Talent Report+THRIVE

Description: What do leadership, quiet-quitting, and employee engagement have to do with the company culture? We sat down with Lisa Pook, MRA's Organization Development Director, to find out the answer and so much more.

Key Takeaways:

1. Leadership plays a huge role in sustaining a positive culture. They articulate the values of the organization, which drives that culture. They have to model the behaviors they want to see in the organization as a whole. 

Let's Connect:

Lisa Pook bio  

Lisa's LinkedIn Profile 

Transcript: 

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:23:03

Intro

Hello 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. Now it’s time to THRIVE.

00:00:23:13 - 00:01:00:14

Sophie Boler

Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of 30 minute THRIVE. Today I’m joined with Lisa Pook. She’s our director of organizational development here at MRA, and just a pleasure to work with, so I’m really glad you’re here today, Lisa. But Lisa’s focus is really helping members build an organizational culture that helps engage employees while also achieving business success, whether it’s working on talent management strategies or change management, facilitating workgroups to improve teamwork, coaching individuals and everything you can think of,

00:01:00:14 - 00:01:07:00

Sophie Boler

Lisa really focuses on all of those. So thank you for joining us today and talking about culture today.

00:01:07:01 - 00:01:11:04

Lisa Pook

I’m delighted to be here with you, and you are just a delight to work with as well.

00:01:11:05 - 00:01:27:12

Sophie Boler

Thank you, Lisa. Before we get started, we like to really kick off the episode with a couple of fun questions. So I think the first thing we can talk about is about books. So is there a book that you’re currently reading or have just read that you would recommend to our listeners today?

00:01:27:14 - 00:01:51:18

Lisa Pook

Sure! My book club that I belong to, this month’s book is “The Red Tent” by Anita Diamant, which is an older book. But it’s interesting. It’s a kind of historical fiction taking place in biblical times. So that’s just kind of interesting. And it just focuses a lot on relationships between women, I think is one of the things that I took out of the book.

00:01:51:18 - 00:01:52:18

Lisa Pook

So I really enjoyed it.

00:01:52:21 - 00:02:12:05

Sophie Boler

Okay, well, that’s good recommendation. I’ll have to check it out. And then the other question we have for you is a this-or-that question? So this morning, I mean, walking to my car, it was a little cold out and I’m still a little chilly today. So our this-or-that today is: winter or summer? What kind of person are you?

00:02:12:19 - 00:02:18:15

Lisa Pook

Summer.

Sophie Boler

You are?

Lisa Pook

Yeah, but maybe like later summer toward fall. I like that time.

00:02:18:20 - 00:02:19:09

Sophie Boler

That’s a good answer. It’s like where it’s not too hot and you’re kind of transitioning.

00:02:23:10 - 00:02:27:08

Lisa Pook

And not like a 90s kind of a temperature.

00:02:27:08 - 00:02:39:11

Sophie Boler

That’s too hot. Thanks for answering. But all right. Well, let’s dove right into our topic for today and that’s culture. So my first question for you is what impact is leadership have on company culture?

00:02:39:11 - 00:03:08:10

Lisa Pook

It’s a huge impact because leadership of the organization, I think, first of all, is the group that articulates what the values are of the organization, which drives that culture. So they’re articulating it. They’re also in the position that their behaviors, they have to model the behaviors and their behaviors are very visible. Others with The words that they use are really important and have an impact on how that culture is sustained through the organization.

00:03:09:09 - 00:03:21:01

Lisa Pook

And I think it’s also really important that leaders are giving a consistent message. So you’re hearing the same thing. You’re seeing the same thing. You’re observing those values throughout that leadership.

00:03:21:04 - 00:03:42:09

Sophie Boler

And I think it’s just important to note that culture stretches so much more than just your leadership team. They are the ones giving you examples, you wanna, they’re leading by example, but it comes down to so much more than leadership. So do you have any advice for leaders to just, around culture in general?

00:03:43:06 - 00:04:09:04

Lisa Pook

I think it’s really, really important for leaders to be very closely tuned in with the people that they’re leading. So whatever level you are in the organization, I think leaders need to make a point of asking questions and listening and really paying attention to what their employees are telling them or maybe not telling them.

00:04:09:06 - 00:04:19:12

Sophie Boler

Absolutely. Yeah. So we’re hearing more about the employee value proposition, EVP. Can you talk a little bit more about what this means?

00:04:19:12 - 00:04:46:19

Lisa Pook

Yeah. So when we’re talking about employee value proposition, it’s really the it’s what the employee gets from the employer for being an employee. So culture, I think, is a part of it, a piece of the value proposition. It’s probably an important piece of it, but it’s not everything that the employee is getting from the employer. I think it makes sense to pay attention to that.

00:04:46:20 - 00:04:54:18

Lisa Pook

And it’s certainly something that can help new employees, you know, make the decision that they want to come and work at your company or not.

00:04:55:07 - 00:05:05:22

Sophie Boler

So I’m not too familiar with what exactly is employee value proposition. So how would you explain it to someone who doesn’t really know what that phrase means?

00:05:05:22 - 00:05:37:23

Lisa Pook

Yeah. So it’s kind of the what the company is saying to the employee that says this is what you’re going to get by working here. And so I’ve heard it described also as externally it’s the company brand. That’s the external message. But the internal message is the EVP, or the employee value proposition, and that, really smart companies are listening, asking and listening to their employees.

00:05:37:23 - 00:05:43:20

Lisa Pook

So it’s really something that is created based upon what employees are telling them is important to them.

00:05:44:13 - 00:05:44:21

Sophie Boler

Okay. Thanks for clarifying.

00:05:44:21 - 00:05:45:21

Lisa Pook

Sure.

00:05:46:09 - 00:05:55:22

Sophie Boler

So another issue we’re hearing about is quiet quitting. That’s kind of been the buzzword for a while now. So how is this really impacting culture in the workplace?

00:05:55:22 - 00:06:23:12

Lisa Pook

Well, you know, I think that the idea of quiet quitting is wrapped up with employee engagement. Right? And so that whole, people started talking about quiet quitting as kind of this way that people are doing just enough. They’re doing their job, but they’re not necessarily volunteering for above and beyond or going the next step or maybe not even looking at, you know, how can I be more creative or innovative or things like that.

00:06:24:05 - 00:06:59:13

Lisa Pook

So, you know, if we take a look at employee engagement, we say engagement is maximizing the time and your effort for the company, using that time in that discretionary time and effort towards your company. Right? So if now we’re seeing that people aren’t necessarily looking at that and just doing what’s required of them, I think that now has an impact on the culture overall because again, culture is the stuff that you’re observing, the look, the feel, how we do things around here.

00:06:59:16 - 00:07:27:05

Lisa Pook

So probably has an impact like that. I think ultimately though, I was reading a couple of articles that were talking about quiet quitting and what one of the articles said, in essence, quiet quitting—that whole label might be more of a thing that management has labeled. This author kind of suggested, it’s kind of a cop-out to say, you know, my team isn’t working well because they’re quiet quitting.

00:07:27:15 – 00:07:47:08

Lisa Pook

And I think a manager needs to say, my team is not working well together. What do I need to do about that? So I think it’s kind of, maybe an interesting thing to explore, but I don’t know that we necessarily are capturing all the things that’s important with it.

00:07:47:12 - 00:07:58:07

Sophie Boler

That’s some good advice. I feel like I’ve seen that word and that phrase so much even over social media and articles, like you said. It’s like, what really is this and why is it happening?

00:07:58:07 - 00:08:19:07

Lisa Pook

Well, and I don’t think employees say “I’m quiet quitting.” It’s employees’ managers saying, “Don’t know what you’re doing. We’re going to call it quiet quitting.” You know, again, that goes back to this whole idea of we know that the biggest driver of employee engagement is that relationship between the supervisor and the employee. An employee who says, my supervisor knows me and cares about me.

00:08:19:17 - 00:08:26:22

Lisa Pook

That’s going to engage me more. And that has a piece of the overall culture of the organization.

00:08:26:23 - 00:08:40:15

Sophie Boler

Absolutely. Well, it’s certainly something, like, maybe we will start getting more comfortable with or learning more about, like you said. But so culture in the work environment, how can we enhance the workplace that contributes to a positive culture?

00:08:41:07 - 00:09:03:16

Lisa Pook

So you’re talking about work environment, like just the physical work environment, right?

Sophie Boler

Right.

Lisa Pook

Things that are … and I think it’s nice to come to a place that’s comfortable, right? And it’s nice to move into a new building, perhaps, or have new, have it remodeled. And I think that sends a message to employees: We care about the environment that we’re in.

00:09:03:16 - 00:09:28:23

Lisa Pook

We want you to feel stimulated or we want you to feel good about where you’re coming. So I think that has a that has a big impact on it. It’s that visual that that makes us feel like, hey, it’s a comfortable place to be working, you know, and I know there’s there’s the examples of the companies that have the ping-pong tables and things like that.

00:09:28:23 - 00:09:45:13

Lisa Pook

I mean, I guess for some people that appeals to them and that’s part of something that’s going to be fun or energizing or whatever for employees. So I think that it has an impact on it. I don’t know that there’s one that you say across the board, this is what an environment needs to look like.

00:09:46:20 - 00:10:10:19

Sophie Boler

Yeah, exactly. And going off of that, Lisa, about how you said the ping-pong tables and I think even just speaking for MRA, we have a very open work environment and we’ve got some cafes and that just helps the open work environment, helps with collaborating with team members and kind of drives the point that culture is more than having ping pong tables.

00:10:10:22 - 00:10:13:19

Sophie Boler

I don’t know if you have anything to add on to that, but.

00:10:13:20 - 00:10:36:14

Lisa Pook

Well I think that’s just a good point. It’s not, the culture isn’t, you know, just having some activity place or having the, you know, the free lunches or all of those kinds of physical things. Those are nice. And it certainly makes people, can make people feel really good about working in it. But culture is much more sophisticated than that.

00:10:36:16 - 00:10:37:14

Lisa Pook

It’s not just things.

00:10:37:17 - 00:10:55:12

Sophie Boler

Absolutely. And as we see more companies kind of transitioning to a remote environment, a virtual environment, how does that come into play with culture and, you know, not having people physically in the office—how would that affect culture?

00:10:55:14 - 00:11:29:01

Lisa Pook

Yeah, I think companies are feeling the effects of that and trying to figure out what they want to do or how they maintain some of those values. I think it’s hard with remote workers—remote relationships are hard, right? So culture, a lot of culture depends on those interactions that we have with others, whether they’re coworkers or colleagues in a different department or with my manager or with senior leadership.

00:11:29:01 – 00:11:56:16

Lisa Pook

All of those interactions and relationships are important. So when you have people who, when you’ve got people working in areas where it’s harder to make those casual interactions, we gotta figure out ways to make those happen. Now, we’ve got companies all over the place that have multiple sites, right? And so there are people who technically work remotely from each other all the time.

00:11:56:16 - 00:12:12:04

Lisa Pook

And that works. That works. But I think when you’re talking about teamwork, we probably have to put a little more effort into structuring some of those remote interactions, particularly when people are completely remote, where there’s no opportunity to get together.

00:12:12:04 - 00:12:42:18

Sophie Boler

I did a capstone project on remote work and coworker relationships, peer relationships, and that’s what I found was that it’s, it’s not like you have to force the conversations remotely, but it’s, you have to put in more effort on maybe we don’t talk about work 100 percent of the time we’re on the call. Maybe I try to get to know this person and maybe we do a group activity where it’s a game or something where you might need to put in a little more effort, but it’ll be worth it.

00:12:42:23 - 00:12:54:15

Lisa Pook

Right. And I think I think that’s what teams are finding, that you do have to put a little structure around it. And yeah, the you know, the, the opportunity to just talk about stuff.

00:12:54:15 - 00:12:55:01

Sophie Boler

Yeah.

00:12:55:01 - 00:13:17:21

Lisa Pook

So and it can be awkward when we’ve got six people on a screen and I want to talk to you, Sophie, but everybody else is in the room too. So I’ve also had examples of, you know, some managers will even use the breakout rooms so that you can have a little bit of more one on one or a couple of people to communicate that way.

00:13:17:21 - 00:13:30:11

Lisa Pook

And then coming back to the whole group, doing the round robin. You know, the question, like I loved your this-or-that question or the book question, just some of that type of stuff to get people to share, I mean, that’s important.

00:13:30:15 - 00:13:41:05

Sophie Boler

Absolutely and kind of going off that, technology is playing a big role in this as well. So how can technology help with creating a culture, helping with company culture?

00:13:41:05 - 00:13:44:03

Lisa Pook

Well, I think technology can make things efficient for us.

00:13:44:06 - 00:13:44:09

Sophie Boler

Yeah, absolutely.

00:13:45:12 - 00:14:18:20

Lisa Pook

So in terms of culture and efficiency, helping me do my job better and more easily is huge. And I think the other thing is, you know, maybe this goes along with that the whole environment when it’s, when it, when we see that our company is investing in things that make our work better, that says something about what the company values.

00:14:19:01 - 00:14:33:13

Sophie Boler

Absolutely, completely agree with that. So the next question revolves around measuring culture, which I know sounds like maybe that’s not doable in measuring employee experience. So what can you comment about that?

00:14:34:07 - 00:15:11:21

Lisa Pook

I struggle with that because some of our members come and say we want to do, we want to measure culture. And I think culture, you need to know what questions you’re asking. What do you want to know, which isn’t necessarily measuring the culture. I don’t know that you can actually do that. I think we can observe the culture and we can ask questions and we can listen and we can go to our employees and ask them what makes it a good or not-so-good place to work and act on those.

00:15:11:21 - 00:15:35:23

Lisa Pook

And that’s the qualitative way of measuring culture, right? When we take that information and do something with it. I think if you want to do surveys of employees, then what you need to ask is what is it that we want to know? And I don’t think you can survey people with kind of broad cultural questions. I think you’ve got to be thinking about it.

00:15:35:23 - 00:16:05:01

Lisa Pook

So if it’s employee engagement, if it’s satisfaction? We can measure those things. If it’s something around diversity and employees’ perceptions of diversity and inclusion initiatives in the organization, we can measure that. We can ask those types of questions. So I think organizations that are looking at their culture and want to have some sort of measurement data need to really look inside and decide what their questions are.

00:16:05:05 - 00:16:32:18

Sophie Boler

Absolutely. I think it’s harder to survey culture, like you said. A statement I’ve heard is, “Culture is something an organization has” or “Culture something in organization is.” And I agree with that “Culture something in organization is” statement. So I think that just statement kind of says it’s more it’s a natural thing. It’s not something you can really force upon people.

00:16:32:18 - 00:16:39:09

Sophie Boler

You can’t just have a culture. It’s the people, other things that you’ve mentioned make up a culture.

00:16:39:22 - 00:17:06:11

Lisa Pook

And I think you can influence that. Absolutely, you can influence it. I mean, it goes back to your leadership question. That’s where, you know, that’s a real strong force and management, employer-employee relationships is a strong way of influencing culture. And we all know examples of bad cultures, right? And we can go back and say, well, what influenced that? Was it relationships?

00:17:06:11 - 00:17:29:00

Lisa Pook

Was it all sorts of things that forced us to that negative culture? But I think you’re right. You can’t take it in exclusion of everything else, right? It’s very, you got to look at the whole system. And once you start messing or tweaking parts of it, it’s going to it’s going to shift everybody else too.

00:17:29:00 - 00:17:33:23

Sophie Boler

It’s a bigger thing than most people think. Culture influences everything.

00:17:34:02 - 00:17:35:06

Lisa Pook

Yeah, absolutely.

00:17:35:06 - 00:17:42:20

Sophie Boler

Yeah. So as we just kind of wrap up our time for today, do you have any lasting thoughts to share with our listeners today?

00:17:44:11 - 00:17:45:00

Lisa Pook

Sure.

00:17:46:06 - 00:17:47:04

Sophie Boler

That’s a hard question.

00:17:48:04 - 00:18:28:12

Lisa Pook

No, I think, I think if we are really concerned about the culture of our organization, then leaders in our organization need to listen to employees. And I think employees on that end need to constructively and clearly give feedback about what’s working and what’s not working. I think good conversations give you a lot of information about where the culture is, the current state of it, and if things need to change, that’s where you’re going to get your information as well.

00:18:29:00 - 00:18:54:04

Sophie Boler

That’s some great advice. So thank you, Lisa. But thank you again for joining us today and speaking on the workplace culture topic. It’s something that really makes a business unique and it affects all aspects of business too. So, happy to have heard your input and your advice on this. But make sure to connect with Lisa. We have linked her email as well as her LinkedIn profile in the show notes along with some resources.

00:18:54:04 - 00:19:13:22

Sophie Boler

So if you’d like to continue the conversation or ask her any questions I’m sure she’d be happy to connect. But other than that, make sure to leave a comment or review if you like the episode and found it beneficial. Next week we will be discussing the nontraditional candidate and recruiting, so you won’t want to miss that.

00:19:14:08 - 00:19:35:22

Outro

But other than that, thank you again, Lisa. It was a pleasure talking to you. And we will see you guys 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 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 HR conversation.

Description: This week, MRA's Vice President of Human Resources, James McDevitt uses his 25+ years of HR knowledge to discuss what it takes to create your path to success! He covers career ladders vs. lattices, core competencies, employee development tools, and more. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Employees are generally more engaged when they believe their employer is concerned about their growth, provides opportunities to reach individual career goals, and allows them to contribute to the company’s success.

Resources:

Developing Career Paths Publication 

Let's Connect:

James McDevitt Bio 

James' LinkedIn Profile 

Transcript: 

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:23:03

Intro

Hello 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. Now it’s time to THRIVE.

00:00:23:14 - 00:00:46:03

Sophie Boler

Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of 30 minute THRIVE. We’re so glad you’re here and joining us today. And today, James McDevitt is also joining us today. He’s our vice president of human resources here at MRA. And he’s really here to discuss, give advice on career paths. So thanks for being here today, James.

00:00:46:04 - 00:00:47:00

James McDevitt

Thank you for inviting me.

00:00:47:00 - 00:01:05:23

Sophie Boler

Excited to talk with you. But before we get started, we really want to start with a fun question. And as our listeners know, we’re located in Wisconsin, and we had our first true snowfall yesterday, which was crazy. So I want to ask you what your favorite thing to do in the winter, wintertime activity is.

00:01:05:23 - 00:01:25:21

James McDevitt

I actually love taking my wee Westie, our little pet West Highland Terrier, out for a walk in the snow. He loves the snow. He’s white, so you can’t see him very well. But he loves when it’s really deep, and  he’s only got little legs. He jumps across the snow and he loves hunting deer and squirrels and whatever’s out there.

00:01:25:21 - 00:01:27:03

James McDevitt

He just has a great time.

00:01:27:06 - 00:01:31:06

Sophie Boler

That’s just funny to hear—a small little Westie hunting a big deer.

00:01:31:08 - 00:01:33:01

James McDevitt

Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure.

00:01:33:02 - 00:01:33:22

Sophie Boler

Small but mighty.

00:01:33:23 - 00:01:34:15

James McDevitt

Absolutely.

00:01:34:21 - 00:01:48:14

Sophie Boler

Well, that’s great. But let’s dive into our topic for today, and that is career paths. And we’re going to start a little broad. So can you tell me what the difference between an organizational career path and a personal career path is?

00:01:48:20 - 00:02:24:10

James McDevitt

Sure. Great question to start with. They’re definitely related; however, as the name implies, organizational career path is more work related than personal career path. It’s more personal related. So you’re looking at, for a personal career path, you’re looking at development skills, sorry, skills that you need to develop for yourself. Maybe the softer skills, maybe time management skills, maybe dealing with people, managing people, leading people, getting people motivated, engaged, etc., whereas a traditional organizational career path would be more job related.

00:02:24:12 - 00:02:43:19

James McDevitt

How do I want to, maybe I want to be CEO one day. How do I become CEO? What jobs do I need to do? What skills do I need to learn? So the personal career path also would include what do you enjoy doing? What do you like doing? Do you like working with people? So you may want to consider a career with people that would help enable that.

00:02:44:03 - 00:02:52:22

James McDevitt

Do you like building things? Do you like working with computers? These are all different things that you would bring into either a personal plan or an organizational plan.

00:02:53:03 - 00:02:58:04

Sophie Boler

Absolutely. And I would imagine that those two plans would kind of overlap at some point.

00:02:58:06 - 00:03:03:08

James McDevitt

They would. They’re absolutely intertwined. They’re not mutually exclusive at all.

00:03:03:19 - 00:03:10:22

Sophie Boler

Sure. Can we also talk about how you can find and really define your career path? How do you get started?

00:03:11:06 - 00:03:37:11

James McDevitt

So this is unique to everybody out there in podcast land. Everybody is different. Everyone has their unique talents, objectives, interests, personal circumstances. And the best way to start really is to think about what interests you, what gets you out of bed in the morning, what excites you. And as I said earlier, if you love working with people, then you’re going to think about a career within that field that enables you to do that.

00:03:37:18 - 00:04:03:15

James McDevitt

If you like building things or analyzing data to find patterns, then to each their own, everybody’s different. So every career path by definition will be different depending on the individual. And then once you find what excites you and what interests you, research the types of jobs that are in those fields that will enable you to fulfill that passion. Know the requirements and know the requirements for the roles.

00:04:04:06 - 00:04:09:07

James McDevitt

Do you need a degree, for example. If you do need to college certificate, a college degree, what in?

00:04:09:17 - 00:04:10:01

Sophie Boler

Right.

00:04:10:14 - 00:04:35:06

James McDevitt

Is an associate’s degree sufficient? Do you need a full bachelor’s degree? Do you need a postgraduate degree? What about certifications? What about experience? These are all the things to think about. It’s all great. I love working with people—yay! —but what does that actually mean? And what do I need to do to build my experience to make me employable in that field?

00:04:35:22 - 00:04:54:15

James McDevitt

And the other thing I would say is you can do it at any time in your life, at any time in your career. We’re not all defined by what we decided to do when we were 14 and met with our school careers counselor. Some people just drift into work and drift into school and they find a career and they land on their feet and everything’s fine.

00:04:55:04 - 00:05:18:03

James McDevitt

So other people do that, and then 5, 10, 15 years later they go, “I don’t really want to do this anymore.” And that’s okay. You can change your career at any time. You can define your career path at any time. I actually did something like that in my mid- to late-20s where I wasn’t particularly satisfied in the role I was in.

00:05:18:12 - 00:05:34:15

James McDevitt

And I sat down and thought about what do I really want to do when I grow up? And I decided what I wanted to do, which was different, I decided I did the research well, what do I need to get into that field? I needed to get some qualification. So I went to night school. I got the qualifications, I switched careers.

00:05:34:15 - 00:05:37:03

James McDevitt

And here we are a number of years later.

00:05:37:06 - 00:06:02:10

Sophie Boler

Yeah, that’s a great example to bring up. And I like how you kind of emphasize that a career path doesn’t have to be set in stone. It can change. Absolutely. And it’s unique to everybody, you know, depending on what they like to do and maybe something they want they want to test out. But moving on, can you talk a little bit more about core competencies and how this really relates to career paths?

00:06:02:11 - 00:06:21:10

James McDevitt

Absolutely. So core competencies are really the key skill sets that you need to do a job, whatever they may be. They can be technical by nature. I need to learn a skill to do a specific task, or they may be a little bit softer, such as the ability to do a podcast for MRA.

00:06:21:10 - 00:06:23:05

Sophie Boler

I think that that’s a pretty tough skill.

00:06:24:08 - 00:06:51:22

James McDevitt

In a previous organization—and I think it is a good example of how core competencies work—in a  previous organization, which was a research facility, we identified core competencies for our technical staff and we have different types of research required, different type of skills. But we identify four key core competencies that if you’re a technician, if you need if you learn how to do these four competencies, you could actually work in any of the research fields.

00:06:52:13 - 00:07:12:15

James McDevitt

And so we established the four key competencies and everybody was trained in those four key competencies, core competencies. So that meant that they could work across the organization as and when needed, which made it more interesting for them because they were not doing the same thing day in and day out and from an organizational point of view made it much more flexible.

00:07:13:14 - 00:07:35:03

James McDevitt

We then identified further key core competencies in each of the specific research fields. So if you were going to specialize in research X, then you got training on the additional core competencies next. So that helped develop someone’s skills, someone’s expertise, and obviously met our, at that time, our customer needs by having skilled technicians work on that project.

00:07:35:10 - 00:07:45:03

Sophie Boler

Absolutely. So we talked a little bit about career paths in general, but what about nontraditional career paths? Is there anything else you want to address with that?

00:07:46:11 - 00:08:14:10

James McDevitt

So the nontraditional career path could be defined as something that is traditionally filled by a specific gender. So, for example, engineering is traditionally identified as a male profession. So if a woman wanted to go into engineering, that would be considered a nontraditional. Likewise for men in nursing, nursing is considered a traditional female profession. So if you are a man wanting to be in nursing, that would be a nontraditional role.

