January 1, 2025 • 42 mins
Discover the transformative power of employee engagement with Bob Kelleher, a visionary in the HR landscape. Bob shares his incredible journey from an HR professional to an influential speaker and consultant, illustrating how understanding the business side of HR can amplify its impact. His story is a powerful testament to how HR, when aligned with business goals, can drive significant organizational change. Bob's passion for engagement as a critical business driver is palpable, offering listeners actionable insights into how HR can evolve from traditional roles to become true catalysts for growth.
HR has undergone a remarkable transformation over the last three decades, shifting from administrative tasks to becoming pivotal players in fostering innovation and people-centric strategies. In our conversation, Bob and I discuss the challenges HR professionals face when pushing for change, especially amid leadership resistance. The importance of finding allies within a company and reflecting on whether HR professionals are truly acting as business partners cannot be overstated. Bob candidly talks about the necessity of staying current, expanding networks, and knowing when to pursue new opportunities if the environment fails to support meaningful contributions.
Our episode concludes with practical strategies for effective employee engagement, starting with the power of engagement surveys. These surveys are compared to essential diagnostics like blood work, identifying critical issues such as leadership trust that can impact engagement levels. Bob shares a compelling case study on reallocating resources to initiatives that matter, underscoring the impact such strategic moves can have. As we wrap up, we highlight the value of professional relationships and invite listeners to connect with us for more invaluable insights into transforming HR into a force for innovation and success.
Rebel HR is a podcast for HR professionals and leaders of people who are ready to make some disruption in the world of work. Please connect to continue the conversation!
https://twitter.com/rebelhrguy
https://www.facebook.com/rebelhrpodcast
http://www.kyleroed.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-roed/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know, the greatest advice I always give HR
people is learn the business ofthe business.
You have to speak theirlanguage.
You have to understand that.
You have to worry about thepeople but you have to worry
about the business right.
Instead of flooding anorganizational layoff, perhaps
you should be triggeringdiscussions on a layoff because
you understand the businessright.
So you know, really understandthe business and learn to say
(00:21):
yes, not get your influence bysaying no.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
This is the Rebel HR Podcast, the podcast where we
talk to HR innovators about allthings people, leadership.
If you're looking for places tofind about new ways to think
about the world of work, this isthe podcast for you.
Please subscribe to yourfavorite podcast listening
platform today and leave us areview.
Rebel on HR Rebels Welcome back.
Rebel HR listeners.
Extremely excited for theconversation today.
(00:52):
I had to hit record because wewere just having a wonderful
conversation about everythingfrom working back at the deli
shop to weddings and wearingties, and so with us today is
Bob Kelleher.
Bob is an author, speaker andfounder of the Employee
Engagement Group.
He also has founded the AEC HRSummit.
He is a thought leader onemployee engagement and
(01:14):
leadership.
He presents to audiences,including my company, about all
things related to employeeengagement and great leadership.
A really great friend and agreat colleague.
Bob, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Thank you so much, Kyle.
I am absolutely delighted to behere with you and your audience
.
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Thank you and I appreciate you taking the time
today, and I really think thatour listeners are going to get
some great content.
I think that my personalexperience with some of the work
that you've done and the thingsthat you've shared with my team
have been really impactful, andI've heard nothing but
wonderful, wonderful responsesfrom some of the work we've done
(01:54):
, and I just think it's going tobe really valuable for our
listeners.
So I'd like to start out byjust understanding a little bit
more about your background.
What brought you into the richworld of employee engagement?
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, I think this will certainly resonate with
your listeners.
I'm a human resourcesprofessional, so I spent many
years in the trenches.
I think I'll be giving my ageaway, but here goes.
I was a personnel rep in 1985and to a series of jobs in the
(02:31):
human resources area.
I became corporate employmentmanager, became director of
training and development, becamechief HR officer, became
executive VP of human resourcesand organizational development
and actually became chiefoperations officer.
So I've spoken at a lot of HRconferences.
(02:52):
Just on that note alone.
As you know, Kyle, hr doesn'tusually get a seat at the table
in which you are running thecompany, and I did, and I think
it speaks to your audience thatif you operate as the HR
traditional caretaker ofpolicies, you're not going to
(03:14):
become chief operations officer.
So I did that for over 30 years.
In 2009, I was chief HR officerfor a global 50,000 employee
company.
I had an epiphany I wanted to.
I heard from so many peoplethat I needed to write a book.
(03:34):
You know I had spent many yearsinside focusing on engagement
as a business driver, not as anice to do thing and just so
many people said, hey, you haveto capture this.
You know this is a case study.
So I wrote my first book.
People started asking me totalk on the book.
That led to really a speakingbusiness.
(03:57):
People started asking me canyou come and help us?
And that led to you know, aconsulting business.
Then they started asking, hey,do you do surveys?
And too much of a capitalist toalways say no.
So I finally said yes and thatled to you know selling products
, and, and, and here I am.
So for the past 13 years I've,I've.
(04:18):
People could find me at theemployee engagement group on
employeeengagementcom.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Absolutely, and you know, I, I think, I think it's
really important to uh, uh, youknow, maybe take a step back and
and and dig into one of thecomments you made, cause it's
something that I, you know, II've seen, um, again and again.
When employee engagement workswhether it's a department that's
(04:49):
engaged or a company that'sengaged, or a leader that's
engaged, the business just runsbetter, it just works.
You see better results, and youmentioned that engagement in
your role was really a businessdriver.
So unpack that a little bit.
You know, as we look atemployee engagement, we think
(05:11):
about all the things we do.
How do we really tap into thatengagement as a driver of the
business?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, selfishly, when I started focusing on
engagement, I didn't really know, kyle, it was going to be a
business driver.
I just didn't want to spend mycareer showing up to various
locations and having people hateto see me because they would
view that I was there to managea layoff or a termination.
I was there to let them knowthat their benefit premiums were
(05:48):
going up, so it was all badnews stuff.
So I really started proactivelyshowing up to help facilitate.
I had facilitation skills, likea lot of HR people do, and I
started facilitating groupdiscussions about their business
If you're underperforming insales, why?
(06:10):
So I was able to leveragefacilitations, my facilitation
skills, to really help thebusiness.
And this became an internalprogram and businesses started
asking me to appear to do anall-day workshop on this.
We called it LeadershipExcellence Through Advanced
(06:30):
Practices, but it really was anHR-led internal initiative.
That was a business improvementprogram and the outcome of that
, managers and employees wouldsay we were engaged in the
business.
And I was so early in this wholeconcept, kyle, that you know
(06:51):
employeeengagementcom was adomain that I acquired.
It was sitting out there.
I acquired it because so manypeople said, you know, started
calling me the engagement guy.
So it was really in some ways,selfishly motivated to get
myself doing things that weremore positively received by the
business instead of negativelyreceived.
(07:12):
And, as it turned out, westarted tracking the business.
If I would appear and do aworkshop, we would see business
results going up and at the time, you know, we got acquired by a
private equity firm and theprivate equity people loved this
process that we were using andthey started asking me to use
(07:36):
the process with sistercompanies and we started
measuring the business results.
So I was living a case studyand you, and when we got
acquired by a global company,they started asking me to do the
same work with their Hong Kongoperations, in Brazil, in Dubai.
So I lived it.
I lived it.
(07:56):
Now, if you Google employeeengagement business results,
you'll see Gallup.
I mean, there's a wholeboutique industry right now that
measures this.
If you have higher engagement,you're going to have higher
results on your business.
