August 11, 2025 • 19 mins
When was the last time your organization conducted an employee engagement survey? If it was more than a few months ago, you're likely making decisions based on outdated information. As Karina Young, VP People at 15Five, points out in this episode, "Think about who you were a year ago. You might have had a whole different set of needs, wants, desires, hopes than you do right now."
This conversation with host, Bill Banham dives into the limitations of traditional annual engagement measurements and offers a refreshing alternative: the "diagnose, plan, act" framework. Rather than the old cycle of "measure, guess, hope," this approach creates a continuous improvement loop that delivers real-time insights when they're most needed. Karina shares practical strategies for making engagement data actionable, from identifying targeted opportunities in specific population segments to implementing seamless accountability systems that don't overburden HR teams or managers.
The discussion highlights a remarkable case study from Trust Radius, where implementing strategic people analytics reduced attrition from 40% to 8% and significantly increased employee sentiment scores. We explore how AI-assisted coaching tools are revolutionizing manager effectiveness by providing personalized guidance in the flow of work, helping leaders address potential issues before high-performers become flight risks. Throughout the conversation, Karina emphasizes how data-driven approaches elevate HR's position within organizations, transforming the function from administrative support to strategic business partner.
Ready to revolutionize your approach to employee engagement? Subscribe to the HR Chat Show for more insights from innovative people leaders, and connect with Karina Young on LinkedIn or through the HR Superstars podcast to continue the conversation about strategic people analytics.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's
most downloaded and sharedpodcasts designed for HR pros,
talent execs, tech enthusiastsand business leaders.
For hundreds more episodes andwhat's new in the world of work,
subscribe to the show, followus on social media and visit
hrgazettecom.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show.
Hello listeners, this is yourhost today, bill Bannam.
Do you know which of your highperformance are disengaged and
why?
Do you know if your mostcritical teams are at risk of
attrition?
Do you know how to stop it?
In this HR Chat episode, we'regoing to explore how to make
(00:47):
engagement insights moreactionable, empower managers to
respond better and position HRas an important strategic
resource within the org.
And joining me on the pod thistime is the amazing, wonderful,
fantastic, multilingual KarinaYoung VP People over at 15.5.
An expert in workforce strategyand employee experience, karina
(01:10):
believes it's time to movebeyond the old cycle of measure,
guess, hope and instead embracethe approach of diagnose, plan,
act.
And we're going to get intothat today.
Hey, karina, how are you?
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Hey, guten Morgen, buenos dias, bonjour, everyone.
Happy to be here, bill, thanksfor having me.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Muy bien, muy bien.
Okay.
So, beyond my reintroductionjust now, Karina, why don't you
start by taking a minute or two,introducing yourself to our
audience and, as part of theanswer, telling them a little
bit about what you're passionateabout?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, definitely so, as'm karina, young vp of people
for 15.5.
I'm a long time strategic hrleader who has really
specialized my career in scalingdifferent tech organizations.
So what I love and what I'vebeen doing over the last 12 plus
years is building peoplefunctions from the ground up,
taking teams through the mostcritical milestones, whether
(02:02):
it's growth, shrinkage,acquisitionsitions, going public
, making changes, everything inbetween.
I think what's really been theguiding light for me and what
gives me a lot of passion isthis idea of change.
It's getting through change.
It's one of those inevitablethings.
Right, it's death.
Taxes and change are the threethings I think we all are going
to go through.
But it's so painful for so manyorganizations and I find a lot
(02:30):
of joy in creating bettersystems, better cultures that
can navigate change well, eventhe really hard parts, the parts
that hurt us on the inside,that might feel like are we ever
going to get through.
So that's a lot of what drivesme.
What I love and I think theother parts that make me really
passionate about this work andthe people function is all
things people, data, which is ahuge part of change, and also
storytelling.
I see those as kind of like mypersonal trifecta that I
(02:50):
specialize in and try to takeinto each organization I work
with excellent and, can I justadd, I love your energy.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
You, you exude positive energy and that's
fantastic, and if you're takingthat to the workplace every day,
then you are doing wonderfulthings.
Um say, we're going to unpackthis in more detail shortly, but
just at a at a high level, what?
What advice would you give toan hr leader trying to move from
reactive to strategic when itcomes to people data?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
yeah, my top level advice is never stop measuring
Performance engagement retention.
You need a consistent,orchestrated flow of data to
really give you a reliable storyof not just what has happened,
which the past is fine, good tolearn from, but really about
what is going to happen that youneed to plan for.
This once a year measurementjust doesn't cut it right.
I did a performance review ayear ago.
(03:42):
I had an.