00:08:15:14 - 00:08:49:05

James McDevitt

They also expand beyond that, could be an individual who decides to follow their passion in a different way. So instead of working in finance or working in HR, you might want to do something completely different. And especially with the younger generations these days and the advance of the internet and technologies and the gig economy, etc., there’s a lot of people out there following nontraditional career paths, being an influencer, traveling the world and recording video and getting sponsorship, and all that kind of good stuff.

00:08:49:05 - 00:09:01:05

James McDevitt

So not everybody needs to be in finance or HR or be an engineer. There’s certainly these days a lot of nontraditional career paths out there for people. But the key, again, is to find what find what interests you.

00:09:02:03 - 00:09:02:14

James McDevitt

Follow your passion.

00:09:02:14 - 00:09:19:12

Sophie Boler

Yeah. And we actually have a nontraditional candidate podcast coming up in just the importance of tapping into those nontraditional candidates. So can you talk a little bit about the difference between career paths and career ladders?

00:09:19:23 – 00:09:49:14

James McDevitt

Sure. So a career ladder—we’ll start there—is the traditional, very specific, like the rung of a ladder. You go from 1, 2, 3—technician 1, technician 2, technician 3, for example—fairly straight, as a ladder is, and so very linear. A career path is broader, broader by definition. It can include a comprehensive career path, may include promotions, but also lateral moves.

00:09:50:18 - 00:10:11:06

James McDevitt

And we’ll touch on this in a minute. But a previous organization I worked with was very keen on promoting broad career paths. Which meant so you’re not necessarily going to go from 1 to 2 to 3. You’re going to be looking at what skills do you need to learn in order to progress within the organization, in order to add value to the organization.

00:10:11:14 - 00:10:23:07

James McDevitt

And that may mean a lateral move. It may mean a temporary assignment somewhere learning a different part of the business. So a broad career path is much broader than a much more strict career ladder.

00:10:23:18 - 00:10:30:10

Sophie Boler

And then going off of that, what is the difference between the career ladder, which we just talked about, and a lattice?

00:10:30:17 - 00:10:50:14

James McDevitt

Right. So a new term for me anyway, recently. But it’s pretty much like what I said in terms of a broad career path. I think many people think a linear career path, as I said—1, 2, 3. But the lattice is more of a zigzag approach. You can go sideways in order to move forward. You can go sideways.

00:10:51:01 - 00:11:12:08

James McDevitt

You can learn new skills within the organization. As I said, in the previous organization I was in, that was the way to advance yourself. It was very few people went 1, 2, 3, now that’s it, you’re good. You really were encouraged to learn different parts of the business. You were encouraged to learn different skills. Temporary assignments were encouraged. It was a global organization.

00:11:12:08 - 00:11:40:14

James McDevitt

Overseas assignments were encouraged. Now that model is clearly easier to carry out in a larger organization where there are multiple opportunities; however, in a smaller organization we should think about that as well because it’s harder to do—you’re not going to send somebody overseas if you’ve got three locations in Wisconsin— but at the same time, you can also be thinking about those three locations if they’re different products, for example, or different services they offer.

00:11:40:23 - 00:12:09:01

James McDevitt

Well, if James is potentially a high-talent individual with a goal to be a successor to a leader one day, well, sending James to the facility in the other part of Wisconsin for a year to learn that business could be a really good move. It won’t necessarily be a promotion, it won’t necessarily be more money. But I would be learning something valuable for the organization and developing my skill set at the same time.

00:12:09:12 - 00:12:30:12

Sophie Boler

Absolutely. I think, like you just said, it depends on size of the company, your career path, your personal career path, your goals and intentions, whether you take a more lateral move or you do a ladder like you talked about. So how does making employee development a priority benefit the organization as well?

00:12:31:01 - 00:12:53:18

James McDevitt

I think this is a, it’s a no-brainer, really, from an organizational point of view. The cliche is true: If an organization doesn’t develop and doesn’t grow and doesn’t evolve, it will eventually stagnate, probably die. And there’s lots of companies out there that we could quote that unfortunately have carried out that business cycle. So how does a company evolve and how does a company grow organically?

00:12:54:00 - 00:13:23:23

James McDevitt

It grows through its people. And if the employees grow and develop new skills, improve their experiences, bring new ideas to the organization, whether they learn internally or they learn from external means, they’re bringing those ideas to the organization that can lead to new product development. It can lead to new, efficient, more effective processes. It can improve the bottom line and could improve the commercial side of the organization, and the company continues to evolve

00:13:23:23 - 00:13:28:09

James McDevitt

as the employees continue to evolve, the two go hand in hand. It’s a bit of a no-brainer.

00:13:28:20 - 00:13:42:18

Sophie Boler

And I think in terms of just attracting employees, too, I think speaking of the young, the younger generation side, I think employee development is something that is just very attractive when it comes to picking an organization.

00:13:42:18 - 00:14:05:06

James McDevitt

It is. It is. Some people are very happy coming in and doing what they do and going home again and that’s fine. I mention if you want to be a CEO earlier— not everybody wants to be a CEO and that’s completely fine. However, for many people, they’re looking to maintain that interest. They want to come, again they want to have a reason for getting out of bed and coming to work in the morning and doing the same thing day in and day out doesn’t float too many boats.

00:14:05:21 - 00:14:28:07

James McDevitt

So we’re looking for employees to have an interest, learn new things, be curious, to develop their skill set, to sharpen their soul. And that’s where personal development comes in. And the win for the businesses, as I said, if you’re developing new skills and you’re thinking of new ways of doing things, you can you can improve a process and save time and money to get the product out the door.

00:14:28:07 – 00:14:46:11

James McDevitt

You can bring in new product development, new ideas to go to market, different ways to market things. And that’s not some entity known as the corporation. That’s people who do that. It’s the people that work for you who are developing their skills, who are bringing new ideas and bringing new products to market. And that’s how the company works.

00:14:47:00 - 00:14:59:02

Sophie Boler

That’s a great point to bring up. So you are vice president of HR here at MRA, like we said. So what role does HR play in helping develop their employees and their career path?

00:14:59:04 - 00:15:21:05

James McDevitt

Absolutely. So HR among other groups such as the employees’ manager, we all have a role to play. We are the coach with a mentor. We can we can explain some of the things that the employee may not know about. But the key point I want to emphasize is that if we’re thinking of a bus, we may help change the tires on the bus, or we may advise where the bus should, you know which direction—

00:15:21:05 - 00:15:37:15

James McDevitt

if you want to go there, you may want to go there first. But the driver of the bus is the employee. The employee is responsible for their own personal development, their own career growth. As I said earlier, everybody’s different. Everybody’s unique. I wouldn’t expect you would want me to tell you what you should do with your career. That’s your choice.

00:15:37:15 - 00:15:59:16

James McDevitt

That’s your decision. And it’s based on your interests and your experiences and what you want and what you want to get out of life. My role is to support you with that. Sometimes I can help you think of things you may not have thought of. Sometimes I can advise you that you may want to think about that instead of this in order to achieve your goal, like the zigzag approach you know. “I want to be CEO tomorrow.”

00:15:59:16 - 00:16:24:18

James McDevitt

Well, let’s think about that for a second. And that’s where HR can be, HR and managers; managers, supervisors play an essential role in this as well. And you should be having a conversation with you manager and your supervisor. Where do you want to go? How do you want to get there? What interests you? What skills do I want to learn? Because the relationship between manager and employee is the most important relationship of any relationship.

00:16:25:01 - 00:16:43:06

James McDevitt

HR are there to coach, to mentor, to guide, to give additional information, to provide resources and help you think about things you may not have thought of before. Sometimes you may come and say, “I want to be, I want to do this. Any suggestions on how I can get there?” And that’s where HR can help.

00:16:43:12 - 00:16:56:20

Sophie Boler

I love the analogy of the bus. I think that’s a really good way to put it. And you just mentioned resources. So do you have any tools out there that can really help an employee?

00:16:56:20 - 00:17:18:18

James McDevitt

There’s a lot of tools. Some are self-evident. This traditional SWOT analysis, for example, is a tool that can be used. You don’t have to go online to do it. You can just do it yourself. You don’t have to pay anybody to do it. What are your strengths, weaknesses, etc., etc. Think about what you like to do. That’s a thought process, that’s a tool.

00:17:18:18 - 00:17:39:15

James McDevitt

Do a pros and cons list. What I mentioned before when I was younger and I thought, “I don’t want to do this anymore, what do I want to do?” I didn’t do a SWOT analysis, but I did a pros and cons list. “What do I like doing? What don’t I like doing?” And I went through the process and it was very helpful to help formulate, well what do I really want to do?

00:17:39:22 - 00:17:59:22

James McDevitt

And then the next step of the process was, well, what kind of jobs would help me do what I want to? And then the next step of the process was, well, what education, experience, qualifications do I need to have in order to do that? And as I said before, I went to night school for 2 years, got a qualification and I and I took my career in a different direction.

00:18:01:03 - 00:18:21:23

James McDevitt

Having said that, there are tests available, quizzes available online. Your organization may have access to some of those personality tests. You may have done them already. They’re helpful. They are useful. They can help identify personality traits that you’re strong in, maybe a little something that you may need a bit of development in developing certain parts of your skill set.

00:18:22:10 - 00:18:42:18

James McDevitt

So those are always helpful. And again, you can ask your HR department, is there any test that we have or quizzes or tools that we have within your organization that you can do to help formulate and really build, help with the conversation? “I think I’m good at this. I just did this test and it shows I actually I am.”

00:18:42:18 - 00:18:46:17

James McDevitt

Oh, yeah. So what does that mean and how can I move forward with that?

00:18:46:21 - 00:19:02:00

Sophie Boler

Right. Well, you’ve given some great advice this episode as we wrap up here. Do you have like a top three list of tips that you would give someone just starting their career journey or creating their career path?

00:19:02:07 - 00:19:31:18

James McDevitt

Sure. I’d start off by saying again what I said before. You can start or restart your career path at any time, and I’m an example of that. I was doing what I was doing. I didn’t want to do it anymore, what do I want to do? And I went off and did something else. So I know someone who at the age of 11 wanted to be a lawyer and she is now, she made herself be a lawyer and she is a lawyer and she loves it and she wouldn’t do anything else. Good for her.

00:19:32:10 - 00:19:49:20

James McDevitt

Not everybody’s like that. Not everybody knows what they want to do at the age of 11 or 12 or 14. And some people drift into jobs. Some people realize, actually, I drifted into this, but I quite like this. I enjoy this. And that’s great. And some people, as I said before, might wake up one day and say,

00:19:49:21 - 00:20:08:10

James McDevitt

“I don’t want to do that anymore.” That’s all fine. As I said before, everybody’s different. Everybody’s unique. You can start or restart your career path at any time. So my advice would be, don’t just think because you’ve invested 10, 15, 20 years in this career that you’re kind of stuck. I don’t believe that to be the case.

00:20:09:08 - 00:20:26:09

James McDevitt

The second thing I would say, and again, repeating what I said before, figure out what you like doing. What you enjoy doing again is a bit of a cliché. If you enjoy what you do, is it really work? Well, it probably is work.. You still got to get up in the morning and you’ve got deadlines and all the rest of it.

00:20:26:09 - 00:20:42:13

James McDevitt

But at the end of the day, if you enjoy what you’re doing and you feel passionate and you like the outcome of what you’re doing, that is so much better. It’s so much better. And if you feel you’re someone that wants to make a difference in the world and you can go home at night and say, “You know what, in my small way I did,” that is a good thing.

00:20:43:10 - 00:21:07:02

James McDevitt

And last and by no means least, enjoy yourself. You know, life is too short. If you can find something you like doing, enjoy yourself, learn new things as you go. Continue to be curious. Ask questions. No such thing as a dumb question. Ask lots of questions. Learn as you go. Progress your career and who knows where you’ll end up.

00:21:07:09 - 00:21:09:01

Sophie Boler

And you’re the driver of your own bus.

00:21:09:01 - 00:21:11:06

James McDevitt

And you’re the driver of your own bus.

00:21:11:06 - 00:21:12:02

Sophie Boler

That’s great advice.

00:21:12:02 - 00:21:15:00

James McDevitt

And you know what? You get to put the destination on the front of the bus too.

00:21:16:09 - 00:21:17:06

Sophie Boler

Change the map.

00:21:17:11 - 00:21:21:12

James McDevitt

Or you decide, I don’t want to go there anymore, I want to go somewhere else. That’s fine too.

00:21:21:12 - 00:21:45:00

Sophie Boler

Absolutely. Well, that’s a great wrap-up, James. So thank you so much again. That’s all the time we have for today. But we have linked James’ email as well as his LinkedIn profile in the show notes. So shoot him a message if you’d like to connect. If you like the episode or found it beneficial, we do encourage you to leave a review, leave a comment or subscribe on our website.

00:21:45:16 - 00:22:04:07

Sophie Boler

We would really appreciate that. Otherwise, we will see you next week when we’re talking about organizational culture with Lisa Pook, so you don’t want to miss that. But thank you again, James, and we will see you guys 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 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 HR conversation.

Description: The most multi-generational workforce in history currently exists. Five generations are working together today. Pretty eye-opening, right? Jim Morgan, Vice President of Workforce Strategies at MRA, is here to discuss how, contrary to what some believe, the presence of five generations in the workforce is not a problem; it is an opportunity.

Key Takeaways:

1. One size does not fit all across generations or within generations! And that becomes a big headache for employers because it’s a lot easier to say, “Everybody comes in at 8 and leaves at 5."

Resources:

Generations of Stereotypes

Let's Connect:

Bio - Jim Morgan

Jim's LinkedIn Profile

Transcript: 

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:23:03

Intro

Hello 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. Now it’s time to THRIVE.

00:00:23:13 - 00:00:32:21

Sophie Boler

And I’m joined with Jim Morgan, our vice president of Workforce Strategies here at MRA. It’s good to have you back, Jim.

00:00:33:03 - 00:00:33:15

Jim Morgan

Good to be back.

00:00:34:01 - 00:01:00:15

Sophie Boler

Well, we talked last episode with Jim on the demographic problem or “the Great Sansdemic.” But today we’re here to really continue that conversation and talk about generational differences in the workplace. So a few podcasts ago, we actually talked about the candidate experience and you touched on how generational differences really plays into that experience. In fact, I recall that you grilled me on a few questions …

00:01:01:00 - 00:01:01:23

Jim Morgan

“Grill” is kind of a harsh word.

00:01:03:02 - 00:01:28:00

Sophie Boler

… On how I would approach a job search based on my interests and my generation. So we’ve brought you back today so I can grill you on this topic. But it is a good one and I have seen reports that talk about the fact that there are now five generations in the workforce. So potentially today’s workers could be working with a range from 20-year-olds to 70-year-olds.

00:01:28:00 - 00:01:48:04

Sophie Boler

So there’s a big gap there, but that has potential to have a huge impact in the workforce. So how can we make it all work? How can an employer expect us to work all together? Well, Jim is here to share some insights with us today. So let’s just mention the fact that between you and me, there are four generations.

00:01:48:04 - 00:01:51:23

Jim Morgan

Ouch! Well, welcome to you too!

00:01:54:01 - 00:02:11:18

Sophie Boler

We’re really looking at five different generations in the workforce, which include traditionalists, baby boomers, Generation X, Generation Y or millennials, and Generation Z. So, Jim, what does the generational makeup look like in the workforce right now?

00:02:12:08 - 00:02:39:20

Jim Morgan

Right now, the millennials are taking over. They’re at about 35 percent of the workplace. The Gen Xers are at about 30 percent. My group, the baby boomers, are slowly going out the other side, so we’re down to about 23 percent. And the young kids coming up, the Gen Z’s—your group—is making up about 12 percent. And there’s still a little sliver of that traditionalist, probably less than about 1 percent right now.

00:02:40:01 - 00:02:59:16

Sophie Boler

Okay. And I know you’ve been tracking this topic for most of your professional life. And we’re really here to hear about a number of stories on how employers are managing these generational differences. So what leads to generational stereotypes or how do we come up with these generalized opinions of each other?

00:03:00:05 - 00:03:24:16

Jim Morgan

You know, I think people first have to understand that every single generation has been stereotyped. I joke I’m part of the ponytailed, no-good, anti-war generation of never going to amount to anything. And now we own everything, so good for us! And it doesn’t really matter who you are, it’s just a matter of, you know, everybody thinks the next generation is basically going to be the end of the world as we know it.

00:03:25:07 - 00:03:48:17

Jim Morgan

So far, that hasn’t been true. So we’re all just trying to figure this out as we go along. But the stereotypes usually come along because either there is some consistency in pattern and behavior based on what’s going on in the world. And sometimes it’s, you know, okay, we’re going to make fun of each other. And I’ll give you an example from my generation, the “hey boomer,” you know, everybody saying, you know, what’s wrong with that?

00:03:49:19 - 00:04:10:07

Jim Morgan

But, you know, they ask questions like, you know, how come you’re walking around with cash and 10 credit cards? Why do you always shout every time you’re on Skype or on your cell phone? Why do you print out emails? My gosh, it’s right there in front of you. Why can’t you figure out for yourself how to take a Word document, make it into a PDF?

00:04:11:00 - 00:04:31:02

Jim Morgan

You know, and I could say, Oh my gosh, that’s not me, what are you talking about? But I also am smart enough to watch other people my age walk around and do exactly those things. So I think it just becomes a matter of some repetitive behaviors by some folks which are judged by different generations as, you know, what are you doing?

00:04:31:02 - 00:04:37:16

Jim Morgan

So those are some of the things that people say about the boomers. So I’m sure you heard some things. What are the ones that bother you a little bit?

00:04:38:13 - 00:04:59:03

Sophie Boler

I think we always get related back to technology, always, no matter if it’s in the workplace or outside of it. And it’s always just kind of like consumes our generation and also about the short attention span, I feel like you can’t keep us, I don’t know, engaged for more than 5 minutes. It’s got to be fun. It’s got to be,

00:04:59:10 - 00:05:00:16

Sophie Boler

Why is it worth my time?

00:05:01:01 - 00:05:02:13

Jim Morgan

You’re the goldfish generation.

00:05:02:13 - 00:05:03:11

Sophie Boler

Absolutely.

00:05:04:02 - 00:05:12:03

Jim Morgan

Anyone who’s ever had a goldfish, if you tap on the side of the bowl, you can hold their attention for 7 or 8 seconds. So that’s your, that’s your stereotype.

00:05:12:08 - 00:05:23:04

Sophie Boler

Well, let’s actually talk about the different values of each generation and how that affects each different generation as an employee. So I’m sure you have lots of stories to tell with each of those.

00:05:23:08 - 00:05:43:01

Jim Morgan

Yeah. And this gets to your stereotypes because even the one that we just talked about, you know, we’re saying, oh, you have no attention span or that’s what people say to you. It’s not an attention span thing. It’s this is how fast the world moves now. And there’s a reason that Twitter has 240 characters and TikToks can’t be more than a minute or two long.

00:05:43:01 - 00:06:01:21

Jim Morgan

And it’s just the way that that things go so that that happens. So I think you got to look at, you know, as a couple of different examples. I mean, anyone who, probably in your case has a grandparent or maybe a great-grandparent, who might still be around that lived through the Depression. Well, that has serious impact on folks in terms of I’m going to hang on to every dime I’ve got.

00:06:02:02 - 00:06:21:23

Jim Morgan

I don’t trust credit cards because the bank failed me. I’m just going to have cash and that’s that’s how I’m going to do business. So little things matter. So if you look at, for example, the family and what did the family look like 50 years ago? And it was Mom staying home, Dad going to work, you know, 3.7 children and a dog.

00:06:21:23 - 00:06:58:13

Jim Morgan

And that’s what a family was. And over time, that’s changed as a result of divorces, merged families, of same-sex families. I’m not saying anything is right, wrong or indifferent, but the definition of family has changed over the course of the of the generations. So that has an impact on people. The issue of education, which was out of reach for people for a long time, for my generation, it was like an expectation that we get to go to college, to people starting to question the value of college and now people are saying, “Hey, it’s going to be free.”

00:06:58:21 - 00:07:18:16

Jim Morgan

You know, and again, I’m not judging that saying right or wrong or indifferent, but when things like that happen, it has an impact. And so whether, you know, for my generation it was civil rights issues. For current generations, it might be school shootings. You had 9/11 in there to affect the generation we have. Now we’ve had a pandemic.

00:07:19:01 - 00:07:29:13

Jim Morgan

All of those things shape people in terms of who they are and how they function, and that sort of leads to, okay, there are differences among the generations because their experiences have been so different.

00:07:30:09 - 00:07:46:12

Sophie Boler

And now that we know what to expect from an employee side, let’s take it a step further and really examine how leaders interpret the generational differences in the workplace. So can you talk about the different leadership styles of each generation?

00:07:46:12 - 00:08:05:16

Jim Morgan

Yeah, you know, I don’t know so much that it’s the leadership style. I think it’s just the way that the world has changed that you’ve got to understand the people that are working for you. And in our case, one of the cases you’re in our internship program and we asked all of you, you know, what’s one of the biggest things that you want from your boss?

00:08:05:16 - 00:08:21:04

Jim Morgan

And it was “I want their cell phone number so I can text them.” Okay. Well, that’s your preferred method of communication. And I can guarantee you those Gen X and boomer bosses probably are like, “There is no way in the world I’m giving you my cell phone number so you can text me all day long.”

00:08:21:04 - 00:08:21:20

Sophie Boler

Right?

00:08:22:09 - 00:08:42:05

Jim Morgan

That’s not you being nosy or you wanting personal information—it’s your preferred method of communication. So, you know, how do we figure that out? So it goes back to when we talked about the candidate experience and what you’re expecting differently. So as a leader, I need to understand how you want to function and how you want to do get things done.

00:08:42:10 - 00:08:59:11

Jim Morgan

So that’s a little bit on me as a leader. As a leader, I need to be looking out for what are the benefits that are of interest to you. You may say, “Hey, I came out of college with $20,000 in student loan debt. That means more to me than anything,” whereas someone else might be saying, “I want to a 401(k).”

00:08:59:11 - 00:09:23:05

Jim Morgan

Someone else might want health care. But if I’m listening to what the needs of the people are that that work for me, I’ll begin to understand some of those things. If I know how you want to work—remote, in person, you like being with people, do you not like not like being with people. It’s not so much, I would say in that case, the generational we all are different in every generation and these generations have 80 million people in them.

00:09:23:05 - 00:09:45:08

Jim Morgan

So it’s not like everybody’s the same. But your expectation of you’re not going to be faxing anything, I can pretty much bet on that. You don’t want paragraphs of information, you want bullet points. So I’ve just got to understand how you function and what’s the right way for you. I learned that by doing performance reviews because, I mean, you’ve worked with me.

00:09:45:12 - 00:10:02:13

Jim Morgan

I’m not a real detail-oriented person. I’m not about, what are your five things? What are you going to do? What are you going to measure? I’m more about asking you, So what do you think’s important? And we’ll write them down and say, Okay, that sounds good, let’s go do that. That doesn’t work for some people. They want to know, “What are the three things I’m supposed to do?

00:10:02:13 - 00:10:23:16

Jim Morgan

How are you going to measure them?” And so you have to even look at the performance reviews and saying, “Okay, what are Sophie’s expectations?” And those might be different than someone else and someone else. So I’d say for the most part, it’s really getting to know the people that you’re working with and personalizing things to the extent where maybe you can understand where they’re coming from.

00:10:23:16 - 00:10:48:15

Sophie Boler

Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with that. And I think you mentioned about the flexibility, the flexibility to like, for example, I think a lot of people in my generation, if let’s say you had a meeting at 8:00, they might show up at 8:01 or 8:02. So maybe just, you know, changing how you approach those meetings to fit each generation and maybe it’s a Zoom call or something like that.

00:10:49:19 - 00:10:57:15

Sophie Boler

But can you share any insights on how the different generations might respond to these different leadership styles or even different generations?

00:10:58:00 - 00:11:16:12

Jim Morgan

Well, I mean, you just mentioned a couple of them. So I think people misinterpret, “Okay, we’re going to have a meeting at 4:00 on Friday afternoon” and an old-school person might be like, “yeah, that’s my way of making sure everybody’s still here at 4:00 because we work from 8 until 5. And I want to make sure that you’re there.”

00:11:17:00 – 00:11:34:07

Jim Morgan

Well, I’ve had people who work for me that are texting me at 3:00 in the morning, you know, saying, “Hey, I finished the project.” And that’s great. I’m not reading it at 3:00 in the morning, but they’re working at 3. They might work on weekends, they might work at night. You know, they’re getting the work done. So part of it becomes, are they getting done what you want to get done?