And if you have lower engagementat some point in time, it will
negatively impact the business.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Absolutely, and I think what's really interesting
is and I'm sure many HRprofessionals feel this way you
know that there's this constantquestion out there the seat at
the table, as you described itright.
You know how do you gain the,you know the credibility, how do
you get that seat?
And in my opinion, it reallycomes down to solve business
(08:38):
problems and drive results, andthen you don't have to fight for
a seat, people will just askyou to be there.
Was that your experience?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, I hated the perception of HR as the evil HR
director in Dilbert and in somecases and I hate to insult your
audience so I will apologize inadvance for what I'm going to
say but in some cases thatreputation was deserved, with
(09:08):
the HR professional who trulyviewed their power, their
influence, was the gatekeeper ofpolicies, right?
No, you can't do this becausewe'll get sued, and I always
wanted to introduce a concept ofyou know, learn to say yes.
So, if the benefit form isarriving two days late, instead
(09:29):
of saying we can't give ouremployee and their family
benefits, why can't we Like, whycan't we?
So let's learn to say yes,let's try to help.
Or if somebody wants to laysomeone off, I don't want to
tell the president of theEuropean operations they can't.
I want to be in the position ofcounseling them, give them the
(09:51):
pluses and minuses and lettingthem know this is your decision,
not my decision.
I'm here to help you, not hereto tell you what you can and
cannot do.
So you know, the greatestadvice I always give HR people
is learn the business of thebusiness.
You have to speak theirlanguage.
You have to understand that.
You know you have to worryabout the people, but you have
(10:13):
to worry about the business,right.
You know, instead of floodingan organizational layoff,
perhaps you should be triggeringdiscussions on a layoff because
you understand the businessright.
So so you know, reallyunderstand the business and
learn to say yes, not not getyour influence by saying no.
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Speaker 2 (11:22):
Absolutely Couldn't agree more.
One of the interesting thingsabout my early career that I
reflect on is, you know, one ofthe best things that I got to do
is I was in an operations rolebefore human resources and I
wanted to be in human resourcesafter I was in that operations
role, when I figured out what HRdid and that was interesting to
me.
Hr did and that was interestingto me, but I had to figure out
(11:47):
the business before they.
Let me do HR and that for methat was a really big blessing
because I had a team of you know, at certain times, well over a
hundred employees that I wassupervising and I was struggling
as a new leader and as just asa leader in general, that when I
went into HR, I understood theday-to-day struggles in the life
of somebody in an operationsrole so I could be a better
(12:08):
partner for them, and I alsoknew what their job was right.
That helps you have tounderstand those things.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
There's a reason why some of these long-standing,
most admired companies you know,pepsi, procter Gamble, ge
before they had their recenthiccup, they would historically
rotate people from operationsinto corporate roles.
(12:37):
Right, because they wanted themto understand.
You know.
If you're an HR person and youhave no idea what the business
is like, oh, you don't know whatbeing in the field is like
versus being in corporateheadquarters, and I think that
is such an important evolution.
I always tell HR functions ifyou can spend time in operations
(13:02):
, if you can't do it through atransfer, get out there, be
proactive, do something that youdo well for them and get you
know, get to know their business, have them see you as part of
their team, not part of the HRfunction.
You know.
So you know.
I think your experience inoperations, my experience as COO
(13:24):
, taught me as much about myfunction in human resources as
my prior.
You know, 25 years at the timein human resources.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Absolutely.
Yeah, it was a powerfullearning moment for me thing.
That, um, that, uh, your, your,your comments kind of jogged my
memory about was uh, uh, youknow a scenario where and I've
told this story on the podcastbefore, so if I'm boring any
listeners I apologize, but I had, uh, uh, an HR mentor early on
(13:57):
who literally told me you know,hr's job is to be equal
opportunity.
You know, hate everybody thesame, and it was.
It was said as a joke, butthere, you know, under every
little bit of sarcasm there's alittle bit of truth there.
But that really, you know, thatkind of that compliance mindset
that, hey, let's just make surewe don't get sued, like just
(14:20):
thinking in that context thatwill ripple out into all of your
actions and that, just like Idon't know about you, bob, that
just sounds like that would justsuck.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I don't want to do that job in a selfish way, I
know.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
I know.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
And you know I have a lot of clients really all over
the globe and you know onceagain I might be insulting the
function, but if I'm hired bythe CEO or COO, it's a different
relationship.
If I'm hired by some of thehuman resource folks who are
(14:56):
still in that compliant tellingme, you know well, you can't say
this, you can't do this, youcan't, you know.
So it runs deep inside thefunction and I do think it has
changed.
I mean, it's changed so muchfor the better.
Kyle, you know the vastmajority of human resource
professionals.
When I first entered HR in thepersonnel department, you know
(15:20):
we weren't trained personnelpeople.
I was a former school teacher,right?
You know we weren't trainedpersonnel people.
I was a former school teacher,right?
You know it was always funnythat the CFO was, you know, a
CPA and they had an MBA.
And you know the HR person.
You know, six months prior theywere in charge of the
receptionist.
(15:45):
So the evolution of the functionhas evolved for the better so
much in the past 30 years.
So it's a function that I lovedaily.
Even when I was COO, I was asuccessor to the CEO and I want
to get back into my comfort areaof focusing on the people,
which I always found to be thebest part of the job, but the
function has certainly evolved.
The best part of the job, butthe function has certainly
(16:08):
evolved and these associationsand podcasts and Disrupt HR.
There is a breed of HR peoplethat I think have been doing
some great things pushing thefunction, and I'm on the second
nine, not the front nine, but Ido see a lot of people really
pushing the function in a moreinnovative, edgy way.
(16:33):
That I think is great.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Absolutely.
I think that's certainly beenmy experience, at least over the
last decade or so that I'vebeen working, you know working,
you know more more directly inthe function, and, and I think
you know what's what's reallybeen interesting is the just the
change over the last few years,kind of the acceleration of
(16:57):
change, with, you know, tryingto figure out work from home.
You know social unrest, dealingwith something that that we
never thought we would deal with.
You know a global pandemic and,and you know, I, I remember
talking to, uh, to my CEO, um,who you know really well, bob,
and you know, and, and hiscomment at one point was this is
(17:18):
all HR.
You know all of this.
This, this is the most importantthing right now is taking care
of the people and putting thepeople first, and having a
leader like that, having a focuslike that, especially in these
times, I think is so critical.
But I guarantee you thatthere's so many professionals
listening to this right now thatare nodding their heads up and
(17:39):
down.
Yes, yes, I agree.
But then the next question isbut how do I do that in my
organization?
So, from your standpoint, bob,as you think about the changes
that you've seen and the changesthat maybe still need to occur
in many of our organizations.
What would be some steps thatyou would recommend an HR
professional do if they see thatthere needs to be some level of
(18:01):
change or elevation or focus onthe people?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
the culture that the function is not being allowed to
, you know, be influential, oris it the individual sitting in
the seat who's incapable ofbeing influential?
So it's a tough one to paintwith a broad base brush, right?
But I would say, say, if youview yourself as an innovative,
(18:46):
disruptive type of HR person orfunction or team and you have
some resistance because the CEO,him or her, is resistant to the
HR function Maybe they had abad experience, right.
So maybe they view the HRdepartment as the police
department Then I wouldencourage you to find the most
(19:09):
senior person organizationallywho does support the function.
Bond with that function, getthem as your partner and
increasing that visibility ofboth you personally as well as
the function, because there'salways someone who reports up to
(19:30):
the CEO, who gets it in casethe CEO or COO doesn't Find that
person.
Partner with that person.
