Talent Report+THRIVE

By MRA - The Management AssociationBusiness Management Non-Profit

Talent Report+THRIVE episodes

October 04, 2023 Engage Your Team With Employee-designed Learning: Part 2
Description: In part 2 of this episode, we delve even deeper into the transformative world of employee-driven learning journeys. Join us as we address the crucial challenges organizations may encounter when implementing this approach and reveal expert insights on overcoming them. Plus, we'll take a fascinating peek into the future of employee development, exploring emerging trends and innovations that promise to reshape the landscape of professional growth and learning within your organization. Don't miss this essential follow-up episode for answers to the remaining key questions and get a complete roadmap to success!
Resources:
Amanda's Article in Association for Talent Development's TD Magazine
MRA Learning & Development
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.
00:00:03:14 - 00:00:24:17
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.
00:00:24:19 - 00:00:49:18
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. All right, Well, welcome, everybody, to part two of our employee Design learning conversation. So I'm joined with Amanda Mosteller, our director of talent development here at MRA, once again to cover some remaining key questions of this topic to really ensure that you are confident in implementing this style of learning into your organizations. So thanks again, Amanda, for joining us.
00:00:49:19 - 00:01:12:11
Unknown
We're excited for part two. Yes, I love talking about this. Oh, yes. Well, last episode, you kind of gave us an overview of this concept as well as some examples and some strategies to use while using employee design learning. So before we kind of kick it off, do you want to give us a little refresher of what this concept really means?
00:01:12:13 - 00:01:56:13
Unknown
Absolutely. Employee designed learning is an instructional design approach that organizations can use where the instructional designer actually moves into more of a consultant role to a team of employees that have volunteered due to a passion of their own around developing their peers due to a desire that if they, their peers and their future individuals in their team are going to be going through this learning program, they have a desire to help shape what it looks like, and they have a perspective that often stakeholders and means might not be heading in what the true day to day of the average team member in that role is like.
00:01:56:15 - 00:02:39:12
Unknown
So they can really help shape the design and development of the program. So employee designed learning is an instructional design approach where the idea team member is consulting a team of employees in designing classes to Thrive business strategy or the team strategy or the Gap area forward. And I would definitely encourage listeners if they haven't listened to part one, to go back now and kind of get that overview of this concept, because Amanda also highlights some great examples in real life stories of how she's kind of how to implement this in other organizations and some great success stories.
00:02:39:12 - 00:03:05:10
Unknown
So I would urge you to go take a look at that. If you haven't, I second that for sure. We'll kind of dive in a little bit deeper. One concern might be that employee design learning could lack structure or consistency. So any advice on how organizations can really balance that individual customization with the need for the standardized learning outcomes?
00:03:05:12 - 00:03:35:22
Unknown
Absolutely. That is where the instructional designer really is in charge and taking the lead. So the Learning committee, the learning team, the design team, whatever fun word you want to call your employee design group of individuals, the instructional designer has to make sure you're following instructional design best practices, whether Addie makes sense, whether the SAM design model makes more sense, whether you're doing a agile approach, which is part of Sam.
00:03:35:22 - 00:04:10:05
Unknown
But additional waterfall approaches can apply whether you're doing, you know, quick brief stand up meetings for design on specific objectives. Whatever the strategy of design is that the instructional designer feels makes the most sense, They need to own driving that and helping the employee team learn what the design process looks like. Additionally, the stakeholders do have a part to play here, so this isn't a employees are just designing what they think would be neat.
00:04:10:05 - 00:04:33:10
Unknown
The the process starts off as we talked about in the last episode with the designer, the instructional designer talking with the stakeholders about what we're trying to accomplish, what strategy are we trying to Thrive? What skills do your team members need to help you get there, or what gaps are we trying to close and what objectives are we creating to help get there?
00:04:33:10 - 00:05:11:13
Unknown
So understanding the need is going to help the instructional designer Thrive the team in the right approach. Then they're responsible as part of that consulting piece in making sure we're following industry best practices in terms of what design approach fits, what type of program we're building, our timeline, how big it is, things like that. You can really run into a risk of things running wild if you put all the power in the design committee's hands, because that's not their expertise area.
00:05:11:13 - 00:05:33:02
Unknown
Their expertise is the job role. Their expertise is the day to day. Their expertise is what to expect and what their own gaps are and how the organization has helped in the past or opportunities as an organization to Thrive development in these areas that haven't been there. And the instructional designer is the expert in the in the IDE approach process strategies.
00:05:33:02 - 00:06:05:21
Unknown
And then they're actually developing the materials too. So they again, they aren't they're just a consultant. They also when the when we get to PowerPoint or whatever, you know, neat visuals you are making to go along with the program, when you get to a worksheets, when you get to takeaways, the designer is also playing the heavy role of building and creating those pieces with the employee group helping guide and make sure it's what it should look like.
00:06:05:21 - 00:06:30:02
Unknown
Make sure it's meeting what the vision was, those kinds of things. So the designer has a very pivotal role in ensuring there is some structure and a method to whatever madness they've created. So it sounds like it's it's very much a team effort and an all hands on deck kind of thing. Yes. And that's part of how this is different than an instructional designer owning the project.
00:06:30:05 - 00:06:59:10
Unknown
Talking to me is maybe one, two, three me interviews to really get some information and then sending it back saying, right, because in the traditional approach, the instructional designer is doing a massive amount of the heavy lifting and, and they now have this group of employees that are really invested in a different way than your typical SME who's been tapped, who's told, you really know how to do this, we want you to help.
00:06:59:10 - 00:07:21:15
Unknown
And they might not have time or a desire or a passion. And so their investment is different and that falls on the instructional designer to bridge that investment gap. This approach, the investment is almost the instructional designer saying, hold on, I know you really want to be hands on, but let me take this one, Mark. But you're suggesting there's no objective in the world that's going to meet that.
00:07:21:15 - 00:07:46:02
Unknown
And I don't know how to design something to meet this non-existent objective. So that's part of that role. Well, we just talked about that. The concern might be the lack of structure or consistency, but do you have any other potential challenges or pitfalls that organizations might encounter with employee design learning initiatives, or any advice on how to overcome them?
00:07:46:04 - 00:08:11:16
Unknown
Yes, I can think of two big ones that I've run into in the past. One is the famous phrase too many cooks in the kitchen. So sometimes you have a lot of employees volunteering, and their motivations behind volunteering might not be just passion and desire and a like to help develop their peers. Maybe they perceive it as getting out of their day to day job.
00:08:11:18 - 00:09:04:18
Unknown
So really refining the expectations of the committee to make sure it's understood partnering with the leadership teams of the employees to make sure the people that are volunteering, they also think should or would be good at helping design. Or they do have a knowledge that they would love to replicate and have future individuals coming into that role do it that way as well, and really coming up with how many folks are the right amount of folks Instead of we'll just take anyone that volunteers because you can get way too many opinions and way too many competing ideas for what a great exercise could be or what should be a structured learning experience versus what should
00:09:04:18 - 00:09:33:00
Unknown
we point folks towards blog articles or podcasts or YouTube channels to watch. If you have too many opinions involved, you will have a frustrated team, potentially an instructional designer who is struggling to manage, said team and the program can go awry and then it doesn't get the buy in from the stakeholders. That was the whole purpose in the first place.
00:09:33:02 - 00:09:56:24
Unknown
So that's one that I can think of. And the other one I kind of alluded to of that. First of what someone's motivation to joining, we have to be crystal clear that this is a stretch assignment, an experiential learning opportunity, a volunteer opportunity. This does not abdicate team members from their day to day expectations of their roles as well.
00:09:56:24 - 00:10:22:18
Unknown
This is a volunteered in addition to so really figuring out one is what is your employee base. If you have hourly employees, for example, then we have to find a way to involve them in this design during their shift. Or is the company so invested in this approach for a very important program that really will be key in driving us to our strategy?
00:10:22:20 - 00:10:47:20
Unknown
And so are we willing to pay overtime for the hours for those folks that join? So thinking about the expectations and how we get the employees involved and help depending on hourly salary is another thing to pay attention to, because of course, legally we we're asking them, even though it's voluntary, we're asking them to participate in something. So we need to pay them for it.
00:10:47:22 - 00:11:12:24
Unknown
And then additionally, even if I'm salaried, we have job expectations, productivity, goals, deadlines, our own things that we have to meet in our day to day is as well. So just being very clear with with the team members that volunteer, here's the expectations around what it means to be a part of this committee to Thrive designing a learning program.
00:11:13:01 - 00:11:40:07
Unknown
But you also will still be expected to get all of your day to day work done as well. So this is not abdicating or in place of the regular expectations of your job. So those are some watch outs to many folks, making sure that we're focused on who is volunteering and the instructional designer. You know, they might not be as involved in understanding shifts and hourly versus salary and all all of who's volunteering.
00:11:40:07 - 00:12:11:04
Unknown
So making sure there are some controls or really clear partnership with the managers of these teams so that you have the right number of folks helping the managers understand this is a development opportunity, so it's great for folks to volunteer. We will not be taking away from what their productivity is going to be to your team. We're just helping add to the value and benefit of the program, the expertise in the information that we're sharing and investment in your employees.
00:12:11:04 - 00:12:44:11
Unknown
They like that. So let's allow them if they're ready. But those are some of those big watch outs that best practices are, of course, your usual right. Are you really clear in what it is and communicate it well after talking about some of these watch jobs, feel like we got to get on more of a positive note. So I think I think some of our listeners would be curious to know in what ways does employee design learning contribute to employee engagement and motivation and just overall job satisfaction?
00:12:44:13 - 00:13:15:24
Unknown
I think they'd also want to know if there's any specific metrics or just indicators that they can use to measure these outcomes. Absolutely. So there's a few things to think about. One, you get feedback, especially in the in the talent development space in the L.A. world around do the programs feel like they fit my job and are they clear in my expectation and and so am I going to be able to apply this in my future.
00:13:16:01 - 00:13:47:07
Unknown
So from an overall team perspective, employees feel more impacted by the programs when it's more than just I talked to the one super high performer as ask me, I really had my peers help design this. I really am new to the organization and realizing that I'm working side by side with some of the people that helped build the 30, 60, 90 day onboarding, learn my job role experiences and classes and programs that I'm going through.
00:13:47:09 - 00:14:08:21
Unknown
And man, they really did a good job because it is real on on applicable to my job as I walk out of the class kind of stuff. So this really helps enhance what instructional designers know our best practice in terms of adult learning theory. How are we able to immediately apply what we're learning to our job? That's what we care about.
00:14:08:23 - 00:14:44:04
Unknown
It's don't waste my time. And so overall, you're going to have satisfaction there from a folks that are volunteering to be a part of this program and are are allowed to do it. They are finding a way to shine in their expertise. Show highlight what they know to their leadership, to their peers, because at the end of the day, we know we have emerging leaders, we know we have folks within our teams that really do have a lot to share and a lot to develop.
00:14:44:06 - 00:15:11:09
Unknown
There's only so many things we can make and do for people. We can't create jobs just to keep somebody around. So doing something like this allows people to step out of their normal day to day, demonstrate their expertise, practice being in an influence without authority, space practice, you know, communicating and driving change, which is what a lot of folks move into leadership.
00:15:11:15 - 00:15:35:21
Unknown
When I talk to a lot of new leaders and I say, Why are you here? I hear over and over and over again, I wanted to have a seat at the table to help Thrive the change that my team kept experiencing. I wanted to be able to impact it. And so this is another way for folks that don't have that position yet or don't really want that level of authority and therefore responsibility.
00:15:35:21 - 00:16:05:01
Unknown
But they do want to help Thrive, change, help Thrive what they and their peers are being impacted by. And so from an engagement and retention perspective, something like this, you're building anyway, you have to build it anyway. The organization's going to build a program towards this anyway, so why not tap on those folks, have them step in and help in a different, much more involved way and feel like they're getting that impact.
00:16:05:03 - 00:16:47:23
Unknown
They're flexing their muscles. It's a great experiential learning and stretch assignment approach and we know that people are looking for that. Absolutely. Are there any other I know we talked about just how this can contribute to employee engagement and motivation, but any other specific metrics or indicators that you can really take away from those? Sure. So often when you think from a learning program perspective, because because it's not just the volunteers on the committee, we're really looking when we do program surveys is it's so easy to get to.
00:16:48:02 - 00:17:11:04
Unknown
I have my instructional design hat on today is I'm thinking of all the the Bloom's taxonomy and Kirkpatrick's evaluation levels. It is so easy to get one and two for the evaluation level. One is the session itself. Did you like it? Was it helpful? And often if people like the facilitator, they'll rate things like because they like the person.
00:17:11:06 - 00:17:42:08
Unknown
So that's great. That helps me know a little bit. Then level two is are you getting that knowledge growth? Are you demonstrating it whether we do it through pre and post assessments or role plays or different exercises within the sessions or within the experiences themselves to demonstrate that knowledge gain? That's that's pretty simple to do as well. Three and four gets harder so level three and then if you're in the new age.
00:17:42:08 - 00:18:07:17
Unknown
Kirkpatrick World there's a level five, but going with the traditional level three is that transfer onto the job. So often we do something like a three month assessment back out to attendees of a program, and you would say, Are you finding you're using what we've learned, what you've learned, How has it helped? How has it changed? Give us some examples.
00:18:07:19 - 00:18:30:16
Unknown
So it's one way or we have touch base conversations. As a manager, I might have an intentional. My company has created kind of a coaching sheet in three months post session and then six months post session. I might ask some fun, some questions, or as an organization you might pull a three month or six month or both learning cohort touch base back together.
00:18:30:20 - 00:18:56:03
Unknown
Or we're talking about how is it working. Any one of those metrics strategies is a way to gather the information. And what we found, especially in the sales example when I was doing this at that international company was the program, because we did that regularly with big programs. I mean, they were investing my whole time for a year at a time would be towards a certain program.
00:18:56:03 - 00:19:34:13
Unknown
So we needed to have metrics to prove my salary was beneficial. Right? So we would, you know, yeah, it was helpful. These things were great. We felt like this these examples didn't really match what it was like. Once I got out into the sales field, once I was talking to customers and selling this stuff, and after we used this approach for the big multilevel multi-year development program, part of this big succession planning strategy, we found that those conversations and satisfaction in those 90 and six month touch bases went up.
00:19:34:15 - 00:20:02:20
Unknown
The examples were much more realistic. The situations that we would practice talking to customer rebuttals were much more realistic. They weren't standard things that I was able to find. That as me would say, Yeah, that work we needs were very real scenarios that the Learning Committee had gone through and helped us design and then helped us come through not only best practices but what made sense at that organization's culture.
00:20:02:22 - 00:20:32:24
Unknown
So very real. And that started to come out in those Level three evaluation checks. Level four is going to be a training department's bane of existence. It's kind of being the instructional designers hardest because you're talking ROI. I of show me your investment matters and that that could be in so many different metrics, especially depending on what the learning program is that you're building.
00:20:33:01 - 00:21:08:15
Unknown
If I'm building sales strategies around a new product, I can tell what were our pre program close rates versus our three months, six month a year later program closed rates for individuals that went through the program. We can compare apples to apples that way. If you're doing something more soft skill, though, I would recommend engaging in utilizing a balanced scorecard approach where financial numbers that you or any type of data metrics is only one component of what you're looking at.
00:21:08:21 - 00:21:43:07
Unknown
You're also pulling source information from those level three evaluations. You're looking at retention numbers, you're looking at external or internal customer impact satisfaction numbers. So you can pull a lot of different data pre and post to determine did this overall make sense for the financial investment, even if it's just our employees time and our full time training departments, instructional designers time to make that program makes sense.
00:21:43:09 - 00:22:04:24
Unknown
That works really well for soft skill development, especially when it is a big time investment. We're talking not because any leader is going to say, I want 16 objectives and I'm going to give you about 4 hours of my team's time, wants to meet it and every instruction designer is going to shake their head because that's not possible.
00:22:05:01 - 00:22:31:19
Unknown
And so if we can use the learning Committee to advocate to meet your needs in what's feasible, and then we can show you real ROI through a balanced scorecard approach of whatever four things we want to pull. To have those pieces make sense. Then you're really proof is in the pudding that this is worth being scalable, replicable, and having your folks spend the time.
00:22:31:21 - 00:22:57:18
Unknown
Yeah, those are those are all good examples of what metrics and indicators you can use and kind of take note of to see if you're successful. But we've also emphasized that team effort component and the importance of just having an all hands on deck with this. So we know that collaboration and communication are critical in successful instructional design.
00:22:57:20 - 00:23:26:17
Unknown
So my question is how can organizations foster collaboration between the employees? The subject matter expert is meis and instructional designers. In the process of creating these personalized learning experiences. So as you're going through the design process, there's going to be natural points where the committee is going to have to go gather some more information and bring it back to the next project meeting.
00:23:26:17 - 00:23:59:09
Unknown
So it really varies by how large the project is, how many programs you're creating. When I was creating the three year sales succession development program, after we got the buy in from the stakeholders of the design plan. So we followed the ADDIE model. So I won't talk to everybody. I got all of the needs analysis complete, got our volunteers, we set our expectations and then we came up with what makes sense to get us to these things.
00:23:59:09 - 00:24:27:11
Unknown
It was a big combination of live instructor led experiences, some on demand experiences. We created an intentional internal only podcast to develop selling through stories. So that was an opportunity that we wanted to grow, but we just really didn't feel like it made sense to teach a class about it and then we had some specific blogs and things that we were encouraging folks to subscribe to for certain ideas.
00:24:27:13 - 00:24:50:15
Unknown
So once we came up with that design, then it became creating who's owning which piece. So the instructional designers working with all of you to get it all done. Obviously we're working more heavily with our live instructor led things that we were building on demand. We had opportunities to source off the shelf type of experiences that made sense.
00:24:50:15 - 00:25:17:08
Unknown
So I helped with that group. But each of these small teams, then they went out and worked with everybody else. They went out and got some ideas. So if I had some volunteers from the committee say, We want to own the Self-Guided Self-paced Resource repository, which has your blogs, your articles, your books, you'd suggest to read different things, to listen to different YouTube channels, to go follow.
00:25:17:10 - 00:25:39:08
Unknown
They had ideas. They don't know every single thing out there. So they were walking around talking to their own internal network, so their own peers catching up with means and really connecting also externally like they had, you know, colleagues and peers of networks that worked in other companies that were like, Oh yeah, we're really big on this book, or we talk about this a lot.
00:25:39:08 - 00:26:06:14
Unknown
And they were bringing all of that together. So once you're getting into the development stage of instructional design, that's when it becomes just this huge partnership with anybody and everybody that has the resources and information to share. So they have to work very well together and have that good collaboration. And that's why that's such a great point, Sam, because that is why you're just taps me.
00:26:06:14 - 00:26:38:07
Unknown
Might not be the right person because I don't know how many smiles you can I've connected with since me, and some of them are fantastic and some of them are like, I'll give you 45 minutes once. And I'm like, okay, so they're not all they're not all known for being amazing collaborators, but so you might be a great information resource that one of our learning committee employees will reach out to and they will talk to you for that 145 minutes, you'll get us for sure.
00:26:38:09 - 00:27:00:21
Unknown
We'll kind of wrapping up here. Let's look into the future a little bit. That's a landscape of work. Definitely continues to evolve. How do you envision the future of employee design learning and its impact on professional development and any trends that you think that our listeners kind of need to be prepared to embrace or organizations need to be aware of now?
00:27:00:23 - 00:27:40:10
Unknown
Yeah, so I see it growing because I see it as an engagement strategy. I see organizations recognizing you have a lot of resources within your own internal current talent pool that can help you create very on target impactful programs. You do not need necessarily an entire specialized team for just that. You need some really strong internal consultants that know instructional design, know what's best practice, can really keep their finger on the pulse, and then engage your employee base.
00:27:40:10 - 00:28:15:00
Unknown
I mean, you have a lot of talent and a lot of knowledge just hanging out, working every day. So I really do see it growing because I see organizations needing to get more creative and more inventive and what engagement looks like. Engagement doesn't just have to be now. It should include, but does not just have to be the social aspect, the connectivity aspect, having swag and having great recognition and rewards programs, we have to do other things to foster everybody's thirst to continue to grow.
00:28:15:02 - 00:28:37:12
Unknown
And to your point on trends, we know we knew this in 2019. Gartner had a big research about employee engagement, and they came out with the data around how my own organization doesn't develop me, and yet I'm looking for it. I don't remember the percentage. I don't want to be wrong, so I'm not going to make one up.
00:28:37:14 - 00:29:03:13
Unknown
But the research was high in that employees continue to look to their organizations to develop their career. They're no longer doing that on their own. It's becoming an expectation of the organization. And so organizations are we've already done tuition reimbursement. We've we've already done development programs. What else could we possibly do? And this is another thing to do this this can help develop lots of skills for people.
00:29:03:18 - 00:29:48:03
Unknown
And that's really what people are wanting. They're wanting skill development. They don't want another I mean, who doesn't want another certification? But that doesn't have to be a big investment like that. This can meet that and the other future trend. Hold on to your hats. Everybody is internal employee influencers and new ideas that will internal employee influencers. So as the younger Gen Zs start to enter the workforce now and five years from now, Gen Alpha's elders will start to pop in to full time work capability.
00:29:48:05 - 00:30:19:22
Unknown
This is these are generations shaped by getting their knowledge from a person they trust through, not because their job role says you should trust them. So they're looking for If I want to grow in marketing, it's like taking mentoring to the next level and having an internal person who you would love to share their expertise and their knowledge with everybody, and they want it less and less produced and less and less fancy.
00:30:19:22 - 00:30:56:24
Unknown
So we're talking selfie videos posted on your Internet site around Here's my top to top tip Tuesday. You do things like that that's that's what and I mean talk about employee designed get your employees involved tell them the goal and let them run with it. You'd be amazed what they can do. You'd be amazed that it's for free, amazed at that really how impactful it's going to be and how much, as you think about recruiting, engaging and retaining the next generation, there's a there's a lot a lot going down in that world.
00:30:56:24 - 00:31:21:10
Unknown
And I think that's going to be the future and we'll be talking pretty soon on. General, coming up. So shameless plug, another plug that wasn't even on purpose this time. Oh, well, I want to thank you for coming on the podcast again and share your expertise on this topic with us for part two. Absolutely. Thank you for asking me back.
00:31:21:12 - 00:31:39:11
Unknown
Of course, Bill, to our listeners, if you liked our chat and topic today, I'd urge you to comment something new you learn today and any questions you may have for me, I'm sure should be happy to connect with you or just anything you really want to add on to this conversation. We're curious to hear your thoughts on it.
00:31:39:13 - 00:32:02:00
Unknown
Don't forget to share this episode out and consider joining MRA if you aren't a member already. Like always, we have all the resources in the show notes below, including resources on this topic today. Otherwise, thank you so much for tuning in 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.
00:32:02:00 - 00:32:17:03
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.

33 min
September 27, 2023 Insights from MRA’s 2023 CompTrends Event
Description: Every year, MRA conducts a compensation study to look at compensation and pay, from strategy to pay adjustments to market data to putting it all together with communication and transparency. In addition to publishing the survey results we also offer a webinar to talk about the results and share current trends and data.
Our podcast listeners are getting a special look at the survey data, as well as the opportunity to hear from MRA's experts and their takeaways from the webinar and questions that were asked.
Resources:
Salary Data Aging Calculator
2023 Compensation Trends Survey
2023 Compensation Trends Survey Executive Summary
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Guest Bio - Mackenzie Button
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Mackenzie Button
Guest Bio - Melissa Wymer
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Melissa Wymer
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 - 00:00:55:00
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Well, hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of 30 Minute Thrive. Today we're here to talk about compensation trends. So every year MRA conducts a compensation study to look at compensation and pay. From strategy to pay. Adjustments to market data, to putting it all together with communication and transparency. And in addition to publishing the survey results, we also offer a webinar to talk about these results and share current trends and data, which we just got done.
00:00:55:02 - 00:01:17:23
Unknown
So today our podcast listeners are getting kind of a special behind the scenes look at the survey data, as well as the opportunity to hear from two compensation experts and their takeaways from the webinar and also questions that they were asked today. So let me introduce you to our experts, Mackenzie Button, MRA's Total Rewards director, and Melissa Wymer.