00:11:34:15 - 00:11:51:20

Jim Morgan

It’s not really so much my interest as to when you get it done or how you get it done. I just want the product. So we’ve got to figure those things out. We also have to look, I think at, you know, what are the goals of the different generations because that’s changed so much in terms of what their career might look like.

00:11:51:20 - 00:12:07:21

Jim Morgan

Historically, you know, your career defined who you were like that was your life, and that began to change. And people thought, you know, no, I’m not going to let it define who I am, and I’m not just going to have one career for 30 years, and I am going to move around a little bit. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

00:12:08:12 - 00:12:22:19

Jim Morgan

50 years ago, if you lost your job, it was like, oh you’re a failure, what did you do?  Now it’s almost a badge of honor. Like, yeah, no, I quit that job. I wanted to go do a different job and I’m going to switch jobs every couple of years because that’s how I think I’m going to build up more information.

00:12:23:03 - 00:12:35:22

Jim Morgan

Whereas my generation was afraid to leave their job because I thought, well, that would be a step backwards. I’m climbing the ladder here. If I step out, I’m going to have to go down a couple of rungs. You look at it more like the more ladders I can be on, the better off that I’m going to be.

00:12:36:07 - 00:12:52:20

Jim Morgan

So again, know those are just examples of how different generations are going to look at leadership and say, don’t give me a 12-year plan because I may not be here for 12 years. I want a plan, but I’d like it to be 2 years or 3 years. And then we can we can update it.

00:12:53:18 - 00:13:10:12

Jim Morgan

But I’m going to keep moving. I’m going to keep my eyes open, not because I’m disloyal and not because I don’t necessarily like the organization, but it’s just the way that I function my whole life. I don’t stick with things for 30 years. I kind of look at that as being crazy and I look at switching a job every 2 years like you’re the one who’s crazy.

00:13:10:12 - 00:13:16:09

Jim Morgan

Well, maybe we both are, or maybe neither one of us. I don’t know. But, you know, people just approach things very differently.

00:13:16:14 - 00:13:37:09

Sophie Boler

Yeah. And speaking to my experience, I definitely like to know, like, what’s my plan for the next couple of months? Like, what are my growth opportunities? Can I explore this area? Like, I like to know that I have a variety of different things coming my way, but I also want to make sure those are in place. And someone has a plan for my development basically.

00:13:37:14 - 00:13:56:03

Jim Morgan

And that I will say that’s one of the things that we’ve seen with the last two generations, more than anything else, is what’s my career path look like and what’s my learning and development program? So I want to know what is it going to take for me to get to the next level? How are you going to help me get to the next level and what does that next level look like?

00:13:56:13 - 00:14:12:11

Jim Morgan

And again, if you tell me that plan is, it’ll be 5 years before you truly understand, I’m going to look at you like, you know, no, it’s not. Either I’m going to figure it out in 2, or I’m not going to be here anymore. And so I think we’ve had to do a lot of adjustments there as well.

00:14:12:15 - 00:14:33:14

Sophie Boler

Exactly. But we also want to talk about how generational differences in the workplace can be a good thing. I feel like we’ve talked a lot about the challenges, but I’m sure you have a few stories around this, and what are some of the opportunities and other challenges that you’ve seen when there are multiple generations in the workplace at the same time?

00:14:33:21 - 00:14:54:02

Jim Morgan

Yeah, that’s a, and there are a lot of positives to it. Everybody always picks on the stereotypes and things, but I think there are a lot of positives. And one of the things I get to do at MRA is run roundtables and one of them is for CEOs. And I threw basically that topic on the table to say, okay, let’s talk about the emerging leaders and the next generations coming up.

00:14:54:10 - 00:15:16:04

Jim Morgan

And it was really fascinating because a couple of the I’d say more progressive companies, the more progressive CEOs that were in the group were talking about everything that your generation and maybe in the one before you brings to the workplace. And I had sort of introduced the discussion saying, you know, when I started working, I brought nothing.

00:15:16:04 - 00:15:55:03

Jim Morgan

I don’t mean it like I was an incompetent buffoon, but everybody who came before me could do the things that I could do. Your generations—and I don’t want to stereotype you with the technology—but you’ve learned so many things that you walk into the workplace with more knowledge than a couple of the generations above you. And so the CEOs picked up on that and said, you know, we’ve been spending time trying to figure out what is it that the people under 35 know that we could use to our advantage, and few of them across the list were, you know, the communication skills, your ability to communicate across a multiple platform, whether that’s social media,

00:15:55:09 - 00:16:15:17

Jim Morgan

whether that, you know, verbally, whatever it might be that you you’ve got a skill set there. You’ve also got a level of confidence because basically you’ve been on film since you were born, you know, and you’re not uncomfortable sitting in front of a camera. And, you know, I mean, you’re 22 years old and you’re running a podcast and there’s a camera running.

00:16:15:17 - 00:16:35:10

Jim Morgan

Yeah. Good for you. You know, but I know a lot of people that are my age are just sitting down with the camera would be enough to freak them out and it would take us 50 takes before we got through the introduction. So you’re comfortable with all those things. You can adapt to new challenges. People can throw you a curveball because your whole life has been sort of a series of curveballs.

00:16:36:00 - 00:17:02:01

Jim Morgan

You understand social media better than anyone over the age of 40. And I’ve got lots of stories there that I could tell, but you understand it and you understand how the platform works and you understand how people utilize it and where someone my age might be freaking out because something got posted, you’d understand that that’s going to be buried in about 2 seconds and this is going to be gone and no one’s going to see it again or this is where you stop the conversation.

00:17:02:08 - 00:17:26:09

Jim Morgan

Don’t try to entertain someone on social media. You know, it’s not going to be a logical conversation. So all of those things that we’re talking about saying, this is what these folks are bringing. So maybe rather than looking at a 25-year-old saying, oh, we can’t put them out on the road as the face of the organization to say maybe they should be the face of the organization because they understand the technology that comes with presenting.

00:17:26:14 - 00:17:46:12

Jim Morgan

They’re comfortable in front of people. They don’t mind having cameras in front of them. So maybe age isn’t the defining factor in what that should be. On the flip side, I would argue, you know, people that are my age are, we do have some experiences and yes, you’ll get some stick in the mud that’ll be like, wow, we tried that and it didn’t work.

00:17:46:22 - 00:18:04:21

Jim Morgan

And now we’re trying it differently. But we’ve seen a lot of things. And one of the issues we have right now with a lot of our member companies as emerging leaders in that, I got to watch other people make a whole bunch of screwups because I wasn’t going to be taking over anything till I was 40 or 45.

00:18:05:05 - 00:18:25:09

Jim Morgan

Now you’re taking it over at 25, 30, 35. So you’ve got to be prepared to do those things. You’ve got to be ready for those things. So that’s where I think, you know, maybe some of the baby boomers may be able to help you with experiences that you haven’t had the opportunity to see yet. So every generation brings its strengths and weaknesses.

00:18:25:09 - 00:18:41:22

Jim Morgan

And again, I think it’s, you know, who can do this and who can do that. And again, you can’t stereotype 80 million people, but there are tendencies within groups. And I think I can pretty safely say that, you know a lot more about technology than I do because you’ve just had to do it for 25 years.

00:18:42:01 - 00:18:44:19

Sophie Boler

But, you know, a lot of things that I don’t know.

00:18:44:23 - 00:18:59:02

Jim Morgan

Yeah, I’ve got to figure out which ones are valuable so I can share them with you. But so yeah, there’s a everybody brings something to the table. I think it’s a matter of finding that out, whether it’s by their, their just their personality type, it’s by their generational experience or what it might be.

00:18:59:13 - 00:19:15:23

Sophie Boler

And I think we can definitely learn from each other too, based on other generations’ strengths. But do you have any departing words of wisdom for for listeners today or employers for what we like to call the now and the experienced worker?

00:19:16:16 - 00:19:22:06

Jim Morgan

That whole question sounds like, all right, old person, can you tell me what it is you’ve got to offer to the young people here?

00:19:22:08 - 00:19:22:23

Sophie Boler

I didn’t mean it like that.

00:19:24:16 - 00:19:47:06

Jim Morgan

You know, I think as much as we get into these generational differences and I think that they matter because they matter if your generation wants to text their boss, that matters. Because if that’s your preferred method of communication, I’m not saying it’s going to be right or wrong, but you and your boss have to both understand, is that the way we’re going to do it or not? Because someone’s going to have to make an adjustment.

00:19:47:16 - 00:20:06:15

Jim Morgan

And people have to understand that while you might work differently, it doesn’t mean you’re not working as hard. And so, again, a lot of people who look like me will be, well if you’re not in the office, I don’t know what you’re doing. I can make it pretty good argument that I’ve seen people in the office and I’m not sure what they’re doing, so I’m not sure that that’s the measure.

00:20:07:00 - 00:20:27:17

Jim Morgan

But it’s more are we clear on what the goals and objectives are? Because whether you get it done on the road, at your apartment, in your house or wherever you might be, it doesn’t really matter so much. Now, if there’s a customer portion of it where you’ve got to be somewhere—completely understood. But that pandemic changed everybody’s paradigm.

00:20:27:17 - 00:20:52:04

Jim Morgan

And so it was, you know, we had companies who, for years were trying to go remote and couldn’t do it. All of a sudden they did it in 2 weeks because they had to. So all of those things are starting to change. So we’re all different. We’ve all had different experiences. I think it’s really the employer’s job to figure out what motivates whatever the person might be, how do we engage them in the organization?

00:20:52:04 - 00:21:14:08

Jim Morgan

Because if they’re engaged and they’re motivated, they’re going to do more for us. And one size does not fit all across generations or within generations. And that becomes a big headache for employers because it’s a lot easier to say “Everybody comes in at 8 and leaves at 5. That’s the rule. We’re done.” But if half the people are unmotivated by that rule, then you’re not getting the most that you can out of.

00:21:14:08 - 00:21:33:12

Jim Morgan

So now we’ve got to figure out how do we set up policies and procedures that let people do things the way that that they need to do it. So I guess I would just say that it really is a matter of being intentional with people. It’s trying to figure out what does Sophie need and how is that different than what Jim needs and how can we all sort of live in harmony here?

00:21:33:21 - 00:21:57:10

Jim Morgan

Even if you’re never here and I am here or I’m never here in your area, you are here that we both understand that we’re getting our stuff done. We’re just doing it in a very different way. But the company benefits if we’re doing it in the way that we can do it the best. So it’s hard. It’s not simple rules anymore, but I think if we’re for taking the individual into consideration, that’s sort of where you have success.

00:21:57:20 - 00:22:18:19

Sophie Boler

I was going to say it seems like a very individualized process.But that takes up just about the time we have for today. So thank you for joining us today and continuing that conversation. And it looks like we can learn a lot from each other on how to really close the generational differences gap. So we have added Jim’s LinkedIn profile.

00:22:18:19 - 00:22:38:23

Sophie Boler

You’ve probably seen it a couple of times by now in the show notes, but if you haven’t yet, make sure to connect with him and if you have any questions on today’s episode or really just want to chat with Jim and follow up on his expertise. I’m sure he’d love to have a conversation with you.

00:22:38:23 - 00:22:41:06

Sophie Boler

But otherwise we will see you our next episode.

And Jim, thank you for joining us again.

00:22:41:09 - 00:22:45:06

Jim Morgan

My pleasure. It’s always great to be with MRA Nation.

Sophie Boler:

00:22:45:23 - 00:23:08:05

Outro

And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes, where you can sign up to connect for more podcast updates. Check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA’s 30 minute THRIVE so you don’t miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.

Description: If you didn’t know we are in a labor shortage, now you do! In this episode, MRA’s Vice President of Workforce Strategies, Jim Morgan stresses the extent employers must go to to get talent nowadays, and that you’ve got to start finding people before they’re even looking. Employees, not employers, are the ones calling the shots.

Key Takeaways:

1. Welcome to the “Great Sansdemic”. Sans means “without” and demic means “people.” So, this really is “without people”.

Transcript:

Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.

INTRO | 00:00:00:02 - 00:00:23:03

Hello 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. Now it’s time to THRIVE.

Sophie Boler | 00:00:23:13 - 00:00:55:08

Hello, everybody. I’m All over the Midwest, employers and human resource professionals are really grappling with attracting, developing, and retaining talent. And Jim has been working on that issue for 30 years. He helps employers understand the demographics that are driving their troubles and provides solutions for talent acquisitions based on best practices.

Sophie Boler | 00:00:55:18 - 00:00:58:18

So thanks for joining me today on the show, Jim. I’m excited to talk to you.

Jim Morgan | 00:00:59:01 - 00:01:01:17

It’s my pleasure to be back with the MRA Nation.

Sophie Boler | 00:01:01:19 - 00:01:08:04

Oh, of course. But as we dive in, is this really something new? What is this problem?

Jim Morgan | 00:01:08:11 - 00:01:30:02

It is different because I think people who have been around for a while have seen shortages in the workforce before. They’ve had a difficult time hiring people. But I would argue in the past those have been more economically challenging times. We didn’t have the right mix of people. This time around it’s demographic, and by that I mean there’s just not enough people, flat-out.

Jim Morgan | 00:01:30:02 - 00:01:47:21

And as we go through the next 20 minutes or so, I’ll sort of lay out what happened there. But this one is different. And I think employers maybe didn’t see it coming or they knew it was coming, but didn’t really think about what the ramifications of it would be. And now it’s here and they’re pretty severe.

Sophie Boler | 00:01:48:10 - 00:01:51:04

And what caused this situation?

Jim Morgan | 00:01:51:20 - 00:02:16:11

There’s a lot of things at play and the upper Midwest is different. Most of our members are in Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa. The upper Midwest is actually a lot like the Northeast, and we’re the ones that have a lot of things working against us. First of all, we’re aging out relatively quickly, meaning we’ve got a lot of old people in our four states and they’re sticking around.

Jim Morgan | 00:02:16:11 - 00:02:37:19

And just as one example, in Wisconsin between 2010 and 2040, so that’s just a 30-year period, we’re going to more than double the amount of people over the age of 65, going from about a little over a million to over 2 million. And you think, okay, well, is that a big deal? Well, yeah, that’s a big deal because that’s a lot of people to take care of.

Jim Morgan | 00:02:38:11 - 00:02:59:08

That’s a lot of health care. We have to figure out a lot of things and those are a lot of people on fixed income. So those folks are pretty much out of the out of the workforce now. We have decreasing fertility rates. And, you know, not to get personal with everybody, but quite frankly, you need about 2.1 children for every female in order just to hang even.

Jim Morgan | 00:02:59:17 - 00:03:19:03

And the United States hasn’t hit that number in 49 of the last 50 years. So basically we’ve got more people dying than we do kids being born. And so as a result, we’re losing there. So now we’re getting older, we’re not having enough children. Then you look at, okay, well what about migration? Where can we get people from?

Jim Morgan | 00:03:19:12 - 00:03:46:19

And we have a little bit of international migration, but not nearly enough. And domestic migration really is winners and losers, that people are moving out of the Midwest and to the Southwest or to the Southeast. And we’re not winning in that battle either. Then you look at, okay, well, what’s causing some of that? And this is all a very long answer to your question, but it’s really trying to help people understand what just happened.

Jim Morgan | 00:03:46:19 - 00:04:19:01

So if you look at the upper Midwest, this is not a destination for people. You know, kids in South Carolina or Texas aren’t thinking, “Boy, I want to move to Minnesota, I want to move to Wisconsin,” because their perception of that is, one, it snows 11 months out of the year. You know, it’s somewhere near Canada. And I joke about Wisconsin because every single time that there’s a football game in January, some guy who weighs 400 pounds takes his shirt off, puts a cheese wedge on his head and, you know, people look at that and say, “Yeah, that’s where I want to go.”

Jim Morgan | 00:04:19:12 - 00:04:44:18

So we’ve got all of these things working against us. And then lastly, there’s a diversity question because the upper Midwest is not a real diverse area. You know, Wisconsin is close to 80-some percent Caucasian. It’s similar in Minnesota. It’s even more so in Iowa. And one of the maps I have when I’m doing this presentation is to say, in what year did that state match the United States in terms of diversity?

Jim Morgan | 00:04:45:02 - 00:05:09:01

What does that mean? Well, Wisconsin looks like the U.S. did in 1974. Iowa looks like the U.S. in 1930. So if I’m a person of color and I’m trying to decide where I want to go, I’m not real sure that going to 1930 would probably be my destination. So all of these things are in play in a way that they’ve never really been before, and that’s what gets us to okay, what caused it?

Jim Morgan | 00:05:09:10 - 00:05:18:15

We have about six or seven things working against us, especially in the upper Midwest and the Northeast. And so that’s what’s gotten us into what we’ve got right now.

Sophie Boler | 00:05:19:09 - 00:05:31:19

And I know when you give these presentations, you usually have slides that come with maps and it’s easier to look at visually. But can you try to describe what the movement in the U.S. looks like?

Jim Morgan | 00:05:32:02 - 00:05:50:03

Okay, I’ll try to do this one simpler because I don’t have pictures. And that’s a good point because like I said, when you can see six or seven maps and say, “Okay, wow, this is all coming together, I see what’s happening,” the migration is actually a little bit easier. You could basically take an arrow in Maine and draw it down to the lower part of California.

Jim Morgan | 00:05:50:03 – 00:06:13:17

That’s basically the movement, that people are leaving the Northeast in the north and they’re moving to the South and the Southwest. And that’s sort of that’s the migration pattern. And then you also have the immigration issue that you’ve got more people coming in from the South. Obviously, if we had a great invasion from Canada, that would certainly help us in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Jim Morgan | 00:06:13:17 - 00:06:38:22

But that’s not happening right now. And one of the things that we still haven’t figured out in the United States is a common-sense immigration policy that says, we need people so how do we figure out a logical way to bring them in? And I’m not sure we’re going to figure that out in my lifetime, but we’re going to have to pretty soon because we’re just not going to have the folks so it’s really a, it’s basically a Northeast, the Southwest with a little bit of band on either side of that arrow.

Sophie Boler | 00:06:39:13 - 00:06:43:11

So when you say that, who is really winning and who’s losing?

Jim Morgan | 00:06:43:11 - 00:07:04:21

The big winners right now are Texas. They were net about plus 310,000 in 2021, and that’s you know, they’ve got Austin and they’ve got Dallas and they’ve got Houston. And those are popular places, especially for younger folks. And if you want to know where a 25-year-old wants to go, it’s where the other 25-year-olds are.

Jim Morgan | 00:07:05:05 - 00:07:34:14

And so Texas has picked up big there. Florida has had a lot of growth. And so they’ve also picked up. Now some of that is a little bit older. But there a net 200,000 people up, and Arizona and North Carolina are both about 100,000 people. Arizona is becoming very popular. Year-round weather, yeah it gets hot, but people seem to tolerate hot a lot better than cold. And North Carolina is kind of becoming a cool place for people to be.

Jim Morgan | 00:07:34:14 - 00:07:59:20

It’s got a good climate, it’s got a lot of universities, there’s a lot of energy around it. So they’re pretty popular as well. Georgia, South Carolina, Utah are a couple of others. The big losers in the game are New York, which is down about 320,000 people. I think a lot of that has to do with New York City perhaps itself and crime and people wanting out and it’s an expensive place to live.

Jim Morgan | 00:08:00:16 - 00:08:26:06

California is No. 2, losing about 260,000. Same thing there. It’s a very expensive place to live. And I think the pandemic for a lot of people gave folks in New York and California some flexibility to say, “I can still do this job and maybe even keep this level of pay, but I can move someplace else.” And especially with California, you can see the growth in the states that are around it,

Jim Morgan | 00:08:26:06 - 00:08:49:09

and that was a little bit of a migration out. And then in third place is Illinois, losing about 100,000 people. And I think Illinois just has a lot of it, has a lot of policy problems. It has a lot of fiscal problems. Chicago is getting its share of bad news. So the bigger cities in those three states I think of have been a result of them losing some people.

Jim Morgan | 00:08:49:09 - 00:09:04:00

But again, the movement of the younger folks, they’re willing to go anywhere. And with a pandemic, I can work from anywhere. So I’m probably looking for what’s a low tax state, what’s a good climate, what’s a fun place to be? And those are the type of places that people are going to.

Sophie Boler | 00:09:04:04 - 00:09:13:05

Absolutely. And we’re calling this “the Great Sansdemic,” which sounds like it would last for a long time. But how long do you think it’s going to last?

Jim Morgan | 00:09:13:09 - 00:09:33:12

Yeah, a good altar boy had to learn Latin. So sans demic, for those who didn’t have the pleasure of learning Latin, sans means “without” and demic means “people.” So this really is “without people.” And I think the problem that we’re seeing with employers, again, especially in the upper Midwest, is they think, “Well, if I just duck and cover, this thing will go away.”

Jim Morgan | 00:09:33:21 - 00:09:52:22

And in the presentation that I make, one of the maps that I’ve got, or the graphs, is really it’s from the United Nations. And they did 60 different samples and they tried to predict out, all right, what what does it look like? And so they looked at the working age population, which is 15- to 64-year-olds, the folks that are doing the work.

Jim Morgan | 00:09:53:10 - 00:10:19:09

And that peaked in about 2007 with about 66 percent of the population. So two-thirds of the population was in that working age number. And for the next about 50 to 60 years, that number just goes down. And out of 60 samples, they all go down and they took it all the way out through 2090 and it drops down to about 58 percent.

Jim Morgan | 00:10:19:09 - 00:10:42:08

And you might say, all right, well, 66 to 58, that’s no big deal. But each percentage point is about 2 million working-aged people. So you’re talking about losing, you know, in 8 years, 16 million possible workers. And this is at a time where we’re starting from a shortage. So this one isn’t going away. And then people start to say, well, how in the world can you predict out to 2090?

Jim Morgan | 00:10:42:17 - 00:11:12:04

And, you know, I’d say part of it is just looking at your generation and the decisions that you make. People aren’t getting married until they’re 30, 32, 34 years old. So they’re not having five kids. They’re having two kids. And those who aren’t having kids are having dogs, you know, and that’s all going to sort of take effect here, that if we go from averaging three or four kids  a family to two kids a family or no kids a family, they can look at those trends and say, you know, this is going to be with us for a while.

Jim Morgan | 00:11:12:12 - 00:11:18:16

So this is not a duck and cover for people. This is really going to be we’re in it for the long run. We got to figure out some different things to do.

Sophie Boler | 00:11:19:06 - 00:11:30:07

And as people take everything you’ve said into consideration and kind of process it and think about what they can start doing, I think the big question is what can employers start doing?

Jim Morgan | 00:11:30:19 - 00:11:50:06

Yeah, and this is admittedly where it gets pretty tough. One, you can become the employer of choice in your own area. And what do I mean by that? You’re the place that people want to go work, whether that’s because of your culture or your pay or your benefits. But you know, especially in a smaller town, there’s usually this is where you want to get to,

Jim Morgan | 00:11:50:06 - 00:12:09:10

this is where you want to work. The problem with that is that’s a net sum game that if people are moving from company A to company B, that means company A now doesn’t have enough people and pretty soon there’s nowhere left to grab from. So, you know, one is it doesn’t solve the bigger problem by you just saying, “I’m going to be the place that people want to work.”

Jim Morgan | 00:12:09:20 - 00:12:27:12

After that, you really have, you know, three choices. One, you’re seeing a lot more automation. You’re seeing, you know, maybe machines that can do the work of three or four people. And at one point that was looked at as a bad thing, like, oh, you’re taking away jobs. That’s not even the case anymore because there’s no one to fill the job.

Jim Morgan | 00:12:28:04 - 00:12:47:18

And now you need a higher-level employee to work with that technology. So you can you can automate. I think we’ve seen companies get smarter. They’ve figured out how do we work more efficiently with the people that we’ve got, whether that’s just looking at lean processes or quality control, how do we just get better at what we do?

Jim Morgan | 00:12:48:07 - 00:13:05:13

Or the third one is you simply go to where the people are, and that could either be within the United States or someplace else. And I think this is where people have to figure out if we don’t figure out a way to get more people into the United States, folks are going to have to go someplace else. So those are tough decisions for employers.

Jim Morgan | 00:13:06:02 - 00:13:18:20

But really, you know, when you don’t have people and that’s what’s controlling your growth because you can’t add a third shift or you can’t build another plant, you’re going to have to get pretty creative in what it is that you’re going to do.

Sophie Boler | 00:13:18:21 - 00:13:30:06

And I think you’ve wrapped up a pretty big problem in a short amount of time, which is impressive. But do you have any last thoughts or pieces of advice you can give to our listeners today?

