February 4, 2025 • 23 mins
In this episode of the "HR Mixtape," host Shari Simpson sits down with Tom Schin owner of Build Better Culture, to explore the critical importance of workplace culture in today's organizations. Tom shares his journey from recruiting to becoming a culture expert, emphasizing how effective leadership and employee experience can transform company culture.
Listeners will discover:
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The Importance of Culture: Understand why culture is a top concern for HR professionals and how it impacts employee retention and engagement.
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Building a Feedback-Rich Environment: Learn strategies for creating psychological safety and encouraging open communication within teams.
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Adapting to Hybrid Work: Gain insights on how to maintain a strong company culture for remote and hybrid employees, ensuring inclusivity and connection.
Tune in for practical advice and thought-provoking insights that can help organizations thrive in the evolving workplace landscape.
Guest: Tom Schin
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
You're listening to the HR Mixtape, your podcast with
the perfect mix of practical advice, thought-provoking interviews, and
stories that just hit different so that work doesn't have to feel,
well, like work. Now, your host,
Joining me today is Tom Schin owner at Build Better Culture. Tom
helps organizations create stronger, more engaging workplaces by
(00:33):
Thanks, Shari I'm excited. We had a little couple hiccups over the
Yes, holiday season and all, for sure. I'd like to
start with maybe you sharing a little bit about your own personal journey
and how you got into this space about workplace culture where
You know, I appreciate the question. I find that
(00:57):
the most common way for me to explain this is that from my
recruiting experience in
working with so many organizations, you saw a lot of companies do things really
well. right and then you found some
along the way that weren't and you know there
are always the jerks out there you have a couple of those right that i
(01:19):
could tell you we could go on and on about those but then there was these folks
in the middle who didn't
know they were not doing it the best way. Right. And they could have
with some guidance, some context, start
to understand what kept people there. And people always say, oh,
our company culture is great, but they couldn't define it. Like, yeah, it's sort
(01:41):
of bored. This idea that
I can go help you with that. I'm a huge culture guy. Even
when I started to go down this path, working full
time while doing this on the side, it was one of those people were referring
to me as the culture guy and like, yes, it matters how
you interact with your people makes a huge difference. And
(02:02):
I found it. with people that work for me. For
the most part, I didn't strike everybody's fancy, and that's true
of any organization, but for the most part, as I,
from my own practices, folks appreciated The
breathing room and the inquisitiveness of finding out
(02:22):
who people are and how they connect to what it is
that organization's about. Even on the interview side, when
I would hire people for different organizations, you'd ask them questions, well, what are
you looking for? Well, these people are really about this. And when you made that connection fit,
we're like, these people really get me. I'm like, uh-huh. That's that
match piece that we talked about. And so over time, this whole culture
metamorphosis, we'll call it. uh came through that
(02:46):
i can go help people find that magic sauce identify
who they are and help them use it as an advantage versus
sort of a luck of the draw um yeah
so that that's sort of where this came from is the idea that let
Well, and your passion is coming out in your voice and
(03:09):
the way you tell the story of people are just listening to
this. So I always get excited when I get to talk to people where it just it
almost feels like cultures in your blood, like the way you talk about it. And,
you know, as I've been looking forward to this coming
year, we're recording this in December, but but you're probably listening
to it in January or February. So with that being said,
(03:30):
I'm I'm thinking about everything I'm seeing and
kind of like the top five, top 10 lists of things HR
professionals are concerned about for 2025. And
somewhere in that top five or 10, there is always this
culture component. Now it might say specifically culture, it
might say, you know, vision, mission values, it
(03:51):
might say employee experience. Why now do
you think this is bubbling up to one of the top five or 10 things
I think historically. There have
been more people than or at least enough people
in the job market to fill roles that hiring
(04:11):
managers, we as hiring managers, were so busy onboarding them and
doing all the operational things and managers were so focused
in on producing results. Culture and
engagement was sort of swept under the rug in some regard, not
intentionally, just we're too busy for that. We have too many things going on.