Create value If, by some chance, that it's the culture and it's
an old-fashioned organizationalculture that the function is
never going to get the respect.
(19:50):
Life is too short to not haveinfluence and I would encourage
people to weigh their careeroptions elsewhere.
Try to fix where you are.
It's always easier, I think,than to look to change the jobs
every time there's a hiccup, butoccasionally you might find
yourself in an organization that, if the frustration level is so
(20:11):
high and you can't influence,there are so many organizations
that are looking for HR to leadthat I would encourage you to
weigh some alternatives.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it's a really importantpoint.
I think having an ally isreally important, the right ally
, and I think, being honestabout that, you know that
cultural question.
But I also think I think theother point I think that is
really important was the commentabout you know, is it the
(20:47):
individual?
You know, before you jump, haveyou really done everything you
know that you can do to expandyour influence?
You know, are you saying yes asmuch as you can?
Are you really thinking outsidethe box or are you just
frustrated because somebodyasked a question that you didn't
(21:07):
like the tone of?
You know what I mean, and andbut, there's, there's, you know,
you have.
I.
I truly believe you kind ofhave to ask those questions
internally and, yes, once you'vechecked the box, that, yeah, I
really have checked asked thosequestions.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah, it's time to think about doing something else
of the CEO.
But she's bonded with the COOin such a way that it has given
her hope and encouragement thatit's a good company.
She also views CEO tenuresaren't that long and she's
concluded that theorganizational culture, the COO,
other people it's worthsticking it out, even if the
head person maybe has a legacyopinion of HR that isn't
favorable.
(22:06):
So you know there's suchpersonal decisions.
You know I do believe the HRfolks can help themselves.
Stay current, Read the latest,Go to the conferences, you know,
hear what other people aresaying, Build your network and
(22:27):
look at your function in themirror Are you a business
partner or are you a businesspolice department?
And ask what can we ourselvesdo differently?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
And ask what can we, what can we ourselves do
differently?
Yeah Well, I mean, I, you know,self admittedly, I certainly
fall into that trap of like,almost like being like the
traffic cop, right, and and it's, and it's because it's how many
of us were trained or broughtup?
You know, it's, it's, you know,you're, you're, you're supposed
to be the policy police, you'resupposed to be the black and
(23:00):
white decider in a lot of cases.
But so often you lose the humanelement, you know, and you get
stuck in this.
It's almost like getting stuckin a rut where you just kind of
become, you know, an autonomousdecision maker.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
It's just terrible.
The greatest advice I givepeople and I used to practice
this myself If you are in humanresources, everything you do
that's reactive doesn't getnoticed unless you do something
wrong.
So think about that for amoment.
All of the administrativethings that people do, all of
(23:40):
the reactive things fillingrequisitions, you know, managing
open enrollment in your paidprogram and trying to deal with
the escalation of salaries andinflationary period all of the
administrative things that comeacross our desk which can
exhaust all of us I put in areactive camp, which can exhaust
(24:05):
all of us.
I put in a reactive camp.
True, personal engagement occurswhen we are proactive.
So how do you establish a day?
And I used to tell my team Ihad 450 HR people reporting to
me and I used to say try toschedule your week so that 50%
of your week is proactive and50% of your week is reactive.
Proactive would be you'reinviting yourself to a
department meeting, you'recreating a virtual training
(24:28):
program for employees, you'reintroducing a new employee
referral program, and personalengagement comes when you're
introducing and doing somethingproactively but the function is
so administrative heavy that youfind yourself in a rut.
(24:51):
You can just like sit thereLike I used to joke with my wife
I could sit in my office andnever do anything that would be
proactive.
Like everything comes to meemails, telephone calls, time
for open enrollment boss wantsto see me like everything comes.
And when I would separatemyself and introduce stuff I'm
(25:12):
designing a new program, I'mshowing up to a department, I'm
creating an event those were thethings that would just make me
be electrified and the thingsthat would get me noticed.
So I finally concluded hey, anyproactive thing I do gets me
positive press or the departmentpositive press.
Anything that's administrativethat comes to me.
(25:35):
The press can only be bad whenyou do something wrong.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, recruiting comes to mind.
It's only bad when it's youknow it's expected that you fill
all these open positions, butit's bad when you have too many.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Absolutely the ghost positions right.
So people get the approval fora rec and they really don't want
to fill it.
But it kills your process, yourrecruiting team.
Days to fill a rack, yeah yeah,yeah.
Those things can be tough.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, I've had that.
Yeah, Especially lately.
I seem to have a lot of thosedialogues, but it's been
interesting.
But here's one thing that Iwill say on that is you know, in
one of my, one of my locations,I have an, a leader who truly
believes in employee engagement.
(26:28):
You know, he, he, he lives it,he breathes it, he's involved,
he listens.
And guess who?
Has zero open positions rightnow in a manufacturing setting?
He has people asking to workhere because they, they have
referrals in front and you know,and that's just another great
example of like the, thebusiness is running smoothly.
(26:49):
You know, retention is greatbecause we have a leader who
believes in employee engagementand truly supports.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
It's not.
It's not coincidental, kyle,it's it.
There's a reason why he has noopen requisitions.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah.
So even if you're just lookingat this from a purely selfish
standpoint, it's like it reallyisn't fun to have to hire people
and have vacant positions.
So if you don't want to do that, then employee engagement can
really help.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Well, think of filling your swimming pool.
If you have a big giant hole inyour liner, right, it's really
difficult.
And it's the same concept Ifyou have low engagement, which
usually results in higher thanindustry average voluntary
turnover right, and you'retrying to grow your business,
(27:40):
the hardest thing in the worldto do is add headcount while
you're also replacing headcount,you know, and it becomes toxic.
You know, as people leave, evenpeople who weren't thinking of
leaving start thinking ofleaving.
Right, it's the Pied Pipereffect.
And I think you know focusingon engagement has just so many
tangible benefits.
(28:01):
Something as simple as youremployee referral percents go
way up when people are engagedenough to refer their colleagues
.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Absolutely so.
I do want to talk about that alittle bit Obviously.
You know you're a subjectmatter expert.
You've lived it, You've writtenthe books.
Subject matter expert You'velived it, You've written the
books For organizations that arelooking at engagement or maybe
are wanting to look atengagement.
Where would you say the bestplace to start is?
Do you start with measuring howyou're doing?
(28:32):
Do you start with learning anddevelopment?
Where would you advise that westart to think about this?
If this is new for us, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
So this is going to sound self-serving because we do
engagement surveys, but I don'treally care who you use to do
an engagement survey, but youneed to have a baseline right,
and the baseline can't be thisis what HR thinks or this is
what the leaders think, becausethe leaders in HR always think
more positively than what isreally happening, right.
(29:00):
So the metaphor I like to use,kyle you would never go to your
doctor's office the annualphysical without getting blood
work right, and I think anengagement survey is your blood
work for your organization.
You need to know where are thepain points.
So, before you, you know, focuson training and development.
(29:22):
Is that a pain point?
You know?
Is that where the focus shouldbe?
Is it?
You know?
Do you have a leadership issue?
You know, I always look at anengagement survey and I can tell
from the first review that youdon't have an engagement issue.
You have a leadership trustissue and because you have a
(29:43):
leadership trust issue, it'strickling throughout the
organization.
So if you focus on training anddevelopment, that's not going
to fix your leadership trustissue.
So, you know, give yourselfsome data and view engagement
like the CFO views.
You know, views the P&Lstatement Capture your data that
gives you some idea of where tofocus your energy, as well as
(30:08):
what locations or departments ordivisions you should be
focusing your energy on.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
We'll be back after a quick break.
