July 5, 2025 • 45 mins
Episode 117 Unlocking High Performance: Jaime Raul Zepeda on Workplace Engagement Frederick Dudek (Freddy D) Copyright 2025 Prosperous Ventures, LLC
We're diving into the world of workplace culture with Jaime Raul Zepeda, a true expert who's all about transforming the way we experience work. Jaime's been in the game for over 15 years, helping more than 4,000 companies create environments where employees feel engaged and empowered. He emphasizes that happy employees are not just a nice-to-have; they're key to driving success and innovation.
We chat about how recognizing and appreciating team members can lead to a thriving culture, where folks feel proud of their contributions. So, if you're looking to reimagine your workplace and boost performance, this episode is packed with insights you won't want to miss.
Discover more with our detailed show notes and exclusive content by visiting: https://bit.ly/4eJMjAf
Workplace culture is often seen as a buzzword, but for Jaime Raul Zepeda, it’s a core focus that drives organizational success. In this episode, we explore the critical role of workplace culture in achieving business goals, as Jaime shares his insights from years of experience as a workplace culture architect. He discusses how his journey has shaped his understanding of what makes a thriving workplace, drawing from his time at Best Companies Group, where he has worked with over 10,000 organizations to elevate their employee experiences.
One key takeaway from our discussion is the importance of public recognition in the workplace. Jaime points out that when employees feel recognized for their contributions, they are more likely to be engaged and productive. This isn’t just about making employees feel good; it’s about creating a culture where everyone understands what success looks like and is motivated to achieve it. By implementing simple practices of recognition, organizations can transform their culture and see measurable improvements in performance.
Additionally, Jaime emphasizes the need for leaders to step back and allow their teams to voice their ideas. By being the last to speak in meetings, leaders can create a safe space for open dialogue, facilitating innovation and collaboration. This approach not only empowers employees but also cultivates a sense of ownership and accountability within the team. As Jaime shares, the little things matter—whether it’s a simple thank you or inviting input on critical decisions. These actions can lead to a more engaged workforce, ultimately driving greater success for the organization.
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Takeaways:
- Jaime Raul Zepeda emphasizes that a thriving workplace culture significantly boosts employee satisfaction and productivity.
- Recognition in the workplace is vital, as inspired employees are proven to be over twice as productive as their peers.
- Creating a supportive environment involves listening to employees and making them feel valued and essential to the organization's mission.
- Investing in employee growth is not just good ethics; it's a strategic move that enhances overall organizational success and performance.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(01:57):
Hey, Superfans superstarFreddie D. Here in this episode 117,
we're joined by Jaime RaulZepeda, a workplace culture architect
and executive leaderpassionate about transforming how
we experience work. Jaime hasdedicated his career to helping companies
create environments wherepeople feel fulfilled, engaged and
(02:18):
empowered. From his rise to anexecutive role, a great place to
work, impacting thousands oforganizations, to his current leadership
as executive Vice president atBest Companies Group, he has helped
over 4,000 companies buildthriving high performance cultures.
With deep insights from yearsof research and an MBA from Berkeley
(02:42):
Haas School of Business, Jaimebelieves true success comes from
employees who are both happyand growing. Today, he partners with
business leaders nationwide tomeasure, understand and transform
workplace culture, provingthat investing in people drives success
for everyone. We're thrilledto have him here to share his experience
(03:05):
and inspire us to reimagineour workplace. Welcome, Jaime, to
the Business Superfans podcastshow. We're super excited to have
you on the show. How are you today?
I'm doing great, Freddie, howyou doing?
And I'm excited about thisconversation. Really wanted into
(03:25):
really what Best Companies isall about. And we had a great conversation
before we started recording.So let's continue that conversation.
One of the things noticed onyour website is the fact that the
team is first and theleadership is on the bottom. Where
you go to a majority ofwebsites, it's the other way around.
It's the leadership first andthen teams at the bottom. And as
(03:48):
we talked, the team is reallywhat makes the company role.
It's really the team. And wewant to make sure that in every way
that we can, within the waythat we work, our processes, how
we work with each other, oursystems are set up. We tell our employees,
our team, that they are theones that are making the business
(04:09):
run. They are the mostimportant people in our organization.
We looked at a lot of researchthat shows that whenever you have
an inspired employee, somebodythat feels like they're really, truly
connected to theorganization's mission, they are
over two times more productivethan an average employee. It's intentional
(04:29):
because we want to make surethat we have an employee first organization,
but also a little bit selfishbecause we know that it's going to
help us have a much better andstronger organization. And we talk
about that too within theteam. Like I tell all my leaders
to tell their teams and I talkto the team directly, is we're here
to serve you, we're here tosupport you, we're here to make you
(04:50):
successful. If you're notsuccessful, nothing happens. Absolutely
correct.
So let's go back to thebeginning and what's your backstory?
And how did you get involvedwith the organization?
Yeah, so it started when Iread a book that I'm not sure if
you read. That really just hitme hard. It's Drive by Dan Pink.
(05:13):
No.
And I'm not sure if you'veseen that. It's a great book. It
talks about what motivates usat work, what's the thing that keeps
us going and actually makes uswant to do better. He breaks it down
into really, we want to feelreally good about the work that we're
doing. We want to feel likewe're making progress, to feel like
we have some agency in thework that we do. And we want to feel
(05:36):
like we belong to somethingbigger than ourselves. I think we
can all agree that's somethingthat's really important, regardless
of whether it's work or familyor community. I started thinking,
how much of our time do wespend at work? We spend more time
at work than we do with ourfamilies. We spend more time talking
to our manager than we dotalking to our spouse. So why not
(05:59):
make that the best experiencewe can make? And as I dug deeper
into it, found out that it'snot just good for the employee, it's
good for the organization.There's a lot of information out
there that shows that ifyou're a Best Place to work, if you're
an organization that does thatreally well, you beat the market,
you are more profitable, youare more innovative. And so that
(06:21):
started my career in thisspace. Now I've been in it for 15
years. I started when I was atGreat Place to Work. Great Place
to Work is the research andanalytics firm that helps Fortune
magazine create the 100 bestcompanies to Work for list every
year. So whenever you go toyour grocery store and you see that
there, that's the company thatdoes all the work on the back end.
(06:43):
And then I did a couple ofroles in HR to really live that role
and understand it better. Andnow I have the privilege of leading
Best Companies Group, whichworks with over 10,000 organizations
to help them understand andthen evolve their workplace to become
one of the best in the country.
What a great background. Andthe variations of different areas
(07:08):
that you worked in to give youthe background that you have to do
what you're doing today. Oneof the quotes that I wrote in my
book Creating BusinessSuperfans is, people will crawl through
broken glass for appreciationand recognition.
Yeah.
And it doesn't happen as oftenas people think.
(07:29):
Correct.
Especially leaders think thatthey recognize more than they actually
do. They recognize at a levelthat's sufficient. And the data proves
that's not true. Thedifference between employee who gets
recognized weekly is threetimes more impactful.
Right.
And the other thing, too, isJaime, is that if I recognize you
(07:51):
personally. All right, that'swonderful. That's great. But if I
stop and say, hey, everybody,I want to take a moment to recognize
Jaime on this extra littleproject that he's done, and he really
killed it for us. Everybodygets excited. You feel like a rock
star. And then other peoplego, wow, I'm going to step up my
game. And it just changes thedynamics just like that.
(08:14):
And just like that. Andsometimes that's too much for some
organizations, theorganizations that, over time, we
don't hear about anymorebecause they go out of business,
Culture becomes a culturebecomes toxic.
People leave becauseeverybody's distracted and they're
talking about the negativity,and the negativity just keeps spreading
because you get the pollution,I'll call it into the work environment.
(08:38):
Yeah.
That tonality, you can't hide.So someone calls up on the phone,
a prospective customer, andsomeone's not happy about their job,
that's going to come across.
Absolutely. One thing I wantto pick on, that you just mentioned,
Freddie, in your example, isif that happens when you have an
employee that gets recognizedin front of others. Yes. You get
(09:01):
the boost of that employeeright away. They feel great. They
feel like a superstar, andthey're going to be more motivated
to do even more and go aboveand beyond. An inspired employee
is two times more productivethan an average one. So you're putting
energy into there and keepgoing. The other thing that it does,
and this is the part that alot of organizations don't think
about, is that it tells thestory of what it means to succeed
(09:27):
in that organization. Becausewhen you say, brennan, you did a
fantastic job on this project.I appreciate all the great work you
did in front of everybodyelse. And you tell the story of what
exactly did Freddy do to besuch a superstar? He thought about
the customer. He wasproactive. He searched for an answer.
He didn't give up. That if Iwant to get ahead in this organization,
(09:49):
I gotta be like Freddie, Igotta be proactive. I gotta take
initiative. I gotta becustomer first. And so that's how
you create culture. You createculture by the things that you promote
and the things that you do not allow.