I've got to do X and Y and Z. And now people are realizing People
(04:33):
are leaving organizations. They still are. You saw it after
the pandemic, when the rehiring surge came through, they
know that there's a greener pasture out there. And
what that points to is two
things. We know there's a long list of things that people leave organizations for,
right? Number one, their manager. Number
(04:55):
two, their culture. And depending on the survey tool that
you're looking at, it could be flip-flopped. Pay is
always a question mark for folks. That's not the answer, right? If you're getting way
underpaid, absolutely. But generally speaking, if you're
paying fairly for what you're asking and what the market's holding, you're okay.
But your manager and your culture are the two things that people are
(05:16):
leaving for. And ultimately, what I found is that If
you have a bad manager, they're reinforcing that
bad culture, or they're leading the charge with that bad culture,
sometimes intentionally, meaning, I don't give a flying F,
or oblivious to the fact that, oh, I'm
(05:36):
the problem. Right. And so here
we are in the state of culture is very important to realizing this is a
huge opportunity, not just a problem or challenge, but
it's an opportunity. Like we have something really good here. Let's publicize
this. Let's take advantage of this. Let's grow with this to
make sure it's something that's sustainable and worth shouting
(05:57):
from the rooftop. So people want to come here. I want to be the employer of choice.
I've seen that shift as well as in
just some of the language I've been seeing, things like focusing
more on empathy and care as a business model and those
kinds of things. You know, with your mentality
of building better cultures, you have kind of
(06:20):
a framework or foundation that you think of when
you're helping to encourage people to create these positive cultures. What
are those, you know, foundational principles that you lean into as
Yeah, so really, really good question. And we'll make
some assumptions here. There are stats behind everything. I
(06:40):
can tell you all the productivity stats for better culture, better engagement,
retention. We're not going to do that. But in
essence, the framework to build here is who
are you? And to say we have a good company culture because
people smile here or they like that we give them breakfast. That's not
what I'm talking about. Those are activities. Those are items that
(07:01):
add to what you're doing. but it's
not the ping pong table effect. Ping pong tables are fun, all right? I will be
the first to admit it. If you're using it in the right manner and it's just sort of the, hey,
I'm one of those people. I get fidgety, I have to have toys. I've got dice, I've
got koosh balls, I've got this and that and the other. But
how this weaves in as you figure out who you are, who are
(07:22):
your leaders think you are, but also who your people think
you are and how your culture is interpreted
by those employees and the managers. Very
important there. Distinction of here's the leaders, here's the employees. So
you got very top of the pyramid, very bottom of the pyramid. You get the middle managers
right in the middle that are really driving those processes. Once you figure out
(07:43):
who you are, how do you make sure everybody's connected to
it? Right. Are you walking the talk? Are you just sort
of giving lip service? Hey, we care about you, but only when it matters to us
or it affects the bottom line or affects revenue. When proverbial
blankety blank hits the fan, then forget all that stuff.
You can't have it both ways. Your culture needs to be consistent when
(08:05):
times are good. and when times are bad or
challenging and everything in the middle, how you relate to folks. You can't go
flying off the handle with people. You can certainly have
more serious conversations about stuff and still have
a positive culture. We're transparent. We want to be fair about this. We're going to tell
you about this stuff. Here's our timelines. Here's our expectations. So
(08:26):
that's some of the framework is who are you? Who do you want to be? How
What do you say to those leaders who are listening, who maybe
have already done this work, they've gone through it, and the conclusion they've
come to is, our culture sucks
and our leadership is fine with that, that this is actually
what they believe in. I think of some
(08:49):
of the things we've heard in the news about like return to work mandates, right?
There's a lot of chatter about that kind of stuff. And the conversations I've
gotten into have centered around what is the culture of
the organization? What is the expectation? How do they make money? What are
the values they talk about? And if one of those values or the
way that they talk about their culture aligns with this return to work mandate, Part
(09:10):
of that is having that tough conversations and employee and go, do
the values of this organization still resonate with me personally, right?