This once a year measurementjust doesn't cut it right.
I did a performance review ayear ago.
I had an engagement survey ayear ago.
Think about who you were a yearago, bill.
You might have had a wholedifferent set of needs, wants,
desires, hopes than you do rightnow.
So we have to move away fromthis.
I'll measure once and I'll usethat for the rest of my year.
We need real time in the momentinformation to actually be
(04:03):
strategic and proactive.
We need real time in the momentinformation to actually be
strategic and proactive.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat
Podcast.
If you enjoy the audio contentwe produce, you'll love our
articles on the HR Gazette.
Learn more at hrgazettecom.
And now back to the show.
Oh gosh, a year ago I had morehair and weighed a few pounds
(04:32):
less.
Sigh listeners, sigh.
Okay, karina, in yourexperience, what stops companies
from acting on engagement data?
Is it cultural?
Is it structural?
Maybe it's both of those things, plus maybe a lack of
capability.
Give us your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Yes, yes and yes to all of them.
But what I see as kind of theroot of what stops people from
acting is really a lack ofcapability.
Right, in order to hold peopleaccountable, you need a way to
do that that is reliable, thatflows on its own, that doesn't
take you, as the HR leader, 20hours of work leading up to it
(05:05):
and another 20 hours on the backend to actually make it happen,
right.
So we need to make sure that wehave internally the structures,
the tools, the bandwidth toactually put people in action,
hold them accountable to it andfigure out what happened when we
did that.
Even in really greatorganizations where our cultures
are thriving and people want todo the right thing, it's just
(05:30):
hard.
We have really complexworkplaces.
We have tons of things thatwe're trying to manage at once.
We're also people outside ofwork who are worried about our
hair and our families and all ofthese other things.
We have to make accountabilityso easy and effortless.
So I think the way to reallyget through that piece of
friction that is so common forHR leaders is just investing in
the tools that makeaccountability seamless and
flawless.
Do you have a tool that tellsyou where you need to take
(05:52):
action.
What should you do?
How are you going to measurethe outcome and then just make
that a flywheel that you repeatover and, over and over again?
In a really simple way.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Which is a fantastic lead into my next question,
which goes back to the intro.
You said it's time to move frommeasure guess hope to diagnose
plan act.
Can you briefly unpack eachstep in that new model for us
and what it looks like inpractice?
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Of course, you know I think about diagnose plan act.
That's really just that.
That's the mantra we all need,right, so that we can keep
measurements going.
It keeps us in motion on allpeople changes in a way that,
again, is just simple, effectiveand really strategic.
So let's start with diagnose.
Diagnose is all about can youidentify areas of opportunity
with the data you have, Create ashared understanding of what is
(06:43):
happening in the most importantpockets of my population,
pockets that are related to mystrategic goals as a people
function and, ultimately, thestrategic goals as a business,
right?
So, as an example of that, do Iknow that if I have a company
goal that we're going toincrease our engineering team by
15% this year, can I figure out?
(07:04):
How are my engineering managersdoing?
How's that population doing?
What does that group need?
Not just saying what does mywhole company need, but
different groups within yourorganization who really need you
, and then we move on to plan.
So this is all about buildingaccountable, measurable
strategies that align back toyour business goals.
So how are you going to makethings better?
I know I need betterengineering managers, but what
(07:26):
does better look like?
Oh, I can see in my seniorengineering leaders that they're
not very good at givingfeedback.
They give feedback once everythree months, and now look what
that's doing to their teamengagement.
So now I have a plan for it.
That's what I need to tackle.
Here's how I'm going to do itin a really simple way.
And then that leads us to whatwe were just talking about, Bill
, the most important thing actaway.
And then that leads us to whatwe were just talking about, Bill
(07:48):
, the most important thing act.
Can I scale really impactfulaction?
Can I actually get the actionsout there?
Can I give people somethingthat's in their flow of work,
easy to do, and then quicklymeasure the outcome on the other
side?
Did that make a difference?
Am I actually on the track tosomething right here?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Okay, love it.
Can you think of a use case acompany that's been able to
successfully make that shift toDiagnose Plan Act?
If so, what were some of theoutcomes?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, for sure, I think.
One that I'm really excitedabout sharing is actually a case
study that 15.5 just recentlyreleased, with 360 Insights
about an organization calledTrust Radius.
Their head of people, jamieConrad, is an amazing woman and
her story is really all aboutcoming into an organization
where 15.5 was relatively newbut was not strategically rolled
out.
She came in as a new leaderwith a relatively new tool and
(08:37):
nothing was happening with it.
There weren't any insights,there were no actions.