Right.
There's two powerful questionsthat any leader out there, especially
(10:10):
if you're a Senior executiveor executive think about. To think
about what is my culture andhow do I preserve it is one, what
are the behaviors that I'mobserving that are making us successful?
Those are things that you wantto keep happening and you want them
to grow and you want morepeople to do right. So kind of like
this example, what did Freddiedo to be successful? And then two,
(10:32):
what are the behaviors thatare not happening that are making
us successful? These are thethings that you do not want to see
grow in your culture likeweeds. You want to make sure that
you don't allow people to dothat. You tell them that's not the
way that we do it here. Andthen eventually maybe you fire them
if they do exhibit just thosetwo questions. You obsessing about
(10:54):
those and thinking aboutthose, you'll create the culture
that you want.
And what that does is thattransform that team into super fans
of that workplace. And so nowthey're out there promoting to their
friends, their family, andtheir circles of influence. Man,
I love my company. I love myjob. I look forward to go to work
(11:16):
versus oh, I gotta go to workagain. A whole different energy.
My wife works from home. She'sin the other room right now. She
works for a company calledHear.com, hearing aids. Most of her
team is remote, but they doactivities, they do online activities,
they do recognition. She winsgift cards. They fly her out for
company meeting, and everybodygets in together. She loves. She's
(11:39):
going on past seven years nowat the same company. She's one of
their top people. She's gotpicked to be on a special project,
so she's even more motivated.One of my other sayings is the little
things are really the big things.
Yeah.
Say more about that. Like,what do you. What do you mean the
(12:01):
little things you're talkingabout? Like the behaviors that we're
talking about right now.
Yeah.
The simple.
Thank you. Hey, you know what,Jaime? I really appreciate that extra
effort today. That's it. Youdon't have to recognize it to everybody.
Let's just take. You wentabove and beyond. Thanks for taking
care of that. I appreciate it.Or me take you out to lunch. Just
little things that don't costa lot of money but have really high
(12:26):
value to that individualbecause then they go home and go,
hey, guess what happened? WhenI get positive reviews and stuff
like that for this show, I getall excited and I go share it with
my wife.
Because you're. You get thefeedback of my work matters and.
Exactly.
Which means I matter. Whichmeans I matter to this organization,
(12:48):
which means I really careabout this organization now because
it's a virtuous cycle. A lotof businesses, those that do not
care about this, don't thinkof it that way. They think of it
as it's a transaction where weget all the value. We hire an employee,
we pay them money, and then weextract all the value we can out
of that employee for as longas they want to keep getting the
(13:10):
money. I'm being very crudeabout it, but that's what they think
of it like, right?
Absolutely. I worked with acompany and we were working with
contractors and the mindset,they should be grateful because we're
giving them work. And mymindset was, you've got that completely
backwards because they'rehappened to go to customer as an
(13:34):
independent representative ofour company. So guess who's the front
line? Not you. It's thecontractor. That's the front line.
It doesn't matter whatindustry, home improvement or commercial
improvement, interpretingservices, they all use contractors
that you need to make surethey're super happy about working
(13:55):
with you because that's therepresentation and they can work
for anybody.
Yeah. Just imagine if thatthinking was really taken to the
logical end.
Right?
If you were at Amazon andyou're spending millions of dollars
on advertising, you're puttingout a huge super bowl ad that makes
(14:16):
you look great and showspeople what you can do and makes
people think of Amazon. Butthen at the same time, all of your
employees, especially thosethat work in customer service, delivering
a terrible experience, are youreally getting ahead? Are you really?
You're sinking backwards.
You're sinking backwards andyou're spending money, wasting money,
(14:37):
because you're putting thefocus on the wrong thing. And I'm
not saying that you shouldn'tdo those things, but they all go
together. You have to thinkabout your employees. As you mentioned
here, Freddie is they have tobe your superfans. They have to be
excited about talking aboutwhere they go to war, talking about
the products, talking aboutthe services, potentially bringing
in new customers because ofhow excited they are about the work.
(15:00):
Because the sale, thetransaction is not the sale. I've
been in sales for many years.The sale begins. Everything that
happens after the transaction,that's the sale, because that's the
impression, that's themindset, and you need to transform
that customer into a superfan. So they're telling other people
and it snowballs. And you'reabsolutely correct, Jaime, is the
(15:24):
fact that that employee, ifthey're excited and customer calls
up, they're going to handlethat in a very different way than
somebody is there for apaycheck because they feel underappreciated,
they're not recognized. And sothey're just going to go through
it from a transactionalstandpoint. And that may be a good
(15:46):
or bad experience. You'reflipping the coin over that. But
what we're talking about isreally making sure that experience
is solid. So that person goes,wow, that was a great experience.
I'm going to write these guysa review. Because today reviews is
the new word of mouth.
It is. You go out there, youcan't go to a restaurant without
first checking reviews. Youwant to find out if it's good or
(16:07):
not. And now there's a form ofreviews or workplaces, right? More
and more in the experience ofwhat people feel at work is becoming
transparent. And we play a bigpart in that too. And we're proud
of doing that because we dothe survey to directly to employees
and ask them all of thesereally tough questions. Their responses
(16:30):
go directly back to us, theorganization, the employer does not
have anything to do with that.And then we from that data decide,
are you truly a best place towork or not? And it's the employees
experience that we gather,right? That's the process that we
go through whenever somebodyworks with us, either through employee
engagement surveys where wehelp them understand the data and
(16:50):
then build a better workplace,or when they want to get a good fence.
Are we really the best placeto work already? And if so, we'd
like to be recognized as one.Do both of those things. But the
experience comes directly fromemployees. And then we publish that
we show the world these aretruly best places to work. Here's
the data that shows why theyare. It's transparent. It's out there.
(17:13):
Everybody, even if it weren'tout there in a number, people are
talking about you as anorganization, whether you like it
or not. They're saying things.And ideally, if you're really putting
your back into it and you'rethinking about it, right, they're
saying great things about youso that the word spreads. And there's
(17:33):
a lot of research that showsthat organizations who are known
as best place to work in someway, shape or form, either certified
by a third party or they'rejust known for that, are much more
likely to have a positivereputation within the community,
which then means a highernumber of them are going to become
(17:54):
customers. Because what'shappening now is a lot of people
are buying with their values,right? I'm not going to Shop there
because I heard this thing andhow they treat their employees. Am
I going to shop there becausethey didn't believe in the things
that I believe in and haveoptions. It's not like it was 40
years ago where, oh, you gotto go get something. You go to Sears,
right? Because that was it.That was it. I gotta go there. I
(18:17):
gotta get the big fat catalog,which I used to get. And I would
get a dick out of it. Now youcan go anywhere. Okay, so now I can
go anywhere that's formonetized. I'm gonna go where I feel
like my dollars are reallybeing put to something that I care
about. Do they care abouttheir employees? Have a good things
about them? Do I know if theypay well or not? Do they follow the
(18:38):
same values that I do? You gotto think about that stuff. Because
now, not only on the employeeside, but on the customer side, there's
a demand for organizations towalk the talk and be fair and respectful
to their people.
It goes beyond that and italso goes to, you got the suppliers
that you're dealing with,you've got the distributors that
you're dealing with. You gotcomplementary businesses that are
(19:00):
part of the equation. YourCPA, your law firm, etc. The janitorial
service that comes in thatcleans the place. All those come
into play because your team isinteracting with all those different
individuals. And you want tomake sure that in that whole ecosystem,
it's a good ecosystem versus atoxic ecosystem.
(19:23):
Absolutely. It's allconnected. It's all connected. All
the stakeholders matter andthe best organizations know that.
So let's dive deeper into whatit is that you guys do and how do
you work with companies.
Yeah, absolutely. So we workin two major ways. Work with a lot
of leading media publicationsin the country and the world to recognize
(19:45):
best places to work either ina region or in an industry. For example,
we have the Sacramento Bee. Weworked with the Sacramento Bee to
find the best places to workin California. We've done that in
Chicago with the Chicago SunTimes. We've done that in Seattle
with Seattle magazine. Weserve as the research arm to a lot
(20:06):
of these programs where theyparticipate. Company signs up, says,
I want to participate in thisprogram to see if I can be recognized.
No promise of made youparticipate. And then we survey your
people and if the data isright, then you can be recognized.
Sometimes that doesn't happen.Better luck next year, right? That's
one of the things that we do.And then the other one is because
(20:27):
we have worked with over10,000 organizations and have recognized
thousands of organizationsacross those 10,000 as truly amazing
workplaces. We have a lot ofdata, a lot of benchmarks, a lot
of best practices on what ittakes to become a great workplace.
