May 6, 2024 • 25 mins
Join host Mark Williams and guest, Amy Myers, CMO of NFM, as they delve into the intricacies of preserving company culture in the era of remote work.
In this episode, Amy draws upon her experiences at Nebraska Furniture Mart to explore the challenges and triumphs of maintaining a strong organizational culture when faced with a dispersed workforce. Amy underscores the pivotal role of communication, unveiling the company's robust communication strategy designed to foster connectivity and engagement among employees. Tune in for invaluable insights and actionable tips on cultivating a thriving remote work culture.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Williams (00:07):
You're listening to Balance, Not Burnout, a
podcast helping leaders rethinkthe speed of their business. And
I'm your host Mark Williams.
Join me as I explore the powerof a more intentional, balanced
approach to leadership. Thanksfor listening.
Hey, everybody, welcome toBalance, Not Burnout season two,
(00:29):
Episode Seven. And I'm reallyexcited today, we've got Amy
Myers with us. Amy is the ChiefMarketing Officer for Nebraska
Furniture Mart. She handlescreating and executing the
overall strategy of NebraskaFurniture Mart marketing
department to achieve alignmentand consistency across all
marketing channels and elevatethe customer experience.
(00:49):
Throughout Amy's career, she hasworked with organizations like
Gordmans Things Remembered KraftFoods, and Spiegel Catalog. Amy
oversees a team of 125. But whatyou might not know is they have
over 5000 employees acrossseveral states. So we really
thought it'd be interesting totalk to me a little bit today
about how she manages all ofthat. And again, Balance Not
(01:11):
Burnout. So Amy, welcome to theshow.
Unknown (01:12):
Hi, thank you.
Mark Williams (01:14):
Why don't you give us a little bit of
background and how you ended upat Nebraska Furniture Mart.
Amy Myers (01:18):
Oh, you know, I've always been in a form of retail.
And I actually ended up movingto Omaha, which is where
Nebraska Furniture Mart islocated. When I went to
Gordmans, which was 100 year oldretailer, and unfortunately,
their doors closed, but at thesame time an opportunity came up
here. So I got to stay and jointhis Berkshire Hathaway company,
(01:42):
which is interesting. And it'sit's a entirely different model
for home furnishings, you know,their large format and, you
know, kind of generally takeover a city when we come in. So
it's been five years, April 1.
Mark Williams (01:56):
Awesome. Oh, congratulations. Prior to every
episode, or starting everyepisode, we always ask a
question. And I usually reserveactually usually reserved this
for the end of the show. But Ithought I would mix it up just a
little bit. So Amy, I want youto envision a Saturday or Sunday
morning, you have noresponsibilities, you can do
(02:16):
what you want be with whomeveryou want. Describe for me your
perfect Saturday morning.
Amy Myers (02:23):
I'm a reader. So my Saturday mornings are generally
coffee, reading, sitting on thesofa catching up with my
husband. Fair, very easy,straightforward. Awesome.
Mark Williams (02:35):
And let's add to that, what do you like to read?
Amy Myers (02:38):
You know, I cover a lot of things. I'm reading this
book I love right now. It'scalled The Future Wave? Yeah, I
think it's Solomon was stuff Ibelieve is the name. And it's
just talking about AI futurewave of AI and talking about
(02:58):
sort of the longer termimplications, it's actually it's
a fairly new book and fabulous,highly recommend
Mark Williams (03:04):
super fantastic, especially AI, we could talk for
hours on that about where that'sheaded. But let's revert let's
go back to Balance, Not Burnout.
So maintaining a companyculture, I even know for me,
after COVID, having people inthe office and out of office,
and we only have one location,maintaining that culture with
people spread out can be verydifficult. Why don't you share
with us a little bit about howyou do that? What steps do you
(03:26):
take to number one, justmaintain the culture within that
type of organization?
Amy Myers (03:33):
It is. So we've got 5000 people, we're spread
across, you know, multiplestates. And significant number
of people, you know, we we'vegot our home offices in Omaha.
But that's, you know, we've got1000s of people at each store.
So in Dallas and Kansas City andDes Moines, and obviously Omaha.
So it takes a lot of focus,we've got an outstanding HR
(03:54):
group that, you know, makesbeing an employer of choice and
carrying the culture throughoutthe organization. Number one in
what they focus on, I think forus, it's really about
communication. And we've got areally heavy communication
strategy for all the employeesthat just constantly gets the
(04:16):
message out there. We do it in alot of different ways. But it's
it's keeping the constantcommunication is the tone that
you want to set in the themessage that we want to get out
there. So that's a big part ofit for us.
Mark Williams (04:28):
How do you. For us, it's very difficult for us
to track engagement, opening andclosing. You know, emails are
easy. I'm curious with thedifferent modes of
communication. How do you knowpeople are actually getting the
message?
Amy Myers (04:41):
Well, one of the things we do is what we call Tic
Tac. So across the company,every single person, there's a
daily 10 minute meeting, take 10It's a different times. So
they're generally ran bymanagers. So if you're, you
know, on the store floor, itmight be a 10th already before
the floor opens, for me, it's at10 o'clock with my team, there's
(05:04):
people that that have it on, youknow, two in the afternoon,
there's people in the overnightshifts that they start their,
you know, 11pm shift, they'll dotheir take 10. And the take 10
is a kind of a bulletin andeveryone goes to the same
information. So it might besomething that's going on in the
business, it might be somethingfrom a benefits that's changing.
(05:25):
It is people's anniversaries, itis celebrating birthdays. And so
for 10 minutes a day, everysingle person in the company
gets the same message, and theydo it live. So it's it or
virtual, depending but it's readto you. So you're engaged, you
know, in the moment, and a lotof times people do extra things,
they'll throw on games at theend for theirs, or they've got
(05:47):
their own team, you know,dynamic. But that is probably
the best spot that we knoweveryone's getting the message.
And we have an internal intranetsite that people use, and you
can kind of who's reading it.