Jim Morgan | 00:13:30:14 - 00:13:57:18

You know, I usually leave folks when I do have the slides and it’s even more impressive. Yeah, but you know, to say there are short-term and long-term things that people can start doing right now., You know, short term, they get all of their employees helping them look for folks. They’re paying spot bonuses. They’re trying to become that employer of choice, they’re trying to do all those things that, I got to grab all of the people that I can possibly get. The longer term one

Jim Morgan | 00:13:58:00 - 00:14:23:06

and I think the companies that are doing quite well right now are the ones who figured this out early and said, we’re going to start having internships, we’re going to start doing co-op programs, we’re going to start doing youth apprenticeships. And I know you and Courtney talked a little bit about the internship program. That’s part of what folks are doing now, that the sooner that I can get my hands on someone before everybody else sees them, then I’ve got a better chance of hanging on to them.

Jim Morgan | 00:14:23:06 - 00:14:44:19

And so the long-term strategy is get into the high schools, get into even the middle schools to explain what some careers are. And certainly the technical colleges, the community colleges, the universities. Using you as an example: I mean, you come here, you do an internship before your senior year. You like us, we like you. We figure out how to take care of you in the next 9 months,

Jim Morgan | 00:14:44:21 - 00:14:59:16

stay in touch with you. And if you’re going into your senior year and you already know, “Hey, I’ve got a job,” that takes a lot of pressure off your senior year. It prevents you from looking other places. And then we end up with a really good employee because we have the chance to see you work for 3 months and bring you back.

Jim Morgan | 00:14:59:23 - 00:15:13:17

So I think that’s what a lot of employers now are trying to figure out: What’s the long game? How do I get in there? Because I’ve got to have that steady talent supply chain working for me as I as I go forward. So I think that’s the biggest strategy is you got to be the first one to the people.

Sophie Boler | 00:15:14:06 - 00:15:27:18

And then to your point for me, knowing that I had a job before senior year and then I could kind of tell my friends like, “Hey, I already have a full-time role,” like that, and that makes them kind of interested. And you know, the process just goes on and on.

Jim Morgan | 00:15:28:08 - 00:15:43:17

Yeah, and it makes a difference. And you can see the companies that are doing a lot of that, you know, where if they have 30 or 35 or 40 interns and all those people are going back, you know, those are usually companies that have 50, 75, 100 openings. So they’re like, “Oh, you know, and hey, here’s the person that you talked to.

Jim Morgan | 00:15:43:17 - 00:15:53:08

Tell them, you know me, I worked there this summer.” Those are all ways for employers to just sort of get the word out there for free and let younger people know about what they’ve got to offer.

Sophie Boler | 00:15:53:18 – 00:16:19:02

Exactly. Well, Jim, thank you so much for joining us today and really making “the Great Sansdemic” apparent to employers and advice on how to help with this issue. But we’ve added Jim’s LinkedIn profile to the show notes below, so make sure to connect with him and send him a message if you’d like to continue this conversation. Otherwise, we’ll be continuing this conversation next episode,

Sophie Boler | 00:16:19:02 - 00:16:24:12

when we dive into generational differences with Jim. So thank you again for joining us.

Jim Morgan | 00:16:24:15 - 00:16:25:03

My pleasure.

Sophie Boler | 00:16:25:09 - 00:16:27:00

And we’ll see you next episode.

Jim Morgan | 00:16:27:01 - 00:16:27:21

All right. I’ll be there.

OUTRO | 00:16:28:18 - 00:16:51:00

And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes, where you can sign up to connect for more podcast updates. Check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA’s 30 minute THRIVE so you don’t miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.

Description: This week, we've got an energizing conversation with Kate Walker, Vice President of Learning and Development at MRA, as she shares her expertise on how to train an emerging leader - including mentor programs, leadership styles, team building, assessments, professional development opportunities, retaining talent, and more! 

Key Takeaways:

1. When you promote a new leader, you want to make sure you're over-communicating with them.

Let's Connect:

[email protected] 

Kate's LinkedIn Profile 

Resources: 

Learning and Development Opportunities 

Transcript:

Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.

INTRO | 00:00:00:02 - 00:00:23:03

Hello 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. Now it’s time to THRIVE.

Sophie Boler | 00:00:23:13 - 00:00:52:07

In this podcast series, we’ve been talking a lot about the talent shortage, the demographic changes, and generational differences just in all. And we’ve heard that with one rather large generation, now, in many leadership positions, leaving the workforce at a fast rate, there simply aren’t enough in the next generation to fill those roles. So we’re looking at an even younger generation to fill that leadership gap.

Sophie Boler | 00:00:52:20 - 00:01:10:10

So today we’re here with Kate Walker to talk more about how we can really help to train the next level of leaders. And she’s our vice president of Learning & Development here at MRA, so she comes with a lot of knowledge and expertise here today. So I’m excited to talk to you, Kate, and welcome to the show.

Kate Walker | 00:01:10:10 - 00:01:10:23

Thank you.

Sophie Boler | 00:01:11:01 - 00:01:28:10

Absolutely. We can get started right away. And really, the first question I have for you is that we have companies needing to fill the leadership roles, and sometimes that may mean promoting managers to leadership roles. So what is the best way to help with the rapid development of new leaders?

Kate Walker | 00:01:29:02 - 00:01:51:13

That’s a great question, Sophie, and we’re seeing it a lot from our member companies that they have this influx of new talent that’s been promoted quickly and they need support. I think, number one, when you promote a new leader, you want to make sure you’re overcommunicating with them. The worst thing that could happen is for them to be stressed out or have a situation arise that they don’t know the solution and they end up getting frustrated—they leave.

Kate Walker | 00:01:51:13 - 00:02:10:18

We don’t want that, right?

Sophie Boler

Right. Absolutely.

Kate Walker

We want to just make sure that they’re very supported. But, you know, by communicating, I don’t mean you check on them once a week. You might want to make your calendar open to them so that they can access it if they have questions and just make sure that you’re really ready to support them in being effective in that role.

Sophie Boler | 00:02:10:18 - 00:02:17:22

Absolutely. I don’t think anyone’s ever complained that they’ve been talked to too much. It’s always like I haven’t heard enough.

Kate Walker | 00:02:17:22 - 00:02:24:01

Right. And if you don’t have the capacity yourself, you want to make sure that you have somebody here for them.

Sophie Boler | 00:02:24:01 - 00:02:32:09

Absolutely. And what are some of the core business and leadership skills that you think emerging leaders need to have nowadays?

Kate Walker | 00:02:32:18 - 00:02:54:15

Yeah, this comes up quite often, Sophie. And I would say it doesn’t really matter what industry you’re in—if you have problem-solving skills and the ability to show up on time, have a friendly attitude and disposition, you can go really far in this world. And it sounds simple, but problem solving can also be how do you make sure that the coffee’s ready when we open up in the morning?

Kate Walker | 00:02:54:15 - 00:03:16:12

Right. And you’ll see that people that just have that intuition and ability to think through those problems, known or unknown, those are just such great skills to have. And if that’s something that doesn’t come natural to you, look for different ways to develop those skills. You know, if you’re a sudoku fan and, you know, do some puzzles that get your mind kind of thinking about problem solving can be a real asset for you in the work world.

Sophie Boler | 00:03:16:20 - 00:03:39:03

Absolutely. I think one of the skills or characteristics that I really admire, like an emerging leader, is just being driven too and just like saying “yes” to everything because at that point in time, maybe they don’t know what exactly they want to do. So it’s like just saying “yes” to every opportunity and maybe it’ll lead them down the right path eventually.

Kate Walker | 00:03:39:06 - 00:04:03:02

That positive attitude is so valuable, and when you see someone kind of dig their heels in and you know, you might hear, “That’s not in my job description” or “That’s not my responsibility,” you just kind of go, Whoa, that, that doesn’t set them up for future leadership. And you’ve probably seen that already in your career, right, Sophie, people that do that? They kind of stand out and you know who they are and oftentimes are the ones that get passed over for promotion opportunities.

Sophie Boler | 00:04:04:13 - 00:04:26:13

Right. And you mentioned just other ways on expanding the skills. And I know for me personally, we have a lot of resources here at MRA to expand those skills like our training and development classes. But also just like LinkedIn Learning, this is so easy just to do a 30-minute video to expand your skills and leadership.

Kate Walker | 00:04:26:15 - 00:04:27:14

That’s a great idea.

Sophie Boler | 00:04:28:14 - 00:04:35:11

But moving on, how can an emerging leader really better understand their own leadership style?

Kate Walker | 00:04:36:14 - 00:04:40:12

That’s a great question, I think … Are you familiar with assessments, Sophie?

Sophie Boler | 00:04:40:12 - 00:04:42:18

I am. I’ve taken a few.

Kate Walker | 00:04:43:06 - 00:05:05:17

And we offer them here at MRA. And there are plenty other vendors that offer them as well. But some of the most common assessments you’ll see are DiSC, which is really a behavioral assessment. There’s Myers-Briggs, which is somewhat similar. They’re all kind of based on the same science. And then there’s also StrengthsFinder. I just think these are great tools to really understand your personal leadership style.

Kate Walker | 00:05:05:17 - 00:05:23:15

Like you can see, Am I a D or am I an I or an S? But it also helps you relate to your own leaders and peers because you can kind of figure out where do they fall? And in some organizations you have the opportunity to take those assessments as a team.

Sophie Boler

Yes.

Kate Walker

And kind of learn how to communicate within that structure.

Kate Walker | 00:05:23:15 - 00:05:28:17

And it’s just super valuable to understand and it’s kind of fun too. I’m kind of an assessment nerd.

Sophie Boler | 00:05:28:19 - 00:06:02:14

Yes, me too. I was a communications major in college, so assessments and communication styles were like our thing. But I just recently took MRA’s project management class and we had to take a communication assessment there. And it was just like it was fun to see my strengths and weaknesses and how I can improve or how I could talk to someone else who’s a different leadership style and I know I talked to even Sara about like her leadership style and how we differentiate ourselves and stuff like that.

Kate Walker | 00:06:02:19 - 00:06:07:07

Did you have any surprises when you took the assessment or was it pretty spot-on for you?

Sophie Boler | 00:06:07:07 - 00:06:22:22

It was pretty spot-on. I feel like I could have kind of went between two different leadership styles, but it was just kind of like funny to see how someone could be completely opposite of you. And it’s like, how do we match and how do we blend together then?

Kate Walker | 00:06:23:01 - 00:06:32:03

Yeah, it’s so helpful because to understand yourself is great, but then to know what someone else’s inclinations are and how they need to be communicated with can be very helpful.

Sophie Boler | 00:06:32:08 - 00:06:32:13

For sure.

Kate Walker | 00:06:32:13 - 00:06:34:05

And help you on your leadership journey.

Sophie Boler | 00:06:34:05 - 00:06:45:13

Yeah, that’s some great advice, but we know that not every great worker makes a great manager, which is okay. But how would you help to develop those management skills?

Kate Walker | 00:06:46:05 - 00:07:10:20

Yes, thinking of that classic salesperson, Michael Scott, as you will—great salesperson from “The Office.” Questionable management skills maybe, right? Fun to watch. So we’ve all probably experienced someone like that in our career. They got promoted because they were really good at that job, so they were a really good individual contributor, but they might not have had the background to be a manager.

Kate Walker | 00:07:10:20 - 00:07:29:20

So to get somebody prepared to be a manager, there’s a lot of different resources. We have a lot of different classes that are available and training available here at MRA too. But really they need to know what they need to do to be successful. They need to look at other managers that have been successful in their roles. They need to be paired with a potential mentor or coach.

Kate Walker | 00:07:29:20 - 00:07:42:10

Coaching can be a really great way to help somebody learn how to improve their skills and also become more self-aware if they have hiccups or roadblocks to what they’re doing. Are you familiar with coaching?

Sophie Boler | 00:07:42:10 - 00:07:44:22

I am. I am a little bit, yeah.

Kate Walker | 00:07:44:22 - 00:07:48:06

Yeah. Have you had the opportunity to have a coach yet in your career?

Sophie Boler | 00:07:48:06 - 00:08:12:11

I’ve had some mentors, which I would say probably could be recognized as a coach, and I think it’s been really helpful just as an emerging leader and as a younger professional, it’s nice to have someone there who kind of can know your strengths and kind of push you to keep going forward and where I don’t know just what paths to take and stuff like that.

Kate Walker | 00:08:12:17 - 00:08:34:19

Yeah, a coach can really provide those services for an individual and you can develop an action plan and work together. So for that manager that might not have that baseline, you know, if they’re struggling with employee communication, that coach can talk to them about it, they can role-play in a safe environment and they can really improve those skills so that when they’re in their real work experience, they can feel comfortable.

Kate Walker | 00:08:34:19 - 00:08:40:04

So there’s a lot of great ways to help support that new manager and just hope that they take advantage of it.

Sophie Boler | 00:08:40:08 - 00:08:55:17

Absolutely. In going along with what you just said, another consideration is the fact that a manager is really the key to a successful team. So how can you not only develop the manager skills but also team building from a manager standpoint?

Kate Walker | 00:08:56:09 - 00:09:18:11

Yeah, I think team building is one of those skill sets that you have to be very intentional about. And if you just think, “Oh, we’re going to do something quarterly and it’s going to be a potluck lunch, we’re going to be good and have relationships here”—it’s not really like that anymore. And particularly with hybrid and remote work environments, you have to be even more intentional about creating a team environment.

Kate Walker | 00:09:20:03 - 00:09:37:19

One thing I can say for our Learning & Development team, every team meeting we have, we incorporate some team-building activities and we do meet as a team virtually. And you would think, oh this team that teaches and does all these different things, how do they team build in a virtual environment? We use our chat quite a bit.

Kate Walker | 00:09:38:21 - 00:09:50:17

There are a lot of different activities that we can facilitate. It’s really fun and you get to know your team better and you feel closer to them and just those relationships flourish. Have you experienced any good team building?

Sophie Boler | 00:09:50:20 - 00:10:10:18

I have. It’s funny that you mention that because right before we were recording this, I was talking with Sara, our producer, and I was like, “We should do something after work today. Like we could go get dinner or a happy hour or something.” Just to … I mean, it was her 8-year anniversary and I was like, let’s just go do something to celebrate, something as a team.

Sophie Boler | 00:10:10:18 - 00:10:16:14

And we’re actually going out to lunch today as a team too.

Kate Walker

Oh, that’s good.

Sophie Boler

Just fun, fun team building.

Kate Walker | 00:10:16:15 - 00:10:36:20

Yeah. I feel like that stuff is so important and I’ve heard some really great practices around hybrid and virtual. Some companies I am familiar with that are completely virtual. They actually signed on to Zoom together as a team during the day and like work together. So if somebody has questions, they can just pop on and ask and they feel more connected that way.

Kate Walker | 00:10:36:20 - 00:10:52:01

So that’s something I’ve seen. Another activity hybrid organizations and remote organizations have been doing is have a team member kind of share like a passion or a hobby virtually, which is kind of neat. They can do that and get to know their team members better.

Sophie Boler | 00:10:52:01 - 00:11:08:04

Yeah, absolutely. We at MRA have our Intern Leadership Program and that’s kind of mostly virtual, but kind of a hybrid format, too. But we had to do a lot of team-building activities virtually, which may seem harder, but there’s so many options you can do.

Kate Walker | 00:11:08:04 - 00:11:08:21

And oh yeah.

Sophie Boler | 00:11:09:02 - 00:11:19:09

We did a Jeopardy one time online and it was just fun to, I don’t know, just see everybody and we could all play at the same time. So there’s definitely a lot of options.

Kate Walker | 00:11:19:12 - 00:11:35:07

Yeah. One thing for our Learning & Development team for our holiday party last year we had a virtual holiday party and everybody had to go and find a crazy Christmas ornament within their house.

Sophie Boler

Oh, that’s funny.

Kate Walker

And then show it. We had a contest, so that was really fun.

Sophie Boler | 00:11:35:07 - 00:11:36:15

That’s fun. There’s so many things.

Kate Walker | 00:11:36:15 - 00:11:45:17

Yeah, there’s so many. And I think like the virtual environment kind of opens you up too, because you kind of get to see people in their own space, which is interesting, as we all know.

Sophie Boler | 00:11:46:03 - 00:12:00:16

Well, we hear that professional development also contributes to employee retention. So let’s talk a bit more about that. What can you share to encourage organizations to consider learning plans and professional development to encourage retention?

Kate Walker | 00:12:01:17 - 00:12:22:10

I get very passionate about this topic, Sophie, because I think, you know, a lot of employers have known that training and professional development is a great way to retain people and develop them. They kind of had their noses down and focused on a lot of different things. And I think just the talent environment the last several years have made it front and center.

Kate Walker | 00:12:23:07 - 00:12:34:22

We’ve definitely seen an uptick in training requests and it’s just it’s such a good practice to work with your employees. It’s so much easier to keep and retain somebody that’s already within your organization than to bring someone new.

Sophie Boler | 00:12:35:03 - 00:12:35:20

Absolutely.

Katie Walker | 00:12:35:20 - 00:12:59:03

Into the world, so just very passionate about it. And I think there’s so many great ways to train them, whether you do in-house training, whether you use LinkedIn Learning, whether you use MRA to train your employees, whether you have mentor programs, community leadership programs. A lot of our communities have leadership programs that, you know, get your organization’s name out there, but get your employees familiar with the community.

Kate Walker | 00:12:59:03 – 00:13:22:22

So that’s another facet. You can get them ingrained within your organization, but also help them establish groups with where they live.

Sophie Boler

Absolutely.

Kate Walker

Great ways to retain people and, you know, just take advantage of it. You know, the cost can be a little jarring sometimes when you’re looking at budgets and it’s budget cycle, but really that retention and you know, it pays itself forward over time because you have people that are very committed to your organization.

Sophie Boler | 00:13:23:08 - 00:13:47:02

And I think today especially, we’ve seen employers get very creative on how they are retaining their employees. I know we talked with Kathy Seidel, our manager of Recruiting Services, and she just explained how companies are offering a lot of incentives to get these people to stay, like pet insurance and stuff like that.

Kate Walker | 00:13:47:21 - 00:14:05:18

I think and sometimes employers think, are they looking to go back to school or is it a different baccalaureate program or a master’s program? It’s not always that. It’s professional development. They might want to go take an Excel class and become better at Excel, and that can have immediate impact to the work environment as well.

Sophie Boler | 00:14:06:02 - 00:14:15:15

Totally. Well, taking a little step back here, who would you say are the best candidates to consider for professional development? And this can really be anyone.

Kate Walker | 00:14:16:05 - 00:14:40:17

I think that’s a great question, Sophie. And I think people tend to focus on leaders, you know, getting them more skills. But that new employee who’s eager to learn more and might put their hand up, I think them putting their hand up is just great, a reason that you’d want to invest in them. But sometimes you’re surprised that you’re more seasoned employees could benefit from professional development or want to take it.

Kate Walker | 00:14:40:17 - 00:14:57:06

We had a situation on our team where someone had been with us a very long time, had asked about a certification, and I was just so excited about that because I thought she’s been in her role for a long time. This is really stretching herself. And the fact that she asked, I just thought that was super exciting.

Kate Walker | 00:14:57:06 - 00:15:08:03

So, it’s great—you want to see your new leaders and your new employees take advantage of professional development, but sometimes you’ll have some surprises along the way and you don’t want to ignore those requests either or opportunities.

Sophie Boler | 00:15:08:04 - 00:15:20:10

Yeah, and it’s nice to just encourage your employees, like take any opportunity you can when it comes to professional development. And you know it’s not going to hurt you, it’s only going to better you, you know?

Kate Walker | 00:15:20:18 - 00:15:33:15

That’s the right attitude to have when it comes to it, you know, I think if you have that attitude about lifelong learning and professional development, that will only help you and you’ll be seen as somebody that should be invested in within your organization.

Sophie Boler | 00:15:34:08 - 00:15:49:18

Well, you talked about this a little bit earlier, but there’s been a lot of talk about mentoring and coaching emerging leaders. And I know I mentioned that I had a couple of mentors here, but how does coaching differ from mentoring and how does that differ from training?

Kate Walker | 00:15:50:08 - 00:16:13:13

Yeah, mentoring I think can fall into different buckets. It can be informal. So you might have somebody who mentors you, gives you advice, and it’s not like a formal relationship, but organizations can assign a mentor. So if you’re new and part of your onboarding, you might have somebody assigned your mentor just to be a safe person, ask questions and just to learn a little bit more about the culture.

Kate Walker | 00:16:13:16 - 00:16:36:10

So those are two ways mentoring kind of is facilitated. Coaching is a little bit different because it’s typically a three-pronged approach. There’s typically a sponsor for the coaching process, be it the manager or direct supervisor; a coachee, you know, somebody who’s going to benefit from the coaching; and then also the coach themselves. So that’s kind of how that’s structured.

Kate Walker | 00:16:36:10 - 00:17:06:10

And the sponsor usually has some reason for wanting the coaching. Could it be performance, help that person be a little more effective with what they’re doing, but also could be developmental or it could be a response to a situation that happens, so you want to make sure that they’re equipped to handle situations in the future. So most times you would follow that structure and they would establish kind of guidelines and goals and objectives for the coaching arrangement, and it can go anywhere from 6 months to a year.

Kate Walker | 00:17:06:21 - 00:17:29:01

You know, they meet those milestones across that timeline and stay in contact and the coachee and the coach will have confidential conversations, which really can help them feel comfortable with the direction of what they’re talking about. And then, you know, usually they would the coach would go back to the manager or supervisor to see, are you seeing changes here?

Kate Walker | 00:17:29:01 - 00:17:47:06

You know, have you noticed anything? Sort of kind of reiterate the feedback that’s going on to help them be supported and be effective in their role. It’s a really neat process. If you ever have the opportunity to be coached, I would always say go for it. That will only help you develop and further your skill set. Sometimes it can be a little scary.

Kate Walker | 00:17:47:06 - 00:18:05:22

“Oh, my manager wants me to have a coach.” I think it’s great. I’ve had a couple opportunities to have coaches throughout my career and I’ve found that they would ask questions that my boss would not have asked me at that time. They would challenge me in ways that I wouldn’t challenge myself, and I just got a lot of great insight from that third party.

Kate Walker | 00:18:05:22 - 00:18:09:07

I think third-party perspective can be really valuable.

Kate Walker | 00:18:10:18 - 00:18:15:10

So don’t be afraid, Sophie, if  someone ever offers you coaching. I highly encourage you to take it.

Sophie Boler | 00:18:15:23 - 00:18:24:12

I will. Do you recommend that an emerging leader would have a coach and a mentor at the same time? Or what are your thoughts on that?

Kate Walker | 00:18:24:21 - 00:18:40:06

If they could, that would be great. It’d be even more feedback. It could be time consuming would be my only hesitation there. But yeah, definitely. And depending on the relationship of the mentor, if it’s a little more informal, they definitely would have time for that.

Sophie Boler | 00:18:40:17 - 00:18:51:12

For sure. So what are your thoughts on reverse mentoring? I know we talked about just regular mentoring, but we often see that with emerging leaders, there’s reverse mentoring. So what can you say about that?

Kate Walker | 00:18:51:21 - 00:19:16:16

I’m so glad you asked this question because I don’t think many people understand the concept. For me, I’ve actually had a couple throughout my career. I went to a convention and they were talking about this and like that is really interesting. And really what it is, is taking two individuals with different backgrounds and experiences and typically one is maybe a little more senior in their development.

Kate Walker | 00:19:16:16 - 00:19:39:01

And then one is maybe newly out of college or new to the workforce. That’s how it worked for me. I had a younger gentleman that I worked with that was right out of college, very insightful, had a lot of technology background, a lot of sales background, and just had a really fresh perspective. And I found it really interesting to spend time with him and kind of see the world through his eyes.

Kate Walker | 00:19:39:01 - 00:20:02:00

So we would get together about two or three times a year and just kind of check in and see what he was seeing in his career and what I was seeing in mine. And I always felt like I walked away with more than he probably even did. It’s really great if you can figure that out and you’re kind of putting yourself out there as well as someone who’s looking for a reverse mentor just to benefit from that perspective—it’s exciting.

Sophie Boler | 00:20:02:00 - 00:20:24:03

I definitely think that’s a great concept and it’s usually you hear that you learn from the senior leaders and you don’t often hear that like the senior leaders hear from somebody that’s way younger, maybe there’s not much experience with that person, but feel like you can always take something away from learning from each other.

Kate Walker | 00:20:24:03 - 00:20:30:22

Something tells me you’re going to be a mentor for a lot of people in your career, Sophie. So if you’re not doing it already, I’d be surprised.

Sophie Boler | 00:20:31:09 - 00:20:43:23

Well thank you, Kate! I would love to be a mentor, but it seems like we’re wrapping up the time here. So do you have any departing tips for emerging leaders or for our listeners today?

Kate Walker | 00:20:44:13 - 00:21:04:03

Yeah. One big thing I have for you is to always advocate for yourself as an emerging leader. If you’re not getting what you need from your supervisor, if you’re not getting that level of communication, tell somebody. Make sure that you overcommunicate too what your needs are. You know, I mentioned earlier that managers and leaders should overcommunicate with you, but you should too. Don’t be afraid to speak up.