Like you run into that. So what do you
say to that HR person who's in that role, who can
see so much more, right? Has that passion and excitement to
create this great employee experience, but maybe just realized,
(09:34):
Her culture. So two, it's a double-edged sword as many
things are in part that I'll
put it out there. That HR manager might also be in the wrong place, right?
You think about I'm all about this and we're preaching this
and how we do things, right? And
that's not supported by everything else. Uh,
(09:57):
that's an issue. If you're not as an HR leader in
your organization, given the bandwidth and the seat at the table that we
talk about. then you're not walking the
talk from a leadership standpoint. If you're not willing to listen to that cheap
people officer, whether that's their title or not, we talk about titles. You
know, they're still the voice of the rest of the
(10:17):
employee base, and they're advocating on both sides, both for the business and
for the employees. You know, there are elements
here that scream, you need to have some hard
conversations with the people in charge. This is the path
that we're taking. And if that's the path, that's fine. You're going
to lose people over this. It may not be today, may not be tomorrow,
(10:37):
but you know, we'll use the movie
lines. We can't say tomorrow and for the rest of your life and all that stuff, but you get the idea, right?
But at some point, something's going to break. And
I may not be here for that fix. Because I need
to be at a place where I feel my resolution. It's not so much,
you know, yes, I'm not telling all you HR people who hate their jobs to leave,
(10:58):
but I'm telling you to take a hard look, right? Make sure you can
bring that voice up. If you can't be clear and consistent and have
an objective conversation with the leaders in your organization, start
Yeah. And I think that's a good challenge is that, you know, don't automatically make
that assumption. Like you said, like, Oh, I got to leave this organization. This
(11:20):
might be a fantastic opportunity for you to come to
the business in a different way than you have before. So I highly
encourage you to, like you said, Tom, just start asking different questions.
Get really curious about why the organization thinks
that it things about culture the way it does, maybe
you'll uncover something that they think it equals some sort of
(11:40):
business outcome that doesn't actually equal. And you can kind of lean
And it might also lead you down the path of those leaders seeing that
you have greater business acumen than they thought. You
understand way more about the business beyond your
people role, air quotes. You're understanding the
financial implications. You're, you're demonstrating that knowledge and experience to
(12:03):
them, or they may take a look and see, oh, you
do need a seat at the table. We need you at these meetings. Titles
aside, again, it's more, it's like being a leader. You could be a leader
Let's talk about hybrid and remote work for a little bit. This
continues to come up from the perspective of,
(12:25):
you know, how do we give our hybrid or remote employees the
same cultural experience that they've had when they were
in the office? And, you know, I work for a tech company. And so we
have all the tech company things in the office, you know, the free food and
the pool tables and the gym and the basement and,
you know, cafeteria and staff, all the fun things. But
(12:45):
I work remote now 99% of the time. And
so those things that I think we defined as culture, which
I think you accurately described at the beginning, there are activities or
there are items, they're not necessarily the culture. How
do we define then for, for those that are like, man, this
is the mandate I've been given this year is to make the culture feel real for
(13:07):
these hybrid and remote employees. How should they be tackling that?
Like maybe see, they already got their values, kind of their head around that. How
So two answers, as with most things, right? We'll be
vague just because we're in HR and that's kind of part of our course
in life. For the hybrid folks, be very intentional
(13:28):
about when people are together. If
you're going to have them come in, make it meaningful, take advantage of
that. Realize that I use water cooler talk
as an example. I've heard other people use it as well, but
you're probably going to have more water cooler talk time on
your hybrid days when people are together. That's okay. Yeah,
(13:50):
you have work to be done. Don't book yourself an hour meeting
eight hours straight. You have to give them that latitude because
they're not used to being around this social climate as much. And
so you have a little bit more. I promise you when they're back in their home office, they're
probably 120% productive. right? They're pounding
away because there aren't the, I don't want to call it interruptions. That's
(14:12):
not the right phrase, but you don't have these elements that are pulling
you away because someone's got a random question or somebody said something funny or there's a
song in the radio and three people started singing it together, right? I'm thinking holiday
themes, right? Mariah Carey jumping on and so on and so forth. You
know, but realize that it's okay to have a hybrid
culture. It's okay to have two
(14:33):
different types of subcultures, if you will,
how you work and connect with your remote people is going to
be different. That's okay. Find what connects
them to what you're doing in that virtual atmosphere. And
you can ask them, Hey, what have you seen in other organizations or start asking
other organizations that do what you do or in other spaces and other parts of the country,
(14:53):
other parts of the world. How are you connecting these things? How
do you, what sort of things are meaningful for your people? And a lot of times I
like to recommend to people from a networking standpoint,
standpoint. You have different salespeople in different industries talking to each
other. So payroll people like to talk to benefits people.