But if you really think aboutthe things, we want to get out
that 10 minutes a day. I lovethat person gets is just
(06:08):
amazing. Yeah, I
Mark Williams (06:11):
love that. And so so let's expand a little bit on
that, is it? I'm curious, do youcreate the bullet pointed list
and disperse that to allmanagement? Or is each team
creating their own 10 minutelist?
Amy Myers (06:23):
It's so there's a corporate list that you can you
can submit something to take 10Yep. And it doesn't just go to
management. When it's published.
Actually, it's publishedeverybody. But the 10 minutes,
is someone actually taking themoment to say, Okay, let's all
go through this, let's all gothrough, and the manager goes
through and talks about it. Soit's the same for everybody. And
you tend to make some, you know,adjustments on if you want to
(06:45):
add something at the end,particularly to your team
specifically. But yeah, it's,it's you, you could put
something into it, it'savailable to everybody. But it's
the same message.
Mark Williams (06:57):
That's fantastic.
And your team is actuallyproducing that bullet point,
every single of those bulletpoints every single day. It's
actually our HR team, they do itevery single day. That is
fantastic. I love that. And howdo you know that every
employees? So I'm assumingthat's a management structure?
Right. So that it's dictatedthat every employee must be
touched for 10 minutes every daywith with that with that
message? I love that. And what'sthe feedback from that from the
(07:20):
employees about it? Is it Oh,it's another, you know, it's our
take 10, or they actually lookedforward to the you know, are
there are announcements thatthey're using, with customers,
or, or I imagine your storerooms and stock rooms and all
that kind of thing
Amy Myers (07:34):
we did. So there'll be some time stories in there
about a good customerinteraction. I think
particularly it's, it's sort of,it's such a key part of the
culture, because it's like amoment of everyone coming
together, that it, it is justpart of your day. And it sort of
sets the tone. And, you know,like I said, there's some
managers that will do, you know,a game at the end, or they'll
(07:56):
have a trivia and so they addlittle things to that, that fits
the tone of their teamspecifically, but it's just a
really, it's a good, repetitivething that this is part of my
day, you know, every day I getto see my team, I get to, you
know, laugh a little and listen,sometimes, you know, it's
virtual and cameras are off, butpeople are listening and
(08:16):
sharing.
Mark Williams (08:17):
I love that.
Let's talk a little bit. Sothat's the communication piece.
And I would agree, we havesomething called pole path. And
we actually had the CEO of pullpath. It's a it's an interactive
newsletter, so to speak, that Iput out monthly with my
employees, we upload videos,usually a video message. And
it's kind of like a game youearn points for if you if you
provide gamification, yeah. Andthen they get prizes. It's
(08:40):
fantastic. It's one of thethings that our employees talk
about the most, because it is acommunication piece. We also do
townhall meetings. I'm curious,do you how do you update the
employees on our their townhalls? And how do they know the
financial well being of thecompany, especially across so
many states in so manylocations? Yeah,
Amy Myers (08:57):
that's, you know, there's a couple, you know, kind
of continuing thatcommunication. There's a couple
of different things we do. Ourexecutive team actually meets
every single morning, we call itpower hour. It started during
COVID. And we have continuedthat it was one of the things we
took out of COVID that we'relike, you know, this was we
started doing it because we usedto meet monthly, and we that
(09:19):
wasn't working during COVID. Sowe met seven days a week 830
Every single day, Saturday,Sunday, Monday, you know,
everyday, but it gave ourexecutive team that we we got
very nimble, because things werechanging every single day very,
very quickly. And we came out ofCOVID and said, you know, we
think this still works, youknow, it's a chance for us to
(09:39):
quickly, you know, shareinformation, talk about business
yesterday, if we thinkanything's changing, and it gets
it very quickly distributedacross our senior team, and then
they can choose to, you know,cascade out what makes sense
from from that meeting. And, youknow, that's a commitment that
we make for a time commitment asa senior team. Sometimes it's a
five minute meetings, sometimesit's an hour Depending on how,
(10:01):
you know, big the issues are, wedo a, I think one of the other
couple things that we do that welove. Twice a year, our chairman
of the board, who's Ron B,who's, you know, grandmother
started the company, he actuallydoes a state of the state is
what he calls it, where he, hegoes live to every region. And
(10:22):
he also he'll do, he'll schedulethese, there's multiple
different meetings that he'sscheduled, so that you can come
and he talks about the business.
And he talks through themetrics. And he talks through
the the revenue and the profitand any initiatives. And you
know, he'll do one at midnight,in a, because the warehouse team
might start, you know, rightbefore that, and that's when
they can do it, he'll be inTexas, and he'll do a 5am,
(10:44):
because that's the best time forthe customer service team down
there. And it's really this hugecommitment that he makes to the
organization and gets in frontof them and and tells the story
of what's going on with thebusiness. That's
Mark Williams (10:59):
I love to hear that thing. Yeah, I love to hear
that. Obviously, even from thetop of the organization
communication, and being infront of his employees is
important to him, and itpermeates throughout the entire
organization. When I was young,my dad used to say there's an
expression that fish stinks fromthe head, right. So my dad used
to say a teacher takes on theflavor of the class, an
(11:20):
organization takes on the flavorof the person that runs that,
and clearly a dedication to youremployees. And when we were
talking previously, it's amazingto me in a retail organization
like yours, you ever really lowturnover rate, even across all
of your organization talk alittle bit about that. And it's
I'm sure communication is partof it. But it's pretty
impressive to have, especiallyin an organization that's 24
(11:41):
hours a day with three differentshifts. Talk a little bit about
how the, how you've maintained alow turnover rate in that type
of environment.
Amy Myers (11:48):
Yeah, it's interesting, because we just had
our last night we had eachregion we do this day of
celebration, and the Omaha onewas last night. And one of the
things that that's it, it's justa celebration, it's awards. And
it's you know, people that gotnominated by other people and
get a president's award from ourCEO. And one of the things that
(12:09):
popped up on the screen is wehave over 500 people that have
been with us 20 plus years. Wow.