And so we consultorganizations that want to go through
that journey, starting withunderstanding what their employees
(20:50):
are spending in the moment. Sowe do surveys, we do assessments,
focus groups, and then what dowe do with the data to help create
a better workplace foreverybody, where everybody thrives?
So we advise the leadershipteam, we put together action plans,
we support EHR teams in usingthat data in a helpful way to create
some actionable outcomes.
(21:11):
Oh, okay.
So really you're taking thedata and playing it back to the leadership
team anonymously. But moreimportantly, it's giving them a real
assessment of what theirenvironment is at the workplace.
Because a lot of times peoplehave a fallacy that everything is
(21:34):
wonderful and it may notreally be wonderful.
Yes. Or they don't know whatthings are like, but they have a
little voice in the back oftheir head saying it's not very good.
So as soon as they get thedata back, they just walk away from
that spreadsheet very slowlyand never touch it again. There's
(21:54):
a lot of that where they havethe data but they decide not to do
anything with it. Which iseven worse than if you did not ask
your employees how they feel.It's better to do this kind of project
where you're trying to improvethe workplace and asking your employers
how they feel when you do havea plan to act on the data. Otherwise,
(22:16):
don't do it. It's just a wasteof everybody's time, waste of your
resources that you're notready to act on the feedback. Don't
ask for it. Simple. If youare, ask for it, get the feedback
and then set up a system wherethe data becomes a conversation in
the leadership team, whichthen turns into action plans that
(22:39):
the leadership team isaccountable for. There's publicly
across the organization andthat there's an accountability system
where it's not something thatstarts and then fizzles out a few
months. We help organizationswith all of that setting up. Here's
how you take your data into a12 month action planning system where
in 12 months you will haveworked on all of these things and
(23:02):
we guarantee there's going tobe some movement in the data because
you are acting on it. A lot oforganizations drop off after they
kick it off.
Really I'm surprised because Iwould think that data would wake
somebody up and go, man, I Gotto do some things different because
as we know, a thriving culturein a company fuels the growth and
(23:26):
doesn't cost a lot of money.And more importantly, it creates
longevity of employees. Andpeople will stay where they could
be offered more money, butthey'll stay where they're at because
of the fact that they're happywith what they're doing. They know
that they're making adifference, and they love where they're
working.
Yeah. And I think it oftengets stalled because there are good
(23:50):
intentions. But let's sayyou're the CEO of an organization
and you get your results backand you find out that they're not
as good as you thought theywere. People are not as happy as
you thought they were, andthey have specific gripes about what's
going on. It's hard tounderstand, where do I start? How
do I work on these things? Howdo I change it? This is not as easy
(24:10):
as looking at a P and L andtrying to find out where do I cut
cost or what are some productsthat I can start, you know, putting
some R and D money into tothrow out there. It's a lot harder
because it's people.
Right.
People are complicated andpeople change, and people sometimes
are not fully clear. Sometimesyou get data, but you don't understand
what it means. We help thoseorganizations by bringing it down
(24:34):
to a handful ofrecommendations. We do a lot of statistical
work on the back end to findout what are the things that if you
were only to work on two orthree, they would make the biggest
impact to the entire culture.I know that time is finite. We know
that attention is finite. Isaw our resources. So what if we
look at the top three thatwill help you lift all boats, and
(24:55):
then we present what thatlooks like and how you can actually
work on it. A lot of leadersjust don't know how to go to that.
Even within hr. Some HRleaders look at that data and think,
okay, I know I gotta work onthis, but it's so overwhelming and
it's incomplete because I'lljust put.
It in a drawer and ignore it.
Yeah. I'll just say thank youfor your feedback, everybody. Appreciate
(25:16):
it. Here's our numbers andpizza party next Friday, you know,
and they think that's gonnahelp, and they know that it won't.
But a lot of it sometimesfeels like it's intimidating to start
working stuff like that. So wetry to help.
So can you share a story ofhow you guys worked with a company
and transformed them to wheretheir whole environment changed and
they became a super fan of youguys and recommended you to other
(25:38):
companies.
Yeah, absolutely. So it's thestory of a biotech company that we
work with where part of theproject was us having a conversation
with the leadership team tounderstand why their innovation had
gone down. They were notputting out as many patents as they
had in the past. That haddropped off quite a bit recently.
And they are sizable enoughorganization where they thought,
(26:00):
nothing's really changed. Sowhat's going on? So they brought
us in, did a little bit ofresearch, and then we had a conversation
where we presented thesefindings to the executive leadership
team. And in thatconversation, we found something
that ended up transformingtheir organization for the next few
years. One of the observationswe made is people don't feel proud
(26:23):
about the work that they'redoing anymore. Pride levels in the
work that they're doing havedropped off the last few years. Why
do you think that is? So wetalked about that for a second, and
then through the conversation,we found out that if you walk the
halls of their office, oftheir main headquarters, you would
not know that they're abiotech company. You would not know
(26:45):
that the work that they'redoing is actually saving lives and
improving lives of the peopleout there. So we said, what if we
brought more of that in,somehow telling those stories of
patients who have beentransformed because of the medicine
that you created. And so it'ssomething as simple as putting up
(27:06):
some posters, telling storiesof patients, bringing in patients
to town halls every now andthen to talk about how the pulmonary
disease medicine that they hadhelp change their life in front of
all the employees totallyboosted innovation. So for the next
few years, they were moreexcited and more and more proud.
(27:27):
And they were putting outpatents like never before. Sometimes
it's something as small asthat, right? And you need sometimes
a third party that does notlive it every day to make those kind
of observations. And it made abig difference to what they thought
was possible and made themmuch more innovative than they were
before.
You could clearly say thatthey're a super fan of how you transform
(27:49):
that.
Super fan. Yeah, they're asuper fan. And they told us. We really
appreciate that you just camehere and told us something that we
have lived and seen for years,but we never understood because we
just live in it. It's alwayshard to describe the place you're
in, because you just take itin and you just know it and you don't
see the details of it anymore.So when we did the research, we asked
(28:11):
employers how they felt. Andthen we zeroed in on a couple of
key changes that they can maketo make some big impact. It mattered,
and they were really excitedabout it.
Yeah, it's like recognizingthe janitor in the hospital because
their job is to keep the placeclean, keep the germs down and everything
else. So they're saving livesby what they're doing. So that's
(28:34):
exactly what you're talkingabout, is making that person feel
empowered and go, man, I makea difference.
It's funny that you say that,because it reminds me of another
quick story where we wereworking with this healthcare system
and we were presenting thefindings to their leadership team
and trying to find some areasthat we could focus on for the next
12 months for them to act on.And so in one of the breaks, I make
(28:57):
my way to the bathroom, and onthe way back, I bump into a janitor
was cleaning the halls, and wetalked for a second. We exchanged
where we're from, and I askedhim, like, so what is it that you
do here? And I'll never forgethis response because it totally encapsulates
what you just mentioned.Freddie, instead of saying, I mop
the floors and I clean thebathrooms and I sweet the offices.
(29:18):
Right.
He said, without missing abeat, is I help doctors save lives.
It wasn't an ounce of irony inthere. He looked at him, he looked
frowned, like, I hope Dr. Savelives by keeping their offices clean.
And I believed him. He wasdefinitely a super fan. He was definitely
(29:38):
someone that loved his job andsaw the greater purpose in his job.
Yeah, completely game changer.Complete game changer. It's a little
mindset click and wholedifferent attitude.
Absolutely. And he was soproud of it. And never forget that
Norman, in that face, helooked like he was the CEO. Yeah.
(29:58):
He was acting like he's theCEO of what he's doing. At the end
of the day, he's empowered. Hefeels empowered. It's his responsibility.
So it's a whole different ballgame than me saying, hey, John, you
need to mop all this stuff andclean it out. You're in charge of
this, and it's yourresponsibility to take care of that.
(30:20):
Whole different approach.
And like you mentionedearlier, like, the small things are
the big things is he didn'tget there just naturally. He got
there because many people,managers, coworkers, the way that
he was onboarded gave him allof these signals saying, you matter.
You're part of this largermission to save lives, and here's
(30:43):
how your role impacts thatmission. And we are appreciative
for all the great work you doto help everybody else do their job.
Bingo.
You tell that. Yeah. You tellall those messages. Right. In different
ways. And then he's. Yeah,that's right. Because people sometimes
forget that stuff, even ifit's completely true and everybody
knows it in their mind. Peoplefocus on their work, they're busy.
They're going through theirspreadsheet, they're going through
(31:05):
their chores. And if you don'tremind them of how important they
are to the greater mission,they'll forget. So you have to like
rinse and repeat every single day.
Yeah, absolutely correct. Iuse this example a lot, but it's
the best example that I canutilize. Think of a racing rowing
team. You got eight people ina boat. Everybody has a single oar.