So prior to really getting into15.5 and re-rolling it out,
their attrition was at 40%.
They had no reliable engagementmeasurement.
They were using all differentkinds of ad hoc surveys but no
singular one that they couldtrack and really rely on, and
they didn't know what washappening with their employees
(08:58):
across their sites in generalfor sentiment or attrition.
It was just all a big mess.
It was all a big black box, andso when Jamie really re-rolled
15.5 out to the organization,she was able to utilize what we
call our HR outcomes dashboardand that's where all those
diagnostics live.
So things like managereffectiveness, engagement,
(09:20):
performance reviews, and thatreally helped her work with the
leaders to become more in tunewith what their teams needed see
the trends that mattered andactually start to target them in
different pockets.
So over a course of a coupleyears they took that attrition
down from 40% to 8%, which isawesome.
They increased their employeesentiment from a three to a four
(09:41):
on a five-point scale and theirmanagers started seeing
engagement increase in theirteams because they were
constantly in tune with them,they really understood what they
needed and they hadaccountability to actually take
the action and feel like itmattered for them.
So it was really thatpersonalized approach through
Diagnose Plan Act that made thatbig difference across those
(10:01):
people metrics that matter to us.
They're ultimately the thingswe report to for our board, for
the rest of our C suite and backout to the organization.
So it's a really, really coolexperience and Jamie is just one
of those really special,exceptional leaders and I love
telling people about her storyand pointing them to her example
of just doing it really welland keeping it going.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Wonderful Jamie.
If you're listening, you are arock star, or should I say an HR
superstar?
Okay, or both, both, as I liketo do on this show.
From time to time, I like toswitch things up, and I'm going
to do that right now and I'mgoing to challenge you to answer
the next question in 60 secondsor less.
What, bill?
Don't do this to me.
(10:41):
I've got prepared answers.
Come on, okay.
And the question is as followspaid answers come on, um, okay.
And the question is as followsin 60 seconds or less, karina,
how does this diagnosticapproach help elevate the role
of hr within the business?
Speaker 3 (10:55):
it does that by putting us in the same seat as
all other functions that arebeing data driven.
Right, being data driven is thestrategy your whole
organization is doing.
So if if you're not doing that,then you're separating yourself
, you're siloing yourself fromother leaders.
When we use data to drive whatwe're doing, we're bonded with
the organization.
We're bonded with our otherC-suite leaders.
(11:15):
We become invaluable,irreplaceable and, ultimately,
that's really how we need to seeourselves.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Once in a while, an event series is born that shakes
things up, it makes you thinkdifferently and it leaves you
inspired.
That event is Disrupt HR.
The format is 14 speakers, 5minutes each and slides rotate
every 15 seconds.
If you're an HR professional, aCEO, a technologist or a
community leader and you've gotsomething to say about talent,
(11:46):
culture or technology, disruptis the place.
It's coming soon to a city nearyou.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Oh, you're good.
You're good.
You had many seconds to spare,Karina.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Look, you know, I thank my new Nespresso machine
for that.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Okay, next question for you and feel free to take a
little bit longer.
What role does real-timeanalytics and or AI?
We can't have an episode of theHR chat show these days without
talking about AI.
What role does real-timeanalytics or AI play in enabling
more targeted, timely action onengagement?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Such an important role and I think, especially now
and where the workplace isgoing again with the added
complexities, not just of whatwe're facing all as employees,
but of what managers are facing.
I mean, they're managing teamsthat are navigating all these
different challenges internally.
Externally, they're thinkingabout AI.
Again, we have to make thingsso seamless and effortless for
our leaders to drive thoseactions within their teams, and
(12:52):
when we do that, they reallyhave to know what matters Like,
again, what matters to you, Bill, versus what matters to me.
What a high-performing HRVP onmy team needs is not what a high
performing sales leader needs.
Those are two totally differentthings, and so real-time
analytics and AI thatcombination allows you to get an
in-the-moment pulse on what isactually happening for your
(13:15):
people what do they need, whatare they feeling and how can I
then, as their leader, adapt andget that real-time coaching.
And what that looks like veryspecifically for something like
15.5 is we have a tool that werecently launched called Kona,
which is our AI assisted coach.
Right, and it's all aboutpersonalized in the flow of work
, coaching to grow managers andservice of driving performance
(13:37):
and engagement.
So Kona, being an AI assistedcoach, joins you in a meeting
and gives you feedback afterwardthat says, bill, you did this
so well with Karina.
You recognized her recent work.
Thanks for doing that.
But what you haven't done isfollowed up on that career
conversation from three weeksago that she told you was really
important.