And 20 Plus, there's the 20 Plusclub, and they do an annual
party, which I don't get invitedto because I'm not in that club.
So you earn your way into it,there is no, there's no
Statistik that gets you in andyou have to find your 20 years,
but I think it's it's, you know,and it reminds me I go back,
(12:31):
when you start with NFM, youhave two days of orientation.
Everybody's in there together,you're all together. And I still
remember, my orientation hasbeen, you know, almost five
years. And there it's during theday different people come in to
talk about different things, butthere's some panels and this
gentleman said he had been here20 plus years, and he said and
(12:52):
he had a different jobs, but hesaid you know what, I've got
four kids, I never missed abaseball game, never missed a
daughter's basketball game nevermissed a gymnastics meet. And,
and he was talking to peoplethat were new about how the
company values that because youknow that that that takes, you
know, being at a company thatvalues the fact that you can go
(13:13):
to your kids basketball game,and that you can go to your
kids, you know, baseball gameand and he was sharing back that
you know how much that had meantto him and his career there. So
I think so much of it is builtinto the culture of the company.
And you know what, what youvalue and you don't have people
here 500 People for 20 yearsunless you take care of them.
(13:34):
Put them first and you know,value their work life balance.
It's
Mark Williams (13:42):
amazing that you say that I have found the same
even within our organization,only 120 530 employees, we make
it a point that family is first.
If you have a situation at home,go home. The last thing I want
is an employee who ispreoccupied with issues at home.
And we all have run into thatwhether it's someone that's ill,
or going through a divorce,unfortunately, you know, just
(14:04):
life events happen. And whenwhen you're consumed with life
events, you're not at work, evenif you're at work, you're not at
work. So it's wonderful to hear,especially across an
organization that's so largewith so many employees. Let's do
it. But you've done somethingeven more interesting when all
of that I think is your podcast.
So the company created apodcast, which I think is super
interesting. So why don't youtalk a little bit about that
(14:25):
another wave of communicationand a modern way of
communicating with youremployees.
Amy Myers (14:29):
Yeah, it is and we started a an external podcast
called this this home. I am homeexcuse me called I am home about
it launched March of 2020, whichwas kind of a perfect, you know,
time to launch and now we're,you know, all these years in and
over 100 and some episodes butwe also so that's a great way
(14:50):
for us to to tell our message toour customers and you know, we
talk about business, we talkabout different things with our
home. We have celebrities comein, but we also but then decided
it was working so wellexternally that we wanted to
take it internally as well. Andso our CEO does a podcast called
Tony talks. His name is Tony,Tony bolt. And it's really this
(15:12):
unvarnished audio and video thathe does that he will answer
questions that people send in,he'll talk about, you know,
good, bad, and the ugly anythinggoing on with with business. And
he's just incredibly truthfuland straightforward, and sort of
says it, you know, like it isand explains what's going on? Or
(15:34):
why he made a decision andanswers questions. And that
plays for we do at about everyother month. And it gives people
a chance to just hear from himdirectly, and hear it in his
voice and what he says and theycan listen to it, they play it
in like the in the differentbreak rooms, it'll be playing,
it'll be on our intranet sitethat he can they can watch it,
(15:56):
but it's a really, there'snothing like that sort of just,
it's not scripted. You know,it's not love it. It's just his
chance to just talk and just,you know, talk through like,
yeah, this this is this iswhat's going on, this is what's
going on. And this is why yousee that that happened, and
people ask anonymous andsometimes very difficult
(16:17):
questions and answers it. Andit's, I think that that
transparency does a lot.
Mark Williams (16:23):
Well, I will share with you, I need to thank
you personally, I just started,we call it drop the mic. And
it's, I have started everymonth, I do an open zoom call
with any employee, any employeecan join. It's it's set up on
the calendar. It's amazing, Ilove it set up on a calendar,
like a meeting. It's an openforum where it's a zoom call, no
(16:46):
matter where I am in the countryif I'm traveling or fine at home
or in the office. And it's alive zoom call for any employee
that wants to get on. And wehave no set agenda. And
literally last week, we did ourfirst one we had about 30
employees on we talked about i iwas asked several questions
about the company and ourperformance and things we're
doing. But even funnier, we justsometimes we just talked about
(17:09):
nothing like literally the candybars that we like to eat, or who
made what for dinner. And thecomments that came back to me,
me personally through email andinstant messenger, and our
intranet was, wow, you're justlike us, right? Like, you're
just a normal person who doesnormal things and eats a candy
bar when he stops at the Casey'sand it was a lot of fun and just
(17:32):
the feedback of being able tointeract, ask questions about
the company. And that we are weare concerned with what our
employees think about thecompany and the feedback that we
get. And I think that shows, andit means a lot to me. And I
think it means a lot to theemployee. So obviously that's
working for you guys as well.
Yeah,
Amy Myers (17:49):
I think it's such a humanizing, too, because then
it's not just this decisionsmade from you know, at the top
of the mountain, it's like,okay, let's we can talk about
it, you know, and hear from yourleader. So I love that you did
that. I think that's great.
Mark Williams (18:04):
So you've been there for five years, if you
were to provide advice to anincoming manager into an
organization like yours,multiple locations, 24 hours,
three shifts, customerswarehouses, what kind of what's
the maybe the top three thingsadvice with respect to
communication, that you wouldoffer someone starting new with
(18:26):
a company,
Amy Myers (18:27):
you know, you probably can't over communicate.
But I think the bigger thing islistening. If you come in new,
you got to, and it's somethingthat I had to do when I came in,
and you have to fight it becauseyour instinct when you come in
someplace new is to, you know,talk about what you're seeing
and talk about what you thinkbut really listening for as long
(18:48):
as you can and that, you know,that's a critical part of
communication. Being present,listening, and then kind of
taking it all in before youbefore you move. Sure.