(31:29):
You gotta get everybody in,going into one direction, one mission,
and more importantly, insynchronization. Otherwise that boat's
not going nowhere. It's noteven going in a circle. So it's just
wobbling like this, going noplace. So what you're talking about
is really is getting everybodyonto that racing rowboat. They all
(31:50):
know what the mission is,they're onboarded in the right way
and that boat flies throughthe water.
Yeah.
Clarity. The clarity ofknowing why is it important and how
do we succeed?
Right. Yep.
Answering those questionsconstantly for your employees. Themes,
(32:12):
basic. A lot of organizationsdon't do it. If you can answer those
questions. If you're amanager, you can answer those questions
for your people on a regularbasis. You will see your performance
skyrocket. Because most money,they forget. It doesn't cost you
any money. It literally costsyou five minutes per. One on one.
(32:32):
Right.
On a weekly basis with eachemployee. That's it. It's the best
return on investment that youcan have out there. More than anything
else that gets spent on isjust spending five minutes in your
next one on one with youremployee. Say, hey, let me remind
you why your role is soimportant to the work that we do
here. Going through that, doesthat make sense to you? Do you understand
now what I hope you canachieve? Because I have high expectations
(32:55):
for you. Goes back.
The little things are reallythe big things. And that's a little
thing that really has a big impact.
Absolutely.
And now you're gettingeverybody fired up. And then that
energy is contagious, numberone. Number two, it transcends to
all stakeholders because theconversations are different. I had
(33:19):
a guest on a couple shows backand he talked about the relationship
he had with the supplier.They'd get Together. They'd have
lunch once in a while, had agood relationship, and they were
a super fan of him. When thepandemic hit, he needed 500 laptops
like that, and other peoplewere scrambling for laptops like
(33:42):
that. Guess who got him first.
That's right. It pays to dostuff like that. You never know when
you'll need it. And I think italso then transcends the relationship
from just business, which isimportant. We all got to do it. But
if the relationship is justbusiness, where you give me this,
I give you that, and thenwe'll see you next time the contract
(34:04):
renews. It's a commodity. Theycan get that anywhere else. If you're
a vendor, if you're acustomer, whoever is, you can get
that anywhere else becauseit's what everybody else is doing.
But if you're able to find away to transcend that and really
invest in the relationship andtreat people like people, you automatically
stand out. And the next timeyou might need something like that,
(34:27):
you're going to focus on thepeople like, hear about this person
more than just a transaction.I'm going to see what I can do to
help them. And that goes thesame way with employees.
Right.
That's how you create super fans.
You create superfans. It'slike it's a virtuous cycle, because
whenever employees see thattheir organization is going a little
bit above and beyond what theywould be in other organizations by
(34:48):
either investing more in theirtraining or asking their thoughts
on an upcoming decision, orlistening to their feedback on recent
changes, they are then goingto go above and beyond for the organization,
which then gives theorganization an opportunity to go
above and beyond fact to theemployee, because things are getting
better.
Right.
So it's a virtuous cycle. It'slike they're depositing in each other's
(35:10):
checking accounts and it'sgrowing. And you're having people
that thrive and organizationsthat thrive at the same time. There's
no trade out there, Right?
Absolutely right. And then therevenue line goes.
Exactly. Yeah.
It's a W for everybody.
Absolutely.
So what are some of the thingsthat you've encountered that are
(35:34):
really simple things that abusiness owner could do right off
the bat from this episode,that they could do a simple assessment
of themselves and apply itright away to their business?
That's a great question. Iwould say there's two things that
(35:55):
anybody out there can do rightaway, tomorrow, and I can assure
you that it will have animpact on how your people feel about
your organization. And this Isespecially true if you are in the
C suite. Senior leader,executive. If you can show this or
do this, the next time, youcan watch out. You're going to just
see a radical change. And so,one is the next time that you're
(36:19):
in a room with people that arein lower roles or have less power
than you do and talking abouta problem or you're thinking through
a solution, be the very lastperson in the room to speak. Do not
share your solution. Did notshare your thoughts. Did not share
your perspective on it. Put itout there saying, this is something
(36:41):
that we're trying to figureout. I'd love to get your thoughts
and be quiet until it'suncomfortable. You want the rest
of the room to be able toshare what they think in a way that
feels safe. And in order to dothat, you need to be quiet. Because
as soon as you say something,everybody will have to make a decision.
Do I agree or disagree with my boss?
(37:03):
Right.
And if I agree, then you'rereally losing innovation power right
there. Because then they'rejust gonna say, yeah, okay, I guess
I don't have to think about itso much more. I'm just gonna go ahead
and follow the line. If youdisagree, you're gonna think, do
I feel comfortable and safeenough to disagree with my boss in
front of everybody else? Evenif it's in private, Do I feel just
comfortable to disagree withmy boss, period?
(37:25):
Right. Right.
Or do I feel comfortabledisagreeing with the CEO?
Right.
And if you don't, you're notgonna say anything. You're gonna
be quiet and be like, oh,okay, Yeah, I think I like that too.
You're not going to say whatyou really believe. So you got to
be quiet. Be the last personto speak because you have power.
You need to give power back tothe rest of the room. You show that
by showing them that they'reimportant and you value their feedback.
(37:47):
Two, and this one is a littlebit trickier, is look at the information
that maybe you're not sharingwith your people about how the organization
is doing and see how much ofthat you can share in a comfortable
way. What I mean is, right nowwe're going through economic uncertainty.
(38:09):
Regardless of where you are.We just get this all the time. People
have questions about what isthe year going to look like? What
can I expect? How do I preparemy business for that? All the employees
are reading the news thatyou're reading. If all that they're
hearing is positive, rosystatements, they're gonna think they're
(38:29):
not telling Me something.Either it's so bad that they don't
want to say anything about it,or they have no clue how to address
this. And then I don't feelvery confident about my leadership.
You have to say something. Youhave to acknowledge the situation,
even if you don't have a planfor it that is much more positive
and helpful to your employeesthan if you're completely quiet about
(38:51):
it and only share the rosygood news. Again, it shows that you
can be transparent. It showsthat you trust their perspective
and that they can handle thetruth. And also, you fill the information
vacuum that otherwise isreally going to hurt you.
Yeah. Very well said. Verygood advice. Because I was running
(39:12):
a company a few years ago, andthey had a negative net income, the
revenue was spotty, and allthat kind of stuff. And I shared
it with the team because I wasgeneral manager. This is where we're
at. And I solicited ideas ofwhat we can do, and people came up
with some. And I did what yousaid. Shut up. And people came up
(39:34):
with some great ideas that weimplemented, and it made some big
differences. So sometimes,just as you said, Jaime, you kind
of just step out of your own way.
That's really it. And it'ssuper simple. You just put it out
there, be quiet, and peoplewill ask you, what do you think we
should do?
(39:55):
Right.
You might get that. And youcan say, I trust everybody's judgment
here. I'd love to get yourthoughts. I really want to hear from
everybody here. What do youall think? And if you really want
to take it to the next levelis if you hear everybody, you share
your thoughts on thesituation, and then somebody disagrees
(40:17):
with you. That's a greatthing. You want to celebrate that
like you won the lottery.Thank you so much for pointing that
out. I think you're right. Ithink I did miss that. So thank you
for hearing your feedback,Betty. I'll take that into consideration.
That is another signal thatyou send to the rest of the organization
(40:37):
that it is okay to disagree aslong as you do it respectfully, because
then we all get better.
Right.
You don't want to go ahead andsay, well, no, better. You're not.
See, what you're notunderstanding is that this happens,
and that happens right away.
You're kind of condescending.
You're shooting downinnovation in the future. Exactly.
So that's another quick way.Elevate your team and empower your
(40:59):
team.
Yep.
The little things are reallythe big things.
They matter.
They matter.
They have to.
Jaime, as we get close to theend of the show here. How can people
find you?
Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn.Happy to connect with anybody out
there that wants to talk moreabout this. You can also contact
(41:21):
us at Best Companies Group bygoing to bestcompaniesgroup.com and
sending us a note. We'll giveyou all the information about what
we do and how we can help you.If you want to contact me directly,
you can just go to my websitetoo@j Jaime raulsapeta.com and have
some resources there. I alsosometimes speak on these topics if
that's of interest. If anybodyout there wants to hear more about
(41:43):
it, or if you just want toconnect and get to know each other,
I'd love to talk about you.
Great.
Well, we'll make sure that'sin the show. Notes thank you so much
for your time. You and I couldprobably talk on this for days.
Had a great time.
Thank you so much and we lookforward to having you on the show
down the road again.
Sounds good.