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instantly.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Go to tryrumiai that's tryrumiai for a 14-day
free trial?
Absolutely, and I can attestyou know we started doing this a
few years ago.
It really highlighted someareas of focus.
The other thing that reallyhelped us do was figure out what
to actually prioritize, because, like you said, you could sit
here and even in the 50%proactive stuff that you're
trying to do, if you're throwingall your energy at a program
(31:23):
that your employees don't feellike is a need, you're not going
to move the needle as much asif you actually try to solve a
problem that they have in theirday-to-day work.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Great case study on that Near 2000,.
We were owned by a German firm,the firm I was with.
We were about at the time about1,200 employees, and we were
acquired the German parent.
They wanted to exit their NorthAmerican business, so they
brought in a private equity firmand we partnered with them.
(31:54):
So I became a management owner,because we all had to write
checks too and the privateequity folks wanted to come in
with a bang.
So they said Bob, what do youthink of us doubling the 401k
match?
And you know the typical HRresponse might be oh, that's
great news, let's do it.
So I said well, you know that'sgoing to cost us.
(32:14):
You know I forget the amount,but let's just say you know that
was going to be like a milliondollars.
I said, well, I don't really.
I'm not hearing a lot of peopletell us that our 401k match is
not competitive.
In fact, it's probably right atthe baseline of competitiveness
.
Why don't we ask our employeeswhat they think?
So we actually did a pulsesurvey and overwhelming the
(32:38):
response was training anddevelopment.
Like it wasn't even close.
We had over 1,000 comments.
Now one person said can we havemore 401k match dollars?
So what I use?
I took that and I said we couldbuild a corporate university
for a smaller amount than whatyou want to spend.
(32:58):
Let's create a best-in-classcorporate university.
And that's what we did and itwas a game changer.
So we were all set to spendmoney to fix a need that we
didn't have and we reallocatedthe funds to a need that we did
have.
That, you know, truly became anengagement game changer.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
That's a great example and, I think, a great
reminder that we need to have abaseline and have a consistent
measurement style as well.
I think I will put a plug inhere, not necessarily to be
serving you, Bob, specifically,but I do strongly believe you
(33:41):
need to go to a professionalsurvey company as opposed to
trying to do all these surveysyourself, because there are.
You know, survey design is oneof those sciences that there's.
You really need an expert tounderstand and then to, and then
probably more importantly, toactually interpret that data in
a way that's actionable, right?
That's the other big issue,right?
Speaker 1 (34:02):
And you know any survey provider and you know, I
know all of them and they allprovide great benchmarks, right?
Because if you do a surveywithout external benchmarks, I'm
going to tell you right nowcompensation is going to come in
low and you're going to thinkyou have a compensation issue.
Now, as it stands in theseinflationary times, you probably
(34:25):
do have a compensation issue.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, they're probably legit.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yeah, but typically you don't have a compensation
issue and as soon as youbenchmark it, you'll see that
your compensation scores, basedon engagement, could be in the
top 90 percentile right.
So you end up focusing onthings that you shouldn't be
focusing on, based on anartificial benchmark against
yourself.
So having the externalbenchmarks I think you know
(34:50):
provides a very accurate prismon where you should be focusing
your time and energy, Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Well, this has been a great conversation.
Unfortunately, we're coming tothe end of our time together and
I'm sure you're running off toanother all-day workshop or
something like that, so I wantto shift gears and get into the
Rebel HR flash-around questions.
Question number one where doesHR need to rebel?
Speaker 1 (35:17):
I would rebel on the administrative perception side
of things and, you know, beviewed organizationally as a
driver of innovative thoughtsinside your organization.
(35:39):
You know, when you think ofinnovation you generally don't
think of the HR department,right, but if you think of it,
the HR department is the peopledepartment.
Innovation is born from people.
So how can you shift theperception organizationally that
we are here providingadministrative support and we
(36:03):
are here providing cutting edgeconsultative insights to the
organization?
That's what I would suggest.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Absolutely.
Question number two who shouldwe be listening to?
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, you know I.
So here's a plug for you.
You know I love thesedisruptive folks that are doing
the podcast and the conferencesand and you know I think there's
a whole new breed of disruptiontaking place.
And you know, inside thefunction, you know people that I
(36:40):
tend to kind of read and listento.
You know I love MalcolmGladwell.
You know I think he bridgespersonal and business in such a
great way and I've spokenalongside Dan Pink and his work
(37:05):
is always exceptional and itleads always with the people
part of the business.
Thomas Friedman is a brilliantmind.
I think if you're not a globalcompany today, you will be
tomorrow, and his work, hislegacy book the World is Flat,
(37:29):
is probably the greatestbusiness book you'll ever read.
Innovation side the Innovator'sDilemma by Clayton Christensen
from Harvard Business School isa must-read for every HR
professional.
Even if you read the Steve Jobsstory, he'll reference it that
(37:56):
it changed his life.
And if you're trying to bedisruptive, one of the ways of
getting there is to be moreinnovative yourself, and Clayton
Christensen's work is a cuttingedge work in the work of
innovation.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Absolutely.
I'll put a couple of plugs outthere.
Bob's got a couple of greatbooks as well.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
I'll put a couple of plugs out there.
Bob's got a couple of greatbooks as well.
I Engage your PersonalEngagement Roadmap Is that.
The most recent book Talksquite a bit about what happens
at home influences you at work,and it was written for COVID
times in some ways because of aswe all found ourselves, you
know, in hybrid workforces,right.
(38:49):
So it's a terrific book.
It's personal, it has 22 careerrest stops, so it's not so much
a book for leaders althoughleaders love it to do with their
team but it's a wonderful bookfor an individual to figure out
their own personal engagementand why it might be waning
(39:10):
Absolutely, and then we'll alsoinclude in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
There's actually on Bob's website.
There's actually a pagededicated to employee engagement
books.
There's some otherrecommendations out there.
Of course, his books areavailable, so open up your
podcast player and click inthere and you'll be able to find
that.
So last question how can ourlisteners connect with you?
Speaker 1 (39:31):
If you go on YouTube, you know some of the most
watched videos in the world.
You know who's seeking yourboat.
It's a video I did a few yearsback.
It's at 1.3 million views.
So there are some cool ways ofconnecting with me just on
YouTube, and those are free ways, right.
You know things that you can doand share the videos.
(39:52):
They're four minutes long.
Share them with your team Agreat way of leveraging
engagement in a very inexpensiveway.
You can find me onemployeeengagementcom pretty
easy website, and you knowthere's a resource section.
We post articles, bestpractices.
You know a lot of free stuffand then there's ways of seeing
(40:15):
how you bring me in either togive a talk.
We do workshops was I wasjoking, uh, with kyle before we
uh went live that you know these.
These zoom talks have been verypowerful because it allows me
to wear shorts as I give a talk,so that's a benefit.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
yeah, and as far as you look professional to me, bob
, so you know shorts or whatever.
You know, we talked about thaton our first podcast ever and I
think we described it as it'slike a reverse mullet, right,
it's like there's business ontop and a party on the bottom,
party on Bob.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
I love that.
I'm going to steal that, but Iwill give you, I will give you
credit that but I will give youcredit.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
I think I stole it from some video I saw somewhere,
so I can't take credit, but Ilove the description.
Bob, this has just beenabsolutely wonderful.
Again, I know your time is veryvaluable.
I appreciate you giving us acouple minutes here.
I know that our listeners aregoing to take a lot away from
this.
We'll have all that informationin the show notes.
Check it out.