Great. How are they handling that? Find out from them. You're
(15:15):
not necessarily stealing any ideas. You're just looking for collaboration. One
idea may spin into six different activities and
things that you can build into your work style. That's going to work for your remote
group, for your hybrid group, for your in-person group. There there's
Well, and that's such a good point in general, as I
(15:37):
think about what we need to learn from our employees. You
mentioned at the beginning, as you're trying to define culture, that how
your employees look at it is such an important piece of it. You can't just define
it from the highest level of leadership because their experience is
different than your frontline employees. How have
you coached leadership to start to create that
(15:57):
really feedback rich environment where employees
feel safe to share their opinions. They have psychological safety. They
know that something's going to be done about the information they're sharing.
And and I think this one's as just as important. And
managers and or HR have been coached on how to respond to.
I hear the feedback. It's it's not something we're
(16:19):
going to do because that sometimes is the scenario we're
in where we're empathetic. We hear the feedback, but it's just it's
it's not going to impact the masses. So it's something we're not going to. We're going to
So one of the first things managers can
do. Put their tech on airplane mode when
these conversations start. And what I mean by that is
(16:42):
turn your watch to the silence, do
not disturb mode, turn your phone, put your screen away, turn
away from the screen. There are too many distractions in our life.
That airplane mode is critical. You have to give them the attention when you
have them live or on screen. Give them the attention they deserve. They're
coming to you with solutions, challenges, issues, feedback, venting,
(17:03):
whatever it is. You're their work parent
in some regard, work, wife, work, husband, whatever you want to call it. They're
looking to you for a sounding board to feel validated. And your primary
role is to guide them along the path. And if you can't give them 100% of
intentional attention, then
you're doing something, you're doing a disservice to them. You
(17:26):
could be providing some insight. You could be learning a whole lot. And sometimes in
those scenarios where you can't do something about something, explain to
them why. We're not going to get to that. Not because it's out of my control. That
is the last answer any employee wants to hear. That means you don't
give up. Poop, right? You just, you're
placating me because you don't want to dig into the why, right? Go
(17:46):
find out why for them. Get the answer from above and
press the buttons. If you think it's a good idea or worth warranting, plenty
of organizations have operational brainstorming sessions. Hey, you know, so-and-so
suggested this, or I've asked my people and three of them say
X and Y and Z. Bring the conversations up the next rung
and if needed, go a little bit higher. Suggestion boxes
(18:09):
of old are just gone and they shouldn't be. Employees are
coming from all sorts of different environments where they've seen different things work or
things that they like. That's what makes it meaningful is that people are going to listen
to them, that transparency of communication. If you
don't have it, people aren't going to be generating new ideas. They're
not going to be creative. They're going to feel sheltered or scared or only do
(18:29):
the minimum necessary to not
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. As I
think about how we're running out of time here, I have a couple more that I want to make sure
we get to. And you mentioned the
feedback box. And the reason it
(18:50):
kind of made me think about this is because we've leaned so far
into technology now, you know, the pandemic really forced us
to go through a kind of a digital transformation a lot faster than I think some
organizations had planned. And in the last, you
know, two and a half years we've been inundated
with all this language around A.I. and
(19:11):
how we should be utilizing it. And, you know, I as well have
talked about on the podcast a lot. How do you see that marriage