Mark Williams (18:59):
Let's talk a little bit about burnout. You've
got some interesting, you havethree shifts of employees that
come into the office, I'm surethat there are times of the year
that are more hectic thanothers. And maybe that's not
true. I don't know much aboutthe furniture business, quite
honestly. But how do you how doyou handle even internal burnout
with your employees expect? Ormaybe it's the sales floor when
(19:20):
there's a rush? How do you Howdoes the hand the company handle
that type of situation? Orwhat's the message back to
employees with respect to that?
Amy Myers (19:28):
You know, I think one of the things we're good at is
one we give it voice. So I'm andI will use, you know, my team as
an example is we had a bigchange that was happening in q4,
which was late in the game wemade a pivot that we needed to
make and one of the things wetalked about as the group is
(19:49):
it's it's okay to say this sucksthat we have to do this. It's
you don't have to smile and actlike it doesn't suck and you
don't have to, you know we cansay that openly. We can give it
voice And we can say, yep, a weknow it's the right thing. And
all of those those reasons, butyou know, it's also a lot of
extra work. And it's okay togive voice to that. And I think
(20:12):
that's, you know, part of truth.
And you know, and it doesn'tmean you're moping around, you
know, as an ER, but you're justlike, yep. Okay, you know,
let's, let's, let's, let's notbe afraid, and you don't have to
be afraid to say in front of me,you know, as the as the manager
that you don't have to be like,Yay, that's okay. So I think
that's, that's kind of part ofthe culture of the company. I
(20:32):
mean, we, we have a great HRteam that does a lot to help
support our managers and helps,you know, whether, you know,
there's little things that theydo, you know, throughout the
year, there's a lot of supportfrom organizational development
on burnout, there's actually youcan literally, you know, we had
two meditation sessions thatsomeone did a virtual meditation
last year, and you could jointhose. And so there's an
(20:54):
infrastructure for those, thatthat type of, you know, support.
But I think a lot of it's justculture and attitude that kind
of in this together, and, youknow, it's okay, we can we can
talk about this, and and we'regoing to get through to the
other side, for sure.
Mark Williams (21:13):
Yeah, that transparency, I think is
incredibly important. We had avery recent change to our PTO
policy, our, our time offpolicy. And for it was the the
number of hours that could becarried over. And we were
purchased several years ago byanother company, and we're
merging some of the benefitpackages. And we had a reduction
in the number of hours thatpeople could carry over. And
(21:35):
there wasn't a lot that I coulddo about it. And to use some
terminology, it stuck. And forsome employees, they lost, they
lost a little bit of PTO hours.
They weren't using them. Butthat Bank of ours was was kind
of a boost for them. Right. Itwas a security blanket so to
speak. And they lost a littlebit of it and asked, I was asked
to directly at a town hall and Ireadily admitted it's a bummer
(21:57):
for you. You're right, you lostthat benefit. You lost little
bit of that benefit. There's noway around that. And although
they were unhappy about it, theyunderstood it number one, and I
think they appreciated that.
Yeah, I was honest. It's
Unknown (22:10):
it's not fun. Yeah.
You're locked in to try to spinit.
Mark Williams (22:14):
It's alright. You know,
Amy Myers (22:16):
there's times that goes bad. Yeah,
Mark Williams (22:17):
yeah, it just, it just wasn't a good situation.
And I think that goes a longway. Again, we do a lot for our
employees, that sounds like muchlike you and maintaining that.
That level of honesty,transparency. I know that's kind
of a buzzword, but just beingused authentic, or that seems to
be another buzzword or hearingjust just being real and
(22:38):
understanding that yeah, somethings just sometimes don't go
our way. And that's okay. Right.
That's, that's that world welive in? Fantastic. A little
bit. Tell me a little bit aboutI'm looking at the KPIs on your
behind you, you've got a wholeboard full of a whole bunch of
metrics. In my world, I havethem for our industry, I'm sure
(22:58):
you have them for yours. How doyou communicate your metrics
out? And how often do you do itfor your employees? I'm curious,
because you're looking, you'vegot a lot of graphs up on your
on your board. Yeah, and
Amy Myers (23:11):
you can see they're actually the skylines of the
cities that we're in. Okay,sometimes, like EKG charts,
yeah. Sometimes it looks likemetrics. So but we, you know,
our, we have a corporatescorecard that is available to
anyone at any time. So you cango on our intranet site and pull
it up, and it's updated weekly,and we talk about it monthly.
(23:34):
But we agree on these, you know,number there's probably 23 I
think, metrics that we're goingto measure, you know, as a
company, and we talk to thoseand probably every one rolls up
to one or more of them duringthe year. But, you know, talking
about just transparency, I mean,anybody can pull those up at any
time and get a look at them andI think it's part of that open
(23:59):
culture.
Mark Williams (24:00):
Sure. Amy, I can't thank you enough for being
on the show today.
Unknown (24:05):
Thanks for inviting me You bet.
Mark Williams (24:06):
Let's close with this. So first net Nebraska
Furniture Mart and give us aquick commercial for Nebraska
Furniture Mart.
Amy Myers (24:13):
Well, you've you've got to be in our region's Omaha,
Kansas City and Dallas and I'msure you know us but you know,
we have fantastic quality, thebest prices that you can get and
you know, we were started as awe're at seven years old this
year and it you know, startedwith Mrs. B who was a Russian
(24:34):
immigrant woman in 1937 whostarted the business and we're
super proud of that legacy andyou know, talk about it you
know, probably almost every daythat we started with the with
with someone who came in andjust wanted to help the
customers and get good productsat great prices.
Mark Williams (24:53):
Fantastic. Couple of takeaways, management
meetings every day. You've gotyour 10 Minute huddle, your your
10 Min. That meeting everymorning, which I love, passing
out the bullet points, and it'sgoing to all levels of the
organization throughout everyshift of the organization and
across multiple states and manylocations. So, kudos to Nebraska
Furniture Mart and Amy Myers.
Thanks very much for being onthe show. We really appreciate
(25:16):
it. Thanks again. Thanks forlistening. If you think balance
is as important as I do, at workand all throughout your life,
help the show out by leaving mea five star review following me
on social media, or sharing thepodcast with someone you think
would appreciate it. If you havecomments or questions. I'd love
for you to join the conversationwith me on LinkedIn. I want to
thank OBI Creative for producingthe podcast and swells beats
(25:38):
forgetting the music for me.