(41:19):
Really appreciate the time, Bob.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Hey, you're both a great professional colleague as
well as a friend.
Thank you, Kyle.
Thanks Bob, Take care.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
All right, that does it for the Rebel HR Podcast.
Big thank you to our guests.
Follow us on Facebook atRebelHR Podcast, twitter at
RebelHRGuy, or see our websiteat RebelHumanResourcescom.
The views and opinionsexpressed by RebelHR Podcast are
those of the authors and do notnecessarily reflect the
official policy or position ofany of the organizations that we
(41:55):
represent.
No animals were harmed duringthe filming of this podcast.
You know, the greatest advice I always give HR
people is learn the business ofthe business.
You have to speak theirlanguage.
You have to understand that.
You have to worry about thepeople but you have to worry
about the business right.
Instead of flooding anorganizational layoff, perhaps
you should be triggeringdiscussions on a layoff because
you understand the businessright.
So you know, really understandthe business and learn to say
(00:21):
yes, not get your influence bysaying no.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
This is the Rebel HR Podcast, the podcast where we
talk to HR innovators about allthings people, leadership.
If you're looking for places tofind about new ways to think
about the world of work, this isthe podcast for you.
Please subscribe to yourfavorite podcast listening
platform today and leave us areview.
Rebel on HR Rebels Welcome back.
Rebel HR listeners.
Extremely excited for theconversation today.
(00:52):
I had to hit record because wewere just having a wonderful
conversation about everythingfrom working back at the deli
shop to weddings and wearingties, and so with us today is
Bob Kelleher.
Bob is an author, speaker andfounder of the Employee
Engagement Group.
He also has founded the AEC HRSummit.
He is a thought leader onemployee engagement and
(01:14):
leadership.
He presents to audiences,including my company, about all
things related to employeeengagement and great leadership.
A really great friend and agreat colleague.
Bob, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Thank you so much, Kyle.
I am absolutely delighted to behere with you and your audience
.
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Thank you and I appreciate you taking the time
today, and I really think thatour listeners are going to get
some great content.
I think that my personalexperience with some of the work
that you've done and the thingsthat you've shared with my team
have been really impactful, andI've heard nothing but
wonderful, wonderful responsesfrom some of the work we've done
(01:54):
, and I just think it's going tobe really valuable for our
listeners.
So I'd like to start out byjust understanding a little bit
more about your background.
What brought you into the richworld of employee engagement?
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, I think this will certainly resonate with
your listeners.
I'm a human resourcesprofessional, so I spent many
years in the trenches.
I think I'll be giving my ageaway, but here goes.
I was a personnel rep in 1985and to a series of jobs in the
(02:31):
human resources area.
I became corporate employmentmanager, became director of
training and development, becamechief HR officer, became
executive VP of human resourcesand organizational development
and actually became chiefoperations officer.
So I've spoken at a lot of HRconferences.
(02:52):
Just on that note alone.
As you know, Kyle, hr doesn'tusually get a seat at the table
in which you are running thecompany, and I did, and I think
it speaks to your audience thatif you operate as the HR
traditional caretaker ofpolicies, you're not going to
(03:14):
become chief operations officer.
So I did that for over 30 years.
In 2009, I was chief HR officerfor a global 50,000 employee
company.
I had an epiphany I wanted to.
I heard from so many peoplethat I needed to write a book.
(03:34):
You know I had spent many yearsinside focusing on engagement
as a business driver, not as anice to do thing and just so
many people said, hey, you haveto capture this.
You know this is a case study.
So I wrote my first book.
People started asking me totalk on the book.
That led to really a speakingbusiness.
(03:57):
People started asking me canyou come and help us?
And that led to you know, aconsulting business.
Then they started asking, hey,do you do surveys?
And too much of a capitalist toalways say no.
So I finally said yes and thatled to you know selling products
, and, and, and here I am.
So for the past 13 years I've,I've.
(04:18):
People could find me at theemployee engagement group on
employeeengagementcom.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Absolutely, and you know, I, I think, I think it's
really important to uh, uh, youknow, maybe take a step back and
and and dig into one of thecomments you made, cause it's
something that I, you know, II've seen, um, again and again.
When employee engagement workswhether it's a department that's
(04:49):
engaged or a company that'sengaged, or a leader that's
engaged, the business just runsbetter, it just works.
You see better results, and youmentioned that engagement in
your role was really a businessdriver.
So unpack that a little bit.
You know, as we look atemployee engagement, we think
(05:11):
about all the things we do.
How do we really tap into thatengagement as a driver of the
business?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, selfishly, when I started focusing on
engagement, I didn't really know, kyle, it was going to be a
business driver.
I just didn't want to spend mycareer showing up to various
locations and having people hateto see me because they would
view that I was there to managea layoff or a termination.
I was there to let them knowthat their benefit premiums were
(05:48):
going up, so it was all badnews stuff.
So I really started proactivelyshowing up to help facilitate.
I had facilitation skills, likea lot of HR people do, and I
started facilitating groupdiscussions about their business
If you're underperforming insales, why?
(06:10):
So I was able to leveragefacilitations, my facilitation
skills, to really help thebusiness.
And this became an internalprogram and businesses started
asking me to appear to do anall-day workshop on this.
We called it LeadershipExcellence Through Advanced
(06:30):
Practices, but it really was anHR-led internal initiative.
That was a business improvementprogram and the outcome of that
, managers and employees wouldsay we were engaged in the
business.
And I was so early in this wholeconcept, kyle, that you know
(06:51):
employeeengagementcom was adomain that I acquired.
It was sitting out there.
I acquired it because so manypeople said, you know, started
calling me the engagement guy.
So it was really in some ways,selfishly motivated to get
myself doing things that weremore positively received by the
business instead of negativelyreceived.
(07:12):
And, as it turned out, westarted tracking the business.
If I would appear and do aworkshop, we would see business
results going up and at the time, you know, we got acquired by a
private equity firm and theprivate equity people loved this
process that we were using andthey started asking me to use
(07:36):
the process with sistercompanies and we started
measuring the business results.
So I was living a case studyand you, and when we got
acquired by a global company,they started asking me to do the
same work with their Hong Kongoperations, in Brazil, in Dubai.
So I lived it.
I lived it.
(07:56):
Now, if you Google employeeengagement business results,
you'll see Gallup.
I mean, there's a wholeboutique industry right now that
measures this.
If you have higher engagement,you're going to have higher
results on your business.
And if you have lower engagementat some point in time, it will
negatively impact the business.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Absolutely, and I think what's really interesting
is and I'm sure many HRprofessionals feel this way you
know that there's this constantquestion out there the seat at
the table, as you described itright.
You know how do you gain the,you know the credibility, how do
you get that seat?
And in my opinion, it reallycomes down to solve business
(08:38):
problems and drive results, andthen you don't have to fight for
a seat, people will just askyou to be there.
Was that your experience?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, I hated the perception of HR as the evil HR
director in Dilbert and in somecases and I hate to insult your
audience so I will apologize inadvance for what I'm going to
say but in some cases thatreputation was deserved, with
(09:08):
the HR professional who trulyviewed their power, their
influence, was the gatekeeper ofpolicies, right?
No, you can't do this becausewe'll get sued, and I always
wanted to introduce a concept ofyou know, learn to say yes.
So, if the benefit form isarriving two days late, instead
(09:29):
of saying we can't give ouremployee and their family
benefits, why can't we Like, whycan't we?
So let's learn to say yes,let's try to help.
Or if somebody wants to laysomeone off, I don't want to
tell the president of theEuropean operations they can't.