Before we wrap, here's yourquick debrief. Every conversation
(42:05):
focuses on a single pillar ofthe Superfans framework. Nine road
tested steps that turn a sparkof possibility into unstoppable,
scalable prosperity. The ninePillars S Start Strategic positioning
and purpose. You unitestakeholder synergy P Propel magnetic
(42:30):
messaging E Elevate everystakeholder experience R Rally referrals
and reputation S Fosterfinancial fitness A Automate for
exponential leverage N Nurturelifetime loyalty S Scale and sustain
(42:54):
prosperity Each episodeconcludes with a superfan's Success
Spark, a practical guestdriven action distilled from today's
conversation that you canimplement within 24 hours. Follow
the nine episode cycle. Applyevery spark and you'll build a proven
playbook for turningstakeholders into loyal superfans,
(43:16):
accelerating referrals,reputation and revenue.
Here's this episode SuperfanSuccess Park E Elevate every stakeholder
experience so here's the topinsight an inspired employee is over
two times more productive thanan average employee. When you recognize
(43:38):
somebody publicly, you're notjust fueling their motivation, you're
telling the entire team whatsuccess looks like. Jaime Raoul Zabeda
So here's the 24 hour actionstep. Pick one team member who went
above and beyond this week andrecognize them in front of your entire
staff. Be specific about whatthey did and highlight how it ties
(44:00):
to your company's mission.Thank you for listening and please
be a Superfan superstar andsubscribe to this podcast. Thank
you.
Hey, Superfans superstarFreddie D. Here in this episode 117,
we're joined by Jaime RaulZepeda, a workplace culture architect
and executive leaderpassionate about transforming how
we experience work. Jaime hasdedicated his career to helping companies
create environments wherepeople feel fulfilled, engaged and
(02:18):
empowered. From his rise to anexecutive role, a great place to
work, impacting thousands oforganizations, to his current leadership
as executive Vice president atBest Companies Group, he has helped
over 4,000 companies buildthriving high performance cultures.
With deep insights from yearsof research and an MBA from Berkeley
(02:42):
Haas School of Business, Jaimebelieves true success comes from
employees who are both happyand growing. Today, he partners with
business leaders nationwide tomeasure, understand and transform
workplace culture, provingthat investing in people drives success
for everyone. We're thrilledto have him here to share his experience
(03:05):
and inspire us to reimagineour workplace. Welcome, Jaime, to
the Business Superfans podcastshow. We're super excited to have
you on the show. How are you today?
I'm doing great, Freddie, howyou doing?
And I'm excited about thisconversation. Really wanted into
(03:25):
really what Best Companies isall about. And we had a great conversation
before we started recording.So let's continue that conversation.
One of the things noticed onyour website is the fact that the
team is first and theleadership is on the bottom. Where
you go to a majority ofwebsites, it's the other way around.
It's the leadership first andthen teams at the bottom. And as
(03:48):
we talked, the team is reallywhat makes the company role.
It's really the team. And wewant to make sure that in every way
that we can, within the waythat we work, our processes, how
we work with each other, oursystems are set up. We tell our employees,
our team, that they are theones that are making the business
(04:09):
run. They are the mostimportant people in our organization.
We looked at a lot of researchthat shows that whenever you have
an inspired employee, somebodythat feels like they're really, truly
connected to theorganization's mission, they are
over two times more productivethan an average employee. It's intentional
(04:29):
because we want to make surethat we have an employee first organization,
but also a little bit selfishbecause we know that it's going to
help us have a much better andstronger organization. And we talk
about that too within theteam. Like I tell all my leaders
to tell their teams and I talkto the team directly, is we're here
to serve you, we're here tosupport you, we're here to make you
(04:50):
successful. If you're notsuccessful, nothing happens. Absolutely
correct.
So let's go back to thebeginning and what's your backstory?
And how did you get involvedwith the organization?
Yeah, so it started when Iread a book that I'm not sure if
you read. That really just hitme hard. It's Drive by Dan Pink.
(05:13):
No.
And I'm not sure if you'veseen that. It's a great book. It
talks about what motivates usat work, what's the thing that keeps
us going and actually makes uswant to do better. He breaks it down
into really, we want to feelreally good about the work that we're
doing. We want to feel likewe're making progress, to feel like
we have some agency in thework that we do. And we want to feel
(05:36):
like we belong to somethingbigger than ourselves. I think we
can all agree that's somethingthat's really important, regardless
of whether it's work or familyor community. I started thinking,
how much of our time do wespend at work? We spend more time
at work than we do with ourfamilies. We spend more time talking
to our manager than we dotalking to our spouse. So why not
(05:59):
make that the best experiencewe can make? And as I dug deeper
into it, found out that it'snot just good for the employee, it's
good for the organization.There's a lot of information out
there that shows that ifyou're a Best Place to work, if you're
an organization that does thatreally well, you beat the market,
you are more profitable, youare more innovative. And so that
(06:21):
started my career in thisspace. Now I've been in it for 15
years. I started when I was atGreat Place to Work. Great Place
to Work is the research andanalytics firm that helps Fortune
magazine create the 100 bestcompanies to Work for list every
year. So whenever you go toyour grocery store and you see that
there, that's the company thatdoes all the work on the back end.
(06:43):
And then I did a couple ofroles in HR to really live that role
and understand it better. Andnow I have the privilege of leading
Best Companies Group, whichworks with over 10,000 organizations
to help them understand andthen evolve their workplace to become
one of the best in the country.
What a great background. Andthe variations of different areas
(07:08):
that you worked in to give youthe background that you have to do
what you're doing today. Oneof the quotes that I wrote in my
book Creating BusinessSuperfans is, people will crawl through
broken glass for appreciationand recognition.
Yeah.
And it doesn't happen as oftenas people think.
(07:29):
Correct.
Especially leaders think thatthey recognize more than they actually
do. They recognize at a levelthat's sufficient. And the data proves
that's not true. Thedifference between employee who gets
recognized weekly is threetimes more impactful.
Right.
And the other thing, too, isJaime, is that if I recognize you
(07:51):
personally. All right, that'swonderful. That's great. But if I
stop and say, hey, everybody,I want to take a moment to recognize
Jaime on this extra littleproject that he's done, and he really
killed it for us. Everybodygets excited. You feel like a rock
star. And then other peoplego, wow, I'm going to step up my
game. And it just changes thedynamics just like that.
(08:14):
And just like that. Andsometimes that's too much for some
organizations, theorganizations that, over time, we
don't hear about anymorebecause they go out of business,
Culture becomes a culturebecomes toxic.
People leave becauseeverybody's distracted and they're
talking about the negativity,and the negativity just keeps spreading
because you get the pollution,I'll call it into the work environment.
(08:38):
Yeah.
That tonality, you can't hide.So someone calls up on the phone,
a prospective customer, andsomeone's not happy about their job,
that's going to come across.
Absolutely. One thing I wantto pick on, that you just mentioned,
Freddie, in your example, isif that happens when you have an
employee that gets recognizedin front of others. Yes. You get
(09:01):
the boost of that employeeright away. They feel great. They
feel like a superstar, andthey're going to be more motivated
to do even more and go aboveand beyond. An inspired employee
is two times more productivethan an average one. So you're putting
energy into there and keepgoing. The other thing that it does,
and this is the part that alot of organizations don't think
about, is that it tells thestory of what it means to succeed
(09:27):
in that organization. Becausewhen you say, brennan, you did a
fantastic job on this project.I appreciate all the great work you
did in front of everybodyelse. And you tell the story of what
exactly did Freddy do to besuch a superstar? He thought about
the customer. He wasproactive. He searched for an answer.
He didn't give up. That if Iwant to get ahead in this organization,
(09:49):
I gotta be like Freddie, Igotta be proactive. I gotta take
initiative. I gotta becustomer first. And so that's how
you create culture. You createculture by the things that you promote
and the things that you do not allow.
Right.
There's two powerful questionsthat any leader out there, especially
(10:10):
if you're a Senior executiveor executive think about. To think
about what is my culture andhow do I preserve it is one, what
are the behaviors that I'mobserving that are making us successful?
Those are things that you wantto keep happening and you want them
to grow and you want morepeople to do right. So kind of like
this example, what did Freddiedo to be successful? And then two,
(10:32):
what are the behaviors thatare not happening that are making
us successful? These are thethings that you do not want to see
grow in your culture likeweeds. You want to make sure that
you don't allow people to dothat. You tell them that's not the
way that we do it here. Andthen eventually maybe you fire them
if they do exhibit just thosetwo questions. You obsessing about
(10:54):
those and thinking aboutthose, you'll create the culture
that you want.
And what that does is thattransform that team into super fans
of that workplace. And so nowthey're out there promoting to their
friends, their family, andtheir circles of influence. Man,
I love my company. I love myjob. I look forward to go to work
(11:16):
versus oh, I gotta go to workagain. A whole different energy.