Thanks for sharing your timewith me today. And until next
time, this is Mark signing off.
You're listening to Balance, Not Burnout, a
podcast helping leaders rethinkthe speed of their business. And
I'm your host Mark Williams.
Join me as I explore the powerof a more intentional, balanced
approach to leadership. Thanksfor listening.
Hey, everybody, welcome toBalance, Not Burnout season two,
(00:29):
Episode Seven. And I'm reallyexcited today, we've got Amy
Myers with us. Amy is the ChiefMarketing Officer for Nebraska
Furniture Mart. She handlescreating and executing the
overall strategy of NebraskaFurniture Mart marketing
department to achieve alignmentand consistency across all
marketing channels and elevatethe customer experience.
(00:49):
Throughout Amy's career, she hasworked with organizations like
Gordmans Things Remembered KraftFoods, and Spiegel Catalog. Amy
oversees a team of 125. But whatyou might not know is they have
over 5000 employees acrossseveral states. So we really
thought it'd be interesting totalk to me a little bit today
about how she manages all ofthat. And again, Balance Not
(01:11):
Burnout. So Amy, welcome to theshow.
Unknown (01:12):
Hi, thank you.
Mark Williams (01:14):
Why don't you give us a little bit of
background and how you ended upat Nebraska Furniture Mart.
Amy Myers (01:18):
Oh, you know, I've always been in a form of retail.
And I actually ended up movingto Omaha, which is where
Nebraska Furniture Mart islocated. When I went to
Gordmans, which was 100 year oldretailer, and unfortunately,
their doors closed, but at thesame time an opportunity came up
here. So I got to stay and jointhis Berkshire Hathaway company,
(01:42):
which is interesting. And it'sit's a entirely different model
for home furnishings, you know,their large format and, you
know, kind of generally takeover a city when we come in. So
it's been five years, April 1.
Mark Williams (01:56):
Awesome. Oh, congratulations. Prior to every
episode, or starting everyepisode, we always ask a
question. And I usually reserveactually usually reserved this
for the end of the show. But Ithought I would mix it up just a
little bit. So Amy, I want youto envision a Saturday or Sunday
morning, you have noresponsibilities, you can do
(02:16):
what you want be with whomeveryou want. Describe for me your
perfect Saturday morning.
Amy Myers (02:23):
I'm a reader. So my Saturday mornings are generally
coffee, reading, sitting on thesofa catching up with my
husband. Fair, very easy,straightforward. Awesome.
Mark Williams (02:35):
And let's add to that, what do you like to read?
Amy Myers (02:38):
You know, I cover a lot of things. I'm reading this
book I love right now. It'scalled The Future Wave? Yeah, I
think it's Solomon was stuff Ibelieve is the name. And it's
just talking about AI futurewave of AI and talking about
(02:58):
sort of the longer termimplications, it's actually it's
a fairly new book and fabulous,highly recommend
Mark Williams (03:04):
super fantastic, especially AI, we could talk for
hours on that about where that'sheaded. But let's revert let's
go back to Balance, Not Burnout.
So maintaining a companyculture, I even know for me,
after COVID, having people inthe office and out of office,
and we only have one location,maintaining that culture with
people spread out can be verydifficult. Why don't you share
with us a little bit about howyou do that? What steps do you
(03:26):
take to number one, justmaintain the culture within that
type of organization?
Amy Myers (03:33):
It is. So we've got 5000 people, we're spread
across, you know, multiplestates. And significant number
of people, you know, we we'vegot our home offices in Omaha.
But that's, you know, we've got1000s of people at each store.
So in Dallas and Kansas City andDes Moines, and obviously Omaha.
So it takes a lot of focus,we've got an outstanding HR
(03:54):
group that, you know, makesbeing an employer of choice and
carrying the culture throughoutthe organization. Number one in
what they focus on, I think forus, it's really about
communication. And we've got areally heavy communication
strategy for all the employeesthat just constantly gets the
(04:16):
message out there. We do it in alot of different ways. But it's
it's keeping the constantcommunication is the tone that
you want to set in the themessage that we want to get out
there. So that's a big part ofit for us.
Mark Williams (04:28):
How do you. For us, it's very difficult for us
to track engagement, opening andclosing. You know, emails are
easy. I'm curious with thedifferent modes of
communication. How do you knowpeople are actually getting the
message?
Amy Myers (04:41):
Well, one of the things we do is what we call Tic
Tac. So across the company,every single person, there's a
daily 10 minute meeting, take 10It's a different times. So
they're generally ran bymanagers. So if you're, you
know, on the store floor, itmight be a 10th already before
the floor opens, for me, it's at10 o'clock with my team, there's
(05:04):
people that that have it on, youknow, two in the afternoon,
there's people in the overnightshifts that they start their,
you know, 11pm shift, they'll dotheir take 10. And the take 10
is a kind of a bulletin andeveryone goes to the same
information. So it might besomething that's going on in the
business, it might be somethingfrom a benefits that's changing.
(05:25):
It is people's anniversaries, itis celebrating birthdays. And so
for 10 minutes a day, everysingle person in the company
gets the same message, and theydo it live. So it's it or
virtual, depending but it's readto you. So you're engaged, you
know, in the moment, and a lotof times people do extra things,
they'll throw on games at theend for theirs, or they've got
(05:47):
their own team, you know,dynamic. But that is probably
the best spot that we knoweveryone's getting the message.
And we have an internal intranetsite that people use, and you
can kind of who's reading it.
But if you really think aboutthe things, we want to get out
that 10 minutes a day. I lovethat person gets is just
(06:08):
amazing. Yeah, I
Mark Williams (06:11):
love that. And so so let's expand a little bit on
that, is it? I'm curious, do youcreate the bullet pointed list
and disperse that to allmanagement? Or is each team
creating their own 10 minutelist?