00:01:18:01 - 00:01:45:23
Unknown
Our surveys manager at MRA. So thank you to you too, for joining me today. Thanks for having us. Well, let's just dive right in into the first question. So we actually conducted a poll on social media right before this com trends webinar. And we asked organizations, what are your top concerns surrounding compensations and its trends? And we actually got 53% to say that their top concern was on compensation strategy.
00:01:46:00 - 00:02:05:13
Unknown
So first, let's kind of talk a little bit about compensation strategy. Mackenzie, can you define what is a good strategy? Sure. So it's kind of funny that the 53% said that that was their top concern because I think Melissa knows from the comp trend survey that that was probably about the number that said they actually had a strategy.
00:02:05:14 - 00:02:39:03
Unknown
Really? Yeah. So we did see about half to respondents saying they had an actual compensation strategy. So first thing is to know that one might need to exist. And then when we work through our different projects and helping people figure out what a strategy might be, we want to look at things like your market position, how you internally value your jobs, figure out things for geography if it matters or not to your organization, internal or external equity, you know, frequency of updates and and figuring out how those things align when you know how often you want to do things.
00:02:39:05 - 00:03:08:00
Unknown
So having a strategy has all those different steps in it, and you want to have it aligned with leadership too. So understanding across the organization what strategy might be and how it might impact your organization's overall strategy for sure. Kind of diving a little deeper into that question, what impact does getting your compensation right have for employers? So I think it is it can do a lot of different things for an organization.
00:03:08:02 - 00:03:30:22
Unknown
So you can get the right candidates for your group with the right amount of money. It doesn't necessarily necessarily have to be above or below market, but having a good package that you put together does might not scare people away. And then it also can help retain, retain your or your employees and help them, you know, be successful and be motivated to to help your organization thrive.
00:03:31:01 - 00:03:57:08
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. Good answer. So MRA conducts this annual compensation trend survey, as we said about this time of year to help employers start planning for the year ahead. So, Melissa, I'm curious regarding the survey itself, was there anything that really surprised you with any of the data or results? Actually, no. Well, we had the results from a nature perspective, and I was not shocked by the results.
00:03:57:09 - 00:04:21:15
Unknown
You know, pay transparency, continues to be a hot topic. Some of our respondents have pay strategies. Some do not. It is interesting to see how this all plays out. Yeah, absolutely. So, McKenzie, I know you've done this for a couple of years now, this event. So I'm curious to know how the competition trends have kind of evolved in recent years.
00:04:21:17 - 00:04:43:06
Unknown
Sure. So I think a couple of years ago, we tried to have a title called Something along the Lines of the Power of Pay Transparency. I think we might have used it a year recently, more recent than that, but that's something. Pay transparency was an anomaly for a very long time. I mean, people in the public sector or using public funds often would see some pay transparency within their ranges.
00:04:43:06 - 00:05:07:00
Unknown
People might know what's going on, but now it's way more in the forefront. So yeah, Melissa saw it in her data from the survey that people are becoming more open, organizations are more open to pay transparent and see, and then employers are having to react to that. So if you have pay transparency, you have to have typically a range or something to anchor your jobs to and not just the person.
00:05:07:02 - 00:05:23:14
Unknown
So we we still hear organizations say, you know, we ask them, how do you determine how much to pay someone? And they say, well, we looked at how much the last person made. And, you know, we try to align it with the last person in the job versus looking at it from a market perspective for a job versus a person.
00:05:23:15 - 00:05:51:19
Unknown
So pay transparency is making people do a lot of things differently. And I think it's good for organizations to get their strategies aligned. Absolutely. Well, getting some data out there, some numbers out there, according to this, your survey. 95% of respondents gave pay increases in the last 12 months and respondents who provided increases over the last 12 months reported issuing an average 4.5% increase, which seems like a pretty large increase.
00:05:51:19 - 00:06:21:13
Unknown
So I guess the question everyone and our listeners are probably wondering is what can we expect for next year, that percentage? Yes. So we did see pretty much an outrageous amount given COVID. And you were still dealing with the effects of COVID and we're retaining talent, but also recruiting because remote work really is the way to go. And so we have to find ways to incentivize them to come to the office.
00:06:21:15 - 00:06:48:09
Unknown
So we're expecting, because the economy is stabilizing a little bit more, we are expecting it to lower down to 3.8%, which is actually the current national average them. So with that being said, the 4% is actually not as outrageous compared to other sources that we use. So like world of Work is around 4%. Wells Tower, Watts is around 4%.
00:06:48:09 - 00:07:15:06
Unknown
And then one of our other companies that we look at is actually closer to the 3.8%. Gotcha. Okay. Can I add something to that? So when we talk about it in our compensation roundtable this month, we were talking about how the survey's last year, I think everyone predicted their budgets were going to be around 4%, maybe 3.8%. And but what they really did was at 4.5%.
00:07:15:06 - 00:07:29:22
Unknown
So people weren't able to stick to their budgets. They gave a little bit more than what they were planning on. So this year, seeing that the numbers are still up around the same, we'll see if people are able to you know, organizations need to give a little bit more outside of their predicted budgets for the year to year.
00:07:29:24 - 00:07:54:05
Unknown
The days of 3% increases are long over. I mean, not that they were that great back prior to COVID, but I know all of my employees were like, oh, this is a cost of living increase, not a merit increase. So I don't foresee us getting back down to the 3%, but probably more that middle three to upper. 402i gotcha.
00:07:54:06 - 00:08:13:23
Unknown
Yeah. And with anything you're going to have a range there depending on your compensation strategy, right? If you're going to do merit increases, what's important for those for those increases and what does your budget look like? Yeah. And nonprofits are going to have a hard time competing with that. I came from a nonprofit and doing 4% was just not in the budget, really.
00:08:13:23 - 00:08:39:01
Unknown
It's actually fewer grant funded. Mm hmm. So in our webinar today, we got a ton of chat questions. I think we got over like 48. Yes. So today I'm just I pulled out a few of them to go over. So the first one says, regarding aggregators, some comp professionals do recommend them, but the caution was just given to not rely solely on these pay factors, comp analysts, etc. per purchase.
00:08:39:01 - 00:09:04:09
Unknown
The trusted surveys to create their data sets. So how often do you see a truly significant difference in the aggregated data on the trusted source data? Anyone can take this on though. I think for the for the aggregators, they they can be good. But even with any survey source, they are not every job is going to be in there for every different survey cut and being able to fill in the gaps with an algorithm.
00:09:04:11 - 00:09:21:03
Unknown
That's where we usually want to dig in and see how many people have reported on it in this area. So if there's, you know, what's your number you use, what's the I have five or more, then we can respond on the data cut. So the the aggregators will be saying there might be zero people that have responded, but they're able to report on that data point.
00:09:21:05 - 00:09:42:01
Unknown
So it's just making sure you're using them with, you know, with some caution and with your eyes open and seeing if, you know, the data seems too good to be true. They probably are people reporting on it. The right not even be those industries in the area. Right. Just make sure you're looking at other sources to to to align that that you can validate whether participants and in numbers.
00:09:42:03 - 00:10:04:10
Unknown
So there is also a lot of tech questions around aging data. So one of them was what percentage do you use to age data? Oh, this is always a fun question because there's two factors when considering it. You want to know what the percentage which is typically aligned to the average market salary increase and then the desired date you want to use.
00:10:04:10 - 00:10:30:14
Unknown
If you plan to update your salary ranges in 2024 and the salary survey effective date is March of 2023, using a 4% as a market average salary increase, that data would be aged around 3.3%. The formula is usually ten divided by 12 times 0.4. So there's a fun little formula for it. And we also have that formula on our website for members to use.
00:10:30:16 - 00:10:56:03
Unknown
Okay. Well, we'll include that in the resources then. So another question we got was as pay transparency becomes more common, we'll start to see salary ranges included in job postings more often. So do you anticipate this becoming a more valid data source as more companies transition to open communication regarding positions and ranges? So I think Melissa has a good point to talk about.
00:10:56:03 - 00:11:17:19
Unknown
Like the we have the data points of like the five different levels of transparency. And one of the things is like, do do you tell your employees about what's on more than just on their paycheck? Do you train your employees on it? So it's one thing to actually be proactive and train them on this points. And the other perspective is we post it and they have to go looking for it and then they might come ask questions.
00:11:17:19 - 00:11:43:00
Unknown
So are you proactive about it with the pay transparency if you have to post it or are you, you know, more reactive because people see, you know, you're not sending them links to the job that they're in that you're hiring for, but you know, you have to be reactive. Yeah. McKenzie brings up a really good point. As I know, before even Ohio in Cincinnati was probably was in the timing.
00:11:43:02 - 00:12:29:15
Unknown
But some of our major cities in Ohio are having their position their pay scale bad hosted. And it did cause a lot of issues and lowered morale, especially when it came to someone just job hunting and then they stumble upon, oh, my company's hiring. Oh, I make way less than that for players. So being able to have that tough conversation and mentally prepare your staff, I know with us it was difficult to have those conversations, but also being transparent and hey, yes, we know you're underpaid.
00:12:29:15 - 00:12:56:09
Unknown
This is our plan to correct that. Mm hmm. And just being open again, I always like to say, if you have a range, try to stick within it. Right. So if people do see those ranges posted and they're below the minimum, then that's definitely something you should be reviewing. Yeah. Well, as we kind of wrap up today, McKenzie, I know you talked about some hot trends in your webinars, so can you and nurse with some of those hot trends for 2024 in relation to compensation?
00:12:56:13 - 00:13:17:01
Unknown
So we already talked too much about AI and we're still all learning about that too. But from the total rewards perspective we are seeing, yeah, that shift, that big thing that's shifting from what what are we spending our money on and is it what our employees want us to be spending our money on so much? And I talked about the, you know, polling your your employees to see what's important to them.
00:13:17:06 - 00:13:49:02
Unknown
And then I think when we had one of the questions in the chat about being, you know, what are some some lower cost options or ones that aren't hitting the budget too hard that can really motivate employees or attract the right candidates. So we think that balance of compensation benefits, the work life balance, the four different quadrants that we talk about when we look at total rewards, total compensation, you know, it's really balancing those things out to keep your workforce happy and getting the right people to work for, you know, some good trends to keep in the back of your head.
00:13:49:04 - 00:14:10:19
Unknown
Yeah. Well, thank you both for coming on to the podcast today and great job with the webinar. I appreciate both of you. And to our listeners, if you liked our chat and topic today, I would urge you 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 from today.
00:14:10:21 - 00:14:33:06
Unknown
Otherwise, thank you so much for tuning in today and thank you both and we'll see you next week. Thanks. Thanks. 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 drive so you don't miss out.
00:14:33:06 - 00:14:37:24
Unknown
Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

15 min
September 20, 2023 MRA’s September Talent Report with Jim Morgan
Description: 🎙️ Tune in now to the latest episode of the podcast - the September Talent Report! Stay in the know about all things business, with a spotlight on talent trends and best practices. This month, we're diving deep into the world of compensation and total rewards - essential insights you won't want to miss! 💼💰
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 - 00:00:42:06
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Well, hello everybody, and 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 in the world of business in September. So thanks, Jim, for being here today. Yeah, my pleasure.
00:00:42:06 - 00:01:11:03
Unknown
It's good to be back. Well, for September, your extended or featured topic of the month was on compensation in total rewards. So I'm wondering why you chose this topic for for September. Well, we've got our big comp trends event coming up in a little over a week now. And the timing of that is not coincidentally, is companies are right now sort of going into budget season, preparing for 2024 and those that are on a calendar year.
00:01:11:05 - 00:01:33:22
Unknown
You know, we've just found that this is a really good time for us to start talking about compensation and benefits for the next year, providing them what we've learned so far in 2023. And it's always a game, you know, that, oh, we could be the first ones to come out, but then we come out with data in May, and by the time you're budgeting, it's like, Well, that data is already six months old and it'll be nine months old by the time we start the year.
00:01:33:24 - 00:01:51:18
Unknown
But if you wait too long, people are like, I got to put something in there because I have to figure out what's happening. So I think Maria just sort of made the strategic decision that says we can start getting that data out there in middle or late September. It gives everybody October and November to to budget to figure out their next year, to figure out salaries.
00:01:51:18 - 00:02:13:21
Unknown
If they've got compensation needs, they've got time to still do some work on it. And so that's how we end up with compensation being about this time of the year. Good topic. Good month. Yeah. Let's talk about what's happening in the recruiting and retention world right now. So I know you focused on Gen Z strategies that companies are kind of employing right now.
00:02:13:21 - 00:02:37:12
Unknown
So can you name off some of those strategies? Yeah, You know, and it's well, it's a generational thing because it's Gen Z right now that are the new and younger people coming into the work. I think it would apply to just about anybody. But I also think people have to understand what the Gen Z workers went through with the pandemic as an example.
00:02:37:14 - 00:02:56:18
Unknown
They were in their last couple of years of college maybe, or their last couple of years of high school or their first year of work or something. And those are pretty critical times, too, all of a sudden to be kind of cooped up and things like that. So I think that's Thriven things a little bit. And the fact that the market for talent has just been upside down.
00:02:56:20 - 00:03:19:02
Unknown
So what we've seen is a lot more companies are promoting their emotional health benefits, talking about the things that they have available to people. You know, with each generation, I think we get a little bit more open and honest about mental health. There was something we used to not even talk about or as a sign of weakness, you know, now it's almost I need somebody to talk to.
00:03:19:02 - 00:03:35:02
Unknown
I'm going to grab anybody and I'm going to have a conversation with them. But it's and it's really important to younger workers. And so they're they're using that now, I think, as a selling point to say this is we know this is important to you and we're going to put it out there as one of the benefits that we've got.
00:03:35:04 - 00:03:56:04
Unknown
They're also trying to be a little bit more, I think, transparent on pay and benefits, because if you're just entering the workforce or you've only been there for a year or two and you're Googling, hey, how much should I be making? You're probably getting some pretty wild numbers, some pretty good looking numbers, but not necessarily the most accurate ones.
00:03:56:04 - 00:04:29:08
Unknown
And they don't realize that for someone living in downtown New York or whatever it might be. And so I think helping younger workers understand what the market really is, how they set their compensation, that it's competitive, it's benchmarked. While younger workers may not necessarily be all that interested in that, I think it gives them a little bit more of a reality when they come in saying, Oh yeah, that $100,000 and you're you as an employer, like we have people of 15 years of experience that are doing that job and making $100,000.
00:04:29:09 - 00:04:49:04
Unknown
So trying to just give them a little bit more background and information. And then lastly, you know, we're at this generational tipping point, and I think we might have talked about this before, but, you know, we're a couple of years away from the Gen Z's and the millennials outnumbering the Gen Xers and the baby boomers. Why is that a big deal?
00:04:49:06 - 00:05:17:05
Unknown
You want very different benefits than what I want. And we're going to have to start making some of those adjustment settings. More of the people who go out looking like me with what we've traditionally had and coming in looking like you and wanting different things that they're asking more questions about what matters to you, what do you value, and just taking one of the simplest ones being health care, which has always been an incredible benefit for people and you have got to have that.
00:05:17:07 - 00:05:36:19
Unknown
You can be on your parent's health care till you're 26. So 22, 23, 24, 25, that doesn't have a whole lot of value to you at a time when I'm trying to secure you as an employee in my organization and keep you if you're good. So what do you want instead? And how do we start trying to take a look at those things?
00:05:36:19 - 00:06:00:14
Unknown
So I think there's a little bit more conversation and listening going on around the benefits. You know, Jim, I'd like a Netflix subscriber option that was cheaper than health care. So maybe we'll see if we can get you one. Well, like we said, we were focusing on compensation, total rewards this month. But last month we kind of focus on the AI and inclusivity.
00:06:00:15 - 00:06:26:15
Unknown
So you actually launched a couple of DIY poll questions last month and you have the results now. So do you want to kind of share out what those poll results were? Yeah, I'd be glad to. And, you know, again, another event we've got coming up is our DIY conference, and this was really because the AI was the topic last month and it just helps us constantly sort of stay in touch with where our members are to find out what's going on.
00:06:26:16 - 00:06:49:21
Unknown
So we asked last month, you know, where are you on your DIY journey for the people that were attending the talent Report webinar, we had 46% say they were just beginning, 31% doing their, you know, doing pretty well. So 77% of the group is sort of in that, yeah, you know, our feet or what we're kind of moving, but we're not there yet.
00:06:49:23 - 00:07:11:18
Unknown
So I'll come back to that 21% who haven't started and 2% saying that they're fully implemented. So, you know, just a quick. All right. I see what's going on out there is that, you know, people are they're doing things. I think they realize they have to do things. It's an expectation of younger workers is an expectation if you're in a talent supply chain of the people.
00:07:11:18 - 00:07:35:09
Unknown
Further up the food chain are saying, you know, we're looking at your diversity and what you're doing there. So people are they're they're getting started, but they're just not there yet. And I think we're seeing fewer and fewer now that haven't started at all and those who haven't started at all. Just looking at why that was, which was the next question, really, it was around two things.
00:07:35:10 - 00:08:07:13
Unknown
One was leadership commitment, especially in a smaller company, maybe less than 100 employees. If you don't have the leadership ready to go, that makes it quite a bit more difficult. And the second one was just not having the time and the people and the resources to know where do we start? Because it would be great for us to say, Oh, we're launching this DIY initiative, but if nobody's got the time to see it through, to put the activities in place, to put the initiative in place, to figure out what we're doing, how we're doing, it communicated to everyone that it's not going to get very far.
00:08:07:15 - 00:08:27:22
Unknown
So I think, you know, the positive is more and more people are initiating starting moving along on the journey. The hard thing is, is just making sure we've got everything in place. And that means leadership is committed. We've put some resources into it. We've got the employees fired up about it and it's a big deal. So it's ongoing.
00:08:27:22 - 00:09:05:08
Unknown
I think it continues to be a journey for people. But slowly but surely we're we're moving along, get results. So another topic that I'd like to dive into is are talent thinking section, where you kind of highlight the recruiting and candidate process. So any new up and coming things this month or just anything to highlight on this. Yeah there was a really good benefit study that came out by Ernst and Young and I actually circulated it around here and I, I just sort of put a little disclaimer on it that said, I know this doesn't sound like a really exciting topic, but the information they've got is really good.
00:09:05:08 - 00:09:30:22
Unknown
It might be worth taking a look at. And they had a lot of discussion around that generational tipping point that I was just talking about a couple of minutes ago that says, how does this change the game in terms of what's going on out there? So few of the things that you know, that they mention and that, you know, I'm seeing and hearing when I when I'm out in the field is this whole gig economy and remote work has just changed the game and we all know that.
00:09:30:24 - 00:09:52:23
Unknown
But when you stop and think about, okay, have we really accepted yet that the norm has changed that where people are working, when they're working, how they are working, lots of different expectations and what employers have to do to be clear about what is a remote job and what's not a remote job. And when we say work remote, this is what we mean.
00:09:53:00 - 00:10:16:02
Unknown
And here are the policies that we have around remote work and starting. You see some of the pushback on that that yeah, so if you can work remote, we don't have any problem with that. But if you've got three kids running around in the background or every time we call you your phone in your laundry or you're at the grocery store, when we have a Zoom call, at some point I'm going to start asking some questions and say, you know, I get it, you know, once in a while.
00:10:16:02 - 00:10:39:18
Unknown
But boy, this seems to be sort of the pattern of what's happening out there. So the gig economy, remote work has changed things and employers are having to to adjust to that. The benefits issue that I was just talking about, really knowing our people and it's getting a little bit more personalized because I think it really means someone has to sit down with people and say what matters to you?
00:10:39:24 - 00:10:59:17
Unknown
Because health care may or may not be a big thing. Loan payments may or may not be a big thing. A Netflix subscription may or may not be a big thing, but we got to know our folks to know what it is that we're going to offer. Because if we just sit in a room and two of us talk and say, I know what we should do, we should offer everyone packed insurance.
00:10:59:19 - 00:11:26:10
Unknown
Okay, great. How many of our people have pets? Well, I don't have any idea. All right, well, then why are we doing it? Well, everybody else seems to be offering it. Maybe everybody's got one. They think it was the greatest thing. But what does that mean? And not everybody's going to want to take advantage of it. So how do we let people begin to figure out what they want and where they are in their employee lifecycle so that we're actually providing things that that that matter to them?
00:11:26:12 - 00:11:45:12
Unknown
So that I think is really the biggest thing. The last one that we're seeing more of is everyone's got HR Information systems now that are designed to make life easier for us. We can go right in and do our vacation. We can put our pto time and see what's going on. Just by going online, we can figure out when we're going to be gone.
00:11:45:12 - 00:12:05:15
Unknown
We can see what our salary is, what our withdrawals are, what our benefits are. All that stuff is now online, and that's becoming more and more of a technology Thriven process that employees, especially younger ones, are not not thinking. I got to walk down the hall and find an HR person and talk to them. I can go online.
00:12:05:15 - 00:12:26:13
Unknown
I've got an app on my phone. I can see exactly how many days off I have when the vacation days are coming up. And a lot of that is sort of working in the virtual world again, that how do we make all that information accessible to people and make it easier for them to manage their own benefits. So those are a few of the things that they were talking about seeing.
00:12:26:13 - 00:13:05:14
Unknown
And I think we can sort of confirm that with what we're hearing to kind of expanding on that technology Thriven aspect. This month. I know you're also talking about employees having a I policies and just leveraging AI in general. So can you talk a little bit more about what you're finding this month with with AI? Yeah, the AI is just fascinating, unknown new past year, you know, A.I. has been around for a long time, but I think the Chad GP like just brought it into the every day lexicon and now everybody is all right, what are we going to do with it?
00:13:05:14 - 00:13:33:01
Unknown
What's going to happen? What does it mean? Where is this information going? In HR? I think especially this is a big deal because to the extent that people are relying on artificial intelligence to do some things in the world, you know, the caveat on this is, are you doing an analysis of what A.I. is doing? Does it have unintentional disparate impact on disqualifying candidates?
00:13:33:03 - 00:13:53:18
Unknown
If you're writing job descriptions and things like that, are they being written in a way that is not discriminatory? So there's a lot there's a lot of caveats behind it. And that I would say to anyone who's listening is that's a legal team question. That's let's make sure we're doing okay. So having said all of that, it does bring an awful lot into the HR world.
00:13:53:24 - 00:14:14:10
Unknown
And so you are seeing companies that say, you know, we can generate a list of expected skills and qualifications for a job. You know, we can type it in, we can see what comes back. And I would never just say, Oh, it came back. Here it is like posted. I think it comes back and you've got to look at it, you've got to read it, you've got to review it, you have to personalize it for your company.
00:14:14:16 - 00:14:31:16
Unknown
But it certainly can give you a start in terms of the information that you might be looking for. It might be a way to you know, it can search for alternative phrases. So maybe your job descriptions were written two or three, five, ten years ago. It can search for things and find a new way of saying a thing.
00:14:31:17 - 00:14:58:15
Unknown
Same things, but maybe in more modern day nomenclature so it can help you with that. We had a company that used it to develop our social media strategy to say, If this is what we're doing, where might we go and with which platforms? And so again, it can generate some ideas for you. Draft jab, Jab, announcement is four different things generate interview questions for people.
00:14:58:17 - 00:15:22:17
Unknown
So it's there's just so much that is capable now it's just understanding just like you know with Google, with Chad, GPT, with AI all of those things. Where is the information coming from? How has it been vetted? Who's looking at it? Because you just can't take anything off the shelf and say, This is it. So that's my that's my disclaimer on all of it.
00:15:22:21 - 00:15:39:10
Unknown
But people are also just trying to figure out how do we use this to save us some time? And it's going to take me 2 hours to generate some interview questions can generate 20 of them in a second and then say, Wow, these three are pretty good. I'll rewrite them. The rest of these aren't good. I'll come up with two on my own.
00:15:39:12 - 00:16:03:17
Unknown
So I think a lot of it right now is time savings. How do we use it to just be more efficient? What it's going to mean in the future, I think is it's going to be wild. I had I had a friend who got an email from their boss and they didn't know how to respond and they're like, No, I just asked Chad how to respond.
00:16:03:19 - 00:16:29:15
Unknown
So I thought that was just crazy. It was kind of shows like you are using it in everyday life. Yeah, and it's got you know, you have the ability now to say what sort of tone do you want it to write in? Is it direct, legal and straightforward? Is it kind of fun and friendly? And, you know, and it's just again, I would read everything, but, you know, you can see how selecting different words makes it come across a little bit differently.