of A.I. and technology and this need for feedback and great culture all
kind of coming together and influencing how we see,
I think the A.I. piece is a
what I call it, purple squirrel. Right. The
(19:34):
unicorn that it's always going to be shifting. It's going to
constantly evolve. That's going to keep bringing new ideas and new ways to
get information. And I think it's something we can take advantage of and
learn from and adapt to. You know, I use it from time to
time for idea generation. Use it as a tool. You know, if you
think about woodworking, maybe it's the hammer and chisel. Maybe
(19:55):
it's a router. Maybe it's a drill. But it's a tool. And
so as you weave that into things, use it as such. Morph it,
teach your people how to use it, see what creative ways they can use it. And
then as you evolve things with people. Reframe
Well, I'm just curious how that technology is going to
(20:18):
influence how we think about culture in the future. You know,
I've been considering this idea around, you know, remote work
and how we define culture for our remote environment, that it
should match what our internal environment is experiencing. Maybe
that's not the case. Maybe there's a flip the script on how we
are defining things, which makes me think how we think about AI
(20:40):
and digital and the things that are changing, how we define
work going forward. How do you see that influencing
Like I said earlier, they can be in two different silos. You can't
be everything to everyone in the same approach. And I'm not saying
play favorites. There's a different conversation to
(21:01):
be had there all along. You have folks that are performing, you're going to naturally do
more for them. You know, when you have little kids and you have four
kids, two of them are listening, two of them aren't. The two that are listening,
all right, you can have your ice cream. You know, the other two, no,
go to your room. You're going to need more work. You need to practice saying please and
thank you and so on and so forth. You have to kind of morph the approach to the
(21:21):
audience. Some of your remote audience, much
like your in-person audience, is going to be tech averse. Some of it's
going to be tech forward. Find ways to reinforce and
have that technology meet them where they're at. I
was at some SHRM meetings recently and they talked about AI
isn't going to replace the employee. It's
(21:44):
going to replace the person who doesn't know how to use AI or hasn't
taken the approach. The AI tool is there. If you don't know how to use
a hammer and you're in a woodshop, you're not going to be in that woodshop very
long. Right? You have to learn how to use the tools.
And if you need some guidance and some programming around how to develop that skill
set, all right, now bring in some experts who can teach your people how to do this, create
(22:06):
And that's a great example of a topic we're not going to get
into, but upskilling, right? Are you thinking ahead and upskilling your
population? All right. As we wrap our conversation, what's one
piece of advice that you'd give to leaders who really want to start improving
I think you take advantage of both what's working, right?
(22:28):
Realize what you're doing really well and celebrate that and
be. be the
person that's looking inside and find that gap where you
have a shortfall. And it doesn't need to be a huge shortfall, but
find an area we could be doing better in this one thing. Let's
start there. Let's get that from point three to
(22:50):
point four. And that's the whole like I chose my company name very specifically.
You don't need to be a 10 on everything. You just need to be a little bit better at one
thing. Once you're a little bit better. All right. Now the game changes.
So just get a little bit better at one thing, then add to
Such great advice. It reminds me of earlier in my
career when I was told if you can think of the concept of plus
(23:12):
one every day, can I be plus one better than yesterday? So such
great advice, Tom, for our audience. And I appreciate you sitting
Shari, thanks so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. I enjoy it. And getting
to have these conversations with lots of people, I feel like is what we're doing is
(23:40):
Come back often and please subscribe, rate, and review.