I want to be in the position ofcounseling them, give them the
(09:51):
pluses and minuses and lettingthem know this is your decision,
not my decision.
I'm here to help you, not hereto tell you what you can and
cannot do.
So you know, the greatestadvice I always give HR people
is learn the business of thebusiness.
You have to speak theirlanguage.
You have to understand that.
You know you have to worryabout the people, but you have
(10:13):
to worry about the business,right.
You know, instead of floodingan organizational layoff,
perhaps you should be triggeringdiscussions on a layoff because
you understand the businessright.
So so you know, reallyunderstand the business and
learn to say yes, not not getyour influence by saying no.
Speaker 4 (10:35):
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Speaker 2 (11:22):
Absolutely Couldn't agree more.
One of the interesting thingsabout my early career that I
reflect on is, you know, one ofthe best things that I got to do
is I was in an operations rolebefore human resources and I
wanted to be in human resourcesafter I was in that operations
role, when I figured out what HRdid and that was interesting to
me.
Hr did and that was interestingto me, but I had to figure out
(11:47):
the business before they.
Let me do HR and that for methat was a really big blessing
because I had a team of you know, at certain times, well over a
hundred employees that I wassupervising and I was struggling
as a new leader and as just asa leader in general, that when I
went into HR, I understood theday-to-day struggles in the life
of somebody in an operationsrole so I could be a better
(12:08):
partner for them, and I alsoknew what their job was right.
That helps you have tounderstand those things.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
There's a reason why some of these long-standing,
most admired companies you know,pepsi, procter Gamble, ge
before they had their recenthiccup, they would historically
rotate people from operationsinto corporate roles.
(12:37):
Right, because they wanted themto understand.
You know.
If you're an HR person and youhave no idea what the business
is like, oh, you don't know whatbeing in the field is like
versus being in corporateheadquarters, and I think that
is such an important evolution.
I always tell HR functions ifyou can spend time in operations
(13:02):
, if you can't do it through atransfer, get out there, be
proactive, do something that youdo well for them and get you
know, get to know their business, have them see you as part of
their team, not part of the HRfunction.
You know.
So you know.
I think your experience inoperations, my experience as COO
(13:24):
, taught me as much about myfunction in human resources as
my prior.
You know, 25 years at the timein human resources.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Absolutely.
Yeah, it was a powerfullearning moment for me thing.
That, um, that, uh, your, your,your comments kind of jogged my
memory about was uh, uh, youknow a scenario where and I've
told this story on the podcastbefore, so if I'm boring any
listeners I apologize, but I had, uh, uh, an HR mentor early on
(13:57):
who literally told me you know,hr's job is to be equal
opportunity.
You know, hate everybody thesame, and it was.
It was said as a joke, butthere, you know, under every
little bit of sarcasm there's alittle bit of truth there.
But that really, you know, thatkind of that compliance mindset
that, hey, let's just make surewe don't get sued, like just
(14:20):
thinking in that context thatwill ripple out into all of your
actions and that, just like Idon't know about you, bob, that
just sounds like that would justsuck.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
I don't want to do that job in a selfish way, I
know.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
I know.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
And you know I have a lot of clients really all over
the globe and you know onceagain I might be insulting the
function, but if I'm hired bythe CEO or COO, it's a different
relationship.
If I'm hired by some of thehuman resource folks who are
(14:56):
still in that compliant tellingme, you know well, you can't say
this, you can't do this, youcan't, you know.
So it runs deep inside thefunction and I do think it has
changed.
I mean, it's changed so muchfor the better.
Kyle, you know the vastmajority of human resource
professionals.
When I first entered HR in thepersonnel department, you know
(15:20):
we weren't trained personnelpeople.
I was a former school teacher,right?
You know we weren't trainedpersonnel people.
I was a former school teacher,right?
You know it was always funnythat the CFO was, you know, a
CPA and they had an MBA.
And you know the HR person.
You know, six months prior theywere in charge of the
receptionist.
(15:45):
So the evolution of the functionhas evolved for the better so
much in the past 30 years.
So it's a function that I lovedaily.
Even when I was COO, I was asuccessor to the CEO and I want
to get back into my comfort areaof focusing on the people,
which I always found to be thebest part of the job, but the
function has certainly evolved.
The best part of the job, butthe function has certainly
(16:08):
evolved and these associationsand podcasts and Disrupt HR.
There is a breed of HR peoplethat I think have been doing
some great things pushing thefunction, and I'm on the second
nine, not the front nine, but Ido see a lot of people really
pushing the function in a moreinnovative, edgy way.
(16:33):
That I think is great.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Absolutely.
I think that's certainly beenmy experience, at least over the
last decade or so that I'vebeen working, you know working,
you know more more directly inthe function, and, and I think
you know what's what's reallybeen interesting is the just the
change over the last few years,kind of the acceleration of
(16:57):
change, with, you know, tryingto figure out work from home.
You know social unrest, dealingwith something that that we
never thought we would deal with.
You know a global pandemic and,and you know, I, I remember
talking to, uh, to my CEO, um,who you know really well, bob,
and you know, and, and hiscomment at one point was this is
(17:18):
all HR.
You know all of this.
This, this is the most importantthing right now is taking care
of the people and putting thepeople first, and having a
leader like that, having a focuslike that, especially in these
times, I think is so critical.
But I guarantee you thatthere's so many professionals
listening to this right now thatare nodding their heads up and
(17:39):
down.
Yes, yes, I agree.
But then the next question isbut how do I do that in my
organization?
So, from your standpoint, bob,as you think about the changes
that you've seen and the changesthat maybe still need to occur
in many of our organizations.
What would be some steps thatyou would recommend an HR
professional do if they see thatthere needs to be some level of
(18:01):
change or elevation or focus onthe people?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
the culture that the function is not being allowed to
, you know, be influential, oris it the individual sitting in
the seat who's incapable ofbeing influential?
So it's a tough one to paintwith a broad base brush, right?
But I would say, say, if youview yourself as an innovative,
(18:46):
disruptive type of HR person orfunction or team and you have
some resistance because the CEO,him or her, is resistant to the
HR function Maybe they had abad experience, right.
So maybe they view the HRdepartment as the police
department Then I wouldencourage you to find the most
(19:09):
senior person organizationallywho does support the function.
Bond with that function, getthem as your partner and
increasing that visibility ofboth you personally as well as
the function, because there'salways someone who reports up to
(19:30):
the CEO, who gets it in casethe CEO or COO doesn't Find that
person.
Partner with that person.
Create value If, by some chance, that it's the culture and it's
an old-fashioned organizationalculture that the function is
never going to get the respect.
(19:50):
Life is too short to not haveinfluence and I would encourage
people to weigh their careeroptions elsewhere.
Try to fix where you are.
It's always easier, I think,than to look to change the jobs
every time there's a hiccup, butoccasionally you might find
yourself in an organization that, if the frustration level is so
(20:11):
high and you can't influence,there are so many organizations
that are looking for HR to leadthat I would encourage you to
weigh some alternatives.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it's a really importantpoint.
I think having an ally isreally important, the right ally
, and I think, being honestabout that, you know that
cultural question.
But I also think I think theother point I think that is
really important was the commentabout you know, is it the
(20:47):
individual?
You know, before you jump, haveyou really done everything you
know that you can do to expandyour influence?
You know, are you saying yes asmuch as you can?
Are you really thinking outsidethe box or are you just
frustrated because somebodyasked a question that you didn't
(21:07):
like the tone of?
You know what I mean, and andbut, there's, there's, you know,
you have.
I.