Amy Myers (06:23):
It's so there's a corporate list that you can you
can submit something to take 10Yep. And it doesn't just go to
management. When it's published.
Actually, it's publishedeverybody. But the 10 minutes,
is someone actually taking themoment to say, Okay, let's all
go through this, let's all gothrough, and the manager goes
through and talks about it. Soit's the same for everybody. And
you tend to make some, you know,adjustments on if you want to
(06:45):
add something at the end,particularly to your team
specifically. But yeah, it's,it's you, you could put
something into it, it'savailable to everybody. But it's
the same message.
Mark Williams (06:57):
That's fantastic.
And your team is actuallyproducing that bullet point,
every single of those bulletpoints every single day. It's
actually our HR team, they do itevery single day. That is
fantastic. I love that. And howdo you know that every
employees? So I'm assumingthat's a management structure?
Right. So that it's dictatedthat every employee must be
touched for 10 minutes every daywith with that with that
message? I love that. And what'sthe feedback from that from the
(07:20):
employees about it? Is it Oh,it's another, you know, it's our
take 10, or they actually lookedforward to the you know, are
there are announcements thatthey're using, with customers,
or, or I imagine your storerooms and stock rooms and all
that kind of thing
Amy Myers (07:34):
we did. So there'll be some time stories in there
about a good customerinteraction. I think
particularly it's, it's sort of,it's such a key part of the
culture, because it's like amoment of everyone coming
together, that it, it is justpart of your day. And it sort of
sets the tone. And, you know,like I said, there's some
managers that will do, you know,a game at the end, or they'll
(07:56):
have a trivia and so they addlittle things to that, that fits
the tone of their teamspecifically, but it's just a
really, it's a good, repetitivething that this is part of my
day, you know, every day I getto see my team, I get to, you
know, laugh a little and listen,sometimes, you know, it's
virtual and cameras are off, butpeople are listening and
(08:16):
sharing.
Mark Williams (08:17):
I love that.
Let's talk a little bit. Sothat's the communication piece.
And I would agree, we havesomething called pole path. And
we actually had the CEO of pullpath. It's a it's an interactive
newsletter, so to speak, that Iput out monthly with my
employees, we upload videos,usually a video message. And
it's kind of like a game youearn points for if you if you
provide gamification, yeah. Andthen they get prizes. It's
(08:40):
fantastic. It's one of thethings that our employees talk
about the most, because it is acommunication piece. We also do
townhall meetings. I'm curious,do you how do you update the
employees on our their townhalls? And how do they know the
financial well being of thecompany, especially across so
many states in so manylocations? Yeah,
Amy Myers (08:57):
that's, you know, there's a couple, you know, kind
of continuing thatcommunication. There's a couple
of different things we do. Ourexecutive team actually meets
every single morning, we call itpower hour. It started during
COVID. And we have continuedthat it was one of the things we
took out of COVID that we'relike, you know, this was we
started doing it because we usedto meet monthly, and we that
(09:19):
wasn't working during COVID. Sowe met seven days a week 830
Every single day, Saturday,Sunday, Monday, you know,
everyday, but it gave ourexecutive team that we we got
very nimble, because things werechanging every single day very,
very quickly. And we came out ofCOVID and said, you know, we
think this still works, youknow, it's a chance for us to
(09:39):
quickly, you know, shareinformation, talk about business
yesterday, if we thinkanything's changing, and it gets
it very quickly distributedacross our senior team, and then
they can choose to, you know,cascade out what makes sense
from from that meeting. And, youknow, that's a commitment that
we make for a time commitment asa senior team. Sometimes it's a
five minute meetings, sometimesit's an hour Depending on how,
(10:01):
you know, big the issues are, wedo a, I think one of the other
couple things that we do that welove. Twice a year, our chairman
of the board, who's Ron B,who's, you know, grandmother
started the company, he actuallydoes a state of the state is
what he calls it, where he, hegoes live to every region. And
(10:22):
he also he'll do, he'll schedulethese, there's multiple
different meetings that he'sscheduled, so that you can come
and he talks about the business.
And he talks through themetrics. And he talks through
the the revenue and the profitand any initiatives. And you
know, he'll do one at midnight,in a, because the warehouse team
might start, you know, rightbefore that, and that's when
they can do it, he'll be inTexas, and he'll do a 5am,
(10:44):
because that's the best time forthe customer service team down
there. And it's really this hugecommitment that he makes to the
organization and gets in frontof them and and tells the story
of what's going on with thebusiness. That's
Mark Williams (10:59):
I love to hear that thing. Yeah, I love to hear
that. Obviously, even from thetop of the organization
communication, and being infront of his employees is
important to him, and itpermeates throughout the entire
organization. When I was young,my dad used to say there's an
expression that fish stinks fromthe head, right. So my dad used
to say a teacher takes on theflavor of the class, an
(11:20):
organization takes on the flavorof the person that runs that,
and clearly a dedication to youremployees. And when we were
talking previously, it's amazingto me in a retail organization
like yours, you ever really lowturnover rate, even across all
of your organization talk alittle bit about that. And it's
I'm sure communication is partof it. But it's pretty
impressive to have, especiallyin an organization that's 24
(11:41):
hours a day with three differentshifts. Talk a little bit about
how the, how you've maintained alow turnover rate in that type
of environment.
Amy Myers (11:48):
Yeah, it's interesting, because we just had
our last night we had eachregion we do this day of
celebration, and the Omaha onewas last night. And one of the
things that that's it, it's justa celebration, it's awards. And
it's you know, people that gotnominated by other people and
get a president's award from ourCEO. And one of the things that
(12:09):
popped up on the screen is wehave over 500 people that have
been with us 20 plus years. Wow.
And 20 Plus, there's the 20 Plusclub, and they do an annual
party, which I don't get invitedto because I'm not in that club.
So you earn your way into it,there is no, there's no
Statistik that gets you in andyou have to find your 20 years,
but I think it's it's, you know,and it reminds me I go back,
(12:31):
when you start with NFM, youhave two days of orientation.