My wife works from home. She'sin the other room right now. She
works for a company calledHear.com, hearing aids. Most of her
team is remote, but they doactivities, they do online activities,
they do recognition. She winsgift cards. They fly her out for
company meeting, and everybodygets in together. She loves. She's
(11:39):
going on past seven years nowat the same company. She's one of
their top people. She's gotpicked to be on a special project,
so she's even more motivated.One of my other sayings is the little
things are really the big things.
Yeah.
Say more about that. Like,what do you. What do you mean the
(12:01):
little things you're talkingabout? Like the behaviors that we're
talking about right now.
Yeah.
The simple.
Thank you. Hey, you know what,Jaime? I really appreciate that extra
effort today. That's it. Youdon't have to recognize it to everybody.
Let's just take. You wentabove and beyond. Thanks for taking
care of that. I appreciate it.Or me take you out to lunch. Just
little things that don't costa lot of money but have really high
(12:26):
value to that individualbecause then they go home and go,
hey, guess what happened? WhenI get positive reviews and stuff
like that for this show, I getall excited and I go share it with
my wife.
Because you're. You get thefeedback of my work matters and.
Exactly.
Which means I matter. Whichmeans I matter to this organization,
(12:48):
which means I really careabout this organization now because
it's a virtuous cycle. A lotof businesses, those that do not
care about this, don't thinkof it that way. They think of it
as it's a transaction where weget all the value. We hire an employee,
we pay them money, and then weextract all the value we can out
of that employee for as longas they want to keep getting the
(13:10):
money. I'm being very crudeabout it, but that's what they think
of it like, right?
Absolutely. I worked with acompany and we were working with
contractors and the mindset,they should be grateful because we're
giving them work. And mymindset was, you've got that completely
backwards because they'rehappened to go to customer as an
(13:34):
independent representative ofour company. So guess who's the front
line? Not you. It's thecontractor. That's the front line.
It doesn't matter whatindustry, home improvement or commercial
improvement, interpretingservices, they all use contractors
that you need to make surethey're super happy about working
(13:55):
with you because that's therepresentation and they can work
for anybody.
Yeah. Just imagine if thatthinking was really taken to the
logical end.
Right?
If you were at Amazon andyou're spending millions of dollars
on advertising, you're puttingout a huge super bowl ad that makes
(14:16):
you look great and showspeople what you can do and makes
people think of Amazon. Butthen at the same time, all of your
employees, especially thosethat work in customer service, delivering
a terrible experience, are youreally getting ahead? Are you really?
You're sinking backwards.
You're sinking backwards andyou're spending money, wasting money,
(14:37):
because you're putting thefocus on the wrong thing. And I'm
not saying that you shouldn'tdo those things, but they all go
together. You have to thinkabout your employees. As you mentioned
here, Freddie is they have tobe your superfans. They have to be
excited about talking aboutwhere they go to war, talking about
the products, talking aboutthe services, potentially bringing
in new customers because ofhow excited they are about the work.
(15:00):
Because the sale, thetransaction is not the sale. I've
been in sales for many years.The sale begins. Everything that
happens after the transaction,that's the sale, because that's the
impression, that's themindset, and you need to transform
that customer into a superfan. So they're telling other people
and it snowballs. And you'reabsolutely correct, Jaime, is the
(15:24):
fact that that employee, ifthey're excited and customer calls
up, they're going to handlethat in a very different way than
somebody is there for apaycheck because they feel underappreciated,
they're not recognized. And sothey're just going to go through
it from a transactionalstandpoint. And that may be a good
(15:46):
or bad experience. You'reflipping the coin over that. But
what we're talking about isreally making sure that experience
is solid. So that person goes,wow, that was a great experience.
I'm going to write these guysa review. Because today reviews is
the new word of mouth.
It is. You go out there, youcan't go to a restaurant without
first checking reviews. Youwant to find out if it's good or
(16:07):
not. And now there's a form ofreviews or workplaces, right? More
and more in the experience ofwhat people feel at work is becoming
transparent. And we play a bigpart in that too. And we're proud
of doing that because we dothe survey to directly to employees
and ask them all of thesereally tough questions. Their responses
(16:30):
go directly back to us, theorganization, the employer does not
have anything to do with that.And then we from that data decide,
are you truly a best place towork or not? And it's the employees
experience that we gather,right? That's the process that we
go through whenever somebodyworks with us, either through employee
engagement surveys where wehelp them understand the data and
(16:50):
then build a better workplace,or when they want to get a good fence.
Are we really the best placeto work already? And if so, we'd
like to be recognized as one.Do both of those things. But the
experience comes directly fromemployees. And then we publish that
we show the world these aretruly best places to work. Here's
the data that shows why theyare. It's transparent. It's out there.
(17:13):
Everybody, even if it weren'tout there in a number, people are
talking about you as anorganization, whether you like it
or not. They're saying things.And ideally, if you're really putting
your back into it and you'rethinking about it, right, they're
saying great things about youso that the word spreads. And there's
(17:33):
a lot of research that showsthat organizations who are known
as best place to work in someway, shape or form, either certified
by a third party or they'rejust known for that, are much more
likely to have a positivereputation within the community,
which then means a highernumber of them are going to become
(17:54):
customers. Because what'shappening now is a lot of people
are buying with their values,right? I'm not going to Shop there
because I heard this thing andhow they treat their employees. Am
I going to shop there becausethey didn't believe in the things
that I believe in and haveoptions. It's not like it was 40
years ago where, oh, you gotto go get something. You go to Sears,
right? Because that was it.That was it. I gotta go there. I
(18:17):
gotta get the big fat catalog,which I used to get. And I would
get a dick out of it. Now youcan go anywhere. Okay, so now I can
go anywhere that's formonetized. I'm gonna go where I feel
like my dollars are reallybeing put to something that I care
about. Do they care abouttheir employees? Have a good things
about them? Do I know if theypay well or not? Do they follow the
(18:38):
same values that I do? You gotto think about that stuff. Because
now, not only on the employeeside, but on the customer side, there's
a demand for organizations towalk the talk and be fair and respectful
to their people.
It goes beyond that and italso goes to, you got the suppliers
that you're dealing with,you've got the distributors that
you're dealing with. You gotcomplementary businesses that are
(19:00):
part of the equation. YourCPA, your law firm, etc. The janitorial
service that comes in thatcleans the place. All those come
into play because your team isinteracting with all those different
individuals. And you want tomake sure that in that whole ecosystem,
it's a good ecosystem versus atoxic ecosystem.
(19:23):
Absolutely. It's allconnected. It's all connected. All
the stakeholders matter andthe best organizations know that.
So let's dive deeper into whatit is that you guys do and how do
you work with companies.
Yeah, absolutely. So we workin two major ways. Work with a lot
of leading media publicationsin the country and the world to recognize
(19:45):
best places to work either ina region or in an industry. For example,
we have the Sacramento Bee. Weworked with the Sacramento Bee to
find the best places to workin California. We've done that in
Chicago with the Chicago SunTimes. We've done that in Seattle
with Seattle magazine. Weserve as the research arm to a lot
(20:06):
of these programs where theyparticipate. Company signs up, says,
I want to participate in thisprogram to see if I can be recognized.
No promise of made youparticipate. And then we survey your
people and if the data isright, then you can be recognized.
Sometimes that doesn't happen.Better luck next year, right? That's
one of the things that we do.And then the other one is because
(20:27):
we have worked with over10,000 organizations and have recognized
thousands of organizationsacross those 10,000 as truly amazing
workplaces. We have a lot ofdata, a lot of benchmarks, a lot
of best practices on what ittakes to become a great workplace.
And so we consultorganizations that want to go through
that journey, starting withunderstanding what their employees
(20:50):
are spending in the moment. Sowe do surveys, we do assessments,
focus groups, and then what dowe do with the data to help create
a better workplace foreverybody, where everybody thrives?
So we advise the leadershipteam, we put together action plans,
we support EHR teams in usingthat data in a helpful way to create
some actionable outcomes.
(21:11):
Oh, okay.
So really you're taking thedata and playing it back to the leadership
team anonymously. But moreimportantly, it's giving them a real
assessment of what theirenvironment is at the workplace.
Because a lot of times peoplehave a fallacy that everything is
(21:34):
wonderful and it may notreally be wonderful.
Yes. Or they don't know whatthings are like, but they have a
little voice in the back oftheir head saying it's not very good.
So as soon as they get thedata back, they just walk away from
that spreadsheet very slowlyand never touch it again. There's
(21:54):
a lot of that where they havethe data but they decide not to do
anything with it. Which iseven worse than if you did not ask
your employees how they feel.It's better to do this kind of project
where you're trying to improvethe workplace and asking your employers
how they feel when you do havea plan to act on the data. Otherwise,
(22:16):
don't do it. It's just a wasteof everybody's time, waste of your
resources that you're notready to act on the feedback. Don't
ask for it. Simple. If youare, ask for it, get the feedback
and then set up a system wherethe data becomes a conversation in
the leadership team, whichthen turns into action plans that
(22:39):
the leadership team isaccountable for. There's publicly
across the organization andthat there's an accountability system
where it's not something thatstarts and then fizzles out a few
months. We help organizationswith all of that setting up. Here's
how you take your data into a12 month action planning system where
in 12 months you will haveworked on all of these things and
(23:02):
we guarantee there's going tobe some movement in the data because
you are acting on it. A lot oforganizations drop off after they
kick it off.