Here's a tip of what you shoulddo next that, with all the
(13:58):
other things that you're doingin your world, that surfaces to
you what's most important.
So you don't leave that meetinggoing.
Oh yeah, this is what I'm goingto do for Karina next.
You actually know, hey, this iswhat matters to her.
And don't forget, based on herengagement survey, she's a high
performer who's slightlydisengaged.
Really, put in a little bit ofextra time there.
Make sure that you don't loseher.
That's a more modern approachwhere I'm not looking back four
(14:20):
months from now going what did Ido wrong?
How did I lose that person?
I'm 10 steps ahead of it.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I'm trying to stay as close to those things as
possible and actually making areal difference that matters to
the person I'm working with so,um, quite a few years ago we had
your colleague on the HR chatshow and as part of that we did
a bit of a swap, uh, with the hrsuperstars podcast and I I had
(14:46):
a lovely time being a guest onthat show, along with my co-host
, christopher buehling.
Um, fantastic show.
You're heavily involved with it.
I've seen on linkedin you'realways sharing content and
whatnot and talking about allthe wonderful guests.
My goodness me, you've got alot of wonderful guests.
Uh, good work.
Can you just take a minute orso now and tell our listeners a
bit about the hr superstarspodcast?
(15:07):
What makes it different?
Why is it enjoyable?
Tell us more of course.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Well, um, I hope at this point you think it's
enjoyable because you've heardme talk and you maybe want to
hear more, but mostly because wedo have these incredible guests
who come on that are realpractitioners in hr.
It's.
It's not about all thesedifferent kind of philosophies
or ideas that you hear and youwonder how am I ever going to
make this work in my company.
It's, these are people doingthe work.
They're on the ground, they'reactually seeing how this is and
(15:33):
you get to walk away fromsuperstars with tangible actions
, tangible ideas, a new way ofthinking to really challenge all
of us to be much more strategicand, I think, step into the
world that HR is going intoright.
We have to move away from this.
We're just administrators,we're just helpers, we're just
support, we are business leaderslike every other leader who is
(15:55):
in the organization at the table, and my hope is that through HR
superstars, people leavefeeling empowered and excited to
get into that.
Even if it's a little bit scaryor a little bit new, you've got
a whole community rallyingbehind you okay, so quick
follow-up to that one.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Uh, can you offer a couple of guests that have been
on the show that have left youengaged and excited?
By the way, I hate thisquestion.
When people ask me thisquestion what are your favorite
guests?
Bill the show, who's left animpact, I always try and sit on
the fence.
Uh, just to preface any answeryou're about to give uh, love it
.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Well, I'll say, you know, my future favorite guest
will be you, bill, when youreturn back on.
So I'm excited for that.
Um, you know, honestly, I willsay, one of the guests who's
really just got me so lit uprecently was david hawthorne we
did just release this episodebut he's chief people officer at
Anger Point, this consultinggroup that runs all kinds of
different chain organizations inthe US, and he just was such a
(16:51):
down to earth, regular personwho I think you would imagine
like man, you're part of a bigorganization, you're this huge
chief people officer.
You must be, I don't know justlike sometimes so disconnected
we feel like.
And he was one of just thecoolest people that had great
advice.
I mean, I think you know a fewof the things he said have
always be important, like alwaysmake sure that you are
(17:13):
invaluable to your organization.
He had a ton of great examplesof real leadership on the ground
, like with people doing hardjobs.
I mean we think techorganizations are hard and tough
jobs but at the end of the day,that's not like serving food at
a fast food restaurant to 50guests who are yelling at you or
angry, or their kids are crying.
I mean, that's a differentlevel of stress and how he
(17:35):
builds people support andleadership there.
I just thought it was reallyreally cool and really special
to hear his perspective.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I like that a lot, lot and, yes, I would love to
come on the show again soon.
Um, and also, just you know,while we're recording here, I'd
love to invite you onto thepeople and performance podcast
with christopher bjorn and I, uh, which is a another show which
is quite fun, and I think you'dbe a great guest.
So if you're interested in that, let's exchange deets after
this let's keep it going allright, all right, we'll spread
(18:03):
the love.
Um, okay, uh, because I batch mylife listeners.
I've got another recording inthree minutes.
So, karina, just to wrap thingsup for today, how can our
listeners connect with you isthat linkedin, email, tiktok,
instagram, all those things?
And how can they learn moreabout 15 five?
Speaker 3 (18:20):
I am at the end of a one year social media break, so
don't find me on Instagram rightnow, but maybe in a couple of
weeks you will Come to LinkedIn.
Find me there.
Find me on HR Superstars.