Everybody's in there together,you're all together. And I still
remember, my orientation hasbeen, you know, almost five
years. And there it's during theday different people come in to
talk about different things, butthere's some panels and this
gentleman said he had been here20 plus years, and he said and
(12:52):
he had a different jobs, but hesaid you know what, I've got
four kids, I never missed abaseball game, never missed a
daughter's basketball game nevermissed a gymnastics meet. And,
and he was talking to peoplethat were new about how the
company values that because youknow that that that takes, you
know, being at a company thatvalues the fact that you can go
(13:13):
to your kids basketball game,and that you can go to your
kids, you know, baseball gameand and he was sharing back that
you know how much that had meantto him and his career there. So
I think so much of it is builtinto the culture of the company.
And you know what, what youvalue and you don't have people
here 500 People for 20 yearsunless you take care of them.
(13:34):
Put them first and you know,value their work life balance.
It's
Mark Williams (13:42):
amazing that you say that I have found the same
even within our organization,only 120 530 employees, we make
it a point that family is first.
If you have a situation at home,go home. The last thing I want
is an employee who ispreoccupied with issues at home.
And we all have run into thatwhether it's someone that's ill,
or going through a divorce,unfortunately, you know, just
(14:04):
life events happen. And whenwhen you're consumed with life
events, you're not at work, evenif you're at work, you're not at
work. So it's wonderful to hear,especially across an
organization that's so largewith so many employees. Let's do
it. But you've done somethingeven more interesting when all
of that I think is your podcast.
So the company created apodcast, which I think is super
interesting. So why don't youtalk a little bit about that
(14:25):
another wave of communicationand a modern way of
communicating with youremployees.
Amy Myers (14:29):
Yeah, it is and we started a an external podcast
called this this home. I am homeexcuse me called I am home about
it launched March of 2020, whichwas kind of a perfect, you know,
time to launch and now we're,you know, all these years in and
over 100 and some episodes butwe also so that's a great way
(14:50):
for us to to tell our message toour customers and you know, we
talk about business, we talkabout different things with our
home. We have celebrities comein, but we also but then decided
it was working so wellexternally that we wanted to
take it internally as well. Andso our CEO does a podcast called
Tony talks. His name is Tony,Tony bolt. And it's really this
(15:12):
unvarnished audio and video thathe does that he will answer
questions that people send in,he'll talk about, you know,
good, bad, and the ugly anythinggoing on with with business. And
he's just incredibly truthfuland straightforward, and sort of
says it, you know, like it isand explains what's going on? Or
(15:34):
why he made a decision andanswers questions. And that
plays for we do at about everyother month. And it gives people
a chance to just hear from himdirectly, and hear it in his
voice and what he says and theycan listen to it, they play it
in like the in the differentbreak rooms, it'll be playing,
it'll be on our intranet sitethat he can they can watch it,
(15:56):
but it's a really, there'snothing like that sort of just,
it's not scripted. You know,it's not love it. It's just his
chance to just talk and just,you know, talk through like,
yeah, this this is this iswhat's going on, this is what's
going on. And this is why yousee that that happened, and
people ask anonymous andsometimes very difficult
(16:17):
questions and answers it. Andit's, I think that that
transparency does a lot.
Mark Williams (16:23):
Well, I will share with you, I need to thank
you personally, I just started,we call it drop the mic. And
it's, I have started everymonth, I do an open zoom call
with any employee, any employeecan join. It's it's set up on
the calendar. It's amazing, Ilove it set up on a calendar,
like a meeting. It's an openforum where it's a zoom call, no
(16:46):
matter where I am in the countryif I'm traveling or fine at home
or in the office. And it's alive zoom call for any employee
that wants to get on. And wehave no set agenda. And
literally last week, we did ourfirst one we had about 30
employees on we talked about i iwas asked several questions
about the company and ourperformance and things we're
doing. But even funnier, we justsometimes we just talked about
(17:09):
nothing like literally the candybars that we like to eat, or who
made what for dinner. And thecomments that came back to me,
me personally through email andinstant messenger, and our
intranet was, wow, you're justlike us, right? Like, you're
just a normal person who doesnormal things and eats a candy
bar when he stops at the Casey'sand it was a lot of fun and just
(17:32):
the feedback of being able tointeract, ask questions about
the company. And that we are weare concerned with what our
employees think about thecompany and the feedback that we
get. And I think that shows, andit means a lot to me. And I
think it means a lot to theemployee. So obviously that's
working for you guys as well.
Yeah,
Amy Myers (17:49):
I think it's such a humanizing, too, because then
it's not just this decisionsmade from you know, at the top
of the mountain, it's like,okay, let's we can talk about
it, you know, and hear from yourleader. So I love that you did
that. I think that's great.
Mark Williams (18:04):
So you've been there for five years, if you
were to provide advice to anincoming manager into an
organization like yours,multiple locations, 24 hours,
three shifts, customerswarehouses, what kind of what's
the maybe the top three thingsadvice with respect to
communication, that you wouldoffer someone starting new with
(18:26):
a company,
Amy Myers (18:27):
you know, you probably can't over communicate.
But I think the bigger thing islistening. If you come in new,
you got to, and it's somethingthat I had to do when I came in,
and you have to fight it becauseyour instinct when you come in
someplace new is to, you know,talk about what you're seeing
and talk about what you thinkbut really listening for as long
(18:48):
as you can and that, you know,that's a critical part of
communication. Being present,listening, and then kind of
taking it all in before youbefore you move. Sure.
Mark Williams (18:59):
Let's talk a little bit about burnout. You've
got some interesting, you havethree shifts of employees that
come into the office, I'm surethat there are times of the year
that are more hectic thanothers. And maybe that's not
true. I don't know much aboutthe furniture business, quite
honestly. But how do you how doyou handle even internal burnout
with your employees expect? Ormaybe it's the sales floor when
(19:20):
there's a rush? How do you Howdoes the hand the company handle
that type of situation? Orwhat's the message back to
employees with respect to that?