Kate Walker | 00:21:04:04 - 00:21:19:12

Let your manager know your preferred speaking style. Do you prefer to be called? Do you prefer text? I think having some baseline ground rules really help you too. And just, yeah, when in doubt, ask questions, be curious and always be learning.

Sophie Boler | 00:21:19:15 - 00:21:49:05

Absolutely. That’s some great advice. I think it was a great conversation today. So thanks for joining us and sharing your knowledge and expertise. I think a lot of people learned a lot today, but we have linked Kate’s LinkedIn profile on the show notes. So if you’d like to connect with her or ask her any follow-up questions about this topic or really any topic or how to get involved in MRA’s learning and development opportunities, be sure to contact Kate.

Sophie Boler | 00:21:49:05 - 00:21:57:02

Otherwise, we will see you next week when we’re talking about “The Great Sansdemic” with Jim Morgan. So I look forward to that. But thank you again, Kate.

Kate Walker | 00:21:57:06 - 00:21:58:01

Thanks, Sophie. It was fun. I appreciate it.

OUTRO | 00:21:58:01 - 00:22:30:03

For sure. Thank you. And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes, where you can sign up to connect for more podcast updates. Check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA’s 30 minute THRIVE so you don’t miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.

Description: This week, emerging leader expert, Courtney Lamers, dives into the “takeover” of younger generation leaders and how companies can develop and retain them as key assets in your organization. She talks about intern programs, best practices, opportunities, and resources companies can use for growing their emerging leaders. 

Key Takeaways:

1. It's really important to understand the employee as a whole and what they truly want, because having those conversations helps you guide them and engage them and retain them and then develop them into that next step leader!

Transcript:

Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.

INTRO | 00:00:00:02 - 00:00:23:03

Hello 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. Now it’s time to THRIVE.

Sophie Boler | 00:00:23:13 - 00:00:57:12

Hello, everybody. I’m excited to introduce our guest for today, and that is Courtney Lamers. She’s our strategic project manager and executive director of the Employer Associations of America. She’s worked on just about every project you could think of and with just about everyone as well. So she comes with a lot of expertise in a variety of different areas, and one of them being the development of emerging leaders, or interns, which happens to be our exciting topic for today.

Sophie Boler | 00:00:58:15 - 00:01:06:07

So I know you come with a lot of great information and advice for our listeners. So thanks for being on the show and sharing with us today.

Courtney Lamers | 00:01:06:08 - 00:01:26:06

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the introduction and I’m excited to talk about this with you just because I worked super closely with you during your internship and then now seeing you evolve as a leader just over your last 6 months since you’ve graduated. So perfect topic, really hot one with our employers and then you yourself going through this is perfect, perfect timing.

Sophie Boler | 00:01:26:07 - 00:01:40:17

Absolutely. So I think before we get started, we should kind of take a step back and just discuss who emerging leaders even are and why the topic is so hot right now for organizations to learn about, you know, hear from you.

Courtney Lamers | 00:01:41:00 - 00:02:02:13

Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s a couple of different definitions of emerging leaders. So I would say that’s really someone that has that potential to grow as a leader and take on that next step of leadership responsibilities. More so than ever, we’re really hearing from companies that those emerging leaders are those younger professionals that are high potentials, they’re performing well.

Courtney Lamers | 00:02:02:18 - 00:02:24:19

They have that skill set to take on that next leadership role. Just because of the massive retirements that we’ve seen, leaders are stepping into that leadership role earlier on in their career. So instead of becoming a leader at 55, they’re becoming a leader at 30 and 35. So really those young leaders taking on that additional responsibility is what we’re focused on today.

Courtney Lamers | 00:02:25:01 - 00:02:36:02

Hot topic by employers, something we’ve seen a lot is companies are starting to develop their own internal emerging leaders program. So I know we’ll dive into some of that, but that’s just high level what we’re focused on today.

Sophie Boler | 00:02:36:13 - 00:02:53:07

And one of the resources we have here at MRA are Roundtables. And I know because this topic is so hot right now, we’ve actually added an Emerging Leaders Roundtable, which you work very closely with and lead. So can you tell us more about that new Roundtable?

Courtney Lamers | 00:02:53:12 - 00:03:12:18

Yeah, it was such an energizing roundtable that we had. So we just launched it this fall, and we talked about generational differences. And really it’s just a group of leaders getting together that want to learn from each other. They want to grow in their career. And really, they’re just sharing their experiences and being able to help each other work through it.

Courtney Lamers | 00:03:12:18 - 00:03:27:00

So it’s just something that we’ve heard from companies as they have this younger talent that they want to grow and they want to keep them engaged at their organization. So they’re providing these opportunities for their leaders to really grow and learn from each other.

Sophie Boler | 00:03:27:08 - 00:03:32:15

Oh, that’s awesome. What were some of the topics that you covered last week when you started?

Courtney Lamers | 00:03:32:18 - 00:03:57:12

Yeah, so generational differences was the first one and it was a really great conversation. We covered a lot of different aspects, but one thing that really stood out to me was our feedback conversation. And you know, traditionally, sometimes feedback has come on a quarterly basis or even an annual basis. And we talked about the younger generations really wanting that real-time feedback and they want that feedback literally every single day.

Courtney Lamers | 00:03:57:17 - 00:04:19:19

And I know we talked about some of the older generations in our Roundtable were like, “Well, I don’t want to praise them for just doing their job.” But being that younger generation, we’ve always had, you know, social media at our fingertips and things that just move so quickly and it’s like, I want to know if I’m doing a bad job now and I want to know if I’m doing a good job now and not just am I doing good or bad, but what am I doing specifically that’s good or bad.

Courtney Lamers | 00:04:20:01 - 00:04:45:03

So we had a really interesting conversation around that and then almost around personality types too. So different people, you know, just because you’re younger and you want more feedback quicker and real time, some people want public recognition and some people want private recognition. So at the end of the day, I think it’s really just learning and talking to your people individually and finding out what they want and what works for them.

Sophie Boler | 00:04:45:03 - 00:04:56:23

I can definitely attest to the feedback part of that. I feel like it’s just nice to know like, “Hey, you’re doing a good job, but maybe try this or …” It’s like a constant, constant thing.

Courtney Lamers | 00:04:57:05 - 00:05:14:05

And I know we’ve talked about this because we work on a lot of projects together and you had said like, “Well, your answer is always like, Perfect, thank you.” And I, I took a step back and I was like, I do say that, but it is perfect and I do appreciate it. But then it really made me think like, okay, I should be more specific and tell you what you did right.

Courtney Lamers | 00:05:14:05 - 00:05:30:12

But it’s like we’ve had those conversations and I’m like, okay, I need to remember to tell Sophie what exactly she did well and I remember there was one day you sent me this thing and you were super proactive about it, and I didn’t even ask for it. And I was like, “This is amazing!” I was like, “You saved me before I even, like, knew about it.

Courtney Lamers | 00:05:30:12 - 00:05:43:17

I didn’t even know I needed this, but I did.” And so I think it’s really just having that conversation. Whether you’re the leader leading other people or you’re that person that wants a different type of feedback is having those conversations exactly.

Sophie Boler | 00:05:43:17 - 00:05:55:23

And speaking as a young professional myself and working with a lot of interns, can you talk about any professional development strategies and what it really means for emerging leaders and maybe interns?

Courtney Lamers | 00:05:56:06 - 00:06:31:13

Yeah, definitely. I think at the end of the day, they just want an opportunity to learn and to grow. Especially with the younger generations, we’re hearing that they want opportunities to learn about the organization and the business as a whole and not just their business unit itself. I know, you know, and the interns that we had in our intern leadership program and then even like yourself and our interns at MRA, you know, like you’re in the marketing department and obviously you want to grow as a marketing professional, but you also want to know, you know, what our accounting department is up to and our internal HR,

Courtney Lamers | 00:06:31:13 - 00:06:55:17

and some of our, you know, external-facing services as well. And so I think it’s really getting that holistic approach and understanding the business as a whole. The other thing that we’ve talked about is giving opportunities outside of the traditional learning and training. So it might be great to send someone to training for 8 hours one day once a year, and that’s what you call professional development.

Courtney Lamers | 00:06:55:17 - 00:07:17:08

But I think it’s gone even beyond that of working on some of those stretch projects and observing some of those leaders and sitting in some of those meetings where you might not be the one that’s leading the conversation or being that subject matter expert, but you’re observing some of those high-level conversations. So I think at the end of the day, it’s really just about wanting to learn and grow.

Courtney Lamers | 00:07:17:17 - 00:07:29:08

And again, you know, I think we’ve talked about this already a couple of times, but it’s really talking to those people and finding out like, what do you want and what opportunities do we have? So I encourage people to think creatively about that.

Sophie Boler | 00:07:29:20 - 00:07:50:19

Absolutely. I know as an intern I was given a variety of different projects and even now as a newer employee, I mean, I feel like I work on a variety of different things with a variety of different departments, which is really, really helpful. Like you said, just covering more of a holistic approach, learning about the organization and exploring outside of your department.

Sophie Boler | 00:07:51:07 - 00:07:56:13

So what is one project that you have worked on that’s really helped you grow?

Courtney Lamers | 00:07:57:01 - 00:08:32:13

Yeah, I think for me—and I’m more of a learner that learns by doing—so it’s really those strategic initiatives that I’ve been fortunate enough to lead. I’ll say sometimes different projects came to me more naturally than others, but I would say when we moved into this new building, I led our AV technology transition and I consider myself like semi tech savvy, but not, I’m not the most tech-savvy person, but I learned so much about it from a technical standpoint, but also working with so many different players internally and externally as well.

Courtney Lamers | 00:08:32:13 - 00:09:01:09

So there was a budget responsibility. Obviously, we set a budget at the beginning and then, you know, how do you stay in that? And if you can’t stay in that, then how do you influence people to understand why that’s important and how that helps both your customers and your team internally? So for myself, that was really a challenge and that pushed me, but I really just appreciate having a leader that is in front of the senior team that’s saying, you know, my name and a room full of opportunities that put me in positions that have helped me grow.

Courtney Lamers | 00:09:02:02 - 00:09:20:13

So I would say if you’re a leader and you have people on your team that can reach a higher potential, definitely think about challenging them. Obviously set them up for success. So, you know, if they are working on a stretch project like that and you know, maybe they’ve never done it before, do they have that mentor in that resource that can help guide them and make sure they’re successful, too?

Sophie Boler | 00:09:20:19 - 00:09:36:00

Yeah, I was just going to say, like you mentioned, all these opportunities that you’ve had, but how do you get those opportunities? So I think that’s a good point to have someone kind of like backing you up and volunteering you almost in a way and someone who has a little bit more authority.

Courtney Lamers | 00:09:36:09 - 00:09:56:06

Oh, for sure. I mean, I think part of it is just having that relationship with some of the people that are higher up in the company that are saying like, “Oh, Courtney can do that or Sophie can do that.” The other thing that I always say during our intern program and I still believe in this to this day, is saying yes, because I like that first project I took on,

Courtney Lamers | 00:09:56:06 - 00:10:14:05

I was like, “Yeah, I’ll do that!” and then I was like, “Why did I say, Yeah?” It’s like, “What did I get myself into?” But I think once you say yes and you’re put in a position where you’re being challenged, I think you you discover stuff about yourself and maybe it’s stuff you don’t like, but it is things, or skills that you didn’t necessarily know you had.

Courtney Lamers | 00:10:15:00 - 00:10:19:11

But then once you say yes that first time people are going to keep coming back to you, especially if you do it successfully.

Sophie Boler | 00:10:19:19 - 00:10:40:23

So and you just mentioned our intern leadership program, which is fairly new, but it was something that I participated in last year as an intern and now I kind of help you lead the program, which has been awesome. But I think that program teaches you a lot about interns and it’s taught me a lot working with interns and younger professionals.

Sophie Boler | 00:10:41:11 - 00:10:48:07

So that being said, what would you tell employers or leaders considering interns or that have interns?

Courtney Lamers | 00:10:48:15 - 00:11:16:17

Yeah. Can I describe the intern program a little bit because I’m super, super passionate about it. So our intern leadership program is really meant to help our member companies retain and develop their interns as their next generation of workers. So we really focus on the networking piece for the interns and then the professional development. So focusing on the business and communication and leadership skills, as well as connecting interns with other interns around the country.

Courtney Lamers | 00:11:16:17 - 00:11:41:06

So we had over 100 interns this year and over 70 last year in our first inaugural year. So, you know, almost 200 in 2 years that we’ve had the opportunity to work with. So I have been so impressed with all of the interns and the companies that we work with are the same way. And it’s so fun to talk to the companies that, you know, may not have even had interns at the beginning or like in the past,

Courtney Lamers | 00:11:41:12 - 00:12:05:18

and then they go through the summer and they’re like, “I’m just so impressed with everything that they did.” And so I definitely encourage companies that are, you know, considering interns to go for it. It’s definitely important to think about what your goals are as an organization before you bring the interns on. I would say nowadays most companies are trying to retain those interns, if, you know, obviously if it works out.

Courtney Lamers | 00:12:05:18 - 00:12:24:00

But, you know, there was one company that kept five of their six on and didn’t necessarily even have the intention of keeping them on, but they were so impressed with their skill set that they were like, we have to keep them. And they can, you know, return once they graduate. On the flip side of that is keeping them engaged while they’re back at school and making sure that they come back too.

Courtney Lamers | 00:12:24:00 - 00:12:31:18

But sorry, so going back to your original question for me. What have I missed there? What was your …?

Sophie Boler | 00:12:31:18 - 00:12:39:13

Just like what would you tell employers or readers considering starting an intern program or just having interns. Is there any advice you’d give them?

Courtney Lamers | 00:12:40:01 - 00:13:07:14

Yeah, I mean, I think I covered a lot of it. The other thing that I would say is really, you know, challenge them. Don’t let them, you know, be bored. I think the one thing we’ve heard is that interns and young professionals can do more than they even necessarily expect. The other, the thing that we hear from interns I just want to share with employers is that don’t let them be bored, because I think that’s the No. 1 thing they’re sitting there and they’re like, “Okay, I want more to do.

Courtney Lamers | 00:13:07:14 - 00:13:24:01

But I don’t necessarily, you know, maybe my manager’s in the meeting” or “I don’t, you know, I have said three times I need more work to do.” You know, I know. And like when I was an intern, I’ve had a couple of different internships, but I know like the one thing and one of them specifically, the other  this wasn’t an issue at all.

Courtney Lamers | 00:13:24:01 - 00:13:39:15

But I had one where I was like, “Oh, I wish I had a little bit more work to do.” You know, I think like when you started, we really made sure that you had a lot to do. And I know like we spent a lot of time before you even came on board and we have three pages of work for you to do.

Courtney Lamers | 00:13:40:14 - 00:13:49:23

And you know, I’m sure you can talk to your own experience, but I think it might have been a little overwhelming at first, but it was probably nice that you could fall back on that if you had a little downtime.

Sophie Boler | 00:13:50:00 - 00:14:10:21

Yeah, I think when I got there and I saw the pages and “Here’s a list of everything you can do,” it was a little intimidating. But then just going through the internship and it’s like, “Oh, today I have a lighter load. Like let’s reference back to that sheet, and maybe I’ll work on this today” and then we’re all like very different projects, which is very helpful too.

Sophie Boler | 00:14:10:21 - 00:14:32:09

And I think you touched on this, but interns want meaningful work too, and that’s something that I can attest to. And I think it’s just work that can be shown to senior leaders or can be shown to different companies or something that’s much more than your typical intern work. That’s like a lot of people might think, Oh, they’re there to get coffee.

Sophie Boler | 00:14:32:09 - 00:14:37:18

But it’s like, No, we want to learn to a like we want to take on as much as we can.

Courtney Lamers | 00:14:38:06 - 00:14:59:18

Yeah. And I think what you said about taking that to senior leadership, I know there is a lot of companies that do kind of like a summer wrap-up where they present to their senior leadership or they present to all of the leaders. I know one of the companies that I worked for, we have like in a presentation at the end and everyone in the company was invited to and it was a huge company,

Courtney Lamers | 00:14:59:18 - 00:15:28:16

so there were literally like thousands of people, which as an intern is kind of intimidating, but it was a super cool experience and I think the couple of senior leaders that I’ve talked to, both internally and at companies that have heard these presentations, have learned so much about the interns’ experience. So I think it’s just important to have that big project that they can work on all summer. The other thing I’ll add too is for companies that have more than one intern internally, it’s so important to get them together.

Courtney Lamers | 00:15:28:16 - 00:15:50:20

That’s the other thing I hear. You know, there’s a couple of companies that were part of our intern program and they had, let’s just say, eight interns. And the only time they ever got together was during the intern program. And I know that was some of the feedback we received was we wish we would have gotten to know our, my own colleagues a little bit better beyond just the intern leadership program.

Sophie Boler | 00:15:51:00 - 00:15:57:22

Right. And we discussed that interns want meaningful work and a challenge, but what else do interns want?

Courtney Lamers | 00:15:58:08 - 00:16:25:04

Yeah, you know, I think they just want the opportunity to network with other interns and internally at their own organization. So meeting with other leaders in other business units, having those challenging projects, like I said, you know. Some of the companies have done some really cool projects with their interns. I know one had all of their or had their intern go through all of their standard operating procedures and document them.

Courtney Lamers | 00:16:25:04 - 00:16:40:12

So, one, it was nice for them to have that documented just for cross-training. And if somebody were to leave or whatever it might be. But it also gave that the intern an opportunity to feel like, well, why do you do it this way or not in a rude way, but just kind of like, okay, help me understand why.

Courtney Lamers | 00:16:40:19 - 00:16:58:09

So one, it helped the intern be able to understand why things are done the way they are, but also to make them more efficient. Like the company had said, I’m going to have an intern in every department and they’re going to go through this. And, you know, I think it you know, it’s a great experience for the intern, but it’s also beneficial for the company as well.

Courtney Lamers | 00:16:58:23 - 00:17:21:12

And we had another company that one of their initiatives was they really wanted to increase their diversity, equity, and inclusion at their organization, but they didn’t even really know where to start. And they were a smaller company, but they hired an intern and they just had that intern focus just on their DEI strategy and they put together a huge plan for it and presented to senior leadership,

Courtney Lamers | 00:17:21:12 - 00:17:40:06

and the the senior team accepted the proposal and that intern got hired on full time and is working on that as their full-time role. So super cool projects that companies have done. I encourage people to get creative with it and I also think about like all of those projects that you think about like, “Oh, when I have time, I’m going to do that.”

Courtney Lamers | 00:17:40:06 - 00:17:43:19

I would definitely give those to the interns and see what they can do with it.

Sophie Boler | 00:17:43:21 - 00:17:58:12

Right. And you mentioned about making this just a great experience overall and kind of asking what do you want the interns’ friends to hear? What do you want the interns tell their parents about? So what really makes it a great experience?

Courtney Lamers | 00:17:58:19 - 00:18:19:18

I love that you said think about this as an experience as a whole, because it truly is when they go back to school in the fall or when they’re talking to their family, what are they saying about your organization? So we talked about having that list of small projects that they can work on throughout the summer, but then having that one big project that they can put on their resume.

Courtney Lamers | 00:18:19:18 - 00:18:41:00

I think that’s a huge piece of it. A lot of companies do some fun outings, so it really just takes it outside of the workplace and helps build those relationships. I know some companies have done, you know, Brewers games or, you know, the Twins games up in the Twin Cities. So there’s a lot of different things that you can do to have it be fun.

Courtney Lamers | 00:18:41:04 - 00:19:02:20

I know one company, they did Family Feud and it was the interns against the leadership team and they love that. They were like, “That was the highlight of my summer!” So get creative with that too. I think some of those fun pieces and showcasing leadership to the interns is a huge piece too. Like we talked about, the networking opportunities and then feedback as well.

Courtney Lamers | 00:19:03:00 - 00:19:23:22

I know we talked about this and actually you were with me. We were talking to a company and they were just so impressed with their interns and they were like, “We were so impressed with them. We’ve offered them all jobs. Our CEO really loved them. Like this person was really great at this,” and you know, they got done and you know, you and I are like, “Well, that’s awesome!

Courtney Lamers | 00:19:23:22 - 00:19:41:21

Like, do they know that?” And they were like, “No, I guess we never told them.” And so I think that’s something we definitely encourage you to give them that feedback and know where they stand and then also kind of go in with that. Make sure that the managers are engaged. The managers really do make or break the internship.

Courtney Lamers | 00:19:41:21 - 00:20:07:08

I think, you know, are they accessible? Are they providing feedback or are they providing meaningful work? I know one company that their manager met with them every single Thursday after the intern program and they just talked about what did they learn, what do you want to learn internally and how can you grow? And they were like, “This is the highlight of our week because our manager cared and asked us what we learned and what else we wanted to learn.”

Courtney Lamers | 00:20:07:08 - 00:20:14:20

So like I said, make sure managers really know what it takes to have an intern and make sure that they have the time to let those interns be successful.

Sophie Boler | 00:20:15:02 - 00:20:38:01

Totally. And I think one thing you mentioned is that interns should really learn the business as a whole, not just your department. I think something that was fun—and it helped me learn too—was that I got to travel to other locations at MRA and I kind of got to see how their office worked. And it helped me learn about just the business as a whole, but it was a fun way to do it.

Sophie Boler | 00:20:38:01 - 00:21:00:11

So I think companies don’t have to just slap a binder on the intern’s table: “Here’s our history.” Like, they can make it fun somehow, and entertaining. But one thing we hear from companies, both for interns and candidates, is keeping them engaged before they start, which can be tricky. But what suggestions do you have to do this?

Courtney Lamers | 00:21:00:20 - 00:21:22:16

Yeah, and actually for sure, like keeping them engaged because I know a lot of companies are already at career fairs this fall, interviewing for next summer so, which is super exciting and exactly where they should be, but 9 months is a long time to keep somebody engaged before they start. The other thing we’re hearing, too, is that, you know, like you interned in the summer and then they offered you a full-time role.

Courtney Lamers | 00:21:22:16 - 00:21:40:00

How do you keep them engaged during the school year, too? So I think both kind of go hand in hand. But I was just reading an article the other day and there was a study that said the young professionals want to be contacted one to three times per month in the waiting period, for lack of a better word.

Courtney Lamers | 00:21:40:20 - 00:22:01:18

So I think that’s meaningful conversation. So if the company sends out a newsletter, you could have the manager forward that to them and just say, “Hey, we’re excited to see you in a couple of months. Like, here’s what’s going on at our company celebrations.” The other thing is just getting to know the team so you could have like their mentor reach out to them or other people on the team reach out.

Courtney Lamers | 00:22:01:18 - 00:22:19:04

But one to three times per month is a lot and it does take time, but I think it’s worth it if you can keep them engaged and keep them excited. I know one thing we try to do too is share some of the projects that we had coming up. You know, when you started, it was kind of a busy time for us, but in a good way.

Courtney Lamers | 00:22:19:04 - 00:22:42:06

You know, we were moving buildings. So I think we were sending you some photos of the renovations and what our new space would look like. So any exciting things going on at the company. The other thing, swag is a huge thing even before they start. If you can send them like a sweatshirt or a hat or a water bottle or whatever it is the interns and young professionals love—and actually all people love—swag and free stuff.

Courtney Lamers | 00:22:42:06 - 00:22:51:00

Exactly. So I think that’s something that’s really big. And even if you don’t send it in advance, hopefully that can be there on their desk when they start on day one.

Sophie Boler | 00:22:51:12 - 00:23:13:17

And I think what helped also for my kind of weird transition between intern and being hired on full time, I think was just like keeping the relationship alive too. And even if it wasn’t like, “Oh, like here’s a project that you could work on during school,” it was just, “How is your week going? How’s school going? Are you working on any fun projects up there?”

Sophie Boler | 00:23:13:20 - 00:23:28:11

Because then it shows me like, Oh, my company really cares about me and how I’m doing at school and outside of work too, but kind of bringing it full circle with both emerging leaders, interns, young professionals. What should companies be thinking about?

Courtney Lamers | 00:23:29:00 - 00:23:46:19

Yeah, so I think we covered a lot of great topics today. There are other two pieces that we haven’t really touched on that I want to cover, one of them being in diversity, equity and inclusion. I was talking to a company the other day and she, they hired 12 interns. So I don’t know how many they interviewed.

Courtney Lamers | 00:23:46:19 - 00:24:07:12

I don’t know if they just interviewed 12 or if they interviewed more than that. But she said every single candidate that she interviewed asked about the company’s DEI beliefs and practices. And so I just think I encourage companies to start thinking about that if they haven’t already, because the younger generations really care about that. And they are going to ask you about that in their interviews.