If anyone here is going toShermer, we'll be there.
I'll be there with the rest ofthe 15.5 team.
But yeah, seek me out, I'mthere.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I love connecting with the community.
I am very close to booking mytickets to show.
I've got the media pass sorted.
I just got a flight past mywonderful other half, but if I
do go, I'm going to look you up,karina.
For today, though, thank youvery much for being my guest.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
My pleasure, bill.
Thank you so much for having me, and I'll see you in San Diego
or on my podcast sometime soon.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Done.
And listeners, as always, untilnext time.
Happy working done.
And listeners, as always, untilnext time, happy working thanks
for listening to the hr chatshow.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and
listen to some of the hundredsof episodes published by hr
gazette and remember for what'snew in the?
Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's
most downloaded and sharedpodcasts designed for HR pros,
talent execs, tech enthusiastsand business leaders.
For hundreds more episodes andwhat's new in the world of work,
subscribe to the show, followus on social media and visit
hrgazettecom.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Show.
Hello listeners, this is yourhost today, bill Bannam.
Do you know which of your highperformance are disengaged and
why?
Do you know if your mostcritical teams are at risk of
attrition?
Do you know how to stop it?
In this HR Chat episode, we'regoing to explore how to make
(00:47):
engagement insights moreactionable, empower managers to
respond better and position HRas an important strategic
resource within the org.
And joining me on the pod thistime is the amazing, wonderful,
fantastic, multilingual KarinaYoung VP People over at 15.5.
An expert in workforce strategyand employee experience, karina
(01:10):
believes it's time to movebeyond the old cycle of measure,
guess, hope and instead embracethe approach of diagnose, plan,
act.
And we're going to get intothat today.
Hey, karina, how are you?
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Hey, guten Morgen, buenos dias, bonjour, everyone.
Happy to be here, bill, thanksfor having me.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Muy bien, muy bien.
Okay.
So, beyond my reintroductionjust now, Karina, why don't you
start by taking a minute or two,introducing yourself to our
audience and, as part of theanswer, telling them a little
bit about what you're passionateabout?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, definitely so, as'm karina, young vp of people
for 15.5.
I'm a long time strategic hrleader who has really
specialized my career in scalingdifferent tech organizations.
So what I love and what I'vebeen doing over the last 12 plus
years is building peoplefunctions from the ground up,
taking teams through the mostcritical milestones, whether
(02:02):
it's growth, shrinkage,acquisitionsitions, going public
, making changes, everything inbetween.
I think what's really been theguiding light for me and what
gives me a lot of passion isthis idea of change.
It's getting through change.
It's one of those inevitablethings.
Right, it's death.
Taxes and change are the threethings I think we all are going
to go through.
But it's so painful for so manyorganizations and I find a lot
(02:30):
of joy in creating bettersystems, better cultures that
can navigate change well, eventhe really hard parts, the parts
that hurt us on the inside,that might feel like are we ever
going to get through.
So that's a lot of what drivesme.
What I love and I think theother parts that make me really
passionate about this work andthe people function is all
things people, data, which is ahuge part of change, and also
storytelling.
I see those as kind of like mypersonal trifecta that I
(02:50):
specialize in and try to takeinto each organization I work
with excellent and, can I justadd, I love your energy.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
You, you exude positive energy and that's
fantastic, and if you're takingthat to the workplace every day,
then you are doing wonderfulthings.
Um say, we're going to unpackthis in more detail shortly, but
just at a at a high level, what?
What advice would you give toan hr leader trying to move from
reactive to strategic when itcomes to people data?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
yeah, my top level advice is never stop measuring
Performance engagement retention.
You need a consistent,orchestrated flow of data to
really give you a reliable storyof not just what has happened,
which the past is fine, good tolearn from, but really about
what is going to happen that youneed to plan for.
This once a year measurementjust doesn't cut it right.
I did a performance review ayear ago.
(03:42):
I had an.
This once a year measurementjust doesn't cut it right.
I did a performance review ayear ago.
I had an engagement survey ayear ago.
Think about who you were a yearago, bill.
You might have had a wholedifferent set of needs, wants,
desires, hopes than you do rightnow.
So we have to move away fromthis.
I'll measure once and I'll usethat for the rest of my year.
We need real time in the momentinformation to actually be
(04:03):
strategic and proactive.
We need real time in the momentinformation to actually be
strategic and proactive.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat
Podcast.
If you enjoy the audio contentwe produce, you'll love our
articles on the HR Gazette.
Learn more at hrgazettecom.
And now back to the show.
Oh gosh, a year ago I had morehair and weighed a few pounds
(04:32):
less.