00:16:29:15 - 00:16:52:08
Unknown
And what's the brand of our company and how do we want it to sound? There's it's it's really fast. It's a fascinating time to be dealing with those things. So your quote of the month was even about I said I might not take your job, but someone who knows and understands I will. So can you explain that quote a little bit more?
00:16:52:10 - 00:17:07:00
Unknown
Yeah, I heard that. And in a webinar that I was on and, you know, it just it immediately got me thinking that, you know, everyone is, oh, I'm going to take my job, it's going to take my job. And are there some jobs that are mentioned? Yeah, sure. I'm sure that there are some that are going to be that way.
00:17:07:02 - 00:17:35:01
Unknown
But just about everything has a human component to it, you know, that's still involved. And so I think the presenter was simply saying it's not sort of a black and white, it's either Sophie or artificial intelligence. But if I have a Sophie and a Sophie who understands artificial intelligence, the second Sophie is probably going to figure out how to blend those two things together and come out with a better product, a more efficient, more effective way of doing things.
00:17:35:03 - 00:17:58:14
Unknown
And so you are starting to see employers now start to, you know, not that you have to be an expert in it and be trained in and have a master's degree in it and know how to do artificial intelligence analysis, but at least to know what's out there and what's it capable of and what can it do that I think is going to be a selling point for some people as they are switching jobs or entering into the job market.
00:17:58:16 - 00:18:33:11
Unknown
For sure. Well, this month in charts, our favorite section you've included where the different generations are moving to. So can you explain what the charts shown some of the stats there and where the data is kind of coming from here? Yeah, this one was really I thought it was interesting and I don't think anyone's going to change their world based on this, but LinkedIn had taken a look at everyone who had pursued a job online and had changed their online posting that it didn't say that JPMorgan was at MRA and Waukesha.
00:18:33:12 - 00:18:52:04
Unknown
Now Jim Morgan was now working for Catapult in North Carolina so they could see, okay, there is a baby boomer and they just took a job in North Carolina and they can see the movement. And so they they just did some analysis of that. And I just sort of found it interesting that when you look at the younger people and you're like, okay, where are they going?
00:18:52:04 - 00:19:12:16
Unknown
And you see Boston, Massachusetts, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Austin, Texas, Madison, Wisconsin. You know, number four, you're seeing those Denver, Nashville, Minneapolis, the places that you know, yeah, it sounds like kind of the hip places. And that's where people are going to. And if we've got a company and a brand that's attracting younger people, hey, we're in the right place.
00:19:12:18 - 00:19:31:24
Unknown
These folks are moving here and taking jobs here. You know, interesting. Does it change what we do? I don't know. Maybe not. You know, and then I start looking at, okay, where are the baby boomers that maybe now are, you know, 55, 60 and they're moving jobs. Where are they going? Austin is still high in Raleigh is still high.
00:19:32:04 - 00:20:00:02
Unknown
But then you see Cape Coral, Florida, in Sarasota, Florida, and Phenix, Arizona, and kind of a different you know, and you understand that there's warmer weather, there's more people that are a little bit older there. There's some duplicates in all of this. But you can see that younger people are going to these fast moving, more hipster places. Older folks are going more towards where there are other people like me, whereas they're lower taxes, whereas they're really good weather year round.
00:20:00:04 - 00:20:19:15
Unknown
So it starts to just sort of give you an impression of what's going on out there. And then for what it's worth, overall, they said if you just looking for where are folks going, it was number one, Austin, number two, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, number three, Denver and number four, Nashville. So those are kind of the the hotspots right now.
00:20:19:15 - 00:20:45:22
Unknown
And all of those are in the town that report this month. Well, as we kind of wrap up here, I've always got to ask, Jim, can you give us a sneak peek on what October's talent report topic will be? Yeah, and let me before I share that big secret with one other thing that we did this month was when we were talking to all of our C-suite roundtables, we asked them a little bit about, Hey, what's keeping you up at night?
00:20:45:22 - 00:21:07:08
Unknown
You know, what's driving you crazy here? And these are just a couple of the leading ones that came out of it, That from a CEO and CFO point of view, I thought, you know, might be of interest to some of your podcast listeners. Hiring and talent retention remains at the top of everybody's list. I think everyone just knows that's having an impact throughout the organization process and workflow improvements.
00:21:07:10 - 00:21:30:00
Unknown
I think there's really this concentrated how do we do more with less? How do we get the most out of each person? Where do we need automation, Where do we need some other things? So those are top of mind for them. Big organizational change issues. Maybe it's an organizational restructuring, it's a new CRM term, it's a merger and acquisition, a lot more activity in those areas.
00:21:30:00 - 00:21:51:15
Unknown
So that's a big one for them. Preparing the next generation of Sofi bowlers, that's a big one for everybody. You know, how do we take that next generation of leader who might be taking over a little bit sooner with a little less experience, make sure that they're they're ready. Cybersecurity, Top of everybody's mind is our new horror story every day.
00:21:51:15 - 00:22:14:05
Unknown
So they're working on those and then employee benefits for all the reasons that we just talked about, you know how do we make sure that we're competitive with everybody and we're offering, you know, what what it is that that that our people want. So anyway, ad for next month, the topic is building the generational bridge. And it'll be talking a little bit about this generational tipping point.
00:22:14:07 - 00:22:37:04
Unknown
How do we help everybody communicate within the workforce? How do we, you know, take all the these the zoo animals, the millennials, and replace all those baby boomers and after that, the Xers? And how do we make that a nice, smooth transition? Because I would argue those are two pretty different sets of generations. And it's just going to take a little bit extra effort to make sure that we have a smooth transition.
00:22:37:08 - 00:22:58:12
Unknown
And then yeah, it's a great topic. Excited for that? Yeah, looking forward to it. Well Jim, thanks again for all like great content today. And just recapping what you've been seeing and what our members are seeing in the world of business with an emphasis on talent. This month in September. So I would just encourage our listeners, don't forget to share out this episode.
00:22:58:14 - 00:23:20:01
Unknown
Consider joining MRA. If you are not a member, we have all the resources you need in the show notes below, including resources on this talent report and upcoming webinars. Otherwise, thanks for tuning in today and we'll see you all 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
00:23:20:01 - 00:23:35:05
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.

24 min
September 13, 2023 Engage Your Team With an Employee-designed Learning Experience
Description: Discover how organizations are empowering their workforce to take the reins of their own development, creating tailored and impactful learning journeys. Hear real-life examples, inspiring stories, and actionable strategies that will transform the way you approach professional growth and training within your organization.
Resources:
Amanda's Article in Association for Talent Development's TD Magazine
MRA Learning & Development
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 - 00:00:41:19
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Well, hello, everybody, and thanks for joining us today. I'm here with Amanda Mosteller, director of Talent Development. She's in our MRA, Ohio division. But, Amanda, welcome back. I know you've been down on one show so far. We're glad to have you back for a second one. Thank you. Thank you for asking me to be back.
00:00:42:00 - 00:01:13:19
Unknown
Oh, of course. But for those who don't know, don't know. Amanda, Amanda's area of expertise really aligns with areas of the talent development industry. She spends her time in developing learning programs, designing talent development strategy, driving business metrics assessed through their people, and individual success through coaching. So today, we're really going to be covering employee design learning. And when when we talked about doing this episode, Amanda, you were also middle of writing an article on this topic too.
00:01:13:20 - 00:01:52:09
Unknown
So our listeners, to stay tuned for that release date and we'll get you the link. Absolutely. But kind of starting off a little overview here. Could you explain what employee design learning really means and how it differs from traditional approaches to professional development? Yes. Yes. So employee designed learning programs, put the employees in the driver's seat of creating the learning experience of the program that they themselves, their colleagues and future individuals that come into roles like theirs will experience in terms of their development.
00:01:52:11 - 00:02:28:12
Unknown
So the difference here is we are leveraging the instructional designer to design and build everything. We are leveraging employees that have a passion for development and a desire to really shape what they, their colleagues and their future selves will be impacted by what they're going to go through. This is a knowledge base and a resource to tap that is really going to impact what everything looks like and really what we focus on.
00:02:28:14 - 00:03:01:12
Unknown
So how it differs is instructional designers become more of a consultant and a coach to an employee individual or team, depending on how big the learning program's going to be. So traditionally instructional designers own and manage and go through all of this and they touch on smells and this feels different because you are leveraging different resources and you are positioning yourself as the designer in a different way.
00:03:01:14 - 00:03:28:04
Unknown
So those are the ways that we see this differ in employee design learning versus traditional instructional design processes, because the employees play the largest role. And in creating this program or programs depending on how large it is. So in your experience, what are some of the key benefits of involving employees in the design of their own learning experience?
00:03:28:07 - 00:03:55:05
Unknown
And how does this really impact their engagement and skill development? No, it's not a good one though. So, you know, traditionally instructional designers connect with key stakeholders. This is often leadership within the organization who's kind of out of touch with what the roles that are being impacted by the program actually experience in their day to day and where their true development needs are.
00:03:55:06 - 00:04:22:13
Unknown
So when we flip this approach and we put employees in the design driver seat, you're going to get insights, you're going to get tailored programing. That's reality for what their lives truly are like. So the way we partner with stakeholders is we ask them, strategically, where are you trying to go? This is a common instructional designer question As you're developing a program, what are we trying to meet?
00:04:22:13 - 00:04:54:22
Unknown
What are we trying to do? That's kind of where we end with the stakeholders for now. So we say, Excellent, thank you for giving me the strategic vision. We're identifying what skills, what knowledge, skills and abilities the individuals within your organization need to possess to get you to that vision. Put a pin in that. We'll be back. And then this program and this approach really says to the employees, Here's what we're trying to do as an organization, as a business.
00:04:54:22 - 00:05:16:19
Unknown
Here's where we're trying to go. Here's what we need to be able to do to get us there. Where are you at? What are we doing today? What are some of the barriers that you typically don't get development in that you need? What are we missing? What skills are we not aware of? What areas don't we know that your roles need?
00:05:16:23 - 00:05:37:15
Unknown
And this is different than just me because with this me, they give this conversation, they give you some advice, they give you some resources, and they're like, All right, call me if you need me. But the employee designed learning approach really says to the employees, okay, you don't get to tell me this and then walk away. You get to help me build all of this.
00:05:37:16 - 00:06:17:16
Unknown
So the benefits are one, really connecting to reality of what the employees need, of what the roles truly need to know sometimes again, well intentioned leaders, still, there's a lot of things they're doing that are different. Our heads are lifted up. We're looking further ahead. We're not doing the day to day. So sometimes we think there are tools and resources that are readily available or that employees, the individual contributors are aware of or that they're coming in the door with and they're not.
00:06:17:20 - 00:06:47:01
Unknown
So we have to really identify how do we make them aware, what can we leverage as well as what are they, what is coming in the door with truly look like and only the people doing the work that also have a passion for development, which is another way putting the employees in the driver's seat and creating this what we would call a learning committee or a design committee differ from potentially a meeting.
00:06:47:03 - 00:07:09:22
Unknown
These are folks that have a passion for developing their colleagues and for impact, doing the experience that they might have to go through with the end of this anyway. And your traditional Smee might not be someone that has a passion for development, so they might give the instructional designer the bare minimum of the required time that they've been tapped for.
00:07:09:24 - 00:07:39:07
Unknown
So employee designed learning, the folks that are part of it volunteer to be part of it. So that's an important differentiator as well. We are asking for volunteers to be part of a design committee. We're being upfront with time, expectations, goals. What these individuals are going to be doing. So they're aware of what they're committing to, but they have a desire to commit to it.
00:07:39:09 - 00:08:17:16
Unknown
Whether that is experiential learning for themselves or growth strategies. For an individual who is doing a stretch assignment this way, they might be meeting their own personal professional goals while benefiting their team and their future new hires or future colleagues as well. So you're really utilizing an approach that puts employees not only in the driver's seat of designing, but employees with a different level of investment, with a different level of connection to the day to day work.
00:08:17:16 - 00:08:43:21
Unknown
So they can truly tell us you want us to get there strategically. Here's what we need to be able to do. Here's the things you need to teach us about. Here's the resources we don't have today that we need to find. And then a group that says, I'm not just going to tell you this in one meeting and then have you come back to me designer with the rough outline and with the content and saying, Yep, you did it.
00:08:43:22 - 00:09:06:16
Unknown
This is a group that's going to say, I'm going to help you pull together the outline. I'm going to help you pull together the content, I'm going to help identify great resources that we should make more intentional in raising my colleagues awareness, too. So this is a group that really, from start to finish, is a part of every step of the way.
00:09:06:17 - 00:09:28:16
Unknown
They're not just interviewed a couple of times. They're knee deep in helping create, not doing it. I'm not saying they're going to make the PowerPoints and they're going to make the learner materials. The instructional designer is still doing that, but they are much more of a guide for these folks as to what the kind of right resources are.
00:09:28:16 - 00:10:02:08
Unknown
And if we say we're meeting this objective, we should probably have some activities in there. What activities would make sense and help me figure out what they are. Help me design them. So it's really getting a deep investment and then when you actually run the program, not only do you have great buy in, but man, do you have a great crew of individuals who are going out to their colleagues to say no, when you come to this class, come in ready to learn, because it's going to be what we need because we helped build it?
00:10:02:10 - 00:10:32:12
Unknown
Yeah. And I would imagine that this definitely, positively impacts engagement and skill development. But do you have any other thoughts on that and how it's really impacting engagement among employees? MM Yeah, you know, I used to be really proud of programs that I would build that I would think me and we hit the mark. This is the best daggone program I use all the new bells and whistles and everything my certification taught me to do.
00:10:32:12 - 00:11:04:02
Unknown
I am so good. And then I would have folks come out of the program like that was fun. But what about bullet point? Bullet point, bullet point of things that I still can't do. Like, I can't do that. That's not reality to my day to day. Who you talk to when you come up with this. So, you know, when you're having folks that truly live the day to day help create something that the stakeholders sign off on.
00:11:04:02 - 00:11:33:02
Unknown
Because as I mentioned, we tell the stakeholders to put a pin in it. Once we come up with the design plan and what it's going to look like and what the best delivery modality is and what the best cadence is and how long these things should be, we go back and the design committee, maybe one representative of the design committee or the committee themselves, again, depending on how large of a program you're building, can be a big committee.
00:11:33:02 - 00:12:00:04
Unknown
It might be one or two people would go with you to the stakeholders, you being the instructional designer, to say, Here's where we're at, here's what we think is going to get the biggest bang. And then you have stakeholders saying, sure, I mean, tell the employees who do the work know if we don't want the program that you think will get us there, of course they're going to have stakeholder buy in to what you're recommending.
00:12:00:06 - 00:12:35:01
Unknown
And then you have employees who see who are aligned with their leadership. So it's this whole full circle of everybody being on the same page for what this experience program, whole program, long term series might be, because you also run into as an instructional designer and my other ID folks out there will not in agreement with this where stakeholders will give you a list of goals and you'll set up all these objectives and they'll say, Yeah, we need you to get that done in one two hour virtual life.
00:12:35:03 - 00:13:13:07
Unknown
You're like, Oh, I'm sorry. You just gave me enough objectives to meet in three full days. You want me to do it in 2 hours of heads up? Yeah, right. That would have been something to tell me ahead of time. So? So this really becomes collaborative in a different way where, again, the instructional designer is kind of facilitating and guiding and consulting and helping everyone to create a program that everybody is in agreeance that this is the way to get the needs met for our team members that will get us strategically to where we're trying to go.
00:13:13:12 - 00:13:42:21
Unknown
So it's this full circle connection and a full circle by in because my peers are going to be more invested in coming to a class that I know my colleagues designed, not, you know, instructional designer and the VP who hasn't done this job in ten plus years themselves. So it it really creates buy in top down and everyone coming into the class is aware that this is a this was designed differently.
00:13:42:23 - 00:14:04:24
Unknown
I've had experiences where means were tapped because they are the best at what they do, but they don't have that passion for learning. But also they too might be disconnected from the majority of their colleagues. And the bell curve there, the extreme high potential, and we're ready to move them on to the next role. And so they should be the person you're talking to.
00:14:05:01 - 00:14:58:21
Unknown
And while their colleagues might be really motivated by excuse me, that individual and where they're going, the strategies that individual might have been recommending, either we aren't really going to replicate or again, might not be realistic to the majority of the group's day to day. So it's a balancing act as a designer, as an instructional designer to put in best practices, effective strategies, encourage people to stretch themselves while not being so unrealistic that the program truly missed and the best way to ensure alignment all around, and that the program isn't going to miss the mark is by involving more employees that have a desire, that have a goal, and that have a realistic view of
00:14:58:21 - 00:15:40:22
Unknown
what the role is really like. Absolutely. That's a great point. You know that we love stories on the podcast, we love examples and all of that good stuff. So do you have any success stories or just any examples of what other organizations are doing to implementing employee design learning? Yeah. So we have a member organization right now who has a big strategic plan and they actually have an employee learning committee and they're working on creating career passing strategies and design programs to support employees along the way.
00:15:40:22 - 00:16:03:14
Unknown
So we have net new employees and we have employees that have been doing that role for a while and employees that have transitioned into other roles so they know where the gaps were and that transition and they know what resources might have been helpful. And so they're in the midst of this right now. I'm very excited to see where this goes for them.
00:16:03:14 - 00:16:27:05
Unknown
It's on their strategic initiative, which again is that leader buy in Leader said Strategically we recognize we need some supports along the career path, not just a math outline of a career path for folks. And then they empowered their h.r. Leadership team to pull together a committee of volunteer employees. So we have a group doing it right now.
00:16:27:05 - 00:17:01:05
Unknown
I'll be excited to see where that goes. And then i helped an organization a couple of years ago, which was a huge success story. This is very proud of this one. But it was a sales organization, an organization of its sales individuals who have been doing it for a very long time. And so one of the things I would run into with their leadership was, you know, my sales team has been selling this stuff for a really long time.
00:17:01:10 - 00:17:37:12
Unknown
There's nothing they need to know. And I was like, I wonder how they think about that. So I had been tasked with identifying a progressive learning program. The plan was for new employees coming into the organization to have a up to three year progressive plan to get from kind of a lead qualifier role up to account executive. And they wanted they had to use means.
00:17:37:14 - 00:17:58:00
Unknown
The problem was these were there to me every time they wanted me to do a learning thing. So we had two very burned out means who did not have a passion for development. They liked to share their expertise. They liked to be asked what do they think would work? They could spare 20 minutes for me because they were out doing the thing.
00:17:58:00 - 00:18:31:02
Unknown
They liked doing the work so well intentioned people, but not with the desires that I needed. I needed people that could give me time. Because when you're talking about a three year development progressive development strategy from folks that do lead qualification and within three years they have all the tools and resources and knowledge and experience that they need to be account executives and replace folks that have been doing it for 20 plus years.
00:18:31:04 - 00:18:54:04
Unknown
I need more than 15 minutes of your time. So what I ended up doing was saying, can you let me you know, this is a big investment. Three years is a big investment. That also should mean time. Give me time to create something that's going to work. And let me tap on volunteers that are committed to seeing this through.
00:18:54:06 - 00:19:18:07
Unknown
And they did. They were, well, invest recognizing what they needed was the right development program. So they gave me the green light, said, Please go do this. And I had volunteers. We were multi, we were in five countries. So I had volunteers from each country ready to help because they also could we wanted to create a universal program.
00:19:18:07 - 00:19:48:04
Unknown
So we didn't want it to be country specific and we wanted it to be multifaceted in the delivery modalities for the program. But we knew that, you know, what worked in Canada might be different than what worked in Scotland, which might be different than what worked in the Hawaii market. So we were all over the place in terms of expertise and experience, which was excellent because we could pull some things that folks were like, Well, I think that could work anywhere.
00:19:48:04 - 00:20:20:07
Unknown
Let's try that. So I had a big volunteer base, which was good because a three year program is a lot of different tools you're putting into place, right? So what we ended up doing was utilizing a sales competency model and we identified the new account acquisition Csa's knowledge, skills and abilities for that competency and account retention and growth for that competency plus some foundational everyone.
00:20:20:07 - 00:20:59:02
Unknown
Because remember, we're looking at folks that are coming in that might be newer to the sales career field, being able to be account executives for enterprise sized companies with big I.T. things. So talking a lot of skills that you need. And so we were able to come up with an assessment strategy. What we did was we had all existing employees, all existing individuals in the role across all five countries take the assessment self-identifying where they felt they were strong and where they felt they could use some additional learning.
00:20:59:04 - 00:21:22:15
Unknown
Then we took all the universal what we saw trending across all five, and we said that is your targeted program. And we just identified kind of what was foundational was is within the first year. What is new account acquisition is in the second year what's account retention and growth. Higher level was in the third year. That was a recommendation the learning committee made.
00:21:22:17 - 00:21:53:10
Unknown
I wouldn't know. So I was listening to them and then we identified which things seemed to have higher numbers of individuals that have even been doing it for over 20 years, right, identifying they wanted help and said, okay, so these are intentional interactive programs versus capabilities that, you know, we didn't have a trend of a lot of folks saying they might want help in it, that we said, okay, we needed a separate group.
00:21:53:10 - 00:22:16:11
Unknown
We had subcommittees within our big learning committee and we had a separate group of volunteers that were just pulling resources and we had a resource bank targeted by which capability it would fill. And we had recommended books and we had podcasts that we podcast look at that. We encourage folks to listen to and articles and blogs that they encouraged folks to subscribe to.
00:22:16:11 - 00:22:42:15
Unknown
So a real resource bank for some of the less universal areas that folks were saying they needed assistance and for the foundational things that everybody was saying they needed assistance. We said there's your there's your first year development program right there. Let's build classes around this. So once we got that information, we were able to break and do even do additional volunteers.
00:22:42:15 - 00:23:10:04
Unknown
Some volunteers were like, I'm tapped out. I have a big project coming. I got to step off. And we had new people going, Oh, you know what? I actually would love to help design a program to build those capabilities. So we had some swapping going on and we were able to have these folks who were invigorated by this whole idea, really helping me create these great classes and these great things.
00:23:10:04 - 00:23:28:17
Unknown
And then I as the designer, right, I pulled all the materials together with them and we would have touch basis where I would say, does this exercise, is this what you were thinking? Because they were telling me what they were thinking, what they would think could work, and I would just be like, Did I structure it right? Did I explain it correctly?
00:23:28:19 - 00:23:55:16
Unknown
Are these the scenarios that you're thinking? So I was doing all of the behind the scenes creation of it and getting their signoff and their signoff throughout the way we met with the senior leadership stakeholders and we would get their signoff. So it became very collaborative all over the place program that my understanding I did this over three years ago is still running today.
00:23:55:18 - 00:24:39:01
Unknown
And one of the great things about the existing team members that weren't new in this career path funnel was we would we once we were done, we created the cadence of the live classes and we made sure to communicate the resources for everybody else of those things, like the podcast, the books, the blogs and things like that. And what we found was we had existing individuals who had identified that something might be an area that they could use, like voluntarily signing up for these classes that they had said they needed assistance and their colleagues had created.
00:24:39:03 - 00:25:10:00
Unknown
And then these experts who are and not that they weren't experts, I don't need to do air quotes as if they weren't these were individuals who really knew what they were doing. But the perception originally from leadership, right, was they've been doing it for 20 years. They don't need help voluntarily taking time out of their sales day, which for any sales folks listening, you now that takes a lot to step away from your sales week and attend a class that their colleagues helped design.
00:25:10:00 - 00:25:38:13
Unknown
So it was it was really cool and I really liked it and it was my first time really pushing for senior leadership to have faith in their team members abilities to do this, have faith that team members that are wanting to do this are still committed to their quotas, which they were all still making because it wasn't to get out of doing their stuff.
00:25:38:13 - 00:26:05:21
Unknown
That was part of the expectation that we had set. You still have to meet your sales quotas. That's still an expectation. So know that this decision isn't as an excuse me, isn't an excuse to get away for meeting your sales quotas. So we had folks that that had a passion and a desire to help. And that's the outcome you get when you have folks that really want to help build something great for their colleagues and for the next generation that will come in to these roles when they leave.
00:26:05:23 - 00:26:35:01
Unknown
And I love those examples and that's great to hear. Kind of like the step by step process that you followed and implemented to kind of create that successful employee design learning approach for this company. And it's cool to hear that it's still running today and still sound successful. So kudos to you. The length, the fear designers have when they create something and then they walk away and then they find out like a year later, Oh yeah, that ran twice.