I truly believe you kind ofhave to ask those questions
internally and, yes, once you'vechecked the box, that, yeah, I
really have checked asked thosequestions.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah, it's time to think about doing something else
of the CEO.
But she's bonded with the COOin such a way that it has given
her hope and encouragement thatit's a good company.
She also views CEO tenuresaren't that long and she's
concluded that theorganizational culture, the COO,
other people it's worthsticking it out, even if the
head person maybe has a legacyopinion of HR that isn't
favorable.
(22:06):
So you know there's suchpersonal decisions.
You know I do believe the HRfolks can help themselves.
Stay current, Read the latest,Go to the conferences, you know,
hear what other people aresaying, Build your network and
(22:27):
look at your function in themirror Are you a business
partner or are you a businesspolice department?
And ask what can we ourselvesdo differently?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
And ask what can we, what can we ourselves do
differently?
Yeah Well, I mean, I, you know,self admittedly, I certainly
fall into that trap of like,almost like being like the
traffic cop, right, and and it's, and it's because it's how many
of us were trained or broughtup?
You know, it's, it's, you know,you're, you're, you're supposed
to be the policy police, you'resupposed to be the black and
(23:00):
white decider in a lot of cases.
But so often you lose the humanelement, you know, and you get
stuck in this.
It's almost like getting stuckin a rut where you just kind of
become, you know, an autonomousdecision maker.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
It's just terrible.
The greatest advice I givepeople and I used to practice
this myself If you are in humanresources, everything you do
that's reactive doesn't getnoticed unless you do something
wrong.
So think about that for amoment.
All of the administrativethings that people do, all of
(23:40):
the reactive things fillingrequisitions, you know, managing
open enrollment in your paidprogram and trying to deal with
the escalation of salaries andinflationary period all of the
administrative things that comeacross our desk which can
exhaust all of us I put in areactive camp, which can exhaust
(24:05):
all of us.
I put in a reactive camp.
True, personal engagement occurswhen we are proactive.
So how do you establish a day?
And I used to tell my team Ihad 450 HR people reporting to
me and I used to say try toschedule your week so that 50%
of your week is proactive and50% of your week is reactive.
Proactive would be you'reinviting yourself to a
department meeting, you'recreating a virtual training
(24:28):
program for employees, you'reintroducing a new employee
referral program, and personalengagement comes when you're
introducing and doing somethingproactively but the function is
so administrative heavy that youfind yourself in a rut.
(24:51):
You can just like sit thereLike I used to joke with my wife
I could sit in my office andnever do anything that would be
proactive.
Like everything comes to meemails, telephone calls, time
for open enrollment boss wantsto see me like everything comes.
And when I would separatemyself and introduce stuff I'm
(25:12):
designing a new program, I'mshowing up to a department, I'm
creating an event those were thethings that would just make me
be electrified and the thingsthat would get me noticed.
So I finally concluded hey, anyproactive thing I do gets me
positive press or the departmentpositive press.
Anything that's administrativethat comes to me.
(25:35):
The press can only be bad whenyou do something wrong.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, recruiting comes to mind.
It's only bad when it's youknow it's expected that you fill
all these open positions, butit's bad when you have too many.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Absolutely the ghost positions right.
So people get the approval fora rec and they really don't want
to fill it.
But it kills your process, yourrecruiting team.
Days to fill a rack, yeah yeah,yeah.
Those things can be tough.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, I've had that.
Yeah, Especially lately.
I seem to have a lot of thosedialogues, but it's been
interesting.
But here's one thing that Iwill say on that is you know, in
one of my, one of my locations,I have an, a leader who truly
believes in employee engagement.
(26:28):
You know, he, he, he lives it,he breathes it, he's involved,
he listens.
And guess who?
Has zero open positions rightnow in a manufacturing setting?
He has people asking to workhere because they, they have
referrals in front and you know,and that's just another great
example of like the, thebusiness is running smoothly.
(26:49):
You know, retention is greatbecause we have a leader who
believes in employee engagementand truly supports.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
It's not.
It's not coincidental, kyle,it's it.
There's a reason why he has noopen requisitions.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Yeah.
So even if you're just lookingat this from a purely selfish
standpoint, it's like it reallyisn't fun to have to hire people
and have vacant positions.
So if you don't want to do that, then employee engagement can
really help.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Well, think of filling your swimming pool.
If you have a big giant hole inyour liner, right, it's really
difficult.
And it's the same concept Ifyou have low engagement, which
usually results in higher thanindustry average voluntary
turnover right, and you'retrying to grow your business,
(27:40):
the hardest thing in the worldto do is add headcount while
you're also replacing headcount,you know, and it becomes toxic.
You know, as people leave, evenpeople who weren't thinking of
leaving start thinking ofleaving.
Right, it's the Pied Pipereffect.
And I think you know focusingon engagement has just so many
tangible benefits.
(28:01):
Something as simple as youremployee referral percents go
way up when people are engagedenough to refer their colleagues
.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Absolutely so.
I do want to talk about that alittle bit Obviously.
You know you're a subjectmatter expert.
You've lived it, You've writtenthe books.
Subject matter expert You'velived it, You've written the
books For organizations that arelooking at engagement or maybe
are wanting to look atengagement.
Where would you say the bestplace to start is?
Do you start with measuring howyou're doing?
(28:32):
Do you start with learning anddevelopment?
Where would you advise that westart to think about this?
If this is new for us, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
So this is going to sound self-serving because we do
engagement surveys, but I don'treally care who you use to do
an engagement survey, but youneed to have a baseline right,
and the baseline can't be thisis what HR thinks or this is
what the leaders think, becausethe leaders in HR always think
more positively than what isreally happening, right.
(29:00):
So the metaphor I like to use,kyle you would never go to your
doctor's office the annualphysical without getting blood
work right, and I think anengagement survey is your blood
work for your organization.
You need to know where are thepain points.
So, before you, you know, focuson training and development.
(29:22):
Is that a pain point?
You know?
Is that where the focus shouldbe?
Is it?
You know?
Do you have a leadership issue?
You know, I always look at anengagement survey and I can tell
from the first review that youdon't have an engagement issue.
You have a leadership trustissue and because you have a
(29:43):
leadership trust issue, it'strickling throughout the
organization.
So if you focus on training anddevelopment, that's not going
to fix your leadership trustissue.
So, you know, give yourselfsome data and view engagement
like the CFO views.
You know, views the P&Lstatement Capture your data that
gives you some idea of where tofocus your energy, as well as
(30:08):
what locations or departments ordivisions you should be
focusing your energy on.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
We'll be back after a quick break.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
At my current company , I've generated seven figures
in revenue in just six monthsdoing all the sales by myself.
Just me and Rumi, my secretweapon.
Rumi isn't just another meetingapp.
It's like Zoom or Google Meet,but with AI tools that
supercharge my results.
Rumi records every meeting,gives me real-time insights
(30:39):
during sales calls and if I'vemet with a prospect in the past,
rumi's meeting memory answersany questions I have.
Before the call.
I don't waste time diggingthrough notes Rumi preps me
instantly.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Go to tryrumiai that's tryrumiai for a 14-day
free trial?
Absolutely, and I can attestyou know we started doing this a
few years ago.
It really highlighted someareas of focus.
The other thing that reallyhelped us do was figure out what
to actually prioritize, because, like you said, you could sit
here and even in the 50%proactive stuff that you're
trying to do, if you're throwingall your energy at a program
(31:23):
that your employees don't feellike is a need, you're not going
to move the needle as much asif you actually try to solve a
problem that they have in theirday-to-day work.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Great case study on that Near 2000,.