You're listening to the HR Mixtape, your podcast with
the perfect mix of practical advice, thought-provoking interviews, and
stories that just hit different so that work doesn't have to feel,
well, like work. Now, your host,
Joining me today is Tom Schin owner at Build Better Culture. Tom
helps organizations create stronger, more engaging workplaces by
(00:33):
Thanks, Shari I'm excited. We had a little couple hiccups over the
Yes, holiday season and all, for sure. I'd like to
start with maybe you sharing a little bit about your own personal journey
and how you got into this space about workplace culture where
You know, I appreciate the question. I find that
(00:57):
the most common way for me to explain this is that from my
recruiting experience in
working with so many organizations, you saw a lot of companies do things really
well. right and then you found some
along the way that weren't and you know there
are always the jerks out there you have a couple of those right that i
(01:19):
could tell you we could go on and on about those but then there was these folks
in the middle who didn't
know they were not doing it the best way. Right. And they could have
with some guidance, some context, start
to understand what kept people there. And people always say, oh,
our company culture is great, but they couldn't define it. Like, yeah, it's sort
(01:41):
of bored. This idea that
I can go help you with that. I'm a huge culture guy. Even
when I started to go down this path, working full
time while doing this on the side, it was one of those people were referring
to me as the culture guy and like, yes, it matters how
you interact with your people makes a huge difference. And
(02:02):
I found it. with people that work for me. For
the most part, I didn't strike everybody's fancy, and that's true
of any organization, but for the most part, as I,
from my own practices, folks appreciated The
breathing room and the inquisitiveness of finding out
(02:22):
who people are and how they connect to what it is
that organization's about. Even on the interview side, when
I would hire people for different organizations, you'd ask them questions, well, what are
you looking for? Well, these people are really about this. And when you made that connection fit,
we're like, these people really get me. I'm like, uh-huh. That's that
match piece that we talked about. And so over time, this whole culture
metamorphosis, we'll call it. uh came through that
(02:46):
i can go help people find that magic sauce identify
who they are and help them use it as an advantage versus
sort of a luck of the draw um yeah
so that that's sort of where this came from is the idea that let
Well, and your passion is coming out in your voice and
(03:09):
the way you tell the story of people are just listening to
this. So I always get excited when I get to talk to people where it just it
almost feels like cultures in your blood, like the way you talk about it. And,
you know, as I've been looking forward to this coming
year, we're recording this in December, but but you're probably listening
to it in January or February. So with that being said,
(03:30):
I'm I'm thinking about everything I'm seeing and
kind of like the top five, top 10 lists of things HR
professionals are concerned about for 2025. And
somewhere in that top five or 10, there is always this
culture component. Now it might say specifically culture, it
might say, you know, vision, mission values, it
(03:51):
might say employee experience. Why now do
you think this is bubbling up to one of the top five or 10 things
I think historically. There have
been more people than or at least enough people
in the job market to fill roles that hiring
(04:11):
managers, we as hiring managers, were so busy onboarding them and
doing all the operational things and managers were so focused
in on producing results. Culture and
engagement was sort of swept under the rug in some regard, not
intentionally, just we're too busy for that. We have too many things going on.
I've got to do X and Y and Z. And now people are realizing People
(04:33):
are leaving organizations. They still are. You saw it after
the pandemic, when the rehiring surge came through, they
know that there's a greener pasture out there. And
what that points to is two
things. We know there's a long list of things that people leave organizations for,
right? Number one, their manager. Number
(04:55):
two, their culture. And depending on the survey tool that
you're looking at, it could be flip-flopped. Pay is
always a question mark for folks. That's not the answer, right? If you're getting way
underpaid, absolutely. But generally speaking, if you're
paying fairly for what you're asking and what the market's holding, you're okay.
But your manager and your culture are the two things that people are
(05:16):
leaving for. And ultimately, what I found is that If
you have a bad manager, they're reinforcing that
bad culture, or they're leading the charge with that bad culture,
sometimes intentionally, meaning, I don't give a flying F,
or oblivious to the fact that, oh, I'm
(05:36):
the problem. Right. And so here
we are in the state of culture is very important to realizing this is a
huge opportunity, not just a problem or challenge, but
it's an opportunity. Like we have something really good here. Let's publicize
this. Let's take advantage of this. Let's grow with this to
make sure it's something that's sustainable and worth shouting
(05:57):
from the rooftop. So people want to come here. I want to be the employer of choice.