Courtney Lamers | 00:24:07:12 - 00:24:32:13

So you need to have an answer and it has to be transparent because I think, you know, people can see through it if it’s not true. So that’s one thing. The other thing I would say is career paths, and that doesn’t necessarily mean career ladders, but I think we hear interns and young professionals really want to grow and they want to grow quickly and they want to learn just in general.

Courtney Lamers | 00:24:32:13 - 00:24:52:04

So they want to have those individual development plans. And what skills am I good at? What skills do I need to develop and how am I going to do that to take me to the next level? And part of that is a lateral move. It doesn’t necessarily mean like, okay, I did these 12 things, I check the box, I did this project, I want to get promoted.

Courtney Lamers | 00:24:52:04 - 00:25:14:11

It could be, you know, trying a new role in a different department and learning about the business. I know we’ve talked about that a lot today as well, but really just having those career paths and those career conversations. So, you know, I know I was on a webinar the other day and somebody had asked like, okay, we’re a small company and, you know, people want to get promoted, but we only have 50 people in our company.

Courtney Lamers | 00:25:14:11 - 00:25:39:05

So how do you just keep moving up because they can’t be CEO within 3 years, you know, that type of thing. And so I think encouraging you to think creatively of taking on additional projects and trying different functions to really learn about the business as a whole. It doesn’t necessarily mean moving, up having that career path, but talking with the individuals about what they want to accomplish, what their short-term goals are, what their long-term goals are.

Courtney Lamers | 00:25:39:11 - 00:25:46:17

And just knowing that you as a company cares about that person both personally and professionally.

Sophie Boler | 00:25:46:21 - 00:26:01:05

For sure. Totally agree. But as we wrap up here, you’ve given a lot of advice and just good information that organization leaders, interns can use. But do you have any lasting advice or that key piece of advice that you want to end with?

Courtney Lamers | 00:26:01:15 - 00:26:31:00

I would just say talk to your people.  Figure out, you know, what do they want to do? How do they want to be recognized? What other areas are they interested in learning about and just letting them know how they impact your organization and where you can see them going from there. So I think it’s really important to understand the employee as a whole and what they truly want, because having those conversations helps you guide them and engage them and retain them, and then develop them into that next step.

Courtney Lamers | 00:26:31:05 - 00:26:34:21

So that’s what I would say. Talk to your people and learn about them as an individual.

Sophie Boler | 00:26:35:06 - 00:27:03:22

Great advice. As a young professional, I highly value every growth and just development opportunity I can take at this stage. And right now I’m just getting all the experience I can get—just a sponge. But we are all out of time for this episode, unfortunately. So thank you for sharing your expertise today. And we’ve actually linked Courtney’s LinkedIn profile in the show notes so if you want to continue this conversation with her, ask her any questions,

Sophie Boler | 00:27:03:22 - 00:27:19:04

I’m sure she’d be happy to chat and connect. Otherwise, we will see you next week to continue this conversation about training emerging leaders. So you won’t want to miss that. But thank you again, Courtney, and we will see you soon.

Courtney Lamers | 00:27:19:04 - 00:27:23:08

Yeah, thank you for having me and definitely feel free to reach out. I’d love to connect with all of you.

OUTRO | 00:27:23:16 - 00:27:47:00

And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes, where you can sign up to connect for more podcast updates. Check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA’s 30 minute THRIVE so you don’t miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.

Description: This week, we've got two compensation experts to answer your questions! MRA's Katie Laven, Compensation Business Partner, and Brandon Lafferty, Compensation and Affirmative Action Data Analyst, team up to talk all-things compensation, including salary structure, pay transparency, pay compression, total rewards, recruiting and retaining talent, and more! 

Key Takeaways:

1. Review your salary structure often! Especially in a volatile market right now, it’s important to go in and review often. People are doing it every year right now. In a calmer market, we see every 2 years, occasionally 3.

Let's Connect:

[email protected] and [email protected] 

Brandon's LinkedIn Profile 

Katie's LinkedIn Profile 

Transcript

Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.

INTRO | 00:00:00:02 - 00:00:23:03

Hello 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. Now it’s time to THRIVE.

Sophie Boler | 00:00:23:13 - 00:00:50:07 

Well, hello, everybody. I am joined today by MRA’s Brandon Lafferty. He’s our compensations and affirmative action data analyst, and Katie Laven. She’s our compensation business partner from, and they’re both from our Minnesota offices. So it’s great to have you guys here, even if it’s virtual. But welcome you two. I’m excited to talk to you about compensation and benefits.

Sophie Boler | 00:00:50:16 - 00:01:19:01

This is a topic that I think everyone is very interested in hearing about, especially now. Now’s the time, with open enrollment going on, and it’s really just a good time to start addressing these, these things. But in our MRA’s Compensation Trend Survey, there is a lot of talk about different ways to compensate employees. And something else we hear quite a lot that is that it’s not a benefit unless your employee thinks it’s a benefit.

Sophie Boler | 00:01:19:09 - 00:01:51:12

And Katie, you actually spoke at our conference event this year, too. So let’s talk compensation based on MRA’s recent CompTrends survey, companies are actually projecting higher than normal base pay increases in the coming year. So for the past 3 to 5 years, the average increase has been around 3 percent. But this year, we’re seeing a projected increase in the next 12 months to around a 4 percent increase all across employee groups.

Sophie Boler | 00:01:52:04 - 00:02:09:03

And we’ve also heard that some companies are planning an even greater increase, which is huge. So, Brandon, do you want to really kick us off and could you tell us a little bit more about what you do and how you can help a company create a competitive compensation strategy?

Brandon Lafferty | 00:02:10:02 - 00:02:29:20

Sure. Thanks, Sophie. As you mentioned, I’m a compensation, kind of data analyst on our side. So I do a lot of the market pricing work, help out kind of on the back end of a lot of our projects, put together analyses and spreadsheets, kind of just work on work with our directors on the back end of any member projects.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:02:30:19 - 00:02:51:17

But yeah, to create a competitive compensation strategy, there’s a number of steps you kind of have to go through and we always recommend that first step is to establish some sort of compensation philosophy or have some, have some guidelines around what you want your compensation strategy to actually look like. So that could be how do you actually want to pay?

Brandon Lafferty | 00:02:51:18 - 00:03:11:14

Are you trying to pay exactly what the market looks like at that 50th percentile? Are you maybe a nonprofit that can’t quite meet what the market always is, so you’re lagging a little bit behind, but you make up to you make up for it with benefits or something like that? Or are you trying to pay like other competitors that are in the same geographic area as you?

Brandon Lafferty | 00:03:11:14 - 00:03:41:08

So you kind of want to establish that philosophy first and foremost as to how you’re looking to pay, and that kind of, that drives the rest of setting up the compensation strategy. So from there, we recommend that you go through and actually do the market pricing of all the relevant jobs within your company, within your organization. And that is, on our end that’s where we come in and really dive deep into the compensation salary surveys that we purchase.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:03:41:16 - 00:04:09:06

And we say, all right, you have a senior accountant position. What do senior accountants make in this given region based on the surveys that we purchase? So we go through all of the jobs looking up that market pricing data to say, “This is what the market pays for all of your job titles.” And then from there, we kind of create like a structure or assign pay grades or bands to the different positions that you have in your company.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:04:09:06 - 00:04:30:16

So you’re kind of looking at that market data and you’re saying, all right, these specific jobs, they all kind of align with similar market data. We’re going to put them into pay grade 10, something like that. So you’re kind of putting together a structure where, you know, you have an outline for new positions that come up. You have this structure that is easier to maintain.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:04:31:22 - 00:04:59:20

So you’re going through that process and then you can kind of look at how employees fit within that structure at the end. So there might be some employees that are making kind of towards that top end of a pay range or a pay grade, some towards the bottom end. And you want to look at those employees and say, “All right, why are they at one end or another of the range?” and kind of make recommendation as to how as to get people as close to aligned as possible within all of those grades.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:05:00:09 - 00:05:27:22

And then so that market pricing piece is really looking at external equity or repaying fairly among the marketplace among similar organizations to ours. And then you can look also at the internal equity portion of it. So am I paying fairly among similar like jobs within my own organization? So obviously lots of different pieces of it. But you know, you kind of got to touch every piece when putting together that competitive strategy.

Sophie Boler | 00:05:27:22 - 00:05:45:18

For sure. And I mean, you covered a lot there. So it seems like you guys have busy jobs, always keeping busy. But I’ll leave this next question open to either of you. So feel free to chime in. But shouldn’t organization really have a salary structure in place? And why should they or shouldn’t they?

Katie Laven | 00:05:46:04 - 00:06:06:14

I can take that one. I think it really kind of goes back to what Brandon was outlining in the last question. And having that salary structure is going to give you that baseline and it’s going to help you with a lot of decisions that you have to make within your organization. So once you have that overall structure, it allows you to be flexible.

Katie Laven | 00:06:06:14 - 00:06:41:14

It allows you to make analysis of the internal equity with your positions, and also it helps you compare to the external market. You can really see what types of increases you need to give your individuals that can help you support budgeting, cost controlling, and then making sure everything’s equitable as well within your organization. In tandem, as well, it can also help support education for your management and your employees and how you’re making those decisions and have that justification.

Katie Laven | 00:06:41:14 - 00:06:48:18

So it’s really a great baseline for you to make a lot of decisions within your business.

Sophie Boler | 00:06:50:01 - 00:07:00:03

Absolutely. And so we talked about having a grade salary structure in place, but how can an organization adapt with the changing market?

Brandon Lafferty | 00:07:00:22 - 00:07:24:08

Yeah, great question. I know you talked at the beginning that budgetary recommendations or estimates are kind of changing. The last 3 to 5 years is at 3 percent. It’s kind of bumping up. So I think it’s important to look at when the last time your structure was updated, has it been a couple of years? Was budget tough during the pandemic and you weren’t able to increase your structure the way you wanted to?

Brandon Lafferty  | 00:07:24:19 - 00:07:46:18

So I think looking at, all right, when was our structure last reviewed and does it make sense with the changing market that we need to review it again right now? This I mean, when you’re changing that structure, it kind of helps adjust the range. As you mentioned that 4 percent, if I increase my salary structure by 4 percent, you’re expecting the market data for the positions that we have to also go up around 4 percent.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:07:47:05 - 00:08:08:14

That allows you to keep the job title and the market data kind of in line with your salary structure. So especially in a kind of a volatile market right now, I think it’s important to go in and review often. People are doing it every year right now. In a calmer market, we see, you know, every 2 to years mostly, occasionally 3.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:08:08:14 - 00:08:17:03

But right now, I think people are understanding that it’s important to look at it every year. So people seem to be, you know, kind of focusing in on it pretty frequently right now.

Sophie Boler | 00:08:17:09 - 00:08:31:08

Absolutely. I think it’s important to stay up to date on that. But Katie, could you share your insights on how an employer can begin to establish what is really the best increase for their organization, specifically?

Katie Laven | 00:08:31:08 - 00:08:53:16

Yeah, I think that, you know, like Brendon mentioned, you want to look at the salary data and what is out there from a market perspective but you also really need to look at what your organization can really manage financially. How does your budget as an organization fall into that? What are your competitors doing? Where are they paying as well?

Katie Laven | 00:08:54:05 - 00:09:25:10

And that might vary depending on what industry you’re in. It might vary even within your organization. You might have a specific area of your organization that there is more competition for talent. So again, that structure, as we were talking previously, can really provide those parameters and give you that flexibility of where you need to adjust. But overall, from a structural standpoint, you really need to make sure that you’re also looking at kind of what Brandon mentioned earlier, too, is your compensation philosophy.

Katie Laven | 00:09:25:17 - 00:09:55:09

Where do you want to be in relation to that market data that you’re looking at? Is it leading, lagging? Are you at market? So all of those things are going to really come into play on deciding what increase you’re going to make. If your business is maybe and a little bit shake your ground or if you’re not quite sure what’s going on, you might not want to move that structure as aggressive early as in years when it is probably doing a little bit better.

Katie Laven | 00:09:55:09 - 00:10:15:01

If you are doing pretty financially solid, you maybe want to bump it up a little bit more just to offset those shaky years. But you really do want to be careful that you’re not lagging the market too much because that just makes it kind of that uphill battle consistently if you if you don’t keep up with it.

Sophie Boler | 00:10:15:21 - 00:10:46:20

Absolutely. And we’ve been talking about salary the past couple of questions, but we know that salary is just one part of the equation of compensation. But it is really the key question and key component. And we also know that there’s a lot of challenges for employers. The competition is intense for labor. And we’re looking at labor shortages, and we’ve talked about this and some past podcasts too, but the need to offer good wages as well as remote work or some big factors as well.

Sophie Boler | 00:10:47:07 - 00:10:54:17

So Brandon, could you comment on how companies can recruit and retain employees with all of these challenges going on right now?

Brandon Lafferty | 00:10:54:20 - 00:11:15:22

Yeah, and I think you touched on it. Salary is often what we see as the biggest factor. Obviously, there are the other components as well, but base salary is really what everybody’s kind of looking at. They want to know how much they’re going to get paid. But I think in addition to that, you can really you can get a lot by asking your employees what they’re looking for and what they want.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:11:15:23 - 00:11:36:03

I think a lot of times organizations just kind of say, we think this would be a good benefit for our employees, but they don’t take the time to maybe survey their employees to look at, you know, maybe what the organization thinks that the employees want doesn’t actually line up with what people, what people are looking for. And that can be, you know, a generational thing.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:11:36:03 - 00:12:00:05

It can be a location thing if you’re in a different location as the headquarters, anything like that. So I think it’s important to ask your employees what they’re looking for. I think also looking at critical positions within the company, too, like we have seen IT in particular has the market data for it has gone up more than other lines of lines of business in the last couple of years.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:12:00:13 - 00:12:26:08

So I think it’s important to know all right, right now IT is tough to find talent for. So maybe spend a little bit more resources on the recruiting and retention in that job function in particular. So knowing where you need to recruit and where kind of the pain points are with recruiting in a market and then educating your employees, letting them know what availabilities are out there, what benefits are available to people.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:12:26:16 - 00:12:49:00

And companies really are starting to have to kind of branch out too. So maybe recruiting is really tough in Waukesha. I need to branch out and look for employees in other states, other parts of the country. And that’s an important thing to think about too, because depending on the city you live in, depending on the market, that the going rate for a senior accountant might be different in these two different states.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:12:49:00 - 00:13:11:16

So I think companies also really take into account a geographic differential. If I had an employee in San Francisco, I’m obviously going to need to pay that person probably quite a bit more to do the same job that I’m doing here and in Minnesota or in Wisconsin. So I think kind of all of those factor into it. And then with all of that, a lot of that is focused on recruiting.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:13:11:16 - 00:13:34:11

But the retention part, you can’t forget about your existing employees too. So like, what benefits can I give to them? How does how do these changes with recruiting this new talent? Maybe I’m paying these people a little bit more to come in. How does that then impact my current employees? So yeah, kind of all of those things that you’re working.

Sophie Boler | 00:13:34:11 - 00:13:56:16

For sure. I think what you said about just talking to your employees is a trend that I’ve seen on our podcast episodes. I mean, it’s like, what do your employees want? Talk to them, what are they interested in? And making it a very individual process too; not everything is going to work for everybody. But with these higher wages being offered to new hires,

Sophie Boler | 00:13:56:16 - 00:14:04:22

we’re also hearing about pay compression. So, Katie, do you have any recommendations for how an organization can work through this issue?

Katie Laven | 00:14:04:23 - 00:14:28:12

Yeah, it goes really back and we are being a little bit redundant here, but it goes back to that salary structure that is again going to give you that that baseline and give you that overarching structure to see where everyone is sitting from your existing employees and where you’re bringing in those new employees. So you can really determine where are we having those compression issues?

Katie Laven | 00:14:29:17 - 00:14:52:20

Another piece of that is people historically have looked at that pay is kind of the thing you don’t talk about, right? Or that they’re assuming employees aren’t talking. Well, the fact of the matter is, they definitely are. And people are doing more research. There’s more data available on the Internet as well of what is out there from a salary perspective.

Katie Laven | 00:14:52:20 - 00:15:17:07

So compression is definitely something that you need to be mindful of and pay equity in place with that. So when you’re looking at those compression issues, you really want to make sure that you are focusing on those existing employees as well and getting them where they need to be within that internal equity and structure. And that might take a year or two.

Katie Laven | 00:15:17:07 - 00:15:46:12

You maybe need to have a little bit of plan in place from a budgetary perspective, again, based on whatever is going on in your organization. And it might be something you have to do outside of your regular performance merit cycle. It might be something that you’re doing as a market adjustment or an off-cycle adjustment. And again, it might be something you have to check out over time, but you want to make sure you’re addressing it is something you can’t just turn a blind eye to and think that it’s going to kind of solve itself over the course of time.

Sophie Boler | 00:15:46:23 - 00:15:59:18

Absolutely. And Katie, you kind of touched on this in your last point. But Brandon, if you have anything to add, what role does pay equity play in pay decision and how do companies evaluate internal pay equity?

Brandon Lafferty | 00:16:00:15 – 00:16:25:16

Yeah, yeah. And we’ve talked at length already about the external side. The external pay equity: How are we comparing to the market with our pay? But that internal side, you really want to make sure people are being paid fairly within the organization kind of can come a different a couple of different ways. You can look at the salary bands and you say, are there people paid pretty similarly if their pay grade 10 within our range.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:16:26:00 - 00:16:48:11

But another part of it that we’re seeing more and more members touch on is like an actual pay equity analysis, which looks at protected groups, women, people of color, people with disabilities—those kind of groups and say, and kind of chunk people into those groups and say, all right, do the women in our organization, how are they being paid compared to men in similar positions?

Brandon Lafferty | 00:16:48:20 - 00:17:19:05

So we do lots of these pay equity analyses as well, and a good example is we look at a specific kind of job group within the company—let’s say it’s like first line managers, supervisors—and we say, all right, I’m going to compare what the pay rate is for men versus women in that small group. And we might see that they make similar amounts, but within when factoring in the pay grade, it looks like men do make significantly more than women.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:17:19:05 - 00:17:39:12

So we look at, again, women and we look at racial groups. We look at disability status, veteran status when kind of factoring that in. And once you, a lot of times you do find some surprising points to say, all right, among our individual contributors, there is significant pay differences among men and women, like, why is that going on?

Brandon Lafferty | 00:17:39:20 - 00:17:57:14

You can break it out by location. You can look at, all right, it’s only in this one office. It’s not in all of our offices. And then we can put together an employee impact report, which looks at all right, we break employees into how long have they been in their job, how long have they been in the company? What’s their age?

Brandon Lafferty | 00:17:57:20 - 00:18:17:03

Maybe somebody is making way more. We’re on the high side of a range, but they’ve only been in the job under a year, only been in the company under year, and they’re a young person. So you as internal HR would look at that and say, all right, why is this person making the higher end of the range when they haven’t been in the company that long?

Brandon Lafferty | 00:18:17:03 - 00:18:34:03

They don’t have as much experience. And that might be something that you want to look at when considering the pay equity portion. But yeah, just important to look at those protected groups and see within the company across different groups and locations are there significant pay differences between these groups of our employees?

Katie Laven | 00:18:35:08 - 00:18:50:04

I would say, too, this is an area where we’re seeing expanding legislation and increased scrutiny. So it’s something that is becoming more and more prevalent and organizations really need to be aware of.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:18:50:05 - 00:19:00:12

It’s a newer offering that we even have within MRA, and since we started offering it, people are, people seem to be jumping on it. We’re already starting to do some renewals. So definitely increasing.

Sophie Boler | 00:19:00:12 - 00:19:23:18

So keeping you busy. Well, while we know that base pay may help attract talent, they also talk a lot about total compensation as a significant factor in fostering an employee’s commitment. So what are some common options that companies should consider? I mean, we know that from the survey, one of the most common solutions is variable or incentive pay.

Sophie Boler | 00:19:24:02 - 00:19:28:03

So, Katie, do you want to take this one and explain it a little bit further?

Katie Laven | 00:19:28:17 - 00:19:53:04

Yeah. So total compensation really is something that you want to highlight with your employees, but you have to be mindful of how you’re communicating that. And when we’re talking about total comp that’s really looking at your base pay, which is probably something that employees really look at the most closely, and we as well from a market perspective are going to look at most closely.

Katie Laven | 00:19:53:15 - 00:20:26:18

But it’s also incorporating those incentives. It’s bonuses, it’s any benefits, PTO, anything essentially the company is paying for, for you could be considered your total compensation package. But really, when you’re looking at it from an organizational standpoint and how do I be competitive right in this market, you really need to look at and make sure you’ve got that base pay first and foremost in alignment, because if you don’t have that, all the other stuff is, it’s on top of, right?

Katie Laven | 00:20:26:18 - 00:20:56:21

It’s not guaranteed and it’s going to vary so much significantly depending on what organization you’re in and how those plans are set up. The other piece with incentives is a lot of employees don’t typically probably understand the complexity of that. And if they even do get those incentives, sometimes they don’t understand that usually it’s not guaranteed, but they come to expect that it’s guaranteed.

Katie Laven | 00:20:56:21 - 00:21:18:21

So that’s where we see a lot of retention issues or dissatisfaction with employees. So again, it goes back to make sure you educate your employees. If you do have those incentive plans or those bonus plans, how do they work? How does that play into their total compensation package so that they really understand how can they be successful with those incentive plans?

Katie Laven | 00:21:18:21 - 00:21:26:13

What is driving that? How does that work for the employee and also for the organization and really articulating that with them.

Sophie Boler | 00:21:27:09 - 00:21:35:16

So how about some uncommon options? What are some things that employers are doing differently with their benefits?

Brandon Lafferty | 00:21:36:01 - 00:22:14:00

Yeah, we’ve seen people focus on a number of different things, especially in these last couple of years. I think health benefits, people are looking at expanded health benefit options, low-cost options, low-deductible options, changes in paid time off or sick time and 401(k) options obviously are people love to have an option for 401(k). And again, the biggest way to find out what employees want, you know, with anything, survey them, ask them as we’ve talked about. I think companies really tend to be focusing on health disparities, too.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:22:14:00 - 00:22:43:03

So health disparities among racial groups, among LGBTQ employees, among disability status. So looking at what health options can we provide to groups that historically have had maybe bigger health disparities and kind of focusing on those things. Some unique things that we’ve seen too are we’ve seen people add additional holidays. We recommend sometimes that you give your employees your birthday off or your work anniversary.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:22:43:22 - 00:23:17:06

We’ve seen some employees shifting around holidays. If you can’t add an additional holiday, some companies have MLK Day off in February now. And we have seen people recommend changing that over to having Juneteenth off. People like having a day in the summer. So kind of looking at changing up those as well. Also a flexible schedule hasn’t really become too popular yet, but people are exploring the flexible schedule option where you just work 4 days a week and the reduction of hours doesn’t impact salary.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:23:17:06 - 00:23:35:13

So kind of all sorts of things that people are still looking at. Indigenous Peoples Day versus, you know, branding as Columbus Day, pet insurance, all of those kind of unique benefits that are out there. You know, again, ask your employees what they want and is it worth bringing in those new benefits to retain that talent?

Sophie Boler | 00:23:36:15 - 00:23:56:01

I think we’re definitely seeing employers turn on their creative mode right now. But another important issue that we probably should talk about today is inflation. So do you have any recommendations for how employers can help their employees with inflation? And, Katie, I’ll let you take this one.

Katie Laven | 00:23:56:16 - 00:24:26:08

Yeah, this is a question that continues to pop up and we hear quite a bit about and it is really helping your employees and probably your leadership as well understand that there’s a difference between your salary and the cost of labor versus the cost of living and inflation. And, you know, we’ve had ups and downs throughout our economic lives.

Katie Laven | 00:24:26:08 - 00:24:56:11

And with that, they have been tied at times to a similar amount, but typically they are not going to be the exact same. They are two separate things. We are seeing organizations still do stuff to offset that inflation because it is hard for employees. Their paychecks are really not stretching quite as far as they were before, but that might mean an increase to their salary.

 Katie Laven | 00:24:56:17 - 00:25:22:04

If you are doing those types of inflation increases, you need to make sure you’re really helping them understand that this might be a unique one-time increase and that their salary increases typically are not going to be tied to that inflation or cost of labor. Some other unique things you know, we just talked about benefits that we’re seeing organizations do instead of those salary increases

Katie Laven | 00:25:22:12 - 00:25:47:07

is giving other types of adjustments, like that might be additional time off, it might be gift cards for gas or groceries—some of those things that we’re having trouble, you know, making that paycheck stretch. So it might be some other perks versus just salary increases. I think with it, again, it really goes back to messaging and making sure that your employees understand the difference between those two things.

Katie Laven | 00:25:47:07 - 00:25:55:02

And if you are doing any of those increases or perks, why and how is that working for them?