Sigh listeners, sigh.
Okay, karina, in yourexperience, what stops companies
from acting on engagement data?
Is it cultural?
Is it structural?
Maybe it's both of those things, plus maybe a lack of
capability.
Give us your thoughts.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Yes, yes and yes to all of them.
But what I see as kind of theroot of what stops people from
acting is really a lack ofcapability.
Right, in order to hold peopleaccountable, you need a way to
do that that is reliable, thatflows on its own, that doesn't
take you, as the HR leader, 20hours of work leading up to it
(05:05):
and another 20 hours on the backend to actually make it happen,
right.
So we need to make sure that wehave internally the structures,
the tools, the bandwidth toactually put people in action,
hold them accountable to it andfigure out what happened when we
did that.
Even in really greatorganizations where our cultures
are thriving and people want todo the right thing, it's just
(05:30):
hard.
We have really complexworkplaces.
We have tons of things thatwe're trying to manage at once.
We're also people outside ofwork who are worried about our
hair and our families and all ofthese other things.
We have to make accountabilityso easy and effortless.
So I think the way to reallyget through that piece of
friction that is so common forHR leaders is just investing in
the tools that makeaccountability seamless and
flawless.
Do you have a tool that tellsyou where you need to take
(05:52):
action.
What should you do?
How are you going to measurethe outcome and then just make
that a flywheel that you repeatover and, over and over again?
In a really simple way.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Which is a fantastic lead into my next question,
which goes back to the intro.
You said it's time to move frommeasure guess hope to diagnose
plan act.
Can you briefly unpack eachstep in that new model for us
and what it looks like inpractice?
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Of course, you know I think about diagnose plan act.
That's really just that.
That's the mantra we all need,right, so that we can keep
measurements going.
It keeps us in motion on allpeople changes in a way that,
again, is just simple, effectiveand really strategic.
So let's start with diagnose.
Diagnose is all about can youidentify areas of opportunity
with the data you have, Create ashared understanding of what is
(06:43):
happening in the most importantpockets of my population,
pockets that are related to mystrategic goals as a people
function and, ultimately, thestrategic goals as a business,
right?
So, as an example of that, do Iknow that if I have a company
goal that we're going toincrease our engineering team by
15% this year, can I figure out?
(07:04):
How are my engineering managersdoing?
How's that population doing?
What does that group need?
Not just saying what does mywhole company need, but
different groups within yourorganization who really need you
, and then we move on to plan.
So this is all about buildingaccountable, measurable
strategies that align back toyour business goals.
So how are you going to makethings better?
I know I need betterengineering managers, but what
(07:26):
does better look like?
Oh, I can see in my seniorengineering leaders that they're
not very good at givingfeedback.
They give feedback once everythree months, and now look what
that's doing to their teamengagement.
So now I have a plan for it.
That's what I need to tackle.
Here's how I'm going to do itin a really simple way.
And then that leads us to whatwe were just talking about, Bill
, the most important thing actaway.
And then that leads us to whatwe were just talking about, Bill
(07:48):
, the most important thing act.
Can I scale really impactfulaction?
Can I actually get the actionsout there?
Can I give people somethingthat's in their flow of work,
easy to do, and then quicklymeasure the outcome on the other
side?
Did that make a difference?
Am I actually on the track tosomething right here?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Okay, love it.
Can you think of a use case acompany that's been able to
successfully make that shift toDiagnose Plan Act?
If so, what were some of theoutcomes?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, for sure, I think.
One that I'm really excitedabout sharing is actually a case
study that 15.5 just recentlyreleased, with 360 Insights
about an organization calledTrust Radius.
Their head of people, jamieConrad, is an amazing woman and
her story is really all aboutcoming into an organization
where 15.5 was relatively newbut was not strategically rolled
out.
She came in as a new leaderwith a relatively new tool and
(08:37):
nothing was happening with it.
There weren't any insights,there were no actions.
So prior to really getting into15.5 and re-rolling it out,
their attrition was at 40%.
They had no reliable engagementmeasurement.
They were using all differentkinds of ad hoc surveys but no
singular one that they couldtrack and really rely on, and
they didn't know what washappening with their employees
(08:58):
across their sites in generalfor sentiment or attrition.
It was just all a big mess.
It was all a big black box, andso when Jamie really re-rolled
15.5 out to the organization,she was able to utilize what we
call our HR outcomes dashboardand that's where all those
diagnostics live.
So things like managereffectiveness, engagement,
(09:20):
performance reviews, and thatreally helped her work with the
leaders to become more in tunewith what their teams needed see
the trends that mattered andactually start to target them in
different pockets.