Really I'm surprised because Iwould think that data would wake
somebody up and go, man, I Gotto do some things different because
as we know, a thriving culturein a company fuels the growth and
(23:26):
doesn't cost a lot of money.And more importantly, it creates
longevity of employees. Andpeople will stay where they could
be offered more money, butthey'll stay where they're at because
of the fact that they're happywith what they're doing. They know
that they're making adifference, and they love where they're
working.
Yeah. And I think it oftengets stalled because there are good
(23:50):
intentions. But let's sayyou're the CEO of an organization
and you get your results backand you find out that they're not
as good as you thought theywere. People are not as happy as
you thought they were, andthey have specific gripes about what's
going on. It's hard tounderstand, where do I start? How
do I work on these things? Howdo I change it? This is not as easy
(24:10):
as looking at a P and L andtrying to find out where do I cut
cost or what are some productsthat I can start, you know, putting
some R and D money into tothrow out there. It's a lot harder
because it's people.
Right.
People are complicated andpeople change, and people sometimes
are not fully clear. Sometimesyou get data, but you don't understand
what it means. We help thoseorganizations by bringing it down
(24:34):
to a handful ofrecommendations. We do a lot of statistical
work on the back end to findout what are the things that if you
were only to work on two orthree, they would make the biggest
impact to the entire culture.I know that time is finite. We know
that attention is finite. Isaw our resources. So what if we
look at the top three thatwill help you lift all boats, and
(24:55):
then we present what thatlooks like and how you can actually
work on it. A lot of leadersjust don't know how to go to that.
Even within hr. Some HRleaders look at that data and think,
okay, I know I gotta work onthis, but it's so overwhelming and
it's incomplete because I'lljust put.
It in a drawer and ignore it.
Yeah. I'll just say thank youfor your feedback, everybody. Appreciate
(25:16):
it. Here's our numbers andpizza party next Friday, you know,
and they think that's gonnahelp, and they know that it won't.
But a lot of it sometimesfeels like it's intimidating to start
working stuff like that. So wetry to help.
So can you share a story ofhow you guys worked with a company
and transformed them to wheretheir whole environment changed and
they became a super fan of youguys and recommended you to other
(25:38):
companies.
Yeah, absolutely. So it's thestory of a biotech company that we
work with where part of theproject was us having a conversation
with the leadership team tounderstand why their innovation had
gone down. They were notputting out as many patents as they
had in the past. That haddropped off quite a bit recently.
And they are sizable enoughorganization where they thought,
(26:00):
nothing's really changed. Sowhat's going on? So they brought
us in, did a little bit ofresearch, and then we had a conversation
where we presented thesefindings to the executive leadership
team. And in thatconversation, we found something
that ended up transformingtheir organization for the next few
years. One of the observationswe made is people don't feel proud
(26:23):
about the work that they'redoing anymore. Pride levels in the
work that they're doing havedropped off the last few years. Why
do you think that is? So wetalked about that for a second, and
then through the conversation,we found out that if you walk the
halls of their office, oftheir main headquarters, you would
not know that they're abiotech company. You would not know
(26:45):
that the work that they'redoing is actually saving lives and
improving lives of the peopleout there. So we said, what if we
brought more of that in,somehow telling those stories of
patients who have beentransformed because of the medicine
that you created. And so it'ssomething as simple as putting up
(27:06):
some posters, telling storiesof patients, bringing in patients
to town halls every now andthen to talk about how the pulmonary
disease medicine that they hadhelp change their life in front of
all the employees totallyboosted innovation. So for the next
few years, they were moreexcited and more and more proud.
(27:27):
And they were putting outpatents like never before. Sometimes
it's something as small asthat, right? And you need sometimes
a third party that does notlive it every day to make those kind
of observations. And it made abig difference to what they thought
was possible and made themmuch more innovative than they were
before.
You could clearly say thatthey're a super fan of how you transform
(27:49):
that.
Super fan. Yeah, they're asuper fan. And they told us. We really
appreciate that you just camehere and told us something that we
have lived and seen for years,but we never understood because we
just live in it. It's alwayshard to describe the place you're
in, because you just take itin and you just know it and you don't
see the details of it anymore.So when we did the research, we asked
(28:11):
employers how they felt. Andthen we zeroed in on a couple of
key changes that they can maketo make some big impact. It mattered,
and they were really excitedabout it.
Yeah, it's like recognizingthe janitor in the hospital because
their job is to keep the placeclean, keep the germs down and everything
else. So they're saving livesby what they're doing. So that's
(28:34):
exactly what you're talkingabout, is making that person feel
empowered and go, man, I makea difference.
It's funny that you say that,because it reminds me of another
quick story where we wereworking with this healthcare system
and we were presenting thefindings to their leadership team
and trying to find some areasthat we could focus on for the next
12 months for them to act on.And so in one of the breaks, I make
(28:57):
my way to the bathroom, and onthe way back, I bump into a janitor
was cleaning the halls, and wetalked for a second. We exchanged
where we're from, and I askedhim, like, so what is it that you
do here? And I'll never forgethis response because it totally encapsulates
what you just mentioned.Freddie, instead of saying, I mop
the floors and I clean thebathrooms and I sweet the offices.
(29:18):
Right.
He said, without missing abeat, is I help doctors save lives.
It wasn't an ounce of irony inthere. He looked at him, he looked
frowned, like, I hope Dr. Savelives by keeping their offices clean.
And I believed him. He wasdefinitely a super fan. He was definitely
(29:38):
someone that loved his job andsaw the greater purpose in his job.
Yeah, completely game changer.Complete game changer. It's a little
mindset click and wholedifferent attitude.
Absolutely. And he was soproud of it. And never forget that
Norman, in that face, helooked like he was the CEO. Yeah.
(29:58):
He was acting like he's theCEO of what he's doing. At the end
of the day, he's empowered. Hefeels empowered. It's his responsibility.
So it's a whole different ballgame than me saying, hey, John, you
need to mop all this stuff andclean it out. You're in charge of
this, and it's yourresponsibility to take care of that.
(30:20):
Whole different approach.
And like you mentionedearlier, like, the small things are
the big things is he didn'tget there just naturally. He got
there because many people,managers, coworkers, the way that
he was onboarded gave him allof these signals saying, you matter.
You're part of this largermission to save lives, and here's
(30:43):
how your role impacts thatmission. And we are appreciative
for all the great work you doto help everybody else do their job.
Bingo.
You tell that. Yeah. You tellall those messages. Right. In different
ways. And then he's. Yeah,that's right. Because people sometimes
forget that stuff, even ifit's completely true and everybody
knows it in their mind. Peoplefocus on their work, they're busy.
They're going through theirspreadsheet, they're going through
(31:05):
their chores. And if you don'tremind them of how important they
are to the greater mission,they'll forget. So you have to like
rinse and repeat every single day.
Yeah, absolutely correct. Iuse this example a lot, but it's
the best example that I canutilize. Think of a racing rowing
team. You got eight people ina boat. Everybody has a single oar.
(31:29):
You gotta get everybody in,going into one direction, one mission,
and more importantly, insynchronization. Otherwise that boat's
not going nowhere. It's noteven going in a circle. So it's just
wobbling like this, going noplace. So what you're talking about
is really is getting everybodyonto that racing rowboat. They all
(31:50):
know what the mission is,they're onboarded in the right way
and that boat flies throughthe water.
Yeah.
Clarity. The clarity ofknowing why is it important and how
do we succeed?
Right. Yep.
Answering those questionsconstantly for your employees. Themes,
(32:12):
basic. A lot of organizationsdon't do it. If you can answer those
questions. If you're amanager, you can answer those questions
for your people on a regularbasis. You will see your performance
skyrocket. Because most money,they forget. It doesn't cost you
any money. It literally costsyou five minutes per. One on one.
(32:32):
Right.
On a weekly basis with eachemployee. That's it. It's the best
return on investment that youcan have out there. More than anything
else that gets spent on isjust spending five minutes in your
next one on one with youremployee. Say, hey, let me remind
you why your role is soimportant to the work that we do
here. Going through that, doesthat make sense to you? Do you understand
now what I hope you canachieve? Because I have high expectations
(32:55):
for you. Goes back.
The little things are reallythe big things. And that's a little
thing that really has a big impact.
Absolutely.