00:26:35:01 - 00:27:08:04
Unknown
And then we had a new initiative take over. It's like it crushes your soul. Chilling. I put so much time into that. So to hear that it's still running is is very makes them very happy and well, you've mentioned we've kind of talked about how instructional design is really a crucial aspect of creating effective learning experiences. So how does involving employees in the design process influencing structural instructional design decisions for these professional development programs?
00:27:08:10 - 00:27:33:20
Unknown
Yes, good question. The designer doesn't take a backseat, and I think that's an important clarifier to make. You're putting on a different hat for quite a bit of time. Your consulting. So you're helping. I mean, these these are individuals that very likely don't have a large adult learning theory knowledge base. So that's part of how you're helping them understand.
00:27:33:20 - 00:28:05:14
Unknown
Sometimes folks are very lecture driven and you're like, Oh, or let's try something else. And sometimes folks want to spoon think things, spoon feed, excuse me. And so helping them understand. So we got to make sure to recognize the expertise in the room and folks have their own ideas. And so the instructional designer puts on the consultant hat for quite a bit because we also want to help educate the learning Committee on these important facets, too.
00:28:05:14 - 00:28:37:18
Unknown
We help them understand when you're saying what I mean. I did a lot of work with this sales team just explaining Bloom's taxonomy objective writing and identifying. Okay, when you say that phrase, what that means is you're looking for this certain level, like a level three knowledge gain. And to do that, it means we need to put exercises in there because we need to see them do it, or you're highlighting something that means we're going to need to put in a three month touch base to check and see if they've transferred it, which is great.
00:28:37:18 - 00:29:00:15
Unknown
I'm not saying we don't do it, we're just helping really a lot of educating on the field to this learning employee learning committee. So that's one thing the designer does. That is sometimes designers are like, it's faster If I do it myself, I'm like, No, you're right. You are absolutely right, because you don't have to explain all of this stuff.
00:29:00:15 - 00:29:26:04
Unknown
But depending on how big the program is, it might be helpful to have a group. And again, that goes to that buy in. And that at the end, is everybody as excited about it as you are? And this strategy is kind of an ounce of prevention approach. Take some time to educate and see the world after. So that's that's one thing the designer does differently.
00:29:26:06 - 00:30:03:07
Unknown
But again, the designer is still ultimately building the staff. I don't send PowerPoint templates to the employee committee of a certain class. Agha And let me see what you build. You're still doing the creation, so there's still that in between. But they're helping nail down the outline again. Nail down those exercises, and you step in with that knowledge and that expertise and help make sure creativity doesn't run wild to where we're getting a way of that end goal vision, which is the strategy we're trying to help the organization achieve.
00:30:03:13 - 00:30:25:21
Unknown
So we do sometimes I had some zany ideas come up from that sales group that I was like, That sounds cool. Well, I'm not quite sure what that has to do with breaking into new markets, so can we tie that together for me? And if they couldn't, I was like, then let's let's table that idea for some future, just for fun training.
00:30:25:21 - 00:30:52:23
Unknown
I'm not sure what we're going to do with that, but I had a hand to kind of steer the ship a lot. Yes. And what kind of talking about now, as we wrap up here, how this fits into the company's goals and strategy overall, what strategies are methods can organizations adopt to ensure that employee design learning programs align with the company's overall goals and objectives?
00:30:53:00 - 00:31:26:13
Unknown
You're looking to do something like this for more future forward, and what's funny is having a group of sales leaders think about where they want to be three years from now because it, you know, it takes six, depending on, again, how big the program it could be a one time new hire class and you're just grabbing you're learning committee of folks that are on their second year of employment to help design it because you want to think as a designer strategically who are the right people for the learning committee.
00:31:26:13 - 00:31:47:17
Unknown
It might not be a job role. It might be a length of time, it might be we talked in our Networking groups podcast about, you know, first year managers. So maybe that group that's now in their second year, if you're trying to figure out how to successfully own your role at this organization, you want to build a class or a program around that.
00:31:47:19 - 00:32:14:01
Unknown
You're NAB and folks that are in their second year to find out what worked, what didn't, how did we help, where did we miss, what would you train folks? And so really thinking through strategically who your pool of people are and how you would want to use them for what you're thinking. But I encourage organizations think 2 to 3 years ahead, where are you trying to go?
00:32:14:03 - 00:32:46:11
Unknown
Because we need to start focusing now on building the skills and capabilities to make sure your organization's talent pool has what it needs to get you there. You can't constantly think, Well, we'll hire for that. You have talent right now that is guaranteed, amazing and guaranteed ready for continuing to grow. We know engagement things. Talk about how now folks are looking to their employer to continue their career development.
00:32:46:11 - 00:33:11:00
Unknown
They're not looking to do it on their own. They're looking to, you to do it for them, right? So thinking through those things is really beneficial. Asking a group of sales leaders where they think they'll be in three years, I did not know I would get met with such phases of like, I don't know. And I was like, Well, well, are we going to be selling calves or are we still going to be selling, You know, cloud based IT services?
00:33:11:00 - 00:33:32:08
Unknown
Can we at least figure that out? Right. So it really it was funny. But, you know, I think strategically organizations need to look long term. Where are we trying to go as an organization? Which groups are going to help us get there and what do they need to be able to do? Because because this is an investment of employee time.
00:33:32:08 - 00:33:53:15
Unknown
You don't want it to be a one and done. You want to have them help build something that scalable that's replicable, that's going to be around for a few years because it's part of getting you to where you're trying to go, and then also helping the employees understand it will continue to evolve as where we're going. We'll continue to evolve.
00:33:53:15 - 00:34:16:05
Unknown
We create these three year strategies as business leaders, and once you get there, it's not like, all right, high five, we can coast now. It's all right now. What's the next one? What's the next strategy? What's the next one? So something like this, since it takes time, investment is is for those types of of big kind of what do we need to empower our employees with to get us where we need to go?
00:34:16:07 - 00:34:46:03
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. All these as all the time we have today, unfortunately. But we're coming back with a part two on this topic. So excited about that. But thanks for all the great information you share. I think we can all walk away with some great ideas around implementing employee design, learning experiences to our listeners. If you liked our chat and topic today, I'd urge you to comment something new you learned or anything that you want to add on to this conversation.
00:34:46:03 - 00:35:10:02
Unknown
Any questions or any new things you're saying here? Don't forget to share this episode and of course, consider joining MRA if you aren't a member already. We've got all the resources you need in the show notes below, including resources on this topic. Otherwise, thanks for tuning into Mary and don't forget to come back for part two of this episode and we will see you next week.
00:35:10:04 - 00:35:31:06
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 drive so you don't miss out. Thanks. Tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

36 min
September 06, 2023 Celebrating 1 Year of 30 minute THRIVE
Description: Join us in celebrating a major milestone – our podcast's 1-year anniversary! With over 50 episodes and more than 60 incredible guest experts, it's been an unforgettable journey of learning and inspiration. We've not only shared valuable information but also had a blast along the way. To make this anniversary extra special, we've prepared a surprise – a hilarious behind-the-scenes blooper reel! 😂
If you're tuning in to this episode, we invite you to head over to our YouTube channel or visit our website to watch the blooper reel. While you're there, don't forget to sign up for updates and become a VIPP (Very Important Podcast People) by joining our mailing list. Share your topic ideas and burning questions with us too!
Thank you for being a vital part of our podcasting journey. Here's to another fantastic year ahead, filled with even more exciting content. Enjoy the bloopers!
Resources:
30 minute THRIVE
30 minute THRIVE YouTube Playlist
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Host Bio - Sophie Boler
Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler
Transcript:
Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:05
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.
00:00:21:06 - 00:00:44:15
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. We are thrilled to announce that we have reached another major milestone. We are celebrating one whole year of 30 minute Thrive. When we first had this idea. MRA really wanted to have a podcast to talk about the latest trends in HR, Share Best practices, and be a valuable resource for our members, leaders, HR
00:00:44:16 - 00:01:13:15
Unknown
Professionals, trainers and more. We wanted to bring on industry experts to share their insights and experiences and provide real world solutions to everyday challenges. We wanted our listeners to walk away with practical advice. Our goal was to help our listeners thrive. And here we are one year later with over 50 episodes and have welcomed over 60 subject matter experts who joined us on the podcast.
00:01:13:17 - 00:01:44:10
Unknown
So today I invite you to join us as we celebrate this special moment and look back on the incredible conversations, inspiring stories and insightful guests that we've had along the way. We could not have done it without you, our amazing listeners. We have shared so much information and have had so much fun on the podcast. So to mark this occasion, we have a little surprise for you all, a behind the scenes blooper reel.
00:01:44:12 - 00:02:12:01
Unknown
If you are listening to this podcast, we invite you to watch the blooper reel on YouTube or on MRA's website. mranet.org/podcast, While you're on our website, be sure to sign up for updates and become a member of our VIPP very important podcast People list. And on that form, please let us know of any topics or questions that you would like us to cover.
00:02:12:03 - 00:02:37:02
Unknown
Thank you once again for being a part of our podcast Journey. Here's to a fantastic next year. And enjoy the bloopers. 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 memory episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow Emirates 30 minutes Thrive so you don't miss out.
00:02:37:03 - 00:02:41:19
Unknown
Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

3 min
August 30, 2023 Inclusive Cultures, Diverse Voices: Nurturing Belonging at Work
Description: Explore the importance of belonging in the DEI movement in this 30 minute THRIVE podcast episode. Discover how it empowers individuals, amplifies voices, and enhances well-being in our diverse world. Perfect for anyone seeking insights into creating a more inclusive and equitable society.
Resources:
DEI Conference - 10/18/23
Belonging in the Workplace: What Does It Mean and Why Does It Matter?
Belonging: The Cornerstone of the Human Experience at Work
Belonging Drivers & Elements
DEI Resources for Employers
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Guest Bio - Denise Jamison
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Denise Jamison
Guest Bio - Cheryl Lucas-DeBerry
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Cheryl Lucas-DeBerry
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 - 00:00:43:19
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. All right. Well, hello, everybody, and thanks for joining us today. I'm here with and really excited to introduce to you Denise Jamison and Cheryl Lucas-DeBerry. They're both learning and development instructors here at MRA and come with a lot of great insight and expertise today on our topic. So, Denise, welcome to the show.
00:00:43:20 - 00:01:23:10
Unknown
I know you've never been on the podcast. And Cheryl, welcome back. Thank you. Well, these two both come with 20 plus years of experience. And Denise specifically comes with experience in presenting and facilitating really large groups around diversity, equity and inclusion strategy and implementation. And Cheryl's experience includes the development of programs and leadership, customer service and diversity. And I know that you guys do a lot more than just this, but I'm just kind of highlighting your expertise and our topic for today.
00:01:23:12 - 00:01:43:11
Unknown
So I know you both are really passionate about DEI and have led a lot of successful DEI plans and initiatives. So today we're really going to be focusing on how to bring belonging a part of the DEI mix. But before we do that, I just want to kind of start out by defining what DEI truly means in the workplace.
00:01:43:11 - 00:02:13:07
Unknown
So Cheryl, do you want to kick us off and kind of explain what you think DEI means when we're talking about bringing it into the workplace? Yeah, absolutely. And I. Sophie, it's great to be here, and I am. This is a topic I'm very excited about, especially including the, the piece on belonging. But just to kind of level set as diversity is kind of the multiple identities that are represented within an organization.
00:02:13:09 - 00:02:44:16
Unknown
Inclusion is those thoughts and ideas and perspectives that each individual kind of brings to the workplace and things that actually matter for that individual. And then equity is constantly and consistently recognizing and kind of redistributing power and thinking about the whole equity piece. Equity does not mean necessarily equal. And sometimes we get a little bit confused on that.
00:02:44:20 - 00:03:11:20
Unknown
It doesn't mean that we're treating everybody equally. We're giving people what they need in in the workplace. And so those are some things just to be consciously aware of. That's a great point, Cheryl. And we're seeing more of the DEI, B acronym now with belonging included in the mix. So what is belonging truly mean? I know you touched on this briefly, but you expand on that.
00:03:11:22 - 00:03:50:07
Unknown
Yeah, I think the learning is really helping individuals bring their whole authentic selves to the workplace. And so whatever that happens to be, whomever they are, whether it's their hairstyle, whether it's part of their cultural background, all of those things, people feel like they can be themselves and bring their whole unique identity to the workplace. And I think just to add on that they can feel comfortable doing it could have something to bring your your unique self in there, but not feel like you're appreciated and welcome.
00:03:50:08 - 00:04:19:13
Unknown
But the balance is kind of I feel great coming, coming to work, being who I am and kind of showing off who I am. Right. And feeling that the organization values it as well as the individuals that we work on with our in our teams. So organizational overall, but also the people that we work with. And then we have to feel as individuals have to feel comfortable bringing our unique selves to the workplace.
00:04:19:15 - 00:04:58:18
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah, totally. Do you have anything to add on really bringing belonging into the mix and how it complements and kind of enhances the traditional DEI efforts? Sure. As Cheryl was saying earlier, with belonging, it's really bringing our whole selves to work and feeling comfortable, as you had mentioned earlier, and also being able to contribute our ideas and feel that when, when we contribute that our intelligence isn't being held in question.
00:04:58:20 - 00:05:30:22
Unknown
Right. Or if we ask a question, our intelligence isn't again, our intelligence isn't being called into question. Also that we can feel psychologically safe. That's that word that keeps coming up with belonging with DEI traditionally, you know, and that started back in the sixties. We were still finding this empty space and it was like, what is this emptiness?
00:05:30:22 - 00:05:58:05
Unknown
Why is it why is everything not connecting? But it was that belonging piece. And to be able to ask a question, to be able to challenge an idea, to be able to bring a different perspective and feel comfortable and feel valued at, you know, in the workplace, that's where that belonging piece really fit in. To me. And so it brought everything together in that way.
00:05:58:07 - 00:06:24:10
Unknown
And another piece to add on that there is some research that I found that says that diversity, equity and inclusion really came about and thinking about it with regard to the MeToo movement and Black Lives Matter and things like that, it kind of elevated diversity, equity and inclusion. But the research also said in the I found this to be interesting.
00:06:24:12 - 00:06:49:12
Unknown
The pandemic and the great resignation have also made creating that culture of belonging so critical for many organizations, not just employee well-being, but the overall well-being of the organization. So I thought that was an interesting point to make, that the pandemic has had an impact on whether people feel like they can bring their authentic selves to the workplace as well.
00:06:49:14 - 00:07:27:16
Unknown
Oh, yeah, sure. That was an interesting point you brought up. I know we talked about it earlier, but and I think you should include the article too, and the resource I will give. So, Cheryl, why do you employers really need to incorporate belonging into the mix when you're talking about just DEI efforts in the workplace? Again, from this article that we will include in the resources, it says that if people, individuals feel like they belong, they are three times more likely to look forward to coming to work.
00:07:27:18 - 00:08:01:06
Unknown
They are three times more likely to stay or to say that their workplace is a fun place to work. They are nine times more likely to believe that people are treated fairly, regardless of their race, culture, etc. And there are five times more likely to want to stay at the company. So with that great resignation, if people feel like they actually belong, they're going to be more likely to stay at an organization versus leaving.
00:08:01:08 - 00:08:32:01
Unknown
You just listed a bunch of benefits. But Denise, how do you how do you really bring belonging into the workplace? So when we think about that belonging and wanting to stay at the organization and all of those wonderful statistics that you provided with just that belonging piece, when we also think about DEI and how belonging can bring everything together is with belonging, It's that your diversity belongs here, right?
00:08:32:01 - 00:09:02:19
Unknown
So it doesn't matter if it's your accent, it fits your perspective, if it's your the way that you talk, the way that you dress, your diversity belongs here. Also your perspective as far as equitable practice, you know, that also belongs here in our organization. And over the pandemic, all of us had a good amount of time to kind of get to know ourselves just a little bit better, you know, just culturally, you know, as a society.
00:09:02:21 - 00:09:27:09
Unknown
But when we think about the workplace, it also made us more accountable to who we were going to be and how we were going to show up. Right. And how we were going to actually create that belonging space. I know one thing that I also like to say is with belonging, it's active, right? Because belonging actually really exist in organizations today.
00:09:27:11 - 00:09:56:00
Unknown
But we want to cast a wider net so that more people feel like they belong. And you hear that cultural fit you know, oh, I'm not sure if they were a cultural fit right, but it's that belonging piece that is all always, always been, been there and it's not making everyone feel like they belong. And that's where the challenge I think has been in the past.
00:09:56:02 - 00:10:35:23
Unknown
Yeah, absolute. So we kind of discovered the importance of belonging in the workplace and kind of the benefits to it. But either of you can take this one. Can you tell us how employers can really bring this into the workplace? There are a couple of things that that organizations can do just creating that sense of belonging in the workplace is going to kind of result in higher productivity, higher engagement with all of the employees that come into the workplace and kind of building that into the overall organizational culture.
00:10:36:01 - 00:11:02:13
Unknown
I think is also important and just making it not just a a nice thing to do, but it's it's part of who the organization is, it's part of who we are is part of this culture that people feel comfortable in bringing their whole unique selves to the workplace. So like when we think about how we can implement it, it's all hands on deck, right?
00:11:02:13 - 00:11:28:20
Unknown
So it's not just starting at the top. It's not just starting at where the employee is front line, you know, leadership. It is all hands on deck. And and that means that psychological safety. I'm going to go back to that. When someone asks a question, me as an individual, I would say great question. I'm glad you asked that.
00:11:28:20 - 00:11:57:05
Unknown
Right. So those are just some practices that we can put in place. And then we also want to make sure that when people come in to our workplace that they feel valued. How do we make them feel valued? We celebrate their milestones. We also invest in their their progress when they are at the organization. So what are we doing as far as Buddy systems, as far as coaching, as far as mentoring?
00:11:57:11 - 00:12:27:08
Unknown
What are we doing to invest in their education? Is is it tuition reimbursement? You know, different programs that we can offer individuals so that they actually feel valued. That's also going to make a difference with how you know, to answering the are how we can make it work. A couple other things to add on to that to the how of what organizations can do.
00:12:27:10 - 00:12:50:10
Unknown
One, it's to avoid favoritism. And I know that, oh, we don't play favors. Well, do all the managers know that favoritism is not something that they should be doing? So just making sure that managers are aware of whether they are playing favorites. And all it takes is a perception, because perception is reality to the person that perceives it.
00:12:50:12 - 00:13:19:14
Unknown
And so just constantly reiterating to managers about not playing favorites or having the perception of favoritism. Another thing that organizations can do is to involve the employees in decision making. You know, just what what input do you have? What ideas do you have? Oftentimes with people who are doing the work, usually have the best ideas. We just don't always ask them in having some transparency.
00:13:19:14 - 00:13:49:24
Unknown
So everybody has access to the same information, having their promotions, and as Denise said, kind of celebrating those accomplishments. We can also make sure that we're being welcoming of new employees and making sure that we are embracing the whole self and that organizations can create that sense of belonging and inclusivity, you know, kind of beyond tolerance, as we talked about earlier.
00:13:50:01 - 00:14:14:14
Unknown
And it sends the message that all employees are valued when it goes beyond tolerance, that this is just part of who we are, what this organization stands for. And it's it's real simple. You know how it starts. It starts with eye contact. Right. With just saying hello, you know, welcome. What is your name, man? I've been meeting to get to know you.
00:14:14:14 - 00:14:43:18
Unknown
So tell me about yourself. You know, welcome to our team. I, you know, I'm just glad that you're here. All of that makes a huge difference. I was just going to say a lot of the ideas and advice that you just lost out. They seem like simple tasks, but it can't just be like a like Denise mentioned a one time saying it's got to be an organization wide initiative and everyone has to get comfortable doing it too.
00:14:43:18 - 00:15:15:15
Unknown
So employee appreciation may sound easy, but it's got to be an all hands on deck thing where everybody is a pre and appreciating. Everybody in the managers are appreciating everybody on their team, not just one person. I'd also like to put in there that organizations need to have more persistence. Organizations need to have more grit. You know, a lot of times we hear it on the other side, you know, well, that person made it because of their grit, because of their persistence.
00:15:15:17 - 00:15:43:22
Unknown
And I think organizations I would like to invite organizations to also have that persistence and have that grit and to leaning in to making people feel like they belong because it's active. You know, it's a it's a very dynamic space where you're actually making people feel like they belong in an organization. It's that cultural piece that we tend to miss out on sometimes.
00:15:43:23 - 00:16:19:18
Unknown
How about now, looking at some challenges? What are some key challenges that organizations face when integrating belonging into their DEI strategies and any advice on how to address these these challenges? Well, one thing because it's so all hands on deck, you know, it's I remember one time or I it's actually my practice. So sometimes if there's a new person that starts right, I as somebody who has been with the organization, might go and sit with that person.
00:16:19:20 - 00:16:51:09
Unknown
Now, sometimes the team will kind of see that like, wait a minute, what's Denise doing over there? Right. When we want to make everyone feel included. So it's that practice that everyone is going to take part in it. And it's okay. It's okay for another team member to welcome or sit next to someone who's different or, you know, we tend to sit by people who are like ourselves.
00:16:51:09 - 00:17:13:24
Unknown
Why is that that affinity bias right there on the same team? They look like us, they act like us, whatever that might be. I went to the same school. But when we invite someone different and new that is making that eye contact saying hello, actually sitting next to them when they're sitting at a table that's open and no one else is sitting next to them.
00:17:13:24 - 00:17:48:20
Unknown
Right. And feeling okay to do that. And, you know, that takes the whole team, but it starts at an individual level. That's one way. Cheryl, any other challenges you see? Yeah, I think it also comes down to just the concept of respect and showing respect. And, you know, again, respect is in the eye of the beholder or the person who and going back to perception, but just respecting what people bring to the table different doesn't mean wrong.
00:17:48:20 - 00:18:16:12
Unknown
It's just different. And if things have always stayed the same, then we would never improve. If organizations always stayed the same, they would never grow. So if you had the same kind of people, you wouldn't have a diversity, even diversity of thought. Then sometimes we think diversity means race, age, gender, etc. is all of those things, but it's also diversity of thought in people who have different backgrounds and experience.
00:18:16:12 - 00:18:51:16
Unknown
Bring those to the workplace. And if we create an environment where they feel comfortable bringing their own backgrounds and experiences, it is going to make for a much richer organization, much richer team, and also the projects and products will be much richer for their customers. And you know, when you say respect and I just have to have to add this, all of us know the Otis Redding or the Aretha Franklin song, right, Ari, C t, what's the rest of it?
00:18:51:18 - 00:19:14:12
Unknown
You got to find out what it means to me. R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means to me. Right? In order for us to do that, we have to reach out and find out what it means to be people that might not sound like us or look like us, you know, and be active. And it's like I said, it's a dynamic space.
00:19:14:12 - 00:19:47:14
Unknown
It's a place where we're actually constantly making people feel like they're comfortable and leaning in to that discomfort. One thing for the employees or once once we think about the creating that belonging space. So we've created a space where people can feel psychologically safe, they can challenge assumptions, they have somebody they can go to when they have those questions that they might have and might not feel comfortable sharing it on an open forum.
00:19:47:16 - 00:20:26:08
Unknown
When we provide that space where we say, Welcome, you are included, not only are you included, but you belong. The only thing that I think is the responsibility of the the new person is just to stay curious, right? So we have to keep staying curious. And that means that we feel comfortable asking questions. We feel comfortable bringing our whole selves and not feeling like we are being questioned when it comes to our integrity or our our intelligence.
00:20:26:10 - 00:20:54:07
Unknown
Right. All of that. So, yes, respect, I think, asking from a place of curiosity versus a place of condemn, condemning or negativity, just a place of curiosity. Tell me more about that. Tell me more about your background. Tell me more about, you know, the lunch that you're eating. Is that a cultural meal? And tell me more about your culture.
00:20:54:12 - 00:21:24:20
Unknown
That is a great way to get to know people and have people feel like they belong. When you come from a place of curiosity versus I'm and, you know, being critical of you because you're different. But we want to start with the curiosity, but we also want to go back to the fact that, hey, we invited this person to be on our team because of their skills, because of their education, because of their knowledge, because of their passion.
