:20:52:00
Unknown
I'm not taking the order. So now, looking ahead with the rise of AI in automation, how do you really first see the evolution of emails of role in in business overall? Yeah, that's a that's an that's an interesting one. Now, I think we're going to not know whether it's a human being there or of a AI writing us on one hand, but I think it'll be even easier to find what we're looking for.
00:20:52:02 - 00:21:13:18
Unknown
Even if somebody does a poor job in the subject line or the message, if you needed six months later, what did that person say? What do I need to know? I think that'll help us find those types of things. The it's still the Wild West. We're going to we're going to find out. But I think those things maybe could be some advantages in AI can help craft an email or help you create an email template.
00:21:13:18 - 00:21:42:10
Unknown
So before we close out the episode, what is one more thing that you want listeners to remember about email? I mentioned a moment ago that we should fill out this subject line second to last writing. We don't really know what the message is going to say until we typed it, right. Sure. Well, I'm pretty passionate about this and I wish I could petition Microsoft to change this because you should fill out the to the CC in the back fields last.
00:21:42:12 - 00:22:01:21
Unknown
And why do you think that is? Because you might forget. I don't know. You might forget that a certain group has to be included or a certain person. So that's definitely true. Maybe I'm missing somebody in those fields if I if I do it too quickly in it. Because again, I don't know what I've type, but I can't send it anywhere.
00:22:01:23 - 00:22:18:02
Unknown
Oh, if there's nothing there, I can't accidentally go oops. And should keep going on out and so I would love to petition Microsoft because it's in the upper left hand corner of your screen, Right. I want to have them put it in the lower right, because when you were in kindergarten, what did your teacher drill into your head?
00:22:18:02 - 00:22:37:09
Unknown
Always put your name at the top, right? And where did you put it? In the upper left hand corner because we read left to right. Well, what do people do First? They put your dress in there. Well, it's the worst thing you can do, because if something's not ready, you can't even accidentally hit send. Now, your question about I don't know, because now they might be monitoring your keystrokes so you still could get in trouble.
00:22:37:09 - 00:22:55:24
Unknown
So watch out for those nasty grams. Right. Because some people will do that to get the emotion out when they're mad and they get delete. Maybe we don't even do that anymore. Maybe find a new way to vent your vent your frustrations. But that's a good right and not send it if there's nowhere for Yes. And sure, a lot of people would appreciate that change.
00:22:56:01 - 00:23:13:00
Unknown
Yeah. And I'm so careful with that, especially if it's something more sensitive. Yeah, I will. If it's a reply, it puts it in there immediately. Right? If it's a forward, it puts it in there immediately. I will cut and paste it somewhere else and bring it back when I'm done. If I'm worried that could accidentally hit, save, send too quickly.
00:23:13:00 - 00:23:35:22
Unknown
Yeah, that's a great idea. So if our audience would like to learn anything else about email etiquette, do you have any recommendations for anything else Emery can offer? So we have a great class and of course I think it's great I teach it, but it's called date. It's called business Email How to write it, Right? And it's a terrific class.
00:23:35:22 - 00:24:08:17
Unknown
It's a half day and we basically focus on the things we we talked about today with a much deeper dive. In addition to that, we have an even more robust class. It's business writing and all the stuff that's in the email class is also within that class. But then we get best practices for letters and text messages and emails and even how to make the tone come through better and all those types of things because we have a full day to really address lots of business writing issues because it is just so hard to read tone in any type of textual message.
00:24:08:23 - 00:24:26:22
Unknown
Well, we will make sure to link those two classes in the show notes below. So if you're interested, you can just take a look the show notes below and and register and have Andy as a teacher. Yeah, I'd love to see you in class or Andy. That's all the time we have today. But I want to thank you for all the great content and tips that you gave us.
00:24:26:24 - 00:24:45:01
Unknown
I think I will now think about this episode every time I debate sending an email, and I hope you do too. But to our listeners, if you liked our chat and topic today, I would urge you to come in any any tips you have here on email, best practices, or just anything that you want to add on to our conversation.
00:24:45:03 - 00:25:07:00
Unknown
Don't forget to share this episode out and consider joining MRA if you aren't a member already. Like I said, we have all the resources you need in the show. Notes below include including resources on this topic too. So thanks for tuning in today and we'll see you next week. And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign up to connect.
00:25:07:00 - 00:25:22:04
Unknown
For more podcast updates, check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minutes Thrive so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

26 min

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