And now you're gettingeverybody fired up. And then that
energy is contagious, numberone. Number two, it transcends to
all stakeholders because theconversations are different. I had
(33:19):
a guest on a couple shows backand he talked about the relationship
he had with the supplier.They'd get Together. They'd have
lunch once in a while, had agood relationship, and they were
a super fan of him. When thepandemic hit, he needed 500 laptops
like that, and other peoplewere scrambling for laptops like
(33:42):
that. Guess who got him first.
That's right. It pays to dostuff like that. You never know when
you'll need it. And I think italso then transcends the relationship
from just business, which isimportant. We all got to do it. But
if the relationship is justbusiness, where you give me this,
I give you that, and thenwe'll see you next time the contract
(34:04):
renews. It's a commodity. Theycan get that anywhere else. If you're
a vendor, if you're acustomer, whoever is, you can get
that anywhere else becauseit's what everybody else is doing.
But if you're able to find away to transcend that and really
invest in the relationship andtreat people like people, you automatically
stand out. And the next timeyou might need something like that,
(34:27):
you're going to focus on thepeople like, hear about this person
more than just a transaction.I'm going to see what I can do to
help them. And that goes thesame way with employees.
Right.
That's how you create super fans.
You create superfans. It'slike it's a virtuous cycle, because
whenever employees see thattheir organization is going a little
bit above and beyond what theywould be in other organizations by
(34:48):
either investing more in theirtraining or asking their thoughts
on an upcoming decision, orlistening to their feedback on recent
changes, they are then goingto go above and beyond for the organization,
which then gives theorganization an opportunity to go
above and beyond fact to theemployee, because things are getting
better.
Right.
So it's a virtuous cycle. It'slike they're depositing in each other's
(35:10):
checking accounts and it'sgrowing. And you're having people
that thrive and organizationsthat thrive at the same time. There's
no trade out there, Right?
Absolutely right. And then therevenue line goes.
Exactly. Yeah.
It's a W for everybody.
Absolutely.
So what are some of the thingsthat you've encountered that are
(35:34):
really simple things that abusiness owner could do right off
the bat from this episode,that they could do a simple assessment
of themselves and apply itright away to their business?
That's a great question. Iwould say there's two things that
(35:55):
anybody out there can do rightaway, tomorrow, and I can assure
you that it will have animpact on how your people feel about
your organization. And this Isespecially true if you are in the
C suite. Senior leader,executive. If you can show this or
do this, the next time, youcan watch out. You're going to just
see a radical change. And so,one is the next time that you're
(36:19):
in a room with people that arein lower roles or have less power
than you do and talking abouta problem or you're thinking through
a solution, be the very lastperson in the room to speak. Do not
share your solution. Did notshare your thoughts. Did not share
your perspective on it. Put itout there saying, this is something
(36:41):
that we're trying to figureout. I'd love to get your thoughts
and be quiet until it'suncomfortable. You want the rest
of the room to be able toshare what they think in a way that
feels safe. And in order to dothat, you need to be quiet. Because
as soon as you say something,everybody will have to make a decision.
Do I agree or disagree with my boss?
(37:03):
Right.
And if I agree, then you'rereally losing innovation power right
there. Because then they'rejust gonna say, yeah, okay, I guess
I don't have to think about itso much more. I'm just gonna go ahead
and follow the line. If youdisagree, you're gonna think, do
I feel comfortable and safeenough to disagree with my boss in
front of everybody else? Evenif it's in private, Do I feel just
comfortable to disagree withmy boss, period?
(37:25):
Right. Right.
Or do I feel comfortabledisagreeing with the CEO?
Right.
And if you don't, you're notgonna say anything. You're gonna
be quiet and be like, oh,okay, Yeah, I think I like that too.
You're not going to say whatyou really believe. So you got to
be quiet. Be the last personto speak because you have power.
You need to give power back tothe rest of the room. You show that
by showing them that they'reimportant and you value their feedback.
(37:47):
Two, and this one is a littlebit trickier, is look at the information
that maybe you're not sharingwith your people about how the organization
is doing and see how much ofthat you can share in a comfortable
way. What I mean is, right nowwe're going through economic uncertainty.
(38:09):
Regardless of where you are.We just get this all the time. People
have questions about what isthe year going to look like? What
can I expect? How do I preparemy business for that? All the employees
are reading the news thatyou're reading. If all that they're
hearing is positive, rosystatements, they're gonna think they're
(38:29):
not telling Me something.Either it's so bad that they don't
want to say anything about it,or they have no clue how to address
this. And then I don't feelvery confident about my leadership.
You have to say something. Youhave to acknowledge the situation,
even if you don't have a planfor it that is much more positive
and helpful to your employeesthan if you're completely quiet about
(38:51):
it and only share the rosygood news. Again, it shows that you
can be transparent. It showsthat you trust their perspective
and that they can handle thetruth. And also, you fill the information
vacuum that otherwise isreally going to hurt you.
Yeah. Very well said. Verygood advice. Because I was running
(39:12):
a company a few years ago, andthey had a negative net income, the
revenue was spotty, and allthat kind of stuff. And I shared
it with the team because I wasgeneral manager. This is where we're
at. And I solicited ideas ofwhat we can do, and people came up
with some. And I did what yousaid. Shut up. And people came up
(39:34):
with some great ideas that weimplemented, and it made some big
differences. So sometimes,just as you said, Jaime, you kind
of just step out of your own way.
That's really it. And it'ssuper simple. You just put it out
there, be quiet, and peoplewill ask you, what do you think we
should do?
(39:55):
Right.
You might get that. And youcan say, I trust everybody's judgment
here. I'd love to get yourthoughts. I really want to hear from
everybody here. What do youall think? And if you really want
to take it to the next levelis if you hear everybody, you share
your thoughts on thesituation, and then somebody disagrees
(40:17):
with you. That's a greatthing. You want to celebrate that
like you won the lottery.Thank you so much for pointing that
out. I think you're right. Ithink I did miss that. So thank you
for hearing your feedback,Betty. I'll take that into consideration.
That is another signal thatyou send to the rest of the organization
(40:37):
that it is okay to disagree aslong as you do it respectfully, because
then we all get better.
Right.
You don't want to go ahead andsay, well, no, better. You're not.
See, what you're notunderstanding is that this happens,
and that happens right away.
You're kind of condescending.
You're shooting downinnovation in the future. Exactly.
So that's another quick way.Elevate your team and empower your
(40:59):
team.
Yep.
The little things are reallythe big things.
They matter.
They matter.
They have to.
Jaime, as we get close to theend of the show here. How can people
find you?
Yeah, so I'm on LinkedIn.Happy to connect with anybody out
there that wants to talk moreabout this. You can also contact
(41:21):
us at Best Companies Group bygoing to bestcompaniesgroup.com and
sending us a note. We'll giveyou all the information about what
we do and how we can help you.If you want to contact me directly,
you can just go to my websitetoo@j Jaime raulsapeta.com and have
some resources there. I alsosometimes speak on these topics if
that's of interest. If anybodyout there wants to hear more about
(41:43):
it, or if you just want toconnect and get to know each other,
I'd love to talk about you.
Great.
Well, we'll make sure that'sin the show. Notes thank you so much
for your time. You and I couldprobably talk on this for days.
Had a great time.
Thank you so much and we lookforward to having you on the show
down the road again.
Sounds good.
Before we wrap, here's yourquick debrief. Every conversation
(42:05):
focuses on a single pillar ofthe Superfans framework. Nine road
tested steps that turn a sparkof possibility into unstoppable,
scalable prosperity. The ninePillars S Start Strategic positioning
and purpose. You unitestakeholder synergy P Propel magnetic
(42:30):
messaging E Elevate everystakeholder experience R Rally referrals
and reputation S Fosterfinancial fitness A Automate for
exponential leverage N Nurturelifetime loyalty S Scale and sustain
(42:54):
prosperity Each episodeconcludes with a superfan's Success
Spark, a practical guestdriven action distilled from today's
conversation that you canimplement within 24 hours. Follow
the nine episode cycle. Applyevery spark and you'll build a proven
playbook for turningstakeholders into loyal superfans,
(43:16):
accelerating referrals,reputation and revenue.
Here's this episode SuperfanSuccess Park E Elevate every stakeholder
experience so here's the topinsight an inspired employee is over
two times more productive thanan average employee. When you recognize
(43:38):
somebody publicly, you're notjust fueling their motivation, you're
telling the entire team whatsuccess looks like. Jaime Raoul Zabeda
So here's the 24 hour actionstep. Pick one team member who went
above and beyond this week andrecognize them in front of your entire
staff. Be specific about whatthey did and highlight how it ties
(44:00):
to your company's mission.Thank you for listening and please
be a Superfan superstar andsubscribe to this podcast. Thank
you.
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