00:21:24:24 - 00:22:03:09
Unknown
Making people belong is is the precursor or just that groundwork that we create for somebody to actually do their job and do it well and bring all of their passion, their skills, their talents, their education, so that they can contribute to the organization. Right. And that's what we finally want to get to, is creating that space where you can communicate faster, where it's almost like, I don't know if either of you have played charades with two best friends, right?
00:22:03:12 - 00:22:37:06
Unknown
You can never win because they have all these different ways that they can communicate with one another that is just not shared with people who might not be in there. You know, have they have shared that past history with them? So that's the advantage of having a space where you welcome diversity, where you're actually leveraging that diversity and creating that inclusive and belonging space and also in including equitable practice.
00:22:37:08 - 00:23:15:10
Unknown
So making sure that everyone has equal access, as Cheryl had said earlier, making sure that we are all have the voice to share our perspectives. All of that is is important. But but the bottom line is in the workplace, we are there to be more to create more innovation, to compete at a faster rate. And the way that we can do that is by getting to know everyone who's on our teams.
00:23:15:15 - 00:24:10:20
Unknown
So you both shared some great real life examples of how organizations are implement doing belonging initiatives in their organizations. But do you have any other examples or maybe you know, of an organization who's doing a certain thing that you can share with us on how they're really leveraging belonging to strengthen their DEI efforts? I have made example of an organization that has created a senior leadership mentoring program, and I think it's important that senior leaders are involved in this and so that they are then paired up with a new employee so that that employee learns from the expertise of that senior leader, but also the senior leader can learn some things about that individual because
00:24:10:23 - 00:24:43:06
Unknown
none of these practices, none of these initiatives will work as effectively as they could if it does not start with senior leadership. Senior leadership is not involved. That's not embrace these initiatives, does not ensure that the initiatives are cascaded down throughout the organization. Then it doesn't work as well. We can do a lot of great things on the ground level, but if it doesn't go up the ladder and if it doesn't cascade down, then it's not going to be as effective.
00:24:43:06 - 00:25:09:10
Unknown
So having that senior leadership mentor program goes a long way in that person, feel committed to the organization, feels like the organization is committed to them because that senior leader is taking time out of their schedule to mentor them, but also that individual, that new employee is learning from the senior leader about their skills, but also about the organization overall.
00:25:09:12 - 00:25:55:06
Unknown
You know, another thing is affinity groups. I have a lot of respect for affinity groups. The reason being is that it gives people who might not have the opportunity to be in leadership or show leadership, the opportunity to show leadership. You can be responsible for budget, you can organize a meeting throughout the organization, and all of these efforts help people who might not normally be seen, get seen and make those connections and build those relationships so that you can learn more about the organization and just how your organization in particular works and functions.
00:25:55:08 - 00:26:34:16
Unknown
So that would be one that I would really encourage. So how can individuals then really start to become allies in advocates for belonging and supporting those who may feel excluded or that they don't belong in in this kind of setting? Any advice for that? Well, with individually, I think that being curious about different cultures, also learning about people who might be different, learning a different language, right.
00:26:34:16 - 00:27:17:08
Unknown
That even opens your mind to different perspectives. So when we think about language in and of itself, some languages have one word that would be a masculine and another language that it might be feminine, right? So when we just think about learning a new language, eating a new type of food, going to a movie that's in a different language, all of this helps us understand that there are different people that come to our organizations with different perspectives, different cultures, a different upbringing, and how important it is to the growth of our organization.
00:27:17:10 - 00:27:43:16
Unknown
Cheryl, anything to add on this? Yeah, I think just again, that that curiosity, but just inviting people to join your your group or if your group is like, no, we don't want to to deal with that, you reach out to that person and say, Hey, just wanted to. Why don't we get together and go to lunch? Why don't we get together and have coffee or whatever?
00:27:43:16 - 00:28:20:24
Unknown
And just to get to know that person on an individual basis is going to help want them in. So you want to model the behavior that others will see, that you're doing something positive, you're not doing it because you're obligated to do it. You're doing it because it is the right thing to do and to make sure that everybody feels included and feels like they belong at the organization and feel like they can bring their authentic selves and show who they really are and not have to feel like they have to wear mask when they come to work that they can be their authentic selves.
00:28:21:01 - 00:29:08:07
Unknown
Yes, So often as a people who are in the minority, we come to a workplace and the first thing we in the back of our heads is what do I have to give up? Or what is it that I have to minimize about myself so that I can be a part of this organization, but instead of spending time wondering about what I need to give up, what I need to minimize to be able to just come to work and do my job and be able to contribute everything that I have, all of the education that I that I've had over the course of all my years, all of the skills that I have to bring
00:29:08:12 - 00:29:47:14
Unknown
to be able to bring everything that I have and concentrate on that and just build relationships, ask questions, challenge ideas, bring new ideas to the fold. That's where we can really experience that richness, that diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging is there to help organizations thrive. And I love that word. 30 minute Thrive. Yeah, right. You both brought up just the importance of just reaching out and including people in your organization.
00:29:47:16 - 00:30:13:20
Unknown
And actually just last week, just for an example, one of our coworkers stopped by my desk and was like, Hey, I'm volunteering with a group of people next week. Like, I'd love I'd love for you to join. Are you available? And I was available, but and to another point, it made me feel really good that she came and reached out and it was a group that I didn't really do a lot with at work.
00:30:13:22 - 00:30:51:24
Unknown
So it just made me feel really good about myself and come over and include me with a group that I'm not too familiar with and I got to get to know that group, which makes me feel better about just my coworkers and who I'm working with and stuff like that. So it can be just as simple as inviting your coworker to go volunteer with you and think about all the new people that you're going to meet, all the different perspectives that you're going to get and you, if you build it, you believe or you begin to trust their ideas and you feel like they'll trust you, you know?
00:30:52:01 - 00:31:30:05
Unknown
And so just as we wrap up here is our times are up and up. What are some of the most critical takeaways for listeners to remember when adding belonging into the dynamics in their own lives and in their organization? I think just making sure that people feel feel comfortable bringing their host also to the workplace, whatever is unique about that individual that they don't feel like they have to hide it or they don't feel like they have to minimize it, as Denise was saying, but they can bring their whole selves.
00:31:30:05 - 00:32:04:22
Unknown
Whatever makes you makes you you that I can bring that to the workplace. There is a great quote that we talked about with diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. In a sense that diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance by belonging is dancing like nobody's watching. And if I can dance like nobody's watching at work, then I am being my authentic self.
00:32:04:24 - 00:32:38:10
Unknown
Totally. Yes, I love that. Denise, any other key takeaways as we wrap up today? One thing that I would just like to remind organizations is that D and B is great business strategy, so it helps teams function smoothly. It also helps departments work closer together and be more innovative and be more creative and compete and keep up with what's happening in the world.
00:32:38:10 - 00:33:09:15
Unknown
And our our world is just changing at such a quick and fast rate, especially when we think of competitiveness globally. DEI helps include different perspectives, quickly make those relationships so that we can build trust and create more dynamic teams and systems so that we can compete. So great, great takeaways from Cheryl and Denise Sink you. Thank you again for all the great information you shared today.
00:33:09:19 - 00:33:37:14
Unknown
I think we can all walk away with some some great ideas around implementing belonging into our DEI efforts. To 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 want to add on to this conversation. We're always open to hear your thoughts and your suggestions and advice to Don't forget to share out this episode and consider joining MRA if you aren't a member already.
00:33:37:19 - 00:33:59:01
Unknown
We have all the resources you need in the show Notes below, including resources on this topic with article Cheryl was talking about otherwise. Thank you so much for tuning in today and we will see you next week. Thanks everyone. Thanks for having me, Sophie. Thank you. And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign them to connect.
00:33:59:01 - 00:34:14:05
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 minute Thrive so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

35 min
August 23, 2023Executive Insights: August Talent Report
Description: In this episode, we’ll explore the August edition of MRA's monthly Talent Report: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
We’ll hear from Jim Morgan, Vice President of Workforce Strategies, on best practices, including:
Attracting the next generation of customers and staff
Employee engagement and experience
Recruiting and the candidate experience
AI platforms
Implementing company-wide DEI initiatives
Uncover C-Suite priorities, top creative HR strategies, and more!
Resources:
August Talent Report
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 - 00:00:41:24
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. All right. Well, welcome, everybody, to this episode of 30 Minute Thrive. I'm excited to go over this month's talent report with Jim Morgan, MRA. Vice president of Workforce Strategies, as we go into what he's been seeing in the world of business in the month of August. So thanks for joining us again this month, Jim.
00:00:42:01 - 00:01:08:16
Unknown
Always a pleasure to come back. Well, for August, it looks like the special topic was on diversity, equity and inclusion, specifically working on efforts in organizations. So why did you choose this DEI topic for this month? Well, I think, you know, it's a topic that we could probably do just about any month, and we hadn't done it yet this year on the talent report, and that now would be a good time.
00:01:08:16 - 00:01:32:19
Unknown
And with the talent shortage and what we've talked about the last six or seven episodes, all of the issues around diversity, equity, inclusion also play into the talent pool as well. And we know what are companies doing in order to to figure that out. And so, Diana, what we brought in from our Ohio office talked about and we talked a little bit more a little bit later about the results.
00:01:32:19 - 00:02:15:13
Unknown
But, you know, she started by talking about, you know, why are we doing this in the first place? And we had just done a survey of our Chief Diversity Officers roundtable. And that's sort of what drove this month's topic. And she had brought to it. Well, you know, here's what they were saying were the reasons that they had a DEA program in their company to build stronger teams, to foster collaboration, to make employees feel valued, to enhance productivity, to create a welcoming environment, to build trust among employers, to attract top talent, to increase retention, to increase business development, and to ensure the production of new ideas.
00:02:15:15 - 00:02:38:24
Unknown
So that list of ten, I thought, well, okay, well, people aren't interested in those ten things and we're really in trouble. So that's kind of what we focused on, was sort of yea, the positives that come out of that, and especially in terms of engaging and retaining. And I can talk a little bit about our elite program here at Amara, but really it's it's just a strategy that I think almost every company is utilizing now.
00:02:39:00 - 00:03:06:15
Unknown
We're just trying to help them see some of the best practices that are out there. Yeah, that was a great list of benefits that you just talked about. And this episode will kind of be a good leeway in to our next week's episode. After this, we're talking about how belonging fits into the diversity, equity and inclusion mix. So understanding that one, yeah, let's kind of go into what's happening in recruiting and retention world.
00:03:06:15 - 00:03:36:18
Unknown
So Jim, what's what are you seeing here that's new? We were wrapping up our internal leadership program, of which you are a proud graduate and we were asking, you know, what are you doing in some of your wrap up things? And we got some really neat ideas from the coordinators around kind of their year end projects. And they shared with us that one of them had their interns look in their own department as to how do they attract the next generation of customers and employees.
00:03:36:20 - 00:03:59:14
Unknown
And so depending on what department they were in, they were providing their perspectives on how do we go out and engage 20, 21, 22 or 23 year olds. So that was one of their their projects. Another company had them look at the entire employee cycle of life and basically say, What is our candidate experience look like? What's our onboarding experience look like?
00:03:59:16 - 00:04:21:22
Unknown
Where does our experienced employee experience look like? And so they reported back on conversations that they had with employees at a variety of different places in that in that cycle, one of the groups developed a campus recruiting strategy for the company so that when they go out next year, they've kind of got the playbook and what it's going to take to go.
00:04:21:23 - 00:04:44:23
Unknown
We we recruit people. One put together a social media plan for, you know, how do we go out and recruit. And then most of them were presenting their material to the executive staff, which really I think was a real bonus for the kids that were the interns in the program. It gave them a chance, you know, to have some exposure in front of those people.
00:04:45:00 - 00:05:02:12
Unknown
And I think exempt were from everything that we got back. We're pretty excited about the fact that while these are, you know, some of the ideas might be out there a little bit but it's a fresh set of eyes looking at what does this mean for a 20, 21, 22 year old. So really kind of a cool wrap up to the season.
00:05:02:12 - 00:05:23:10
Unknown
And I think with a lot of the the interns that we had. Yeah, absolutely. And I just have to mention because I just saw this on LinkedIn, but was Emory's interim leadership program with our intern grads, we gave them a little interim leadership badge to put on their own personal LinkedIn accounts and they can post it as an accomplishment.
00:05:23:10 - 00:05:48:13
Unknown
And that also just kind of gets the word out and creates creates our own little intern program advocates and kind of in a fun way to. Yeah. So that was that was pretty exciting. On the intern side, we've also seen, you know, we're talking about salaries and things and the companies aren't in quite the same hiring mode that they were, but they're still looking for those critical positions.
00:05:48:19 - 00:06:14:11
Unknown
But the pressure on salaries remains there. People coming in asking for more money than some of the experienced people in that same position. So that continues to be an issue, I think, for employers trying to help people understand what the market actually is. And just because, you know, your cousin made this much out in California, doing something doesn't mean you're going to make that much in Green Bay doing the same thing.
00:06:14:13 - 00:06:41:07
Unknown
So they're continuing to try to educate, I think, their employees on on market value and things like that. The people wanting the remote worker mode remains a big deal. And we just keep hearing stories. This one came from an I.T. company that was just having a hard time finding computer technology folks because they were requiring them to come in and finally just said, we'll let them work fully remote.
00:06:41:07 - 00:07:16:08
Unknown
And we're surprised at the increase in number and quality of the people that they were starting to get in. And that doesn't apply to every job. But again, people that are in the I.T. business might have already had some experience working remote, and that seems to be something that they're they're very interested in. And then lastly, seeing more of a push right now and candidates asking for more leads, whether that's family leave or paid sick time or vacation, that, yes, everybody still wants more money, but the lead time is coming into play.
00:07:16:08 - 00:07:34:21
Unknown
And I think it's one it's a work life balance thing for a lot of people as they come in. But two, you've got folks now that are taking care of elderly parents. They're trying to figure out child care issues. You know, they're kind of stuck in the middle of taking care of both the the people that raise them and the people that they're raising.
00:07:34:23 - 00:07:58:15
Unknown
And so I think that's putting a little more pressure on employers as well. You know, anything else in the thinking section just kind of goes along with the recruiting and candidate process. But I know you talked about recruiters being more involved with their hiring managers and actually shadowing the position that they're recruiting for. Can you expand on that a little bit?
00:07:58:17 - 00:08:17:22
Unknown
Yeah, You know, I think the people in h.r. Have been pushing for this for quite some time because, one, i can't do it alone. And two, you're the hiring manager, you know, a little bit more about, you know, what's happening in the position. So I think you're seeing a lot more teamwork between the two. I think the hiring managers have begun to understand what the h.r.
00:08:17:22 - 00:08:38:20
Unknown
Folks are facing in terms of trying to find good candidates. I think they're buying into the process a little bit more and i think it takes a little bit of the pressure off the human resources people to, you know, basically do everything, but it also engages the hiring manager and the process to it rather than after you've gone through the entire process and said, here's your person.
00:08:38:20 - 00:08:59:17
Unknown
They're like, this isn't what I'm looking for. You can find that out a lot earlier, that this is not the skill set or the person will know it right away versus after having them interview and come in and and do the rest of it. So I think that partnership is really sort of helping, helping us find even better people and probably find them a little bit faster as well.
00:08:59:19 - 00:09:21:10
Unknown
We also, in connection with that paid time off, there was a Georgetown University survey that came out that said the flexible work schedule is right up there, along with paid time off as the two things that young adults are asking for more than anything else. I don't know that that's really different. You know, I'm guessing when I went in for my first job, I sure I said, how much does this pay?
00:09:21:10 - 00:09:41:00
Unknown
How many days off do I get and what's the work schedule? But I think it's just there's more of an openness now to bring it up and have that have that discussion. And like I said, the salary issue, you know, there's a lot of data out there and I think people can look up, Oh, I'm an electrical engineer, how much should I get paid?
00:09:41:02 - 00:10:07:17
Unknown
And depending on what sorts you get, all kinds of things come out. Second of all, you talk to your cousin and they say, Oh, I made this much. So you take that and your generation, more than mine, shares information on social media a lot more openly than people did 30 or 40 years ago. And I think we had just as human nature, we have a tendency to find the highest number that anyone shared and said that must be the starting salary.
00:10:07:19 - 00:10:31:17
Unknown
So employees and candidates, I think, are coming in with what they think is here's my data and it all says 80,000 and then meeting up with the employer that says, Well, here's our benchmark survey and it says 60,000. And so we're having some tough conversations, I think. But, you know, it is what it is. People have some information and at least gives you a place to start from and have the conversation for sure.
00:10:31:19 - 00:11:06:21
Unknown
But we always talk about employee engagement in our talent report conversations. And this month you stated that 31% of us employees are thriving at work or are very engaged where 52% are quite quitting or not engaged in. 17% are actually wild quitting or actively disengaged. So my question is, what do you do with these three different groups? Well, all of this data came from Gallup, and they are well known for their employee engagement surveys and do literally hundreds of thousands of individuals.
00:11:06:21 - 00:11:26:07
Unknown
So it's a pretty good database that they can pull from. But yeah, those were those were the results. And, you know, you look at that and you're like, holy smokes, you know, what do I do with this? And, you know, Gallup's advice out of all this was, okay, first of all, you've got more than half of them. They're quiet, quitting, not engaged category to them.
00:11:26:07 - 00:11:46:09
Unknown
That's the low hanging fruit. You know, these are people are still showing up. They're not disruptive. They're they're working. And they're probably the group that would be the easiest to sort of push into that engaged group if we figure out what it is. Well, you know, what's missing is it camaraderie? Is it you know, you're feeling like you're independent.
00:11:46:11 - 00:12:15:02
Unknown
Is it more social activities? Like, you know what? Why don't you feel engaged? And if we can find that, we can probably push that group, maybe some of that 52 into the 31, the people that are actually, you know, engaged and thriving at work. The second suggestion comes even from those people that are engaged, you know, are they really, you know, like you've got that group of people that you can send them out on the street to sell the organization no matter who it was to?
00:12:15:04 - 00:12:37:21
Unknown
And how do you maybe get some of that group that's already engaged, but to that really engaged group? And is there a little bit something special that these are our high performers. These are people that are getting the work done. Can we give them another nudge? And yeah, they'll still be in the same category, but they'll be even bigger zealots, I guess, you know, and advocates for your for your organization.
00:12:37:23 - 00:13:09:17
Unknown
And then a little bit of, you know, okay, if you've got people that are loud quitting, which was their term, which basically is now, you know, and not engaged, I'm telling people I'm not engaged and I'm posting things that say I'm not engaged. That's a group that can do some damage. And so with that group, it may be, okay, let's bring you in and find out, can we move you into someone that you know is satisfied with their job, at least not actively out there, you know, saying bad things about stuff?
00:13:09:19 - 00:13:31:19
Unknown
Or is it someone who just is a bad fit for the organization and we have to deal with it that way. So I think, you know, if you go from top to bottom, take those really good engaged people and make them even more engaged. Take the group that's not engaged but is just kind of on the fence and try to move them to those that are thriving and for those that are, you know, actively sabotaging.
00:13:31:19 - 00:14:06:04
Unknown
And almost we either got to get them under the tent or help them find a different tent in which to play under. And so there's work for all groups, basically across groups. Everybody can move up a notch. I think actually we're kind of moving into more of our tech talk. Last month we talked about how AI is just continuing to grow every second of the day, which means that companies are figuring out how to use it and how to incorporate that in AI into their work, in their day to day responsibilities.
00:14:06:06 - 00:14:35:07
Unknown
So any new updates this month on how AI platforms are being used in in work today? Yeah, I just got done doing a seminar with folks that were utilizing it and recruiting and it's fascinating. And all of this that I'm about to tell you came from the part of Chat GPT that you actually have to pay for, which you know, I knew there was the free part that I've used and then there's the paper and I thought, Well, I'm getting what I need from the free part.
00:14:35:13 - 00:14:56:05
Unknown
But now having seen the part that you can pay for, it does even a heck of a lot more. But they just gave examples of things that were real, I guess just time savers writing a job description. You know, you can feed in. This is what it is. This is what we're talking about and get an awful lot of information back.
00:14:56:07 - 00:15:15:03
Unknown
Give me 12 really good interview questions and they can come back with a whole bite, you know, save you the time of trying to figure out, you know, what are we going to ask this type of job? There was one sample where they took a very complicated job. It was some sort of engineer, and I wouldn't have understood what they did.
00:15:15:05 - 00:15:38:23
Unknown
And the question that they actually asked of Chad GPT was explain a whatever a nuclear engineer to me. Like I'm 12 years old and you know, the h.r. Person said he just gave me a better idea of. Okay, i understand now seeing all these big words over here, but now i know what they actually do. So in terms of writing it, I've got a much better idea of what it is I should be talking about.
00:15:39:00 - 00:15:59:04
Unknown
And then even, you know, saying, what are 12 good lunch and learn topics that we can share with all of our employees, you know, and you get a list back not only of the 12, but with some bullet points underneath that say you might want to touch on this and this and this and this. So it was really it was really interesting to see the things that could generate that were really time savers.
00:15:59:06 - 00:16:19:24
Unknown
All of this comes with a caveat that says don't just take it and put it out there, take it and read it because funky things can happen because this is, you know, this is machine learning. This is a language that is looking for, you know, and pulling out our chat. GB t it basically stop taking in new data in September of 2021.
00:16:20:01 - 00:16:44:20
Unknown
So if you're looking for something that's up to date, you're not going to get the latest and the greatest, at least from that platform. But when you're asking for questions like what are good topics, what are good questions, you know, missing out on the last two years probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference. And then I think the most interesting quote I heard during the whole webinar was, you know, people are afraid that AI is going to come and take their job.
00:16:44:22 - 00:17:08:12
Unknown
And the person's response was, A.I. is not going to take your job, but someone who knows I might and they're simply saying this is another tool. This is now you know how the Excel and PowerPoint and Word are basic skills. Now, PDFs are basic skills now, and knowing something about A.I. is going to become a basic skill is basically the point that she was making.
00:17:08:14 - 00:17:40:21
Unknown
And I've also heard that it's like we all know it's it's never going to go away. So the businesses that figure out how to incorporate it and use it successfully are going to be the businesses that come out successful all through A.I.. Yeah. So Diana Small, our executive director of Emory Emory's Ohio division, Like we said, she also made an appearance on this month's report talking about implementing DEI strategies and efforts into organizations.
00:17:40:23 - 00:18:03:09
Unknown
So you talked a little bit about the why, but do you have any other key points or takeaways that Diana mentioned that you want to highlight today? Yeah, When we got done, I just said, you know, and she walked through the beginner and intermediate advanced and everything that was was going on there and people can see the recording of that if they want to go look at the talent report.
00:18:03:11 - 00:18:23:04
Unknown
But I just said to her, you know, I said, you've done enough of this just at a gut level, what what has to be in place in order for someone to be successful in putting a DEI program in place? And she said really two things. You know, one, you've got to have a culture that's ready to accepted employees that are willing to engage and want to be a part of it.
00:18:23:06 - 00:18:47:10
Unknown
And two, you've got to have leadership buy in. And, you know, that sounds so simple, but, you know, you can just see how things will move faster if you're not trying to overcome your leadership team, but you're being driven by your leadership team that makes such a difference. And then if you find people that are really engaged in this and are passionate about it, that really changes the game too.
00:18:47:12 - 00:19:10:08
Unknown
And that, you know, I shared with her, you know, our employee resource group here is called I Lead at MRA and I'm a part of that and about 40 other people are. And it's really our place to go have these deep discussions. And I said to her, I said, That makes complete sense to me, because the people that come into those meetings are passionate about, you know, how do we make sure that we're diverse and equitable?
00:19:10:08 - 00:19:36:07
Unknown
I include people and there's a sense of belonging, and people really are very open and honest, sharing their own stories. Here's what they're seeing, here's what they're hearing. And then what do we as a group of employees do to reach out and engage even more of our employees? And so I thought, as simple as you, when you say culture and leadership, it, when you think about it, if those two things aren't in play, boy, then you really got your work cut out for.
00:19:36:07 - 00:19:51:13
Unknown
So I just thought you did a really nice job of breaking it down to that point and saying, you know, look, you got to you've got to set the place up to be ready for it and you've got to have the leaders that are willing to lead on it. So it was succinct and simple and but a big deal if you don't have it.
00:19:51:15 - 00:20:18:22
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. I would just reiterate to make sure to tune in to next week's episode. If you do want to learn more about implementing DEI strategy in your organization and how belonging should send to mix. But just as we kind of wrap up here, we've got another chart question, and I know you included the chart at the end of the Taylor Report, and it shows the working age population annual growth rate.