So over a course of a coupleyears they took that attrition
down from 40% to 8%, which isawesome.
They increased their employeesentiment from a three to a four
(09:41):
on a five-point scale and theirmanagers started seeing
engagement increase in theirteams because they were
constantly in tune with them,they really understood what they
needed and they hadaccountability to actually take
the action and feel like itmattered for them.
So it was really thatpersonalized approach through
Diagnose Plan Act that made thatbig difference across those
(10:01):
people metrics that matter to us.
They're ultimately the thingswe report to for our board, for
the rest of our C suite and backout to the organization.
So it's a really, really coolexperience and Jamie is just one
of those really special,exceptional leaders and I love
telling people about her storyand pointing them to her example
of just doing it really welland keeping it going.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Wonderful Jamie.
If you're listening, you are arock star, or should I say an HR
superstar?
Okay, or both, both, as I liketo do on this show.
From time to time, I like toswitch things up, and I'm going
to do that right now and I'mgoing to challenge you to answer
the next question in 60 secondsor less.
What, bill?
Don't do this to me.
(10:41):
I've got prepared answers.
Come on, okay.
And the question is as followspaid answers come on, um, okay.
And the question is as followsin 60 seconds or less, karina,
how does this diagnosticapproach help elevate the role
of hr within the business?
Speaker 3 (10:55):
it does that by putting us in the same seat as
all other functions that arebeing data driven.
Right, being data driven is thestrategy your whole
organization is doing.
So if if you're not doing that,then you're separating yourself
, you're siloing yourself fromother leaders.
When we use data to drive whatwe're doing, we're bonded with
the organization.
We're bonded with our otherC-suite leaders.
(11:15):
We become invaluable,irreplaceable and, ultimately,
that's really how we need to seeourselves.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Once in a while, an event series is born that shakes
things up, it makes you thinkdifferently and it leaves you
inspired.
That event is Disrupt HR.
The format is 14 speakers, 5minutes each and slides rotate
every 15 seconds.
If you're an HR professional, aCEO, a technologist or a
community leader and you've gotsomething to say about talent,
(11:46):
culture or technology, disruptis the place.
It's coming soon to a city nearyou.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Oh, you're good.
You're good.
You had many seconds to spare,Karina.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Look, you know, I thank my new Nespresso machine
for that.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Okay, next question for you and feel free to take a
little bit longer.
What role does real-timeanalytics and or AI?
We can't have an episode of theHR chat show these days without
talking about AI.
What role does real-timeanalytics or AI play in enabling
more targeted, timely action onengagement?
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Such an important role and I think, especially now
and where the workplace isgoing again with the added
complexities, not just of whatwe're facing all as employees,
but of what managers are facing.
I mean, they're managing teamsthat are navigating all these
different challenges internally.
Externally, they're thinkingabout AI.
Again, we have to make thingsso seamless and effortless for
our leaders to drive thoseactions within their teams, and
(12:52):
when we do that, they reallyhave to know what matters Like,
again, what matters to you, Bill, versus what matters to me.
What a high-performing HRVP onmy team needs is not what a high
performing sales leader needs.
Those are two totally differentthings, and so real-time
analytics and AI thatcombination allows you to get an
in-the-moment pulse on what isactually happening for your
(13:15):
people what do they need, whatare they feeling and how can I
then, as their leader, adapt andget that real-time coaching.
And what that looks like veryspecifically for something like
15.5 is we have a tool that werecently launched called Kona,
which is our AI assisted coach.
Right, and it's all aboutpersonalized in the flow of work
, coaching to grow managers andservice of driving performance
(13:37):
and engagement.
So Kona, being an AI assistedcoach, joins you in a meeting
and gives you feedback afterwardthat says, bill, you did this
so well with Karina.
You recognized her recent work.
Thanks for doing that.
But what you haven't done isfollowed up on that career
conversation from three weeksago that she told you was really
important.
Here's a tip of what you shoulddo next that, with all the
(13:58):
other things that you're doingin your world, that surfaces to
you what's most important.
So you don't leave that meetinggoing.
Oh yeah, this is what I'm goingto do for Karina next.
You actually know, hey, this iswhat matters to her.
And don't forget, based on herengagement survey, she's a high
performer who's slightlydisengaged.
Really, put in a little bit ofextra time there.
Make sure that you don't loseher.
That's a more modern approachwhere I'm not looking back four
(14:20):
months from now going what did Ido wrong?
How did I lose that person?