Sophie Boler | 00:25:55:02 - 00:26:09:14

For sure. Yeah, and we’ve covered this a little bit, just touched on it. But I want to go a little more in depth about pay transparency. So Brandon, can you just give us a little rundown of pay transparency and where we’re at right now?

Brandon Lafferty | 00:26:10:04 - 00:26:30:20

Yeah, absolutely. I think we’ve seen there are states out there now that are requiring that you post like a pay grade for a given position and a job posting, and what that pay range is for that grade. It’s only becoming more and more common. The transparency, as Katie touched on earlier, you know, employees are talking about it. It’s not hidden anymore.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:26:30:20 - 00:26:55:18

It’s not a secret. So I think it’s only increasing. There are already government organizations like public schools, those kind of organizations where that pay data is already available. I think for companies kind of transitioning to having a more pay transparent, like compensation structure is you really just have to explain why you’re making the decisions that you’re making.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:26:55:18 - 00:27:23:00

So that’s where the structure piece comes in. Having a pretty, you know, established structure allows you to justify why pay decisions are being made. Explaining where you get your data from. You know, “We consult with MRA and they purchase these compensation surveys that get the market data.” You can communicate that to your employees and say, “We purchased these surveys that come out every year. In 2022,

Brandon Lafferty | 00:27:23:00 - 00:27:42:06

this is what the market says for this job.” And then how does this stuff align with experience? So you can, you know, those people that have been in the positions a long time, they might sit within a different portion of a given pay grade. You might have specific zones set apart for experience in each pay grade.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:27:42:15 - 00:28:11:06

But communicating why two people with the same job title might be making a little bit different amounts because maybe one person has more experience than another. And talk about how often this is reviewed. So again, with how quickly the market is changing, it’s good to review this stuff often. Companies are, I think, can be kind of afraid that once they make this stuff public, their employees are going to be unhappy or have questions, and questions are okay as long as you’re prepared to answer them.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:28:11:06 - 00:28:20:13

So I think, you know, transitioning towards pay, transparency is good for the employees. So yeah, we recommend it.

Sophie Boler | 00:28:21:15 - 00:28:44:22

Absolutely. We just recently talked to our recruiting manager, Kathy, and she almost said the exact same thing. So, definitely going to be seeing more of that. But like we said, we know in today’s world, traditional benefits and compensation strategies are no longer enough to meet the demands of today’s workers. So employees also need to be aware of their total rewards.

Sophie Boler | 00:28:45:06 - 00:28:52:04

So Katie, what suggestions do you have on how a company can best share their total rewards with their employees?

Katie Laven | 00:28:52:04 - 00:29:15:10

Yeah, I would say communicate, communicate, communicate. And I feel like a broken record a little bit. We’ve said that. But you know, we have so many things coming at us these days and we know people only retain how much that they’re hearing or seeing. So you have to do it in multiple formats too, would be the other thing that I would recommend.

Katie Laven | 00:29:15:18 - 00:29:46:12

But some ways that employers can really drive that home is provide total compensation statements and a lot of HRIS systems have software built into them that they can create them. We create them here at MRA if people need them. I know some organizations do them in-house, but providing again, that total compensation package that we talked about earlier, really educate employees at all aspects of their career, whether that’s in orientation and throughout the onboarding process.

Katie Laven | 00:29:47:06 - 00:30:09:06

Another good time to do it for your existing employees is during annual enrollment. So it doesn’t have to be just about your benefits, right? Compensation and all of that plays into it. Helping them understand those incentive plans that we talked about earlier. You can do it through, you know, monthly reminders, email newsletters, if you have town halls—any way that your organization is sharing.

Katie Laven | 00:30:09:06 - 00:30:30:12

Communication, I think is really a way to get that message out and again, doing it in different formats. But you really want your employees to understand all of that work that you’re doing as HR professionals and to try and recruit and retain them, that they really understand what’s all going into that and see the value that they bring to the organization as well.

Sophie Boler | 00:30:31:16 - 00:30:46:12

Absolutely. And well, it seems like we are running out of time. But can you leave our listeners today with three main takeaways in establishing their best compensation plan? I know it might be hard to name three, but ...

Brandon Lafferty | 00:30:47:20 - 00:31:09:02

Yeah, I think I think we’ve touched on, you know, all these pieces. But I think the first and biggest component is to have a strategy, philosophy, have some guidelines in place. You’re putting together this compensation structure, a whole compensation plan for a reason. What is, what’s the long-term goal you’re looking you’re looking at from this process?

Brandon Lafferty | 00:31:09:02 - 00:31:38:21

Second, I would say use reliable data when gathering that market data. And when you’re evaluating equity again, the external side, the market data—use those survey sources that are reliable and then internally keep an eye on the internal equity as well. And then last, Katie touched on it: Communicate, communicate, communicate. I think education and communication of why and what we’re doing with compensation is important for our employees, for them to feel comfortable with their own compensation.

Brandon Lafferty | 00:31:38:21 - 00:31:42:09

So just again. Yeah, communicating what we’ve done and why.

Sophie Boler | 00:31:43:05 - 00:32:08:17

Absolutely. Well, thank you, guys. Again, this has been really informative. Seems like there’s so much that goes into planning, compensation and benefits, and we definitely have resources to help with that. So to all of our listeners, make sure you check out MRA, our website or reach out to Brandon and Katie. I’m sure they’d be happy to connect with you, but that is all the time we have for today.

Sophie Boler | 00:32:08:17 - 00:32:30:15

So thank you for joining us virtually. We have linked Brandon and Katie’s LinkedIn profiles in the show notes. So like I said, if you have any lingering questions or just want to chat, I’m sure they’d be happy to connect with you. But next week we will be talking about emerging leaders with Courtney Lamers. So be sure to tune in for that.

Sophie Boler | 00:32:31:01 - 00:32:59:01

But thank you again, Katie and Brandon and to the listeners, we will see you next Wednesday.

OUTRO

And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes, where you can sign up to connect for more podcast updates. Check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA’s 30 minute THRIVE so you don’t miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.

Description: In this special edition episode, we welcome Dr. Chris Kuehl, expert economist, on the show to touch on the 2023 economic outlook. He addresses what the key leading indicators are telling us, the outlook for the market segments most important to your industry, and what you should consider as you begin your 3, 5, and 7-year planning.

Key Takeaways:

1. We're moving more towards self-service and automation. We're looking for anything that can be done with a machine, even though it means more of an investment.

Let's Connect:

[email protected] 

Chris' LinkedIn Profile 

Transcript

Transcripts are computer generated -- not 100% accurate word-for-word.

INTRO | 00:00:00:02 - 00:00:23:03

Hello, 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. Now, it's time to thrive. 

Sophie Boler | 00:00:26:00 - 00:00:53:14

Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of 30 minute THRIVE. Today is a special one because we're joined with Dr. Chris Kuehl. He's an expert economist and Director of Armada Corporate Intelligence. He's a frequent speaker on economic issues in the US and globally, and he's spoken at a bunch of different conferences devoted to manufacturing, logistics, finance, credit, retail, accounting, and many others.

Sophie Boler | 00:00:53:21 - 00:01:20:08

So overall, his specialties include corporate and competitive intelligence, strategy, development, international market analysis and market development, and economic trending. So, Chris, I know you just got done speaking at our fall-featured event on the 2023 Economic Outlook. So thank you so much for joining us today and taking the time to spend it with us and share your expertise and knowledge on this topic.

Sophie Boler | 00:01:20:08 - 00:01:28:20

But let's dive right in with the first question. So if there is one economic impact business leaders should be looking at, what is that one thing?

Chris Kuehl | 00:01:29:03 - 00:01:54:06

It's probably the percentage of concern over whether there will be a recession or not, because we're kind of on the edge of going either direction. We could go into a downturn, come next year or we can kind of avoid it. It's going to depend a lot on how the consumer handles their extra savings. They've still got about $3.5, $3.6 trillion in excess savings, which they could spend this year.

Chris Kuehl | 00:01:54:17 - 00:02:14:13

If they do, then we basically spend our way out of the recession. If they don't, and they hang on to it for next year because they're worried about next year, then we could see more of a downturn. So really, it comes down to how realistic is the notion of a serious downturn; how bad is inflation going to be or continue to be?

Chris Kuehl | 00:02:14:23 - 00:02:19:09

And then from the audience that you've crushed, like, what does this mean to employment?

Sophie Boler | 00:02:19:16 - 00:02:33:14

Absolutely. And kind of switching gears a little bit, we know that we lost 21 million workers last year due to retirement. So how is this and the labor shortage just in general really affecting the economy?

Chris Kuehl | 00:02:33:15 - 00:02:50:13

Hugely. I mean, if you look at what's going on with inflation right now, a lot of it is driven by the fact that wages have gone up. Wages have gone up on average around 6 percent. Part of the reason for that is that you've had that mass retirement. You have a lot fewer workers in the system than we used to.

Chris Kuehl | 00:02:50:13 - 00:03:13:04

The baby boomer kind of protected us from that for a while because the boomer was reluctant to retire. But now they are. And we hit retirement at the rate of about 10,000 a day. So it's taken a toll. The workers never had more leverage. Anybody in HR is well aware of that now. They're asking for more money; they're asking for better benefits.

Chris Kuehl | 00:03:13:04 - 00:03:23:22

They want more flexible schedules. All of that becomes a challenge. And then you just look at the impact from an inflation perspective. Wages going up means that everything else goes up.

Sophie Boler | 00:03:24:05 - 00:03:35:02

Absolutely. And we've also heard that inflation can be a period of opportunity for the rebuilding of the domestic economy. So can you elaborate on this a little bit more?

Chris Kuehl | 00:03:35:03 - 00:03:58:19

Yeah. Part of what's been fueling some of that inflation and some of that worker shortage is that we're getting a lot more reshoring. One of the reasons that you've seen worker leverage increase is that people are bringing business back to the U.S. The advantages of being overseas have diminished. We've not seen the same kind of bang for the buck that we used to by producing in China or producing elsewhere in Asia.

Chris Kuehl | 00:03:59:06 - 00:04:27:03

Reshoring this year has brought about $1 trillion back to the U.S. economy. Very good news for the growth of the economy overall. Good news for people getting better jobs, getting an opportunity to work here. However, it also means that there is a more acute labor shortage than before because those jobs are coming back home from overseas. With that comes higher wages, better benefits, all of that.

Sophie Boler | 00:04:27:20 - 00:04:40:10

We're seeing more automation in the form of self-checkouts. And you mentioned that you've even encountered robotic waitstaff, and I don't know if you want to share that story, but how does this have an impact on the economy?

Chris Kuehl | 00:04:40:13 - 00:05:12:00

Yeah, we've been seeing automation get into things like manufacturing for quite a while. I mean, we're all aware of the robot revolution there, but now we're seeing it in the service sector. And as you mentioned, the robot server, which was a bit of a surprise. I'm at a hotel and this little robot comes rolling up to my table, and cheerfully tells me that my breakfast is there, and asked me if I like the temperature of the coffee, and I'm like okay, so this little robot wearing an apron that says, "Marge", I'd sampled the coffee,

Chris Kuehl | 00:05:12:00 - 00:05:42:04

And if you're happy, she says, "Press the green button." You know, I haven't had a waitstaff ask me if my coffee was the right temperature in months. And you're just getting this reaction to it's harder and harder to find even simple employees like service employees. So it's moving more towards self-service, it's moving towards automation. It's looking for anything that can be done with a machine is now a possibility, even though it means more upfront investment.

Sophie Boler | 00:05:42:18 - 00:05:53:12

And we have a lot of members and our listeners are in the healthcare industry, the hospitality industry, and the manufacturing industry. So how is this specifically impacting those industries?

Chris Kuehl | 00:05:53:13 - 00:06:11:10

Yeah, if you look at manufacturing, the revolution has been going on for 20 years. I mean, you see a lot fewer people doing the kind of work they used to on the line. Now it's being done by robots. Now you're starting to see it more aggressively in health care. Some countries have gone so far as to have robot helpers.

Chris Kuehl | 00:06:11:11 - 00:06:32:07

I mean, the Japanese in their assisted living centers, most of the attendants are robots, and the people there indicated they like the robots better than they like the people. So if you look at hospitality, that's where self-service has taken over. I mean, every time you check into a hotel, you can do it with your phone. You don't have to talk to anybody.

Chris Kuehl | 00:06:32:12 - 00:06:41:15

We don't have room service anymore. You know, is it's more and more recognizing that, A, it's hard to find those people and then it's hard to keep them.

Sophie Boler | 00:06:42:07 - 00:06:49:14

Absolutely. And this is this is a larger, broader question, but can we stop inflation without causing a recession?

Chris Kuehl | 00:06:49:18 - 00:07:15:20

Oh, yeah. I mean, inflation right now is really driven predominantly by that supply chain breakdown, which is slowly beginning to reverse. And we're not expecting it to get better when it comes to products coming from China. But the more that we reshore, the more that we're able to produce our own stuff. The wage issue is another question. At some point there's going to be an interruption in those wage increases.

Chris Kuehl | 00:07:15:20 - 00:07:35:10

Companies just simply won't be able to afford it. The more likely reaction when it comes to most companies is that they're going to try to do more with fewer employees. And it will basically come down to, yes, we are going to pay this guy a lot more money than we used to. But he's also now doing the job of four different people.

Sophie Boler | 00:07:36:12 - 00:07:47:18

So our companies are really wondering right now, what should we be concerned about? So do you have one critical concern that organizations should really be prepared for this upcoming year?

Chris Kuehl | 00:07:47:18 - 00:08:06:23

When it comes to HR, probably two answers. One for HR, one for the company in general. If you are on the HR side of things, what you've really got to think about is where do you recruit your new workers and how do you retain the people you have? The number one way that companies are hiring now is poaching each other.

Chris Kuehl | 00:08:07:09 - 00:08:39:18

So you've got to protect your own staff from being poached. And money is a part of it. But really it's more of the job environment. It's the being sensitive to the needs of that employee, which right now, schedule flexibility has emerged as the number one question that a new employee or an existing employee has. In a more broad sense, the number one concern is balancing fears of a recession with being ready for if there isn't a recession.

Chris Kuehl | 00:08:40:01 - 00:09:07:06

I mean, it's easy enough to prepare for a downturn just by laying people off and reducing one's purchase of inventory. But if we don't get the downturn, well, that comes back to bite you because your sales begin to suffer. A real good example of how difficult it has been to predict that recession trend is that we thought that we were going to have very, very minor growth in the third quarter of this year.

Chris Kuehl | 00:09:07:12 - 00:09:27:05

Instead, we got 2.6 and it's like, what? We were supposed to get .3 when we got 2.6, which means there was a lot more activity than we thought there was going to be. And that was stressing particularly companies in manufacturing, because part of that growth was based on export demand.

Sophie Boler | 00:09:28:02 - 00:09:45:22

Yeah. Just commenting on your first comment about attracting and retaining talent, we've had some conversations on the podcast about that and really employers just need to start getting creative on it. But as we wrap up our time here, do you have a couple key takeaways that you can give to our listeners today?

Chris Kuehl | 00:09:46:09 - 00:10:08:08

Yeah, I think the key takeaway from my talks lately have been kind of in the category of talking people off a ledge. We are probably not heading for a particularly deep downturn. Most of the predictions are by the end of next year, we're back to normal growth. We are, to a certain degree, experiencing a letdown from '21.

Chris Kuehl | 00:10:08:09 - 00:10:31:00

'21 was such a high-growth year that anything feels slow compared to 6 percent growth last year. And then the other, I guess, concern is just to focus on the fact that there is still a lot of money in the economy. It's got to go somewhere. It's either going to come out this year in the spending season or it will start to come out to some degree next year.

Chris Kuehl | 00:10:31:00 - 00:10:53:14

And, it's important to note that most of that extra money is in the hands of people who are making $70, $80, $90,000 and above. So you've got two very different responses. People making less than $50,000, they're having to resort to credit cards. Inflation has really hit them hard. People with higher incomes still have a lot of flexibility.

Sophie Boler | 00:10:53:15 - 00:11:15:12

Right. Well, thank you, Chris, for joining us today and sharing some good advice and tips and things that businesses can look forward to and look to plan for. But if you would like to get in contact with Chris, we have linked his email and his LinkedIn profile in the show notes, so be sure to check those out if you like to get in contact with him.

Sophie Boler | 00:11:15:22 - 00:11:30:17

I'm sure he'd love to connect and chat with you about economics, but other than that, we will see you next week when we bring in two compensation experts. So I look forward to seeing you there. But thank you, Chris, again. And we'll see you next week.

OUTRO | 00:11:30:17 - 00:11:53:06

And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign up to connect for more podcasts updates. Check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA's 30 minute THRIVE so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.

Description:

Key Takeaways:

1. Search Engine Optimization is your best friend! Know the key words, and use them in your descriptions and postings!

Let's Connect:

Bio - Kathy Seidel

Kathy's LinkedIn Profile

Transcript:

Transcripts are computer generated -- not be 100% accurate word for word 

INTRO | 00;00;00;03 - 00;00;23;05

Hello hello, everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go-to podcast for anything and everything H.R., 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.

Sophie Boler | 00:00:27:01 - 00:00:50:11

Hello, everybody. I’m here with Kathy Seidel today. She’s our manager for recruiting services team and she really started as a recruiting business partner and made her way up to leading the team. So, she comes with a lot of knowledge and expertise in the recruiting world, but she’s actually come prepared today with the top seven things people need to know about recruiting in today’s market.

Sophie Boler | 00:00:50:18 - 00:01:01:13

So, we’re going to cover that today. You’ll be able to walk away with seven points by the end of the episode, but thanks for being on the podcast, Kathy. I’m excited to talk recruiting with you today.

Kathy Seidel | 00:01:01:13 - 00:01:03:03

Yes, thank you so much for having me.

Sophie Boler | 00:01:04:10 - 00:01:17:22

Absolutely! But before we get into your top seven things that people need to know about recruiting in today’s market, let’s talk a little more big-picture ideas. So, what are some trends that you’ve been seeing in the recruiting world?

Kathy Seidel | 00:01:18:15 - 00:01:45:23

Yeah, it’s definitely been really difficult to recruit for probably the last 2 years. But we are seeing things lighten up a little bit. We’re seeing less jobs posted. Unemployment numbers are still really low. So, there’s not a lot of candidates in the market. And so, we’re really seeing a shift from passive recruiting to that really active recruiting. So, you have to be okay with reaching out to people who aren’t applying to your jobs or targeting that perfect candidate.

Kathy Seidel | 00:01:46:10 - 00:02:00:18

And it’s a scary place for some people. You kind of feel like you’re stalking at times! And so how do you know where that line between being a professional, you know, doing what’s best for your company, but also doing what you’re comfortable with when you’re recruiting.

Sophie Boler | 00:02:01:18 - 00:02:12:14

So, what’s going to your top seven list right now? The first thing you mentioned was search engine optimization for posting. So, what can you say about that?

Kathy Seidel | 00:02:12:15 - 00:02:37:19

Yes, definitely. Even though it is a very you have to be active, you do still want to make sure your postings are getting in front of people. And the job boards like Indeed and LinkedIn have leaned towards search engine optimization so that you’re showing up with things like Google searches. So, you want to make sure that your job posting is, or your job title is in your posting five to seven times, which seems really weird when you’re writing it.

Kathy Seidel | 00:02:38:01 - 00:02:57:13

You quite literally want to say, “As a recruiting business partner with MRA, you will be doing…” and then have your bulleted list to be a recruiting business partner with MRA, you need to have. It feels really weird as you’re writing it, but when you read it back, and if you think in a candidate mindset, it’s fine and it works really well.

Kathy Seidel | 00:02:58:01 - 00:03:20:21

So, but that will help your job perform better than jobs that don’t have the title in there as often. In addition, as you’re filling out those postings, you want to make sure you’re filling information into every single box that you can. If it’s a box, say, on Indeed it’s a searchable feature on Indeed. And so, if you don’t have information in there and a candidate search by shift, your job is not going to show up.

Kathy Seidel | 00:03:21:07 - 00:03:56:18

So, it’s just making sure that you’re filling in everything you can. You’re connecting it to that engine optimization, you have keywords in there, you don’t have like company jargon or company logo or lingo to really make sure that your job is getting seen by as many people as possible and that it’s at the top of the boards, because there’s a lot of jobs posted still and so candidates really only look in the first page or two, and using some of those things really keep you in that first page or two and don’t get you way down at the bottom of the list.

Sophie Boler | 00:03:57:12 - 00:04:07:17

Something that we have in our team, it’s like a keywords sheet, kind of like a cheat sheet. We try to incorporate into every post. So, this is helpful.

Kathy Seidel | 00:04:07:19 - 00:04:19:12

Yeah. Yeah. And that’s where like a conversation with your hiring manager when you’re just kicking off the role of what are some keywords, what are some things that I should be including is really helpful.

Sophie Boler | 00:04:19:16 - 00:04:27:11

Yeah, absolutely. So, your key point number two revolves around salary information sharing. So why did you include this on your list?

Kathy Seidel | 00:04:27:19 - 00:04:53:13

And it was kind of strategically placed here too, because Indeed and LinkedIn especially are now requiring salary information on their postings or they’re going to put in an estimate. And the estimates are almost always wrong, especially here in the Midwest, because it’s using national salary data. And so, it’s comparing us to East Coast and West Coast, and the numbers show we’re typically a little lower.

Kathy Seidel | 00:04:54:00 - 00:05:17:00

And so, candidates are going in thinking, “Oh, wow, I can make $70,000 to $90,000!” when you might be thinking $60,000 to $70,000, and that’s setting you up not for success. So, making sure that you are including accurate information, you’ve got to really make sure that you’re prepared for that. People in your company might go look for your jobs that are posted and say, “Hey, I’m in a similar role.

Kathy Seidel | 00:05:17:00 - 00:05:38:03

I’m not making this range. What’s up with that?” So, you have to prepare for some wage studies, make sure you’re paying equitably, whether it’s someone who’s just joining or someone who’s been in your team for 10 years. But these boards are making you do it because there are other states that are making it required as part of job postings with some pretty hefty fines if you don’t include it.

Kathy Seidel | 00:05:38:03 - 00:05:42:22

So, they’re trying to protect themselves. So, you have to kind of get on top of it here.

Sophie Boler | 00:05:43:04 - 00:05:53:23

All right. So, going along with that, do you think it’s important to be pretty transparent when it comes to salary sharing and postings or …?

Kathy Seidel

Yes.

Sophie Boler

… Leaning more toward the conservative side? What are your thoughts on that?

Kathy Seidel | 00:05:54:05 – 00:06:16:04

I think transparency is the best way to go, especially because it’s one of the first questions that almost all candidates ask. You know, if you are reaching out to them on LinkedIn, sometimes the first thing you hear is, “Well, what’s the pay?” So, you’ve got to have your answer to that question, whether it’s in a LinkedIn message, in a phone screen, in person, in an interview, you have to be ready to answer that.

Kathy Seidel | 00:06:16:07 - 00:06:23:00

So that just kind of doing it really early on the posting end sets you up for success the whole rest of the way through the process.

Sophie Boler | 00:06:23:08 - 00:06:32:05

And then going along with that, the third thing you need to know about recruiting in today’s market, you mentioned, are referral bonuses. Can you talk a little about that, too?

Kathy Seidel | 00:06:32:05 - 00:06:52:01

Yes, yeah. So, we’ve been seeing over the last couple of years the most successful way to find candidates is through referrals. Number one, you’re getting people in your team currently who are saying, “I know this job and I know this person can do it.” It’s great because in some cases they might not be exactly what you’re looking for.

Kathy Seidel | 00:06:52:12 - 00:07:17:08

We’ve had a few people on the team who have been referred by someone. They’re not in recruiting, but they’ve got really similar skills that transferred over well, and now they’re doing great on our team. And so having some kind of structure in place to allow people to refer is going to get you more candidates and get you people who already know about your company, in most cases, already know about the job.

Kathy Seidel | 00:07:17:18 - 00:07:43:17

And it’s going to make that person who referred that other candidate stick more because they want to see that person succeed and they want to see them grow. I always say best case is the referral bonus gives a bonus to both the person who referred and the person who was referred. So, it’s kind of a referral/sign-on bonus and it can definitely be, you know, 6 months after the person starts. It doesn’t have to be right away.

Kathy Seidel | 00:07:44:04 - 00:07:50:11

But like I said, that helps kind of make some stickiness to both people and that’s going to lead to long-term success.

Sophie Boler | 00:07:50:19 - 00:07:55:08

And that’s a huge incentive for the employee too, go out there and find some great workers.

Kathy Seidel | 00:07:55:14 – 00:07:56:07

Yeah. Yeah.

Sophie Boler | 00:07:56:21 – 00:08:03:01

You mentioned SEO, salary sharing and referral bonuses now. So, what’s next on the list?