00:20:18:24 - 00:20:43:18
Unknown
So what does this chart shows or anything that we should necessarily be scared of when we're looking at it? I think you're doing this to me on purpose, that you're trying to have me. Okay, let's see. And how many words can you describe this chart? So I'm just going to put it on the website. You can go look at it now if you want to see what the chart is, Is it the working age population annual growth rate?
00:20:43:20 - 00:21:21:04
Unknown
So how much is it growing each year? And it goes from 1960 predicted through 2050, and it's got ten different countries, continents, areas of the united of the world on there, North America, Africa, Russia, West Europe, Japan, China. So you're getting a look at basically the whole world and what exactly is going on there. And the simplest thing I can say is the chart from 1960 to 19 8085 looks like you're climbing up the ladder to a to go down the ski slope, I guess.
00:21:21:06 - 00:21:48:06
Unknown
And when you hit about 1980, 1985, you basically go down the slope and it's for every single country that's in the group, some more severe than others. But you have countries that are dropping below, you know, the 0%. I mean, they're actually getting smaller, which includes North America, it includes Russia, it includes Western Europe. You know, so this isn't just a United States problem.
00:21:48:06 - 00:22:11:19
Unknown
It's sort of an all over the place problem. But even the countries that are staying above and are the ones that you think of the fast growing like, you know, Africa, they're starting you know, by the time you get to 2030, you're starting to see a drop off there. So it's a universal thing. And the point we're trying to make with that is this is happening everywhere, maybe for different reasons in different places.
00:22:11:21 - 00:22:31:10
Unknown
But as people are thinking, oh, well, I'll just go to where the people are, they might be having the exact same problem that we're having in the United States. And so as people are trying to figure out, if I can't do it here, how do I outsource? Where do I go? It was just sort of take a look around the world because you can see that other people are going to be facing the same problem, too.
00:22:31:12 - 00:22:52:03
Unknown
So that chart is I know it's in the tail report that's on the tail report website and maybe we can put it up on the podcast site as well. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you did a good job of describing it. Thank you. Just think of the up and down. Yeah, well, as we wrap up here, can you give us a sneak peek on what September's talent report will be?
00:22:52:05 - 00:23:13:01
Unknown
Yeah, it's going to be about compensation and compensation trends. We've got our big comp trends event in September. And just as another plug, we've got our Big D conference coming up in October. So I would encourage everybody to go to the MRA website and take a look at both of those. But we're not going to share all the comp trends data because that's coming out a couple of weeks.
00:23:13:01 - 00:23:33:07
Unknown
We won't have the final information, but we are going to have some trends of what people we may not have the specific data for 2023, but we will be talking about some of the things that people are starting to look at and as the teaser, I guess for for for next month that we're sort of at this generational tipping point.
00:23:33:13 - 00:23:57:15
Unknown
We're at the point now where the workplace is about 50% millennials and Gen Zs and 50% Gen Xers and Baby boomers. And if you think about the Xers in the Boomers, and then you think about the Millennials and the Zs, they want different things. And so when you start talking about benefits, not just because they're in different age groups, which does drive a lot of it, but they are very different lifestyles too.
00:23:57:15 - 00:24:19:01
Unknown
And so now how are companies going to figure out their total compensation practice when these this group of people might be looking for things that isn't what we're offering right now, but we still have to offer them for this group until they retire. And I think it's going to it's going to be an interesting sort of tipping point as we go from one to the other.
00:24:19:03 - 00:24:47:23
Unknown
And we'll have some thoughts on that in September. Yeah, sounds like a great topic and a great leeway into the terms about. Yeah, but Jim, thank you for all your great information today and kind of recapping what you've been saying in business with an emphasis on talent for August. So to our listeners, if you liked our chat and topic today, I'd urge you to comment something new that you learned today or any current trends or topics that you've really been seeing in the h.r.
00:24:47:23 - 00:25:09:03
Unknown
World. Don't forget to share this episode and consider joining mra. If you aren't a member already. Like always, we have all the resources you need in the show notes below, including jim's resources on the talent report plus. Thank you so much for tuning in today. And we will see you 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 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.
26 min
August 16, 2023 Social Media as a Recruiting Tool
Description: Explore the role of social media in modern recruitment on this episode of 30-minute THRIVE. Discover how leading companies harness LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Instagram and more to attract top talent. Learn about effective job postings, employer branding, and hear from an experienced recruiter about current trends and best practices. Whether you're a hiring manager, recruiter, in HR, or job seeker, tune in to elevate your recruitment strategy and find the best talent for success.
Resources:
How Technology Can Help - The Recruiter's Role
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Guest Bio - Kathy Seidel
Guest LinkedIn Profile - Kathy Seidel
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 - 00:00:41:23
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of 30 Minute Thrive. And welcome back, Kathy. Thanks for having me. Kathy is our manager of recruiting services here at Emory. For those of you who haven't got Kathy yet. And today will be looking at the fascinating world of social media and how that AIDS as a recruitment tool.
00:00:42:00 - 00:01:09:12
Unknown
So we'll really be checking out all of the innovative ways that top companies are leveraging platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram to find and attract the best talent out there. So, Kathy, let's start out with talking about how social media has really changed the way companies recruit talent nowadays. So what are your thoughts on this? Yeah, so, you know, I think like everything else in our lives, social media has really changed the way that we work and the way that we live.
00:01:09:14 - 00:01:38:24
Unknown
There's so many different ways that you can find people, find information, get their contact information, communicate with them. And, you know, that's the same thing on the company side for interested candidates. There's so many ways they can see things about you learn about different opportunities within your organization and then also get in touch with you. And so you've really got to be prepared for, you know, what different ways people can look at you or talk to you and make sure that you're kind of leveraging all the tools that you can.
00:01:39:03 - 00:02:03:03
Unknown
Great point. Kind of piggybacking off of that, what are some some of the benefits that social media has to really find and attract these this talent? Yeah. Yeah. So social media, you know, can be really useful for getting a lot of information out there, but you have to be careful how you do that. And you don't want to flood a feed every day with, you know, here's all the reasons to work for us.
00:02:03:03 - 00:02:29:06
Unknown
Here's all of our jobs that are posted, anything like that. You want to really make sure that you're focused and doing careful efforts, much like marketing. I really see recruitment marketing as its own special kind of subsection of recruitment. So how are you making sure that you're getting the word out there and saying all the right things? Again, a great benefit is the fact that you don't have to go out and find people cruising with the way algorithms are.
00:02:29:07 - 00:02:53:19
Unknown
You can put content out there and it can get in front of people who might not be connected to your brand and get them excited about it in a way that they haven't been before. But let's be real. No one knows how algorithms work for us. So there is definitely times where you're like shooting in the dark and just like, let's see if it works, but it's working with, you know, your marketing team to figure out how you can kind of make that best shot.
00:02:53:19 - 00:03:20:23
Unknown
Maybe put a little bit of a flashlight on and see where you're going. Oh, absolutely. Kind of looking at the other side of this now, what are some common mistakes that companies make? One, using social media for recruiting? Yeah, So a couple of things. Number one is, you know, posting too much online once it's really easy to just go, I'm going to post, check out our jobs and a link every day or, you know, every Monday or whatever.
00:03:21:03 - 00:03:44:05
Unknown
And that is not good for the algorithms. It recognizes that that's the same content over and over and over. And so you want to kind of make sure that you're putting some variety in there. It's also really important to take a look at what your following is before you get started, because if your company Facebook page is all current employees, right, they're not going to care about jobs that are currently posted.
00:03:44:07 - 00:04:05:01
Unknown
You know, they might want to hear more about referral opportunities or growth opportunities if you want to try to grow that following, you know, you have to do different things to engage different people. Same thing. If you're following our customers, you don't necessarily want to only be posting jobs that you have open to your customers because you might get accused poaching their employee.
00:04:05:03 - 00:04:24:07
Unknown
So, you know, it's really making sure that you're tailoring that content to your existing following and then separately focusing on how we can grow that following with different things. Yeah. You know, you see a lot of companies that will try to do things to grow that following that ends up being kind of inauthentic or not aligned with their brand.
00:04:24:09 - 00:04:44:13
Unknown
You and I were talking the other day about we've seen some companies on TikTok that start these like one off like segment things that aren't related to their company at all. And they continue on because they end up getting, you know, a following for it, but it doesn't have anything to do with their company. And so that it becomes like, do we continue this because it costs money to continue it?
00:04:44:15 - 00:05:06:16
Unknown
High, whatever it might be, but it doesn't align with what we do. And then when you stop doing it, you get huge pushback. You lose a bunch followers, and then there's that negative kind of impact. So you have to make sure what you're doing, alliance to what your company does or what your followers want, because otherwise it's just going to end up kind of failing on you.
00:05:06:19 - 00:05:37:03
Unknown
Yeah, And going off of that point, what social media platforms are really the most effective for recruiting and why are they the most effective? Yeah, so I would definitely say LinkedIn is one of the most effective. Obviously it's more of a professional focused website anyways, but they've also got some really interesting tools as part of it. Number one, there are different tools that you can use to kind of schedule those posts, though it doesn't have to be that you take an hour out of your day to make a post to get it live.
00:05:37:03 - 00:06:02:13
Unknown
Am I doing it at the right time or not? You can use those tools to schedule it. Sometimes those tools you can pay that they'll post it at the perfect time, so to speak. But LinkedIn also has a newer feature where talent can indicate that they're interested in your brand right on your company page. And then if you have a LinkedIn recruiter or if you're using LinkedIn job slots, they'll highlight that this person is interested in your brand.
00:06:02:15 - 00:06:22:24
Unknown
So that's really awesome because I love your talent. Yeah, we were looking at some of those stats and it's it's crazy, You know, how easy it is for people to then say maybe there's not a job out there right now for them, but hey, in the future there might be one on the candidate side. They then get a notification anytime you post a new job on LinkedIn.
00:06:23:01 - 00:06:44:01
Unknown
So like I said, if there's not a job that's open for them right now, they'll get pushes from LinkedIn to say, Hey, this company now has this job open, does this, and you let's talk about it. LinkedIn is also great for that reach out. You know, it's kind of easy to find people who work in that organization. You can kind of put together who would be the right person to reach out to for this.
00:06:44:01 - 00:07:10:22
Unknown
And then they have the messaging platform. So that's always really great. You know, Facebook, I do think, is helpful. It is an interesting site, you know, in terms of who uses it and who doesn't. But it is still helpful to have that information out there. Again, it's about looking at what your following already is online. Is it all employees or is it all, you know, people who might be interested kind of taking a look at that?
00:07:10:24 - 00:07:37:03
Unknown
I will say Instagram Tik tok. You know those I don't see as much success with. You can do ads and that's great. But if it's not something that's authentic to your brand, it's really easy for people to spot. And you know, and that's the case in marketing too. If it's not something that makes sense. The only time it works is if your scrub daddy, because they do, you know, that they're just trying to make viral videos and it works.
00:07:37:05 - 00:08:02:04
Unknown
But they're also not using it for recruiting. They're using it to sell sponges, great sponges. Yeah. I would I would kind of also echo that and just say it. It just depends where your target audience is. So where are you most likely to find a candidate for the position you're posting? And also like Tic TAC, like you said, are you going to find prospective candidates on TikTok?
00:08:02:04 - 00:08:26:05
Unknown
Maybe. But should you rely on just TikTok or the smaller platforms? Instagram? Probably not. But yeah, those are all good points that you said. Yeah. Yeah. So would it be enough to just post on like Facebook jobs or just posts on LinkedIn or just kind of put all your eggs in one basket? I always say try and spread it out.
00:08:26:07 - 00:08:55:11
Unknown
You know, it's important to think about where people that you're targeting might be looking and also where there might be opportunities for growth. So there is no harm in asking your employees, Hey, when you found us, where were you looking? You know, how did you spot us? What information do you see about us? But I think it's important to kind of spread things around in terms of posting jobs to so many different job boards you post in one place, but it can feed to a few different others.
00:08:55:12 - 00:09:14:06
Unknown
Yeah. And so making sure that the word is out there and that you're getting in front of as many people as possible is really what's important. I think it's also really important to make sure that those posts that you're making give a good amount of information. Oh, love, love, love. Those postings that are the job description copied over.
00:09:14:08 - 00:09:34:22
Unknown
And I especially love when it has like employee signature at the bottom of where it's literally copied over. You know, you really want to make sure that what you're putting out there is tailored to that person is exciting for them, makes them want to read more. Making sure that you're not just putting we have benefits or we have health insurance.
00:09:34:24 - 00:10:04:01
Unknown
One of the speakers at the conference recently talked about that, that she was like, I want companies that have that health insurance dentist vision like who care what else and what else. So, you know, highlighting those things that make you unique or are good offerings to your employees and that's where sometimes posting on social media when you do have a heavily employee following is really nice reminders for them to you know making a post.
00:10:04:03 - 00:10:23:16
Unknown
You know if you're in May and it's Mental Health Awareness month that you have the offerings and what that all includes making a post about different employee resource groups that you might have, those things are attractive to people who are looking at your company but might also be really good reminders for people who are already there. Absolutely. Yeah.
00:10:23:17 - 00:10:51:21
Unknown
I would also encourage to post on multiple platforms if you can, just because of what social media algorithms to all of your followers aren't seeing that post, there's actually only about 5% who are seeing your post. So it is good to kind of space it out and do multiple different posts on multiple different platforms. So how can companies really measure the success of the social media posts and recruiting posts?
00:10:52:01 - 00:11:12:12
Unknown
Yeah, so it's all about getting a baseline for what a good post looks like. So that might be taking a look at some of your historical posts and saying, okay, for what we typically do, we have this many views, this many interactions, those things that you can track, you know, you can't necessarily say, okay, did this post lead to a candidate because you don't really know that.
00:11:12:14 - 00:11:36:22
Unknown
Like, you know, no one says, I saw the LinkedIn post you made on January 1st and it inspired me. No one says that someone in May and I love them. But yeah, you never know when one specific post leads to a candidate. So looking at are we getting views, are we getting interactions, are people sharing it? Yeah, those are the important things that you can do to measure long term.
00:11:36:23 - 00:12:03:19
Unknown
Yes, you can look at what do our applicant numbers look like? Have we seen an increase between quarter one and quarter two when we started posting more heavily in quarter two? But it's all about really kind of making sure that those views and those reactions that you're getting are aligned with what you're looking for. But if you don't know where to start and you know, there's not a lot of companies who are willing to share like we have great views and great, you know, metrics and we're willing to share.
00:12:03:19 - 00:12:32:03
Unknown
So you can be a baseline. You have to start with creating your own. And yeah, I totally agree. I think engagement is a huge measure of success with recruiting and social media posts in general, because if you aren't getting the engaged churn you like likes common shares, then maybe now's the time to kind of reevaluate the content that you're posting in, make sure you're speaking to your following, and are you making your posts interactive?
00:12:32:03 - 00:12:55:15
Unknown
Also maybe include a poll or include a call to action or something like that? Yeah, exactly. And don't be afraid to respond to some of those comments that you get, even though they might be a little on the negative side, you know, it's better to respond and show that you are engaging with your brand and with what you're posting than to just let those comments get out there and float in.
00:12:55:17 - 00:13:24:01
Unknown
And, you know, but there's a fine line. If you start to see a conversation building, there's no need to shake it off, flood in and say, you know, hey, I think this is great too, or there is a way you can say, Hey, let's take this offline. Yes. You know, depending on how that conversation is going. So but it is you know, we've seen that post perform better when you do, you know, interact with people in the comments, when you do respond, you know, it can get a little cheesy if you're saying great thought on every single comment.
00:13:24:03 - 00:13:41:24
Unknown
So have a little variety to it. This is a great example of how you can engage your marketing team. Yes. And say, Hey, marketing, I have this idea for a post. What do you think? And hey, or Hey, marketing, we got this comment and I want to make sure we respond to it. How can we craft something that aligns with our standards?
00:13:42:01 - 00:14:06:10
Unknown
Things like that are really important to keep that marketing team, you know, engaged in that conversation and make sure that you're aligning to kind of your whole brand. Yeah, I love that. So how can companies and use social media to build up their brand overall and attract these candidates? Yeah. So one of the things that you can definitely do and actually something we haven't touched on yet is Glassdoor and Google reviews.
00:14:06:12 - 00:14:28:06
Unknown
So there are so a number of people who are looking at reviews of companies and what their current and former employees are saying they might not be looking before they apply. They might wait until after they apply. But it is really important to make sure that, you know, what you have out there is engaging and is exciting or that you're addressing the ones that might not be as nice.
00:14:28:08 - 00:14:51:02
Unknown
I've talked to a number of companies that actually have kind of a schedule, so every two weeks they randomly select, you know, a certain amount of people to say, Hey, we want to hear how things are going at ABC Company. Here's the link to Glassdoor. Could you please, you know, leave us a review? And it's a great way to kind of continue to build the reviews that you have on that platform.
00:14:51:04 - 00:15:08:09
Unknown
A lot of times you see really positive and really negative, but that helps get kind of that in between. And it's the same thing when you're looking at reviews, when you're buying something. I just bought an air fryer this weekend and I looked at the five star and I looked at the one star and I said, okay, now let's get the real story.
00:15:08:09 - 00:15:37:04
Unknown
And I looked at the two, three and four star reviews and said, okay, some of these one stars appear to be user error and appear to be that specific person. So these five stars seem like they were paid to get them. And that's always not good. And it's the same thing in employee readiness. So starting with something like that of just saying, Hey, we'd love to hear your thoughts and get a review, here's the link or Here's a QR code to go fill that out and don't be afraid of Google reviews.
00:15:37:04 - 00:15:59:07
Unknown
You know, everyone kind of thinks of Glassdoor right away and Glassdoor and indeed are now combined. And so anything they fill out on Glassdoor also shows and indeed, but so many candidates, when they're searching for jobs, they'll just search project management job and in Google. And then when they're looking in Google jobs, it's showing those Google reviews to that candidate as well.
00:15:59:08 - 00:16:33:11
Unknown
And Google reviews are even easier than Glassdoor because Glassdoor wants you to fill out so much information before you make a room. But also, you know, talking with people like that and then getting though, the true feedback of what's going on is super helpful and in addition, when you look at that, your existing following, you know, maybe you see, okay, we've got a lot of employees, what can we do to help build it so we get potential candidates to and maybe it's talking with your employees and saying, Hey, we've got this post coming out, I'd love for you to share it, you know, so that your friends can see maybe they follow us.
00:16:33:11 - 00:16:58:23
Unknown
Maybe it's about their referral program or a sign on bonus or anything of that nature. And that can really help because it's way more common for people to follow something or engage in something when someone that they know has shared it versus it being a paid ad. Of course, paid ads are successful. But, you know, that is also a great kind of free way to do it, too.
00:16:59:00 - 00:17:22:08
Unknown
And I would say that if a candidate is applying for jobs on LinkedIn or other social media, chances are they're also going to be checking out that company's LinkedIn page or that company's other social media pages. So if you're a company that doesn't really have a strong LinkedIn page or presence, maybe now's the time to do a little makeover.
00:17:22:10 - 00:17:46:04
Unknown
And if you don't know what to post, I would just encourage you to do company culture Post. So who are your employees look like? What is your office or place of work look like? Posts about your company vision and mission and LinkedIn is good for a thought leadership post. So what can you put out on LinkedIn that your competitors can't put on LinkedIn?
00:17:46:04 - 00:18:09:14
Unknown
So when a candidate is going to your LinkedIn page, they see all of that great stuff and it's kind of a reminder to them that, hey, this would be a great place to work, something like that. Yeah, exactly. So what role does content play in social media recruitment and how can companies create really engaging content? Yeah, so again, it kind of plays to what do you want to target?
00:18:09:14 - 00:18:41:20
Unknown
So if your content is really focused on opportunities that you have, benefits that you have, it can really help kind of lead to potential candidates if you're able to get that word out. But you know, it's really all about making sure you have enough of a presence that it's clear that you're engaged. It's clear that, you know, you are posting often you're doing things, your website is updated because that can even be something you get so focused on social media and then you have different information on what you post versus what's on your website.
00:18:41:20 - 00:19:01:09
Unknown
That's a good point. And so, you know, making sure that content is aligned with everything that you're doing is super important. And, you know, I think when it's really authentic content, when it's stuff that is true to your company and true to what people are saying, it really helps to make people believe it and again, make people want to learn more.
00:19:01:11 - 00:19:24:06
Unknown
So what kind of moving into a different zone here? What ethical considerations should companies keep in mind when using social media for recruiting? Yeah, so you really want to make sure that you're not, you know, crossing any lines. You know, you mention it's great to have pictures of people from your company in there. It's also great to make sure they're okay with it first.
00:19:24:08 - 00:19:42:21
Unknown
And if they leave, it's great to get that update too. So if you're in a big company and you know, it's do you don't see a ton of faces as often and you're using someone's picture who left you years ago that someone in your company may not realize that they left two years ago and they're like, well, they've been on the website the whole time.
00:19:42:21 - 00:20:11:14
Unknown
I thought it was like, well, so, you know, it's things like that you definitely want to take care to know. It's also really important to make sure that you're not, you know, using a brand that isn't necessarily a great trend to tie your business to. Right? There's been some examples recently of businesses that are, you know, jumping on the bandwagon and not really realize what their job began to or using a sound and not really realizing what that sound says.
00:20:11:16 - 00:20:32:18
Unknown
So, you know, you want to make sure that you're careful as you're considering content to post and that, you know, if someone were to call somebody and a question that, you know, you can stand by it and not just say, oh, it was a trend. So I thought it was okay. So definitely it can definitely be a little tricky sometimes, too, to navigate that.
00:20:32:18 - 00:20:54:22
Unknown
And there are some large companies who say, you know, we won't use any copyrighted media because we are too worried about running into issues with that, which is totally okay and totally understandable. You know, the the social media world we live in is kind of interesting sometimes with some high content. So, you know, just going hard and fast, but that can definitely keep you protected.
00:20:54:24 - 00:21:21:23
Unknown
It obviously also really limits you. I will say some of my favorite content, though, is some of those larger companies that are like, we can't use copyrighted social or copyrighted songs. So this is our intern singing the song for you. Look up stories. No one wants to hear that. Yeah, I think it'd be great. So what advice would you give to companies and to use social media as a recruiting tool for the very first time?
00:21:22:04 - 00:21:46:07
Unknown
Yeah. So for the first time, number one, get your marketing team involved. They are the ones who typically own that website anyways. And so you really need to make sure that you're talking through with them and that you are, you know, getting everything through them. Again. Take a look at that following you already have and try to align that content to what makes sense.
00:21:46:09 - 00:22:07:00
Unknown
It's also really important to know that social media is so weird with how things do and don't take offs. There are things that you know, you're like no brainer, this is going to hit and it just gets lost, you know? And so, you know, it's okay to try some different things, do some AB testing, you know, try things out a couple of times On social media.
00:22:07:05 - 00:22:27:23
Unknown
Again, nobody knows how the algorithms work. So they're always changing. They're always changing. Yeah. So it's okay to you know, kind of play around with things and but most of all has fun with it. I think people can tell when you're just posting, like, I just got to get this done, posting a poll, how to do it, and so make sure that you're having fun with it.
00:22:28:00 - 00:22:47:11
Unknown
Also, don't be afraid to ask people who might not be like kind of that first person you think of social media is a tool that really almost everyone uses, and so it might be a fun learning opportunity for somebody else or like a fun challenge for someone who you typically wouldn't think would want to, you know, to know about recruiting or things like that.
00:22:47:12 - 00:23:22:18
Unknown
Oh, no, There's a lot of different ways you can go about it. There's no right or wrong way other than engage marketing. Good advice. So one is social media not work then one trying to recruit. I again, I'd say if you're just trying to be viral or trying to like, you know, get one thing to really take off, it's probably not going to work if you're just trying to get the word out about your jobs, You know, unless you have a way to make it engaging, to have conversations around it, there probably it probably isn't going to take off.
00:23:22:20 - 00:23:41:24
Unknown
So and then if you're starting from like absolute square one, don't assume that your postings are going to get, you know, thousands of views in a day. It's got to be a long term effort. It's got to be something that you're willing to, you know, have put some effort into it. You can't just assume. All right, boom, posted, done.