I'm 10 steps ahead of it.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
I'm trying to stay as close to those things as
possible and actually making areal difference that matters to
the person I'm working with so,um, quite a few years ago we had
your colleague on the HR chatshow and as part of that we did
a bit of a swap, uh, with the hrsuperstars podcast and I I had
(14:46):
a lovely time being a guest onthat show, along with my co-host
, christopher buehling.
Um, fantastic show.
You're heavily involved with it.
I've seen on linkedin you'realways sharing content and
whatnot and talking about allthe wonderful guests.
My goodness me, you've got alot of wonderful guests.
Uh, good work.
Can you just take a minute orso now and tell our listeners a
bit about the hr superstarspodcast?
(15:07):
What makes it different?
Why is it enjoyable?
Tell us more of course.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Well, um, I hope at this point you think it's
enjoyable because you've heardme talk and you maybe want to
hear more, but mostly because wedo have these incredible guests
who come on that are realpractitioners in hr.
It's.
It's not about all thesedifferent kind of philosophies
or ideas that you hear and youwonder how am I ever going to
make this work in my company.
It's, these are people doingthe work.
They're on the ground, they'reactually seeing how this is and
(15:33):
you get to walk away fromsuperstars with tangible actions
, tangible ideas, a new way ofthinking to really challenge all
of us to be much more strategicand, I think, step into the
world that HR is going intoright.
We have to move away from this.
We're just administrators,we're just helpers, we're just
support, we are business leaderslike every other leader who is
(15:55):
in the organization at the table, and my hope is that through HR
superstars, people leavefeeling empowered and excited to
get into that.
Even if it's a little bit scaryor a little bit new, you've got
a whole community rallyingbehind you okay, so quick
follow-up to that one.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Uh, can you offer a couple of guests that have been
on the show that have left youengaged and excited?
By the way, I hate thisquestion.
When people ask me thisquestion what are your favorite
guests?
Bill the show, who's left animpact, I always try and sit on
the fence.
Uh, just to preface any answeryou're about to give uh, love it
.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Well, I'll say, you know, my future favorite guest
will be you, bill, when youreturn back on.
So I'm excited for that.
Um, you know, honestly, I willsay, one of the guests who's
really just got me so lit uprecently was david hawthorne we
did just release this episodebut he's chief people officer at
Anger Point, this consultinggroup that runs all kinds of
different chain organizations inthe US, and he just was such a
(16:51):
down to earth, regular personwho I think you would imagine
like man, you're part of a bigorganization, you're this huge
chief people officer.
You must be, I don't know justlike sometimes so disconnected
we feel like.
And he was one of just thecoolest people that had great
advice.
I mean, I think you know a fewof the things he said have
always be important, like alwaysmake sure that you are
(17:13):
invaluable to your organization.
He had a ton of great examplesof real leadership on the ground
, like with people doing hardjobs.
I mean we think techorganizations are hard and tough
jobs but at the end of the day,that's not like serving food at
a fast food restaurant to 50guests who are yelling at you or
angry, or their kids are crying.
I mean, that's a differentlevel of stress and how he
(17:35):
builds people support andleadership there.
I just thought it was reallyreally cool and really special
to hear his perspective.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I like that a lot, lot and, yes, I would love to
come on the show again soon.
Um, and also, just you know,while we're recording here, I'd
love to invite you onto thepeople and performance podcast
with christopher bjorn and I, uh, which is a another show which
is quite fun, and I think you'dbe a great guest.
So if you're interested in that, let's exchange deets after
this let's keep it going allright, all right, we'll spread
(18:03):
the love.
Um, okay, uh, because I batch mylife listeners.
I've got another recording inthree minutes.
So, karina, just to wrap thingsup for today, how can our
listeners connect with you isthat linkedin, email, tiktok,
instagram, all those things?
And how can they learn moreabout 15 five?
Speaker 3 (18:20):
I am at the end of a one year social media break, so
don't find me on Instagram rightnow, but maybe in a couple of
weeks you will Come to LinkedIn.
Find me there.
Find me on HR Superstars.
If anyone here is going toShermer, we'll be there.
I'll be there with the rest ofthe 15.5 team.
But yeah, seek me out, I'mthere.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I love connecting with the community.
I am very close to booking mytickets to show.
I've got the media pass sorted.
I just got a flight past mywonderful other half, but if I
do go, I'm going to look you up,karina.
For today, though, thank youvery much for being my guest.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
My pleasure, bill.
Thank you so much for having me, and I'll see you in San Diego
or on my podcast sometime soon.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Done.
And listeners, as always, untilnext time.
Happy working done.
And listeners, as always, untilnext time, happy working thanks
for listening to the hr chatshow.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and
listen to some of the hundredsof episodes published by hr
gazette and remember for what'snew in the?
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