We were owned by a German firm,the firm I was with.
We were about at the time about1,200 employees, and we were
acquired the German parent.
They wanted to exit their NorthAmerican business, so they
brought in a private equity firmand we partnered with them.
(31:54):
So I became a management owner,because we all had to write
checks too and the privateequity folks wanted to come in
with a bang.
So they said Bob, what do youthink of us doubling the 401k
match?
And you know the typical HRresponse might be oh, that's
great news, let's do it.
So I said well, you know that'sgoing to cost us.
(32:14):
You know I forget the amount,but let's just say you know that
was going to be like a milliondollars.
I said, well, I don't really.
I'm not hearing a lot of peopletell us that our 401k match is
not competitive.
In fact, it's probably right atthe baseline of competitiveness
.
Why don't we ask our employeeswhat they think?
So we actually did a pulsesurvey and overwhelming the
(32:38):
response was training anddevelopment.
Like it wasn't even close.
We had over 1,000 comments.
Now one person said can we havemore 401k match dollars?
So what I use?
I took that and I said we couldbuild a corporate university
for a smaller amount than whatyou want to spend.
(32:58):
Let's create a best-in-classcorporate university.
And that's what we did and itwas a game changer.
So we were all set to spendmoney to fix a need that we
didn't have and we reallocatedthe funds to a need that we did
have.
That, you know, truly became anengagement game changer.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
That's a great example and, I think, a great
reminder that we need to have abaseline and have a consistent
measurement style as well.
I think I will put a plug inhere, not necessarily to be
serving you, Bob, specifically,but I do strongly believe you
(33:41):
need to go to a professionalsurvey company as opposed to
trying to do all these surveysyourself, because there are.
You know, survey design is oneof those sciences that there's.
You really need an expert tounderstand and then to, and then
probably more importantly, toactually interpret that data in
a way that's actionable, right?
That's the other big issue,right?
Speaker 1 (34:02):
And you know any survey provider and you know, I
know all of them and they allprovide great benchmarks, right?
Because if you do a surveywithout external benchmarks, I'm
going to tell you right nowcompensation is going to come in
low and you're going to thinkyou have a compensation issue.
Now, as it stands in theseinflationary times, you probably
(34:25):
do have a compensation issue.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, they're probably legit.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yeah, but typically you don't have a compensation
issue and as soon as youbenchmark it, you'll see that
your compensation scores, basedon engagement, could be in the
top 90 percentile right.
So you end up focusing onthings that you shouldn't be
focusing on, based on anartificial benchmark against
yourself.
So having the externalbenchmarks I think you know
(34:50):
provides a very accurate prismon where you should be focusing
your time and energy, Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Well, this has been a great conversation.
Unfortunately, we're coming tothe end of our time together and
I'm sure you're running off toanother all-day workshop or
something like that, so I wantto shift gears and get into the
Rebel HR flash-around questions.
Question number one where doesHR need to rebel?
Speaker 1 (35:17):
I would rebel on the administrative perception side
of things and, you know, beviewed organizationally as a
driver of innovative thoughtsinside your organization.
(35:39):
You know, when you think ofinnovation you generally don't
think of the HR department,right, but if you think of it,
the HR department is the peopledepartment.
Innovation is born from people.
So how can you shift theperception organizationally that
we are here providingadministrative support and we
(36:03):
are here providing cutting edgeconsultative insights to the
organization?
That's what I would suggest.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Absolutely.
Question number two who shouldwe be listening to?
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah, you know I.
So here's a plug for you.
You know I love thesedisruptive folks that are doing
the podcast and the conferencesand and you know I think there's
a whole new breed of disruptiontaking place.
And you know, inside thefunction, you know people that I
(36:40):
tend to kind of read and listento.
You know I love MalcolmGladwell.
You know I think he bridgespersonal and business in such a
great way and I've spokenalongside Dan Pink and his work
(37:05):
is always exceptional and itleads always with the people
part of the business.
Thomas Friedman is a brilliantmind.
I think if you're not a globalcompany today, you will be
tomorrow, and his work, hislegacy book the World is Flat,
(37:29):
is probably the greatestbusiness book you'll ever read.
Innovation side the Innovator'sDilemma by Clayton Christensen
from Harvard Business School isa must-read for every HR
professional.
Even if you read the Steve Jobsstory, he'll reference it that
(37:56):
it changed his life.
And if you're trying to bedisruptive, one of the ways of
getting there is to be moreinnovative yourself, and Clayton
Christensen's work is a cuttingedge work in the work of
innovation.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Absolutely.
I'll put a couple of plugs outthere.
Bob's got a couple of greatbooks as well.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
I'll put a couple of plugs out there.
Bob's got a couple of greatbooks as well.
I Engage your PersonalEngagement Roadmap Is that.
The most recent book Talksquite a bit about what happens
at home influences you at work,and it was written for COVID
times in some ways because of aswe all found ourselves, you
know, in hybrid workforces,right.
(38:49):
So it's a terrific book.
It's personal, it has 22 careerrest stops, so it's not so much
a book for leaders althoughleaders love it to do with their
team but it's a wonderful bookfor an individual to figure out
their own personal engagementand why it might be waning
(39:10):
Absolutely, and then we'll alsoinclude in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
There's actually on Bob's website.
There's actually a pagededicated to employee engagement
books.
There's some otherrecommendations out there.
Of course, his books areavailable, so open up your
podcast player and click inthere and you'll be able to find
that.
So last question how can ourlisteners connect with you?
Speaker 1 (39:31):
If you go on YouTube, you know some of the most
watched videos in the world.
You know who's seeking yourboat.
It's a video I did a few yearsback.
It's at 1.3 million views.
So there are some cool ways ofconnecting with me just on
YouTube, and those are free ways, right.
You know things that you can doand share the videos.
(39:52):
They're four minutes long.
Share them with your team Agreat way of leveraging
engagement in a very inexpensiveway.
You can find me onemployeeengagementcom pretty
easy website, and you knowthere's a resource section.
We post articles, bestpractices.
You know a lot of free stuffand then there's ways of seeing
(40:15):
how you bring me in either togive a talk.
We do workshops was I wasjoking, uh, with kyle before we
uh went live that you know these.
These zoom talks have been verypowerful because it allows me
to wear shorts as I give a talk,so that's a benefit.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
yeah, and as far as you look professional to me, bob
, so you know shorts or whatever.
You know, we talked about thaton our first podcast ever and I
think we described it as it'slike a reverse mullet, right,
it's like there's business ontop and a party on the bottom,
party on Bob.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
I love that.
I'm going to steal that, but Iwill give you, I will give you
credit that but I will give youcredit.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
I think I stole it from some video I saw somewhere,
so I can't take credit, but Ilove the description.
Bob, this has just beenabsolutely wonderful.
Again, I know your time is veryvaluable.
I appreciate you giving us acouple minutes here.
I know that our listeners aregoing to take a lot away from
this.
We'll have all that informationin the show notes.
Check it out.
(41:19):
Really appreciate the time, Bob.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Hey, you're both a great professional colleague as
well as a friend.
Thank you, Kyle.
Thanks Bob, Take care.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
All right, that does it for the Rebel HR Podcast.
Big thank you to our guests.
Follow us on Facebook atRebelHR Podcast, twitter at
RebelHRGuy, or see our websiteat RebelHumanResourcescom.
The views and opinionsexpressed by RebelHR Podcast are
those of the authors and do notnecessarily reflect the
official policy or position ofany of the organizations that we
(41:55):
represent.
No animals were harmed duringthe filming of this podcast.
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