00:23:41:24 - 00:24:07:19
Unknown
I can walk away and it's all fine because that's where you're not going to see success. Yeah, and not all companies need to be on all social media platforms. It's quality over quantity. Yes. Yes, absolutely. So kind of wrapping up here, do you have any your real life success stories with social media and recruiting? I got a couple of interesting ones, so I like inside.
00:24:07:21 - 00:24:30:04
Unknown
I've worked with one company before that asks for those routine reviews from their employees and they've actually seen, I think it was a full star increase over the course of a year, their first year of doing it. And so they gave it that time and, you know, really let it kind of grow and comfort. Employees really appreciate it.
00:24:30:06 - 00:24:53:22
Unknown
Again, part of that is that they are following up on some of those things. They're also keeping it completely anonymous. So the person who kind of pulls the names and decides who to reach out to and then deletes the emails that they send and does not keep a record of who they've already reached out to. So there's no way that they can say, Oh, well, we know we reach out to these five, here's this one bad one that we got.
00:24:53:22 - 00:25:23:05
Unknown
So it must be one of these five and I'll start to investigate. You got to kind of forget those names and let them go right after. But they've seen great success from it and they saw really interesting things that the employees were saying were pros that they never really thought of as pros. And so it's really great that they were able to kind of like take that step back and see things that people are saying, like, I can't remember the specific, but like, you know, as an example, oh, I love that we have, you know, coffee in the cafe.
00:25:23:07 - 00:25:39:17
Unknown
And they were like, Oh, we do have coffee. And like, that's just a standard. I never in that. But like, that was something in that industry was in, you know, a standard. And so, you know, that can help you to kind of get things that you can highlight in your content or things that you can highlight in your postings.
00:25:39:19 - 00:26:12:12
Unknown
Again, really, really great success with that consistency across her postings too. So I've seen, you know, not so success stories of companies that have one thing on their website and then one things on their postings. But when you have that consistent messaging, that consistent language, if you're linking the posting back to your careers page for more information instead of trying to fit everything that you have in your posting, you know, that really helps you to be successful without kind of blurting everything out there and, you know, getting it all in No.
00:26:12:12 - 00:26:36:12
Unknown
One post because, you know, posting wise, they do see that there's a certain character limit that you want to stay between and sometimes getting everything about your culture and your values and all of that. It needs to take kind of that second seat, right. And is just on your careers page. So the companies that really focus on, you know, building those postings, building that brand, that's where we've seen some great success.
00:26:36:12 - 00:26:59:08
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's all the time we have today. So thank you again for being here and all the great info you you gave us on social media as a recruiting tool. So listeners, I would just encourage you to like come in and share this podcast and posts and if you enjoyed it or learn something that's great. And also take a look at the resources in the show notes below.
00:26:59:08 - 00:27:17:11
Unknown
On becoming an MRA member We also have Kathy's bio and LinkedIn profile in there too, so if you want to get in touch with her, have any questions, she's there for you. The rise will see you next week and thanks for coming on the podcast again. Kathy Thanks again for having me. And that wraps up our content for this episode.
00:27:17:13 - 00:27:35:20
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 minute Thrive so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

28 min
August 09, 2023 From Chaos to Clarity: Navigating Effective Meetings
Description: Transform meetings from time-wasters to productivity powerhouses with expert insights from Andy Marris, thought leader and Learning & Development Trainer at MRA - The Management Association. Discover actionable tips for meaningful outcomes and progress. Perfect for team leaders, project managers, and professionals seeking to optimize their valuable time.
Resources:
Leading Effective Meetings - Training
Is This Meeting a Must?
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 - 00:00:43:01
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Well, hello everybody, and welcome to episode number 50. We're celebrating this episode today, so it's a little special. So thanks for being our 50th guest Andy, Cheers to that! Oh, I know it's your first time being hot here. I am a little hurt, you know, 50.
00:00:43:03 - 00:01:05:05
Unknown
There's been 49 without me. I thought you like me, Sophie. No But seriously, though be glad to be here. We saved you for a good episode so. All right, well, that makes me feel better. Well, we all know there's kind of a collective groan when you hear this is going to be a fun meeting. And one of our team members actually has a notebook that says notes and doodles for meetings.
00:01:05:05 - 00:01:28:13
Unknown
That should have been emails. Oh, so we've all been there. We've all sat through meetings, have felt like they've kind of been wasting time and just wasting that productive time. And now with the whole hybrid and remote work factors, meetings just seem to have lost their power. So today we're going to be discussing tips on how to make meetings great and not merely just meeting to meet.
00:01:28:15 - 00:01:49:17
Unknown
So today I'm here with an expert on the topic, Andy Marris. He's an MRA learning and development instructor, but he really has broad expertise and leadership growth, change management, brand marketing, and much more so in a lot of different roles too, like leader, coach, motivator and trainer. So I know you'll have a lot of great tips for us today.
00:01:49:20 - 00:02:07:22
Unknown
Know this is a topic I'm very passionate about. Not a big fan of wasting time and I've been in four or five hour meetings that were really effective. Yes, absolutely. Very 20 meeting, 20 minute meetings, like why am I here? Right. So really important that we get this right. Oh, we got to start out with the negatives. Unfortunately.
00:02:07:23 - 00:02:33:09
Unknown
So what are some top complaints of having meetings generally? Oh, there's so many. There's so many. To me maybe my biggest. Yeah. Complaint is when the meeting is supposed to end at a certain time and it goes way over a minute or two or human. I actually try to leave slightly early. We can talk about that later, but it's, it's really irritating when it goes way beyond it.
00:02:33:09 - 00:02:53:13
Unknown
And you've got other responsibilities, other duties. Another thing that really bothers me is when it doesn't have an agenda, you sit there wondering, why am I here? And I actually want to add value to the meeting. But if I'm not aware of what we're even going to try and solve or understand. And in the meeting that's really been set up to fail, they already feel like a huge waste of time.
00:02:53:13 - 00:03:13:06
Unknown
Yeah, we're all so busy. Oh, add on to the negative ones too. I feel like one of my pet peeves is when no one's really engaged in the meeting either. A certain kind of sitting there looking at each other, that's that's never a good thing. But any other common mistakes people make when running or even planning a meeting.
00:03:13:12 - 00:03:37:23
Unknown
So not having an actionable agenda I think is a big one. Not helping people understand their role is supposed to be in the meeting. What are we trying to accomplish? What should I bring? What value? Not having a follow up. There's just so many things that go poorly in meetings, and I think it's really important to think about, you know, why are we having the meeting?
00:03:37:23 - 00:04:00:16
Unknown
Yeah, who should be there and then what do we do before, during, after, and then even follow up all of those types of things so that the meetings are really fruitful and it's solving business problems or informing people of what they need to know. Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's dive into some logistics. What are some key principles for conducting efficient and effective meetings?
00:04:00:16 - 00:04:25:15
Unknown
And you covered a couple, but any other kind of key principles that we can't miss. Yeah, I really want to emphasize I know I've said it already, but they're really having what we call an action based agenda, an outcome based agenda. We we want it focused on where are we going with this, Right. So instead of having bullets for the meeting, guess I've seen invites that they're trying to even have an agenda.
00:04:25:15 - 00:04:52:12
Unknown
And that's better than not having real say, updates or new ideas. And what am I going to do with that? Right now I'm that does it really mean anything? Instead, how about something like brainstorm solution to X problem or vote on realistic deadline for whatever the whatever the project is. And so those types of things, we want to make sure, yeah, we have it be action oriented, right?
00:04:52:12 - 00:05:13:16
Unknown
Have verbs that say we're going to do something, not just one more specific. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So how about the length for meetings? Like, do you have a recommendation for an appropriate length of a meeting or any recommendations on that? Well, it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. I've been to really fruitful all day meetings because it's a major undertaking.
00:05:13:16 - 00:05:38:18
Unknown
Or maybe it's a, you know, once a year strategic planning event or something like that. So that could be really long, but it really needs to be fruitful because we're putting together the agenda that helps us understand what we're trying to accomplish and when and why and who is going to do what. And that's at the same time, most meetings are there to not be that long kind of the standard.
00:05:38:18 - 00:05:59:16
Unknown
Is it our release? It's COVID. I think it is especially true because people are so many virtual meetings. And so you're not even in the same room physically, and people are stacking meetings on top of each other. And I don't even have time to do take care of my boss. No need to you. Yeah, right. We're we're in the when I'm going from one meeting to another.
00:05:59:16 - 00:06:17:05
Unknown
So we've been suggesting that maybe people think about a 50 minute meeting. So you've got a ten minute period to get ready to prep for the next meeting and take care of any physical needs you have. Oh, maybe a 25 minute meeting instead of a half hour, that kind of thing. So people have a time to decompress, they have time to prep.
00:06:17:07 - 00:06:42:24
Unknown
And we could just keep stacking these, especially when around that rectangle, right? Yeah, that, that's, that's I think really helpful. Yeah, that's a great idea. I feel like with those daylong meetings or five plus our meetings, it's important that breaks to like, yeah, definitely just even a 15. Malik Let's go take a walk or I don't know. And so spring break, as a trainer, we talk about having breaks every 70 minutes.
00:06:42:24 - 00:07:00:15
Unknown
There's actually adult learning science behind there. I think we can apply that to meetings if we know there's going to be along. Would people kind of hit a wall? Yeah, 70 minutes or so. That's what the research tells us. And I think that applies to meetings too. So how about managing time during the meeting and what do you have to say about that?
00:07:00:17 - 00:07:20:09
Unknown
It is really important to make sure that people are moving, whatever the topic is forward. So often people go down rabbit holes, they're not the focus of the meeting and squirrel, and now we're now we're we're we're out of alignment with what we're trying to accomplish. So as the meeting leader, you want to make sure you're constantly driving it forward.
00:07:20:11 - 00:07:41:15
Unknown
I have a joke that I tell people. I said, Let's follow the five B's. Be brief, baby. Three briefs. Right? And that makes people laugh. But it also reminds people why in the plane ride, you know, it it get your point out, but do it in a way that's concise and that everyone understands, right? Say enough so that people understand.
00:07:41:17 - 00:07:58:23
Unknown
But also concise enough that we're not dominating the meeting. In fact, I suggest to people that whatever the number of the people in the meeting, that there's ten people in a meeting, you should be 1/10 of the conversation. And if there is two people of three, that you should be half right? Yeah. And for whatever that is, kind of aim for that.
00:07:58:23 - 00:08:16:16
Unknown
And will we set those rules ahead of time? I think that really, really wait a bit and I know we were talking about this before. How about the Alamo acronym? No, I think we got to bring it out of the gate here. So we've got Elmo here and famous Sesame Street character. I know I'm actually too old for this guy.
00:08:16:16 - 00:08:36:15
Unknown
My kids like this guy. So he didn't exist when I was Sesame Street eight. But instead. Fair enough. Let's move on. If somebody is just circling and circling and circling in that landing the plane, as I like to say, and let's move on now, of course, we have to set this as a rule out of whole it, Elmo.
00:08:36:18 - 00:08:55:08
Unknown
There could be a salty ride like what you shot. It's basically shot up, but in a nice way. Right. But but it really helps people go, okay, you know what? We've we've discussed this enough. We've come to a consensus or whatever it is, somebody can call it Elmo. You definitely want to wait to call it. Some people call Elmo too quickly, right?
00:08:55:08 - 00:09:25:23
Unknown
Well, wait a minute. We're not quite done. And otherwise it's something we do on our team. And so we'll even say Elmo has been called in then. Okay. We we we beat this topic to death instead of on something else. Oh, yeah. No, I learned that from the instructors. And I love all of you. SMITH So what are some effective ways to really engage all the meeting participants in a meeting and kind of encourage active collaboration for the whole group and the meeting?
00:09:25:23 - 00:09:45:06
Unknown
Leader You want to really be a facilitator, right? It's really about drawing people out. It's not. Everybody loves being the center of attention, so people are very shy and they have great things to add. But if it stays between their ears, does it do us a lot of good, right? So, you know, so B, what do you think?
00:09:45:12 - 00:10:10:15
Unknown
Yeah, but not putting people on the spot. Another reason why it's so important to have that outcome based agenda is they know what they're supposed to say in the meeting, what they're supposed to bring, what value they're going to offer, what expertise we're asking for them to bring. And and so they're more prepared because this goes hour, maybe two or three days before the meeting ever takes place.
00:10:10:17 - 00:10:31:20
Unknown
I try to shoot for at least 24 hours before the meeting. We've got this action based agenda, you know, in the invitation. Yeah. And how about for remote meetings or virtual meetings? I feel like it might be a little trickier to get that active engagement through a screen. So what are your what's your advice on that? Well, I've got one.
00:10:31:20 - 00:10:51:06
Unknown
We've talked straight to the camera on this. Put your camera on that one. Thrives me crazy, right? Because all of a sudden, it's like that conference call from hell that you're probably too young to remember. But with some folks, you know, we used to have just the forward sitting in the middle of the room and you people would interrupt each other and, oh, you go first.
00:10:51:06 - 00:11:04:10
Unknown
So you go first. So we that was an extra awkward part of the room. And why have video if we're not going to use it? Cos we don't know what they're doing. I've actually even but it'll fill me in with this one. I mean you know, it's kind of creepy when you, when you don't do your game. Right.
00:11:04:11 - 00:11:26:03
Unknown
Boy, does that go out quickly. That's right. You're better. You'd better know your audience. You pull that one out. But we've got to get that camera on. You know, I. I get it. People could be doing laundry during the meeting. I want them focused on what we're doing. Yeah. And it's great that we can work from everywhere. I've been impressed at how we can.
00:11:26:05 - 00:11:45:04
Unknown
A lot of people have proven that they can be really good in online meetings where they're not distracted. And but boy, that camera on passionate about that one. And I don't really believe the excuse that you are one or the other camera this 2020 this you do and and you know we just went through a global pandemic recently.
00:11:45:04 - 00:12:11:06
Unknown
Everyone has a camera now. I grew up in kind of going off of that what you're talking about with the laundry and just being a little unproductive on the meetings. What are some best practices for handling those, let's say, disruptions or unproductive behavior during meetings? I think it's really important to set the expectations ahead of time, right? There's so many rules of engagement.
00:12:11:06 - 00:12:28:21
Unknown
I like to make sure that everyone agrees to at the outset of the meeting, and maybe you can have that for your invite, right? Yeah. So Vegas Rule, which set in the meeting, stays in the meeting so people feel safe to contribute, right? That's a huge part. Like I said, everybody's a certain percentage of the of the conversation.
00:12:28:23 - 00:12:53:00
Unknown
No killer phrases like that'll never work or this is a dumb idea, right? Yeah. You know, why would you do that? You shut down conversation. Nobody wants to be told that. And so all of a sudden, the best ideas get lost because people kill the conversation like that. So the idea called the parking lot is a great rule to where we that's not in the scope of this meeting, but it could be a great future meeting.
00:12:53:00 - 00:13:14:05
Unknown
Let's put that on the parking lot. Maybe we've got a big sheet of paper or something we can write that on. We don't to lose the idea, but it just doesn't really help us in what we're trying to accomplish right now. And one other thing that I think is really important is to assign minutes to someone. So is taking the notes and what was said and at what point and all those types of things.
00:13:14:07 - 00:13:38:23
Unknown
But let's not talk that on the same person every time. I think it's important that we rotate that. And so that's not felt done somewhat. Yeah, that's great advice. And you talked about that meetings kind of carry over to actionable steps after the meeting. So how can follow up actions in accountability be established to ensure that meetings lead to great success for outcomes?
00:13:39:00 - 00:14:01:10
Unknown
It's a great question, right? So I liked following up with the meeting on, you know, here are the minutes, here's what was discussed. And oh, by the way, here's your actions. PARTICIPANT Here's the what's in it for me from your perspective, I got to put myself in their shoes. Here's your action items, not just out what are the due dates.
00:14:01:12 - 00:14:22:24
Unknown
And so that's really clear. And then of course, any next steps that need to be included and you could be having another meeting maybe didn't accomplish or as boss do in the 50 minutes they are. Instead of going over, I'd rather just call another meeting. And here's what we accomplished so far. Here's what we still need to. I think that's a lot more effective than people tuning out to.
00:14:23:04 - 00:15:00:16
Unknown
This is still going on and becomes a just a time waster once again. So how about are there any particular cultural or organizational factors that can impact the effectiveness of meetings and how can you really address those? That's a really good question because it really is cultural. I go to some organizations where if you're if you're not 15 minutes early, you're late, and then they go to others where like the meeting was also started 15 minutes ago, it's somebody still walking in and everyone else having side conversations as if this is normal.
00:15:00:16 - 00:15:20:12
Unknown
And so we better set the ground rules right and work within your culture. You can always work to shape it, right. Really hard to change your culture. We could do that over time and set the ground rules upfront, right? That when we're in the meetings that I facilitate on time means on time. Yeah, I expect you to be here.
00:15:20:14 - 00:15:44:08
Unknown
And this is what I did want and what concept. We will get this done on a timer ahead of time. Yeah. Instead of going way over because we didn't even start at the appropriate. Yeah. That's funny that you bring up being late or being early because I feel like, you know, the people who, oh, I can be 10 minutes late or I got to be here 30 minutes early or that's just kind of fun.
00:15:44:10 - 00:16:10:02
Unknown
But as we wrap up here, what is one key takeaway that you want to share to make your meetings the most effective and efficient as possible? All right. Well, points. Good question. Hard. I come prepared, come prepared. Be ready to speak up, have an open mind, and really be thinking about what is the best way to accomplish what we're trying to do.
00:16:10:04 - 00:16:30:16
Unknown
If I can, if if I can give you just my favorite way to brainstorm, since we're talking about meetings of one huge tip, it's a very boring name. It's called the nominal group technique. So you would agree with that. But but you'd say the best way to brainstorm it ever. Funny. Have you ever been in a meeting where it's supposed to be a brainstorm is more like a drizzle?
00:16:30:17 - 00:16:56:11
Unknown
Yes. Not even close to a star. Was not even a light brain. Right. And what the what this is, is everybody gets a silent voice. What? You have a group of people, let's say there's eight people in the meeting. Everybody takes a turn. I give people 2 minutes to write every answer they can come up with. Oh, two, whatever the question that we're trying to solve, whatever, whatever the issue is, no talking and then no judge.
00:16:56:13 - 00:17:11:24
Unknown
And I get people out of these meetings. I give people one. Mulligan Right. You know, Well, that'll never work. That's zero again. You do that again, you're out of here. And I've kicked people out because they just can't help it, those killer phrases. But can we can we take turn? So we come back from the 2 minutes. Absolute silence.
00:17:12:01 - 00:17:29:00
Unknown
Some people are writing stuff right away, so that person that had a real brainstorm would just shout it out. It still could do that great person that needs time to process. Yeah. Has all this time to think about it? It 90 seconds might go by, but then that last 30 seconds, they're writing all kinds of stuff. Yeah, we go around one at a time and every shares their ideas.
00:17:29:00 - 00:17:45:09
Unknown
So you really are the most shy person in the group. Yes. Still gets you can to read off that line up. You don't have to make eye contact deep in with anybody if you're comfortable with that. And we capture all these ideas and I think the best practices to go around one more time. Yeah, they now have the ideas.
00:17:45:14 - 00:18:05:20
Unknown
Two more minutes. We go around till everybody passes and I find we get the best ideas of that second round. And it may even be something that somebody said, That's a dumb idea. Yeah, but a piggyback on that. Maybe not so good idea could actually foster a terrific idea, you know, And then we can vote on what what we think are the.
00:18:06:00 - 00:18:24:00
Unknown
The ideas that we go forward. Yeah, that's a great tip. I feel like I'm I'm a person who has to think and think before I can don't know, say say something or contribute. So that's a helpful way on how to still contribute, but gives me time to think about it and write down my answers and stuff like that.
00:18:24:00 - 00:18:44:02
Unknown
Well, I've you know, I've had some brainstorms that were drizzles and I've had some that were actual triggered speakers. We use, Hey, like me. And it's awesome how well it works. Yeah. Okay. So now you've got everybody to kind of contribute their ideas, but what happens if you get too many ideas now? What? So yeah, that's. That's like the opposite probably.
00:18:44:02 - 00:19:01:05
Unknown
Right. You go, It's a drizzle now you've got a hurricane, right? It's a great problem to have. I remember one time I asked my group, we came up with 101 ideas during a brain to brainstorm session with the nominal group technique we can't do even because to that right, we want to do maybe five of those things. Well, how do we pick?
00:19:01:09 - 00:19:22:03
Unknown
Yeah, well, my favorite way to do that then is something we call multi voting and you could do 3 to 1 where your favorite idea gets three points. Use second to. I think it's much better to go five, three, one. The cream rises to the top, everybody, and you got to read the whole list. And you know, there's a ton of ideas that that's a lot to look at.
00:19:22:08 - 00:19:39:01
Unknown
But your favorite idea gets five, your second three. And then just one point for the third and you don't vote for anything else. And then you see who got the most votes. And the cream really does rise. The pop. You might get two or three ideas and then you might do it one more time to pick the favorite idea.
00:19:39:03 - 00:19:58:20
Unknown
But that really, really helps us narrow that down. And it's a really good tool to make that brainstorm really fruitful. Absolutely. So, you know, you've given us a lot of great meeting strategies and tips and advice, but is there anything else or am I saying, well, this is why I saved my favorite for last perfect. I call it the Ale rule.
00:19:58:24 - 00:20:22:12
Unknown
So let me pour a drink while I'm telling you this early. Always leave early, even if it's only 10 seconds early. So tell me if I give you a shameless plug. Absolutely. I do a class on efficient, effective readings. It's not offered in our catalog. It's more of an on site that companies will bring me in, which I think is actually really effective.
00:20:22:12 - 00:20:45:16
Unknown
Because like you asked before about the culture, I can tailor it to their culture. And then I even have other topics that were similar, like having efficient and effective emails and things like that. Maybe a featured topic for a 30 minute podcast, but really helping those things would be really effective and not just time wasters once again. So I'm well, Andy, thank you for all the great content and tips today.
00:20:45:18 - 00:21:10:11
Unknown
I'm kind of pumped to go into my meetings today, but welcome to the show. We'd love to have you again and to our listeners, if you liked our chat in topic today, I'd urge you to comment. A new tip you learned on how to have effective and efficient meetings or comment. Anything that you want to add on to the conversation, don't forget to share that episode and consider joining MRA if you aren't a member already.
00:21:10:13 - 00:21:31:14
Unknown
We have all the resources you need in the show notes below, as well as some great resources on our topic for today. All the right things for tuning in 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.
00:21:31:15 - 00:21:41:08
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.

22 min
August 02, 2023 Building Bridges: The Power of Internal Networking
Description: This episode dives deep into the world of internal networking groups. Industry expert, Amanda Mosteller, uncovers the power and impact of these groups within organizations. Explore success stories, best practices, and strategies for building effective networks. Whether you're a leader, employee, or simply curious, tune in for insightful conversations that unlock the potential of internal networks for professional growth and organizational success.
Resources:
Steps To Start And Run An Employee Network
MRA Membership
About MRA
Let's Connect:
Guest Bio - Amanda Mosteller
Guest LinkedIn Bio - Amanda Mosteller
Host Bio - Sophie Boler
Host LinkedIn Profile - Sophie Boler
Transcript:
Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.
00:00:04:07 - 00:00:25:10
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.
00:00:25:12 - 00:00:48:16
Unknown
Now it's time to thrive. Well, hello, everybody, and thanks for joining us today. I'm here with and excited to introduce to you a new face for our podcast. Amanda Mosteller, director of talent development here at MRA. She's in our Ohio division, but she's also an expert podcaster and has been a podcast host as well. So this should be fun.
00:00:48:17 - 00:01:20:07
Unknown
But Amanda's really passionate about talent development and growing the success of the individual as part of the organization. So today we're really going to be talking about internal networking groups. And before we do that, Amanda, I'm excited to bring you on the podcast and really bring MRA, Ohio on board and introduce the members to the Ohio division. But can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your background just before we dive into some questions?
00:01:20:09 - 00:01:48:08
Unknown
Absolutely. Thank you for asking me to be a part of this. I enjoy podcasting a lot, so I'm really excited to do this with you all and excited to be a part of MRA. I am Amanda Mosteller. I am the director of Talent Development, as you said, for the MRA Ohio Division, and I am one of those weirdos that knew from high school that this was the path I wanted to go down.