Kathy Seidel | 00:08:03:05 - 00:08:25:11

Yeah. So, what we’re hearing from candidates after the salary question is what are we talking about in terms of hybrid, remote, in-person flexibility? I, all the candidates that I talk to and that my team talks to, they’re not looking to be 100 percent remote. It can be a little, make you a little stir crazy if you’re 100 percent remote.

Kathy Seidel | 00:08:25:18 - 00:08:46:19

What people are really looking for now is flexibility. They got a taste of being able to be home for 4 hours because the plumber gave a window and you don’t know when he’s going to show up, and not having to take a whole day off for it or a half day off for it. You know vet appointments—they’re typically only open during business hours, doctor’s appointments, too.

Kathy Seidel | 00:08:46:19 - 00:09:08:21

So having that flexibility of either shifting your schedule around so maybe they can start a little earlier or wrap up their day later in the night or to be in person versus remote is really what people are looking for these days because they got a taste of it, and it was great. And clearly people showed they were still able to get their work done, too.

Sophie Boler | 0:09:09:05 - 00:09:19:13

Absolutely. And I can definitely attest to that too, that it’s nice not having like a permanent, set-in-stone schedule. It’s nice to have employers be flexible with that.

Sophie Boler | 00:09:20:00 - 00:09:20:11

Yeah.

Sophie Boler | 00:09:21:08 - 00:09:26:09

But what’s the fifth point that you would emphasize that people should take away from today’s episode?

Kathy Seidel | 00:09:26:13 - 00:09:47:15

Yeah. So, I want to kind of go back to what I talked about earlier with that. You have to be active in recruiting now and that can be, like I said, kind of a struggle point for some people. So, it’s switching from kind of the task-oriented mindset that recruiting can be of get this person screened, get this person in with the manager to a,

Kathy Seidel | 00:09:47:15 - 00:10:09:17

we call it a hunter’s mentality. So you want to go out and find, you know, it’s terrible to say the prey, but the person and you know, some people on our team call themselves professional matchmakers, that they’re finding that organization that’s looking for this person and they’re finding the person that fits and they’re marrying the two together all the time.

Kathy Seidel | 00:10:09:17 - 00:10:32:16

We have the organization that’s looking for the person, the perfect person, but those two don’t connect. So, you have to be the one to bridge that gap and to really make them, make the candidate see why this is the perfect role for them. And maybe sometimes make the hiring manager see why this is the perfect candidate for them, even if it’s not necessarily checking all 10 of the boxes if they’re eight out of 10.

Kathy Seidel | 00:10:32:23 - 00:10:58:04

But look, here’s how they can grow into those last two. So, it’s really kind of shifting your mentality, not just expecting the flow to come in because we’re seeing flow be really, really down. Part of that is having the tools to do that. So, LinkedIn Recruiter and Indeed Resume database are great tools to get some candidate data and to be able to reach out to candidates, but they come with a cost.

Kathy Seidel | 00:10:58:13 - 00:11:20:18

So, you have to be prepared for that and have to know what’s going to work best for your roles. Indeed is kind of a catchall, but does really well for manufacturing roles, entry-level roles. LinkedIn is more of a professional landscape. So, you know, as you’re comparing those things, figure out what works best for you, for your roles, and then also for how you reach out too.

Sophie Boler | 00:11:21:04 - 00:11:36:03

I like how you put that: the analogy of being a hunter or switching to a hunter’s mentality because that’s honestly what recruiting is really. But you have knowing when to laugh as another key point on your list. What do you really mean by this?

Kathy Seidel | 00:11:36:12 - 00:12:01:23

Yeah, so as I’ve mentioned a couple of times, recruiting is hard and when you switch to that hunting, it can be exhausting. I mean, you can spend 2 hours digging through profiles to maybe get 10 that fit what you’re looking for. An average response rate means if you hear from two of those, you did a good job. And so, you know, it’s a lot of work put in and it can be really demoralizing.

Kathy Seidel | 00:12:02:08 - 00:12:28:02

So, you know, have that smile file ready to go. Maybe it’s candidates who you placed and they’re so happy in their role and they sent you an email right as they started or a few months after, that you want to look back on when you have something difficult happen. Our team also has a little kind of shared folder where we save funny resumes or funny names or pictures of funny email addresses.

Kathy Seidel | 00:12:28:02 - 00:12:48:17

You know, as people kind of went through the email setup earlier in the 2000s, there’s some really funny emails out there. I will say my middle school email address is not appropriate at all, but that is why I do not use it. There are some people who are still using their middle school email addresses, and so having a folder of those to look back at,

Kathy Seidel | 00:12:49:00 - 00:13:03:15

when you have a candidate back out the Friday before they’re supposed to start, or when you have an especially difficult hiring manager, you’ve got to know when to like, kind of take that relaxed point and laugh because it can get really, really difficult.

Sophie Boler | 00:13:03:20 - 00:13:20:14

Yeah. And I think in recruiting more than ever, just like celebrating the milestones is super important. But we’ve reached to our last point now and that is increasing creative mindset. So, what do you really think about this phrase?

Kathy Seidel | 00:13:20:16 - 00:13:55:23

Yeah, yeah. So, with recruiting, and I kind of alluded to the there’s a lot of times you have managers who want 10 things in a candidate. You’ve got to be creative and help them see there’s not going to be the candidate with all 10 things, but how can we find the eight things that you absolutely need and the two things that we can train on to, you know, when you’re making job postings or when you’re going out searching, finding those different keywords, finding different areas to search, you know, getting creative to expand your candidate pool, especially for a diversity inclusion.

Kathy Seidel | 00:13:55:23 - 00:14:20:08

You can’t just search by the people who are currently in your organization because that’s just going to lead to the same as who’s currently in your organization. So, you’ve got to really be creative and think outside the box on things to find those top candidates and to find people who really expand your pool. Again, it can be exhausting, but that’s where I think having a good network is really helpful.

Kathy Seidel | 00:14:20:18 – 00:14:47:17

Both people who are in your industry and people who are doing recruiting. Roundtables and networking groups are my favorite thing because, one, you kind of feel seen sometimes when you sit down with them because you’re like, okay, it is not normal for a candidate to reschedule five times. Thank you. It’s not just me! But two, like you start to talk about the things that you’ve done, and they have ideas that you’ve done before, but you just haven’t thought of for this search.

Kathy Seidel | 00:14:48:02 - 00:15:12:11

So I always, always encourage, talk to other people when you’re having a tough search, not just people within your organization, but have those connections outside that they can say, Well, wait, have you tried this posting location or have you tried searching here or have you tried just searching “greater Milwaukee area” with a few keywords and leaving the title out and see if there’s titles that other organizations are using?

Kathy Seidel | 00:15:12:22 - 00:15:27:13

Those kinds of things are difficult sometimes when you’re very like process oriented and then you’re like, Nope, I have to completely change my process today to find something new. But that’s how you’re going to be successful. So, it’s important to kind of push for those things.

Sophie Boler | 00:15:28:02 - 00:15:40:14

That’s some great advice that you gave us but thank you for those seven things to remember. I think all of those are very important. But before we end the episode today, do you have any last thoughts that you share with our listeners?

Kathy Seidel | 00:15:41:16 - 00:16:04:02

Yeah, definitely. So, you know, as I’ve discussed, recruiting is hard right now. And, you know, there’s a lot going on in the news of, it might get easier, it might get more difficult, and so you’ve really got to decide how you want to kind of address the current talent landscape, know where you can be flexible for if things change, but really create your plan and move forward with it.

Kathy Seidel |00:16:04:12 - 00:16:25:22

Sometimes that might require something like A/B testing. So, as you’re reaching out to candidates, use one message for one group and one message for another to see what lands better for your candidates. It might require some changes to your job postings and things, but you’ve got to really figure out where do you want to go in this current landscape as it is, you know, today,

Kathy Seidel | 00:16:26:18 - 00:16:47:04

At, say, 8 a.m. that morning, know where you can be flexible as things change throughout and know where you can tap others for help, too. It’s hard, and especially when you’re in like a small to medium-sized organization and recruiting is not your only thing. Some of these things take time, and if you don’t have time, where can you tap for help?

Kathy Seidel | 00:16:47:10 - 00:16:58:07

So, know that you can’t tackle everything at once. That it might be small changes, but you know, you’re doing the best you can. I totally believe that no matter what you’re doing, you’re doing the best you can.

Sophie Boler | 00:16:58:07 - 00:17:31:12

Always. Keep positive. Well, thank you for sharing your expertise with us today. And I think we all can walk away with seven or more than seven really mean important modern-day tidbits. So, thank you again, Kathy. But we have her LinkedIn profile in the show notes along with some resources. So, if you have any questions or need any clarifications on her seven tips or want to just get any other tidbits from her, I think she’d be happy to connect.

Sophie Boler | 00:17:31:12 - 00:17:43:17

Otherwise, we will see you next week when we dive into the generational difference’s conversation. But thank you again, Kathy. This was fun, I had a good time, and we will see you all next week.

Kathy Seidel | 00:17:44:02 - 00:17:44:16

Thank you.

OUTRO | 00:17:45:13 - 00:18:07:19

And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes, where you can sign up to connect for more podcast updates. Check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform. And as always, make sure to follow MRA’s 30 minute THRIVE so you don’t miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we’ll see you next Wednesday to carry on the HR conversation.

Description:

The employee experience is a never-ending process. What are you doing to ensure your employees are happy and engaged every single day? MRA’s Senior Recruiting and Retention Business Partner, Kristin Noack, sits down with us to explain how to get the most out of your employee experience, while setting you up as an employer of choice.

Listen to Discover:

1. Employee engagement is actually the destination, and the employee experience is the roadmap.

Let's Connect:

Kristin (Smith) Noack LinkedIn profile

Transcript:

This is a computer-generated transcript--as accurate as possible.

Sophie Boler | 00;00;00;03 - 00;00;23;05

Hello hello, everybody and welcome to 30 minute Thrive, your go-to podcast for anything and everything H.R., powered by MRA, the Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever-changing world of H.R.? 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.

Sophie Boler | 00;00;23;17 - 00;00;53;04

Now it's time to thrive. Hello, everybody. I am joined with Kirsten Noack today. She's our senior recruiting and retention business partner here at MRA and comes with over 15 years of experience. So she knows a lot. But she's hired, onboarded, trained and supported hundreds of employees throughout her career and is really here today to share that knowledge with all of you as we focus on employee experience as our main topic for today.

Sophie Boler | 00;00;53;13 - 00;00;57;18

So welcome to the show, Kristin. I'm excited to talk to you today.

Kristin Noack | 00;00;57;23 - 00;01;02;01

Thank you, Sophie. And so glad to be here to talk about a topic that I know well.

Sophie Boler | 00;01;02;10 - 00;01;13;11

Absolutely. Well, let's dive right into the first question. We're going to start a little broad. So could you tell me what the employee experience really means in your eyes?

Kristin Noack |;01;13;23 - 00;01;38;03

Absolutely. The employee experience to me really is the experience the employee encounters when they're engaged with your organization. Sounds pretty simplistic. Actually, a colleague of mine says it even in a more defined way that I like to talk about, and that is that the employee engagement is actually the destination, and the employee experience is the roadmap.

Sophie Boler | 00;01;38;19 - 00;01;57;18

I love that. Thanks. Well, in the previous two podcasts, we really went into the first steps of the employee experience, which talked about attracting talent and onboarding and all that fun stuff. So what are the next steps to creating a good employee experience?

Kristin Noack | 00;01;58;11 - 00;02;14;11

I'm glad you asked that. But Sophie we're going to take a step back because I know you recently talked to Jim Morgan about the candidate experience. And for those of you out there who have not been able to hear that podcast yet, I highly encourage it. There's a lot of similarities here between the candidate experience and the employee experience.

Kristin Noack | 00;02;15;02 - 00;02;39;28

And so I would say if you think back to what Jim was speaking with you about being a candidate, you really turn some tables. So he asked you a couple of questions about your candidate experience. And so if I remember correctly, I'm paraphrasing and recapping here, you talked quite a bit about when you were looking for employment, you looked at the culture of the organization, most likely by the Internet.

Kristin Noack | 00;02;39;28 - 00;03;05;25

You go to you trying to find articles, whatever that case may be. You thought about the culture. Would that be potentially of interest to you? Could that fit with who you are and what you were looking for? And then you had those discussions and you probably dug a little bit deeper. But those are the same things we actually talk about with an employee experience, because if you think about it, that candidate becomes the employee.

Kristin Noack | 00;03;05;25 - 00;03;34;05

So as in yourself, you became an employee thinking about those same things as well. But what happens next? Because that employee becomes part of the fabric of your organization. So you have to think of the other things. And that includes engaging in an employee, investing in an employee and communicating with an employee. If you think about the simple things you originally thought about when you did your candidate experience as part of the culture, what is the leadership saying?

Kristin Noack | 00;03;34;10 - 00;03;52;13

What about technologies in your workspace? It's the same thing you're thinking about as you become the employee. And I think that's important to understand. These are our next steps. Those don't change. You didn't walk into your job and say, Well, that's what I want yesterday. Today I want something else. So that part of you and that's part of an employee experience.

Sophie Boler | 00;03;53;00 - 00;04;09;09

Absolutely. And as you know, it's essential to keep staying up to date on these trends and changes like Jim discussed. So that being said, what are some of the new tools that you've seen to improve the employee experience these days?

Kristin Noack | 00;04;09;09 - 00;04;29;08

Glad you asked, because there's a couple of different ways you can look at tools that everybody thinks about making tools tangible is there technology? Is there something in that capacity? Sure, there are human resource technologies, the candidate size, those are the applicant tracking systems. It's the HRIS systems that become part of the organization once you're hired. And those are really important.

Kristin Noack | 00;04;29;08 - 00;04;55;08

And I think it's been mentioned in past podcasts about these up to date as possible. And those tools, an HRIS system can give employees a very great experience from being more adept at getting information, policy updates, communication. Let's face it, most of our employees in some cases now are not back in the workforce as they were before. We need to reach them from afar and as quickly as possible.

Kristin Noack | 00;04;55;08 - 00;05;18;11

But that's not the only way to communicate. Those are the only current tools that I think are really important for the employee experience. I think the tools that you've created now having to be forced into technology in Zoom meetings or team meetings are really important to communicate. Water Cooler discussions, just having a general discussion at a level between supervisors and employees is wonderful.

Kristin Noack | 00;05;18;21 - 00;05;29;01

What about town halls? I think those are really important too. We might have done them to some capacity before, but they've really risen to the challenge of what we do each day for employee experience.

Sophie Boler | 00;05;29;15 - 00;05;42;10

Right. And we know it's important to pay attention to what matters to every single employee at work. And this might be challenging. But how do you listen to each individual employee and their wants and needs?

Kristin Noack | 00;05;43;03 - 00;06;05;15

Very good question. Because, again, let's think back to that. You're a candidate. You've become an employee with your organization. Those wants and needs you just talked about, they're still part of you, whether you're sitting in the outside meetings and that you're internally as an employee. What can you do? So I think it's important to look at it in a capacity of surveys in this state.

Kristin Noack | 00;06;05;28 - 00;06;40;09

I think it's important to understand, both at a macro level and micro level, what your employees are saying. So how can you do that? One of the ways is, for instance, MRA does an engagement survey in a great department that works quite extensively on all this information that an organization is looking at about their entire employee base. And those engagement surveys are wonderful to help us look within those quantitative and qualitative factors, what the trends are, what are the satisfaction points for your employees?

Kristin Noack | 00;06;40;20 - 00;06;59;10

And I think if you're looking for a way really to listen to listen on a big scope with those engagement surveys is important. After that, sometimes we need something different than that. Oh, my gosh. Sometimes we need to look at a smaller group. We need to maybe focus on our sales team or something of that nature and how can we do it on a smaller scope?

Kristin Noack | 00;06;59;21 - 00;07;27;24

Those one-on-one discussions, those stay interviews are incredibly important and those should be at a frequency that gives you good information without waiting too long, which happens often. So you can get that information to your leadership, to your organization, and that communication to the employees. Stay interviews is another thing MRA does with intention. They're able to help organizations in numbers to focus on those smaller scope areas that they want to look at.

Kristin Noack | 00;07;27;28 - 00;07;32;18

That satisfaction, that quantitative and qualitative aspect, right?

Sophie Boler | 00;07;32;19 - 00;08;00;21

I think gathering all that feedback from employees is super important, whether that's in the conversation or, like you said, engagement survey, I mean, anything really helps, but the employee experience really helps to also improve employee retention. So what are your top three must-have strategies that an employee should really have to create a good employee experience that will lead to employee retention?

Kristin Noack | 00;08;00;26 - 00;08;28;18

Well, I think it's a great question. I think there's probably more than three strategies for that. So let's talk about some that we could focus in on. One thing that is really important to understand for an employee is how are they received their messages and how are things perceived? Take a step back on that. The candidate experience, when you were looking at the organizations you were actually looking at online, right now you are focusing on what is the organization looks like.

Kristin Noack | 00;08;28;26 - 00;08;49;14

That's the branding. And I think sometimes leaders don't know what their brand is. And I think if we can understand how an employee gets engaged, you need to understand how you can communicate with your employees, whether they be that candidate, that employee now or that exiting employee. What did you? What is your brand? How are you communicating? What messages are you sending?

Kristin Noack | 00;08;49;19 - 00;09;08;25

So I think my strategy one is to know who you are. You go back out and try and become that candidate again and see what your organization is like going through the process or potentially just talking to your leaders and talking to your employees. Again, those town halls, things of that nature, how are they understanding  your organization? Is it as you expect it?

Kristin Noack | 00;09;09;03 - 00;09;33;02

Do you need to make adjustments? Another strategy is really to consider the experience. There are those four key areas we talk about the lifestyles and those are the employee journey, which is that culture. Are you staying true to your culture strategy? Look at what your culture is. Identify your culture. Ask questions about your culture. Is it matching what you think it is leadership?

Kristin Noack | 00;09;33;02 - 00;09;58;19

Is leadership being communicated? Are they being supportive? Is a collaborative focusing on that technology? Do you have up to date technology as you can have for your employees, or is there something more you could do? Many organizations will do surveys or other types of conversations and come up with a list of points of things that are really important in technology rises to the top.

Kristin Noack | 00;09;58;19 - 00;10;20;11

Maybe that's something that is a strategy that can work with moving forward and present to their play base. And then there's the workspace, the workplace. Work life balance. You said it yourself in conversations previously and you probably agreed today. What is there for flexibility or benefits? Again, these things are not just for a candidate. They're for an employee.

Kristin Noack | 00;10;20;18 - 00;10;22;09

They're throughout the whole lifecycle.

Sophie Boler | 00;10;22;15 - 00;10;39;24

Right. And we have to bring a budget at some point. Right. So what happens if an employer doesn't feel like they have a big enough budget to really support a good employee experience? What are some practical but inexpensive, inexpensive options for them?

Kristin Noack | 00;10;40;02 - 00;11;13;11

Good question. Making things happen doesn't have to be expensive. That's the really good news. So one of the tools I often refer to as something that MRA has in our toolkit, if you're a member and the website, it's called the Employee Experience Assessment Tool. It is a fantastic way to take a quick look at the comprehensive checklist in the state of your organization and talk about that journey that's a candidate to be engaging with the employee, the best in the employee, growing even to the exit.

Kristin Noack | 00;11;13;17 - 00;11;29;05

It actually touches on this tool kind upon all those areas. Yes. No capacity to saying, how are we doing? It's a quick meter. It's a thought process and the journey, are we missing any meeting points that are really important to our organization and there's no cost.

Sophie Boler | 00;11;30;20 - 00;11;45;12

So, well, you just touched on the exiting of an employee and unfortunately this does come with the employee experience as well in an employee leaves the company. And so this should also be a positive experience right?

Kristin Noack | 00;11;46;10 - 00;12;09;07

It should be a positive experience. But let's be honest, it tends to be emotional right out of the gate whether or not it's your top performer or someone you might have been expecting could potentially be exiting the organization. It's emotional but that isn't the time to get emotional. Now is the time to investigate and that's something I'm really passionate about with organizations, especially in this market.

Kristin Noack | 00;12;09;21 - 00;12;34;20

And that recruiting side is the other half of my career in recruiting and retention. We get calls all the time. I need to find people. So why are you losing people? Have you investigated? Have you done discussions? If there's an organization out there that hasn't done it yet, have those conversations and you've had the time when someone leaves we want to catch them before they leave with good, deep conversations as best as you can.

Kristin Noack | 00;12;34;28 - 00;12;58;13

That's the exit interview situation. Sometimes I'm hearing it's really hard for organization to do that on their own. They feel that it's either not the right time you place or are engaging as much, and sometimes it just as training for leadership in how to conduct an exit discussion. That's where MRA can come in. Our exit interview team is great at doing that.

Kristin Noack | 00;12;58;13 - 00;13;30;17

We hear those discussions, we’re considered a neutral third party, so that works out fantastic. But it's important to figure out what happened in that employee journey by going through and investigating at this exit stage. And then what you do with that, I think is very important. This is what I feel is that positive Sophie I think what you need to do at that point is understand can we make adjustments within your organization, are you finding with someone that it is an onboarding situation, is it something we could have done more from the frontend--just simple better messaging.

Kristin Noack | 00;13;30;27 - 00;13;52;05

Is it a leadership or supervisory situation? DO you need more supervisory training or is it a circumstance that you really can't manage at this time? Because maybe it's not a possibility of the individual being able to experience what they're looking for, your organization, and then you have to take them forward from there. But positively, you should get some good results from discussion.

Sophie Boler | 0;13;52;12 - 00;14;04;12

Absolutely. And just talking about this whole process, this smooth and rewarding employee experience process really gives back time to managers. So how is that true?

Kristin Noack | 00;14;05;16 - 00;14;25;19

Well, it's true because if you can do this journey well, you can manage to touch all those points in employee’s engagement with you and your culture and your communication, your technology and the work life balance. You're going to be in position actively to recruit less and retain more.

Sophie Boler | 00;14;27;03 - 00;14;36;17

Good answer. But because a good employee experience can really differ for each employee, how do you address all the other needs?

Kristin Noack | 00;14;37;07 - 00;15;05;04

You have to do it in pieces. You have to look at where the important things are and really understand what to start with. And maybe that requires the chat with MRA to see where you're at and what to focus in on. But at least start with communication. You don't know if you don't ask. And having those potential one on ones with your employees at your supervisory level and lower level and then communicating that up and broadcasting and out to your town halls.

Kristin Noack | 00;15;05;26 - 00;15;25;19

See, that's really crux of moving forward and doing that and has to reach your employee base right now and probably could be Zoom meetings. It could be regular email communications. But just because there's a difference in where your employees are, don't shy away from communicating with them.

Sophie Boler | 00;15;25;26 - 00;15;32;20

Right. Exactly. And how does senior leadership play a role in the whole employee experience process?

Kristin Noack | 00;15;33;07 - 00;16;03;03

I think senior leadership needs to be the one in the forefront of that brand and need to be the one in the forefront of the communication of the organizations through certain type of things we've done here that have shown that individuals will move an organization because of it's leadership. So is your senior leadership with you? Are they understanding what the voices are of the employee and do they understanding the employee experience, having them do a little bit of that work to their viewpoint?

Sophie Boler | 00;16;03;29 - 00;16;11;14

Absolutely. Well, we're running out of time, but do you have any last thoughts that you can give our followers today?

Kristin Noack | 00;16;12;23 - 00;16;28;11

I think the biggest that I would leave you with is the journey. It's truly about the employee's journey, whether it be the candidate, the employee, the access. You need to know what your journey is providing and it just in order to retain.

Sophie Boler | 00;16;29;21 - 00;16;58;02

Absolutely. And like Jim mentioned, the employee experience never ends. It's an ongoing thing. And it will never end. But like I said, that takes up all of our time for the day, unfortunately. But Kristen, thank you so much for joining us today. And listeners, I hope you enjoyed talking to Kristen, too, but we have added Kristen's LinkedIn profile to the show notes as well as a couple great resources that she's given us.

Sophie Boler | 00;16;58;11 - 00;17;16;27

So make sure to check those out and make sure to connect with her, too. Shoot her a message. She’d love to chat, I'm sure. Absolutely. All right. We will be continuing the conversation next week. But thank you again, Kristen. I had fun talking to you and we will see you again soon.

Kristin Noack | 00;17;17;03 - 00;17;17;17

Thank you.

Sophie Boler | 00;17;18;06 - 00;17;40;13

And that wraps up our content for this episode. Be sure to reference the show notes where you can sign up to connect for more podcast updates. Check out other MRA episodes on your favorite podcast platform and as always, make sure to follow MRA’s 30 minute Thrive so you don't miss out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next Wednesday to carry on the conversation.