Amy Myers (19:28):
You know, I think one of the things we're good at is
one we give it voice. So I'm andI will use, you know, my team as
an example is we had a bigchange that was happening in q4,
which was late in the game wemade a pivot that we needed to
make and one of the things wetalked about as the group is
(19:49):
it's it's okay to say this sucksthat we have to do this. It's
you don't have to smile and actlike it doesn't suck and you
don't have to, you know we cansay that openly. We can give it
voice And we can say, yep, a weknow it's the right thing. And
all of those those reasons, butyou know, it's also a lot of
extra work. And it's okay togive voice to that. And I think
(20:12):
that's, you know, part of truth.
And you know, and it doesn'tmean you're moping around, you
know, as an ER, but you're justlike, yep. Okay, you know,
let's, let's, let's, let's notbe afraid, and you don't have to
be afraid to say in front of me,you know, as the as the manager
that you don't have to be like,Yay, that's okay. So I think
that's, that's kind of part ofthe culture of the company. I
(20:32):
mean, we, we have a great HRteam that does a lot to help
support our managers and helps,you know, whether, you know,
there's little things that theydo, you know, throughout the
year, there's a lot of supportfrom organizational development
on burnout, there's actually youcan literally, you know, we had
two meditation sessions thatsomeone did a virtual meditation
last year, and you could jointhose. And so there's an
(20:54):
infrastructure for those, thatthat type of, you know, support.
But I think a lot of it's justculture and attitude that kind
of in this together, and, youknow, it's okay, we can we can
talk about this, and and we'regoing to get through to the
other side, for sure.
Mark Williams (21:13):
Yeah, that transparency, I think is
incredibly important. We had avery recent change to our PTO
policy, our, our time offpolicy. And for it was the the
number of hours that could becarried over. And we were
purchased several years ago byanother company, and we're
merging some of the benefitpackages. And we had a reduction
in the number of hours thatpeople could carry over. And
(21:35):
there wasn't a lot that I coulddo about it. And to use some
terminology, it stuck. And forsome employees, they lost, they
lost a little bit of PTO hours.
They weren't using them. Butthat Bank of ours was was kind
of a boost for them. Right. Itwas a security blanket so to
speak. And they lost a littlebit of it and asked, I was asked
to directly at a town hall and Ireadily admitted it's a bummer
(21:57):
for you. You're right, you lostthat benefit. You lost little
bit of that benefit. There's noway around that. And although
they were unhappy about it, theyunderstood it number one, and I
think they appreciated that.
Yeah, I was honest. It's
Unknown (22:10):
it's not fun. Yeah.
You're locked in to try to spinit.
Mark Williams (22:14):
It's alright. You know,
Amy Myers (22:16):
there's times that goes bad. Yeah,
Mark Williams (22:17):
yeah, it just, it just wasn't a good situation.
And I think that goes a longway. Again, we do a lot for our
employees, that sounds like muchlike you and maintaining that.
That level of honesty,transparency. I know that's kind
of a buzzword, but just beingused authentic, or that seems to
be another buzzword or hearingjust just being real and
(22:38):
understanding that yeah, somethings just sometimes don't go
our way. And that's okay. Right.
That's, that's that world welive in? Fantastic. A little
bit. Tell me a little bit aboutI'm looking at the KPIs on your
behind you, you've got a wholeboard full of a whole bunch of
metrics. In my world, I havethem for our industry, I'm sure
(22:58):
you have them for yours. How doyou communicate your metrics
out? And how often do you do itfor your employees? I'm curious,
because you're looking, you'vegot a lot of graphs up on your
on your board. Yeah, and
Amy Myers (23:11):
you can see they're actually the skylines of the
cities that we're in. Okay,sometimes, like EKG charts,
yeah. Sometimes it looks likemetrics. So but we, you know,
our, we have a corporatescorecard that is available to
anyone at any time. So you cango on our intranet site and pull
it up, and it's updated weekly,and we talk about it monthly.
(23:34):
But we agree on these, you know,number there's probably 23 I
think, metrics that we're goingto measure, you know, as a
company, and we talk to thoseand probably every one rolls up
to one or more of them duringthe year. But, you know, talking
about just transparency, I mean,anybody can pull those up at any
time and get a look at them andI think it's part of that open
(23:59):
culture.
Mark Williams (24:00):
Sure. Amy, I can't thank you enough for being
on the show today.
Unknown (24:05):
Thanks for inviting me You bet.
Mark Williams (24:06):
Let's close with this. So first net Nebraska
Furniture Mart and give us aquick commercial for Nebraska
Furniture Mart.
Amy Myers (24:13):
Well, you've you've got to be in our region's Omaha,
Kansas City and Dallas and I'msure you know us but you know,
we have fantastic quality, thebest prices that you can get and
you know, we were started as awe're at seven years old this
year and it you know, startedwith Mrs. B who was a Russian
(24:34):
immigrant woman in 1937 whostarted the business and we're
super proud of that legacy andyou know, talk about it you
know, probably almost every daythat we started with the with
with someone who came in andjust wanted to help the
customers and get good productsat great prices.
Mark Williams (24:53):
Fantastic. Couple of takeaways, management
meetings every day. You've gotyour 10 Minute huddle, your your
10 Min. That meeting everymorning, which I love, passing
out the bullet points, and it'sgoing to all levels of the
organization throughout everyshift of the organization and
across multiple states and manylocations. So, kudos to Nebraska
Furniture Mart and Amy Myers.
Thanks very much for being onthe show. We really appreciate
(25:16):
it. Thanks again. Thanks forlistening. If you think balance
is as important as I do, at workand all throughout your life,
help the show out by leaving mea five star review following me
on social media, or sharing thepodcast with someone you think
would appreciate it. If you havecomments or questions. I'd love
for you to join the conversationwith me on LinkedIn. I want to
thank OBI Creative for producingthe podcast and swells beats
(25:38):
forgetting the music for me.
Thanks for sharing your timewith me today. And until next
time, this is Mark signing off.
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