00:01:48:08 - 00:02:17:22
Unknown
My aunt actually was in the talent recruitment space at P&G for her career, and I was always fascinated with the whole talent world. So when I was in high school, I knew I wanted to go into psychology and I went to Ohio University. Born and raised Cincinnati and born and raised the Ohio individual went for university, got my degree in psychology with an emphasis on organizational psychology.
00:02:17:24 - 00:02:39:15
Unknown
I always say, Don't let the hair dye fool you. I was in college before organizational leadership was a degree, both when I was in school. So organization psych was an emphasis not as on track. So I had a lot in the psychology space when I came out my whole career going on 18 years now has been in that space.
00:02:39:15 - 00:03:10:05
Unknown
So my first job was an internal coach for employees and different programs for a community service agency. I was there for ten years. I built talent development department. It didn't exist before. We just had coaches. And so I ended up building an internal department, building programing for all of our 23 different lines of service and those employees building leadership programing and doing some annual internal surveys and enhancements and improvements from those.
00:03:10:05 - 00:03:42:12
Unknown
So started dipping my toe into organizational development work right as I left that organization and moved over, the telecom space was in Telecom for five years, branched within that organization to the technology side of the business as well. While there is when I started gaining my experience of strategic growth through acquisition and incorporating new organizations into an existing organization, structure, culture, how do we make these two groups work?
00:03:42:12 - 00:04:07:08
Unknown
So we grew through acquisitions four times while I was there, and we went from a regional Ohio provider to an international provider operating in five different countries with over 5000 employees. So my strategy of developing folks in person in Cincinnati quit working overnight for a change. Lots of change and organizational development and coaching started becoming a lot of where I spent my time.
00:04:07:10 - 00:04:36:09
Unknown
So focusing on bringing everyone together and then identifying efficiencies, identifying enhancement opportunities and helping the organization implement those successfully is where I was before I found the opportunity at Mra Ohio. So joined MRA Ohio's I'm going to keep saying for a little over two years ago and have been here enjoying getting to know our members and doing the same type of work for organizations ever since.
00:04:36:10 - 00:05:03:23
Unknown
It's been an interesting path and one that has been my sole focus the entirety of my career. So really enjoying it. Sounds like you've done just about everything in your far always this fascinating. Hey, Amanda, we don't have this. Do you think you can do it? I'm like, Sure, I'll go figure it out, though. There is always it doesn't exist here.
00:05:03:23 - 00:05:27:05
Unknown
Amanda, can you go create it? I just kept seeing what I did, so I went in thinking I was going to be a coach solely and came out loving. Oh, do you work so excited to talk about internal networks as an odd kind of strategy for organizations to start thinking about? Yeah, well, it was fun kind of brainstorming what podcast topic we should come up with.
00:05:27:05 - 00:05:55:10
Unknown
And you brought up internal networking groups and it seems like a great concept for organizations to really embrace. But can you before we dive into that, can you explain just what is an internal networking group? Absolutely. So often when we think about development strategies, we go to structured learning programs which are wonderful. Don't get me wrong, I spend a lot of my time.
00:05:55:12 - 00:06:27:14
Unknown
But we also know that only 10% of development and profession developing individually help improve organizational success and achievement of strategic objectives and things like that. So if we're investing all of our time in something we know is only 10% of development, there's 90% still sitting there. So 70%, we know is through experiential learning. That's an impactful, intentional on the job training, but there's still 20% that we need to target to make the classroom and experiences connect and make them work.
00:06:27:16 - 00:06:56:02
Unknown
And that's where this strategy can come into play. 20% of development is through relationships. Who are your networks? Who are your peers? What are you all spending time talking about? How are you partner with your teams, with your leaders, with your organization? And often people don't know how to do that internally. They might find external networks, they might be a proactive network builder, and that's wonderful, but that's not everybody.
00:06:56:04 - 00:07:26:11
Unknown
So this is a strategy for organizations to be intentional about creating connectedness amongst individuals in their organization with similar job roles or similar levels within the organization or a similar length of service within an organization to be able to have connection and talk with somebody that really understands what it's like to be in this role at this organization or in this at this level, at this organization.
00:07:26:13 - 00:07:55:05
Unknown
I have a peer group now. We can meet regularly and really leverage and connect those two different areas of development together through helping people build these relationships and then leveraging those. So when I talk about internal networking group, that's what I mean. I mean creating these intentional connections between people that are connected in some form of similarity that you as an organization are setting up for them to join and be a part of.
00:07:55:10 - 00:08:27:00
Unknown
And I love that idea of internal networking because I feel like most people are. I mean, for me personally, I think of networking as something that has to be done outside of your organization. But there's so much that you can do with your own employees and your colleagues. So I love that we're talking about this. And you mentioned this briefly, but what are some of the other factors that would motivate an organization to really focus on starting a group like this or groups like this?
00:08:27:02 - 00:08:56:16
Unknown
Yeah. So in building on that 20% of development, we also know that individuals stay connected to organizations, that they feel they have relationships built. There is research that shows I will stay engaged and retained at an organization that I have at least one work friend where I feel really connected to them. I feel close to them, and not just colleagues, a colleague, but we interact potentially outside of work as well.
00:08:56:18 - 00:09:22:11
Unknown
So create a space like this not only for organizations where everybody work in the same office building. That's wonderful. Still, you'd be amazed how many organizations are all in the same brick and mortar or same office campus and yet still define themselves as siloed. So even that still is an opportunity to create connection organizations that are geographically dispersed.
00:09:22:13 - 00:09:57:08
Unknown
So we might have multiple sites or we might have remote employees, or we have members that are entirely remote with their employee base scattered all over the country. So this is another way to build connection and to learn from people who really understand the minutia of what is going on for you as an individual contributor or a team member of this organization in the same company, dealing with the same customers, living the same world, having the same expertise.
00:09:57:11 - 00:10:29:17
Unknown
And there's so much similarity with your colleagues that external networks are wonderful and you get diverse ideas from them. But this internal networking group would have an understanding on a deeper level that you might not ever be able to get an external networking group to understand what you're saying. So we often talk about how we're organizations have those unwritten rules or those pieces of knowledge that you only learn by working here, and external networks are just never going to be able to provide you that internal network to help you do that.
00:10:29:17 - 00:11:06:00
Unknown
So from a motivating factor, a rationale as to why this might be something a group would want to invest in, do we know we have a culture that defines themselves as siloed, whether we're all in the same space or not? That could be a factor in how do we create bridges? Do we have retention issues? Where in exit interviews we're getting feedback about teams not feeling connected or people not feeling engaged and connected to anyone outside of their own team.
00:11:06:02 - 00:11:29:01
Unknown
That can be a reason. Are we geographically dispersed? And so maybe a region only has two or three individuals of the same type of job role in that region, But as a company we have 40 or 50 employees with that same job role. They're expanding their internal network to be able to learn from others with the same type of job role this way.
00:11:29:01 - 00:12:07:20
Unknown
So being intentional about leveraging that 20% building those relationships, creating that connection and allowing folks to learn from like peers is a really excellent, inexpensive strategy to be able to make some real change and drive some growth at your organization. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you brought up the remote. Remote teams, too, just because I mean, I have some friends who who don't even know everybody on their team or a lot of colleagues in their organization who are in a remote position.
00:12:07:22 - 00:12:32:15
Unknown
And I feel like these internal working groups that would be so beneficial for them to not only get to know their peers and know their colleagues, but also like talk about what's top of mind in their line of business and other things like that. But I'm also curious, do you have any examples on specific internal networking teams that organizations kind of commonly establish?
00:12:32:15 - 00:12:57:15
Unknown
Like is it through a department or line of business or what are you seeing? Brief question. Yeah, I've seen organizations do new employee internal networks. So for the first year, here's a group of everyone else that has also started this year. And so we're all finding our footing together. Job role be darned where we're all finding our footing in this organization.
00:12:57:15 - 00:13:24:03
Unknown
And often when you think about systems thinking as an organization, you start to figure out, Oh, my team touches your team. Interesting. You all do that. Oh, we use that system too. When you do that thing, it takes a notification to me. I didn't know that was you all. So you start to understand the organism. Organism that is the organization as well as different folks figure out through these internal networking teams.
00:13:24:03 - 00:13:41:00
Unknown
A lot of if I'm in this new hire example for the first year, I don't know how to make sure to sign up for my benefits. Oh, I happen to be a new h.r. Team member. I actually know that answer. Or how what is their payroll? Oh, i happen to be connected to that system. Oh, i'm in accounting.
00:13:41:02 - 00:14:05:16
Unknown
So you start to connect with people that can get you the answers. And we know that adults like self-guided options as much as possible. I don't want to have to go searching and things like that. If I can have a person that I can go out, I'm going to go ask that person. They'll get me the answer quickly and I might not have to demonstrate to my new manager that I don't know the answer.
00:14:05:18 - 00:14:38:05
Unknown
Sometimes people tend to be a little bit productive to do that. So that's an example that I've seen used really well. I've also seen different internal networking groups centered around levels of leadership across an organization or new manager. So I was promoted this year and it doesn't have to be a cohort of structured learning programing. It's a cohort that comes together where they all share that characteristic organizationally about themselves.
00:14:38:05 - 00:15:11:24
Unknown
They're all new managers this year, and so we're all figuring out how to do this together now, talking about best strategies and Protip, I've also seen similar job roles sales, internal networking groups where all sales team members or office administrative team members. I've been executive assistant one for really large organizations. I have a lot of them. And so I've seen job roles and I've seen certain length of service and I've seen leadership level.
00:15:12:01 - 00:15:30:16
Unknown
All of them are excellent. What you might find out is that you're going to have more and more ideas come. You might start with three or four and then it might start to grow and the value always will be in. I know we can get to this in a bit, but the value will always be around. Is there value to time?
00:15:30:16 - 00:15:55:05
Unknown
Because this is different than an employee resource group. This isn't created by employees and run by employees. This is created by the organization intentionally. There's an intention behind it. And so it is a little bit different and it can run away from you if you don't stay in control, which we'll get to. But those are some examples that I've seen work really well.
00:15:55:07 - 00:16:26:21
Unknown
Yeah, and I feel like this could work well with interns now that it's internship season. I feel like you get a whole group of interns together. Absolutely. I mean, if only an organization like MRA is an intern thing, you've always it's all well. Part of also running an effective internal networking group means having the hot topics to facing the industry today for the group to kind of brainstorm and share ideas and resources on.
00:16:26:21 - 00:16:50:17
Unknown
So how how would that really apply to this approach? Absolutely. I mentioned it has to be intentional. This isn't created and running amuck. Not that CRT is run amok, but not running on their own by employees. Those are really excellent for a certain type of strategy. This is a different type of strategy. This is meeting that 20%, right.
00:16:50:17 - 00:17:19:00
Unknown
So part of the intentionality of structuring these to have control of what all is going on is having somebody that identifies they might volunteer. You might as an h.r. Leader or a leader in your organization. You might know this person is kind of an emerging leader. I think they'd be really good at those and identify networking group facilitators.
00:17:19:00 - 00:17:48:18
Unknown
So if you've ever been a part of an ira or an excuse me in MRA, Ohio roundtable, they have facilitators. So somebody that helps guide the discussion, that collects the topics that might bring their own if nobody knows. Let's talk about a similar concept here. We want a facilitator of the team to help guide the conversations during these structured whatever cadence makes sense for your organization.
00:17:48:20 - 00:18:21:19
Unknown
Get togethers, because it is meant to be not just about building networks and having deeper friendships and connections at your company, but really learning from one another. This is that 20% of growth your relationship for trying to create because we need to create some development focus. So we're going to lesions, identify your facilitators, send them through some development themselves, some some training around how to stay in control of a conversation.
00:18:21:21 - 00:18:49:18
Unknown
If you've ever been a part of a focus group or led a focus group, you know that you can have one kind of frustrated team member really derail the whole conversation. So giving them some strategies around how to do that and then having a collection of topic ideas So we know what makes these helpful is to talk about what we're truly facing today in our industry and our role within our organization.
00:18:49:21 - 00:19:15:15
Unknown
For organizations going through change or changes are hitting a certain type of job role. They might want to talk about that that session, but creating some sort of topic collection strategy that the facilitator gets the topic. So it can be you can do it through monthly SurveyMonkey, anonymous things or whatever type of collection you want, and you can do that in the facilitator, an email.
00:19:15:15 - 00:19:46:24
Unknown
The facilitator can say, Bring your topic to the session. Our next get together will write them all on the board and decide which ones we want to tackle. It can be as unsexy as that or as fancy as some anonymous topics. Submitter different organizations like different systems and create different things. If your organization uses Microsoft teams, you can have teams channels for your networking group to connect outside of just the session, but be dropping their topics in throughout the month.
00:19:46:24 - 00:20:05:16
Unknown
Hey, at our next session, I'd like to have us all sit down and talk about this. I'm facing this with a client right now, or a customer or we're dealing with this in our team as we've made this system change and all of the hear what everybody else is doing to overcome this obstacle. So lots of different ways.
00:20:05:18 - 00:20:26:21
Unknown
It doesn't have to be fancy, but can be. Depends on what bells and whistles your organization already has in place. This is not meant to be an expensive implementation of a strategy. This is meant to be. How can we just get intentional about getting our folks together and giving them opportunities to learn from one another? So that is a big thing.
00:20:26:21 - 00:20:56:10
Unknown
On hot topics and sticking to them and collecting them in the first place. Yeah, I was just going to ask two and how do you recommend finding hot topics? I know there's just typical day to day business talk where you probably know what's relevant, but do you recommend articles or just scrolling on LinkedIn or news? Or what are some other than you're going to hate this, you're going to hate this answer for a week?
00:20:56:11 - 00:21:25:22
Unknown
Yes. Yeah. All right. There you go. It depends on your industry. Also, I, I know a lot about hot topics and talent development and organizational development and effectiveness. I don't know a lot about compensation than what's going on in that world right now. I don't really don't know a lot about what's going on in the sales world or the manufacturing space outside of the fact that all of us have headcount nightmares right now.
00:21:25:22 - 00:21:47:19
Unknown
But I think the facilitator and those in the team that are accepting and coming to these invitations to these networking groups, they're going to have their own avenues. They might have networking teams they're connected to outside of work. And it's something they were talking about. They want to bring to the team internally. They might see things on LinkedIn.
00:21:47:21 - 00:22:11:05
Unknown
They might have I mean, we talked about in the beginning, I love podcasting, I love listening to podcasts. That is how I learn when I'm at the gym. I'm not listening to music. I can promise you. I'm listening to a podcast and I am learning this time, to my mind is so open when I'm at the gym. The podcasts are perfect for me for that.
00:22:11:07 - 00:22:34:07
Unknown
Whatever avenue people like to connect to is going to be what helps them bring things in addition to. Like I said internally, we all know this is going on. Here's how I'm trying to manage through it as everybody else does. I know we made this change. I know we're launching this new product. I know we acquired this company and went from regional to international overnight.
00:22:34:07 - 00:23:01:17
Unknown
Surprised How are you picking success? So those are the various avenues I can think of. Yeah, those are all great ideas. Well, conceptually, this sounds like a great way to meld many of the recommended recommended engagement strategies like mentoring, relationship building, peer development, coaching. But logistically, how would you really recommend putting something like this into full on practice?
00:23:01:19 - 00:23:31:13
Unknown
Absolutely. My first recommendation, anytime an organization is interested in launching something like this is start small. I mentioned it. You can run wild thinking about every type of job role we have or we want to have a collection of second shift employees and have a second shift in a third shift and a first shift team. Just talk about what things are dealing with or learning things on that ship.
00:23:31:15 - 00:23:53:15
Unknown
You can run wild. So I highly encourage step one start small, let it grow organically the way it makes sense for your organization to grow organically. So don't make it a big thing if it doesn't need to be a big thing yet. I think your best starters are new employee is always going to be a great one to start new leader.
00:23:53:21 - 00:24:11:12
Unknown
I've been a great one to start or front line leader, whether you're new or not might be a great one to start depending on how often you have promotions and things like that in your organization as well as any of the main job roles that you have a lot of folks connected to could be a great way to start as well.
00:24:11:14 - 00:24:38:23
Unknown
But start small with a few that you think are going to be the most impactful. Create your policy. Create your your guardrails around how these groups function, how they are organized, how often they should meet, who if there is a job description, impact to a team member that's coordinating because remember, this is not driven solely by the employees.
00:24:39:00 - 00:25:06:03
Unknown
This is driven as an intention, all organizational efficiency and effectiveness strategies. So it's okay to own scheduling. It's okay to have a job role where that is part of their job is managing the internal networking groups, but create a cadence that makes sense. I won't be prescriptive as to what makes sense. I don't know everybody's business structure. I don't know how often folks hobnob in the break room together anyway.
00:25:06:03 - 00:25:40:10
Unknown
So something that makes sense for your business to drive that connectivity, to build that camaraderie and create that cohort avenue of peer learning, create your expectations of what a facilitator would do, identify what that looks like. These are all that pre-work logistically, identify your volunteers, talk to them about how to maintain conversations, and then create your recommendations around submitting hot topics.
00:25:40:10 - 00:26:04:06
Unknown
And then you're going to start communicating. So you have to do a lot of the ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure legwork upfront to get everything established. We all know in the effectiveness world, get your policies nailed down first, get your guardrails nailed down for that. It's not written down. You might have folks running rampant, but get all of that set up.
00:26:04:08 - 00:26:34:06
Unknown
Get what those expectations look like. This is a fantastic stretch assignment. Experiential learning opportunity for emerging leaders in your organization. For it to be facilitators that aren't quite that just aren't job openings, we could only create so many jobs. So having this as an opportunity is really beneficial. Create all those guardrails, create those recommendations, create the schedule for the folks, have that set up.
00:26:34:06 - 00:26:54:17
Unknown
And then as people volunteer or want to be a part of it, invite everybody, see who comes, keep it on their calendars, keep it going for them so that this becomes embedded in your culture. If you leave it up to the employees to run on their own, it very well likely will die on the vine because they have other competing priorities.
00:26:54:19 - 00:27:29:14
Unknown
And from an organizational perspective, management, upper management. If we don't see the organization investing their time and energy around having this become part of how we operate, they'll say, Yeah, you could go to that, or we have this other priority and that's going to take precedence. So it is important to be owned by h.r. Or B or whomever owns organizational effectiveness and development for your organization to kind of also put that stamp on this as a intentional strategy the business is using.
00:27:29:16 - 00:28:05:15
Unknown
So we need it supported from the top down. Logistically, i think those are great, great ways to start. And then yeah, i like how you and i'm glad you mention that the organization has to be fully invested in this because I want to bring this to a full circle moment as we kind of wrap up. So how can organizations use the information that's talked about in these internal networking groups, kind of use it for the organization as a whole and gather feedback and insights to kind of drive that organizational success?
00:28:05:17 - 00:28:32:08
Unknown
Absolutely. You have to create a trusting partnership with your facilitators, and that's part of kind of creating those expectations upfront and helping those that step into the facilitator of this networking group role. Understand is this is if there are things that people are frustrated about and they're struggling to overcome it and that comes up, let us know. Our goal is to create improvements through this.
00:28:32:08 - 00:29:03:05
Unknown
So a two way communication strategy that also is communicated to the group. You don't want the facilitator to let the networking team feel like we're in Vegas. Whatever happens here stays here. Talk about whatever, because that's part of the goal. The goal is we're learning goals are improving. If there is a obstacle that is really difficult for the group to overcome, we want to know about that so that we can either create development opportunities for them or make changes as needed.
00:29:03:05 - 00:29:32:02
Unknown
So part of that structure, that expectation and that development of the facilitators and that early communications of the guardrails is to set that up as one of the intentions behind this strategy, because engagement surveys are wonderful and I don't knock them. I think they are a fantastic way to have more people give feedback. That's anonymous. This is not just sitting there with your face saying what you're saying.
00:29:32:02 - 00:30:02:16
Unknown
So we know that they are going to be aware of what group is talking about this. But even on engagement surveys, we get that information and that often we're looking at it kind of scratching our heads like, what is driving that rating? What is driving those comments? So we end up trying to do focus groups anyway. This is a consistent, intentional focus group for your business, for specific areas that you will get that information.
00:30:02:18 - 00:30:36:20
Unknown
So establish that relationship understanding early and then it's really important for those professional taking the information to share it with whomever. And the organization needs to know what we're learning for development opportunities to create that discretion area. Because while the group's going to let me know, I'm not going to walk up to the sales executives and say, Hey, so I want you to know sales.
00:30:36:22 - 00:30:58:23
Unknown
This guy, this lady really pressured, I'm not going to do that. Right? So that's on our side to remain ethical and with our professionalism to say, hey, we're hearing through the networking team that the new CRM is pretty difficult for folks to utilize. Maybe we need to have some refresher training. Can we work to schedule that? Just making it all about, Here's what we're hearing.
00:30:58:23 - 00:31:20:21
Unknown
Let's remove that obstacle. Here's what we're learning. Let's figure that change out. I hear there's this new innovation. Seems like our business is falling behind, going to the executives. Do we have a plan in our strategic roadmap? Can we have some conversations? Because we've learned some stuff from boots on the ground over there telling us that we should probably be working this way.
00:31:20:23 - 00:31:44:23
Unknown
That's going to really help connect all of the dots for everybody. And the more the networking teams learn from one another and grow, they'll see the value and they'll start word of mouth marketing to their colleagues and to their peers. Hey, you should join the networking group because I started learning all kinds of things that are super helpful because, you know, Chad or Cindy do these things.
00:31:45:00 - 00:32:09:15
Unknown
And I tried it. I learned it while we were all talking about X, Y, and Z, and it worked. Super helpful. You should come join this as well as you know, you know that CRM refresher training that came because the sales networking team was talking about it. I'm just saying I should come because really driving impact for the company we work for and we know that's another engagement strategy, right?
00:32:09:17 - 00:32:36:15
Unknown
When people share what their ideas are and see those ideas impact business operations for the better of themselves and their colleagues, they're more invested in a company that listens to them. So making it intentional about learning for both the employees and for the business to operate effectively is going to continue to ingrain this into part of your organization's culture for how everybody works together.
00:32:36:17 - 00:33:01:07
Unknown
Now, that's all great advice and great examples, so thank you for that. Any other final thoughts before we wrap up the episode? Well, I just I know it sounds like it could be a lot like, how often would I have them meet? What would I do when I was part of the organization that went from regional to international.
00:33:01:09 - 00:33:34:16
Unknown
So we grew through acquisition initially regionally, and then we had a couple of large acquisitions that were outside of our lovely Midwestern area for the Cincinnati of around there. We went from out of the tri state area into the state up north and then into international, and it became the way that helped us maintain the elements of each company that came together, like about their culture and engage and retain people.
00:33:34:16 - 00:34:03:19
Unknown
It was the strategy singly that worked everything else we did all the great change management processes. You follow. Those are all wonderful. There's a lot of research behind why you do certain things. There's a lot of research behind preparing for the productivity and things like that. But what we heard about what helped people stay and feel retained was I got connected quickly with people across the business.
00:34:03:21 - 00:34:33:00
Unknown
I started feeling instantly like I was part of this new organization and we started growing and I was learning from people that are doing the same type of role in a different country, maybe to a different region. But I was learning some things really quickly, so we know that these strategies, that ounce of prevention of setting things up and writing some policies and identifying who's going to help it in the beginning it's like, Oh, maybe I can do that.
00:34:33:00 - 00:34:58:22
Unknown
Q1 of 2024, That's great planning for Q1 of 2024, start three, see what happened. But there is a lot of feedback around this being one of those things that helps engage and retain people and then help develop folks through a very natural way that we know has impactful development techniques. Yeah, that's good to know how. I really wanted to end that.
00:34:58:24 - 00:35:28:14
Unknown
As you say, that's really good that we could hear your personal experience with internal networking groups and hear your success stories from it too. So that's cool. But Amanda a thank you for all the great content today and welcome to the show. You'll be seeing a lot more of Amanda but to thank you if you liked our chat and topic today, I'd urge you to common something new that you learned today or anything that you want to add to the conversation.
00:35:28:14 - 00:35:51:00
Unknown
Just add it to the comments and don't forget to share this episode. Consider joining MRA as a member if you aren't already. We have all the resources you need in the show Notes below, including resources from our topic today. Otherwise, thank you for tuning in and we will see you all next week. And that wraps up our content for this episode.
00:35:51:02 - 00:36:09:09
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 minute Thrive so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.

37 min

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