I've seen that shift as well as in
just some of the language I've been seeing, things like focusing
more on empathy and care as a business model and those
kinds of things. You know, with your mentality
of building better cultures, you have kind of
(06:20):
a framework or foundation that you think of when
you're helping to encourage people to create these positive cultures. What
are those, you know, foundational principles that you lean into as
Yeah, so really, really good question. And we'll make
some assumptions here. There are stats behind everything. I
(06:40):
can tell you all the productivity stats for better culture, better engagement,
retention. We're not going to do that. But in
essence, the framework to build here is who
are you? And to say we have a good company culture because
people smile here or they like that we give them breakfast. That's not
what I'm talking about. Those are activities. Those are items that
(07:01):
add to what you're doing. but it's
not the ping pong table effect. Ping pong tables are fun, all right? I will be
the first to admit it. If you're using it in the right manner and it's just sort of the, hey,
I'm one of those people. I get fidgety, I have to have toys. I've got dice, I've
got koosh balls, I've got this and that and the other. But
how this weaves in as you figure out who you are, who are
(07:22):
your leaders think you are, but also who your people think
you are and how your culture is interpreted
by those employees and the managers. Very
important there. Distinction of here's the leaders, here's the employees. So
you got very top of the pyramid, very bottom of the pyramid. You get the middle managers
right in the middle that are really driving those processes. Once you figure out
(07:43):
who you are, how do you make sure everybody's connected to
it? Right. Are you walking the talk? Are you just sort
of giving lip service? Hey, we care about you, but only when it matters to us
or it affects the bottom line or affects revenue. When proverbial
blankety blank hits the fan, then forget all that stuff.
You can't have it both ways. Your culture needs to be consistent when
(08:05):
times are good. and when times are bad or
challenging and everything in the middle, how you relate to folks. You can't go
flying off the handle with people. You can certainly have
more serious conversations about stuff and still have
a positive culture. We're transparent. We want to be fair about this. We're going to tell
you about this stuff. Here's our timelines. Here's our expectations. So
(08:26):
that's some of the framework is who are you? Who do you want to be? How
What do you say to those leaders who are listening, who maybe
have already done this work, they've gone through it, and the conclusion they've
come to is, our culture sucks
and our leadership is fine with that, that this is actually
what they believe in. I think of some
(08:49):
of the things we've heard in the news about like return to work mandates, right?
There's a lot of chatter about that kind of stuff. And the conversations I've
gotten into have centered around what is the culture of
the organization? What is the expectation? How do they make money? What are
the values they talk about? And if one of those values or the
way that they talk about their culture aligns with this return to work mandate, Part
(09:10):
of that is having that tough conversations and employee and go, do
the values of this organization still resonate with me personally, right?
Like you run into that. So what do you
say to that HR person who's in that role, who can
see so much more, right? Has that passion and excitement to
create this great employee experience, but maybe just realized,
(09:34):
Her culture. So two, it's a double-edged sword as many
things are in part that I'll
put it out there. That HR manager might also be in the wrong place, right?
You think about I'm all about this and we're preaching this
and how we do things, right? And
that's not supported by everything else. Uh,
(09:57):
that's an issue. If you're not as an HR leader in
your organization, given the bandwidth and the seat at the table that we
talk about. then you're not walking the
talk from a leadership standpoint. If you're not willing to listen to that cheap
people officer, whether that's their title or not, we talk about titles. You
know, they're still the voice of the rest of the
(10:17):
employee base, and they're advocating on both sides, both for the business and
for the employees. You know, there are elements
here that scream, you need to have some hard
conversations with the people in charge. This is the path
that we're taking. And if that's the path, that's fine. You're going
to lose people over this. It may not be today, may not be tomorrow,
(10:37):
but you know, we'll use the movie
lines. We can't say tomorrow and for the rest of your life and all that stuff, but you get the idea, right?
But at some point, something's going to break. And
I may not be here for that fix. Because I need
to be at a place where I feel my resolution. It's not so much,
you know, yes, I'm not telling all you HR people who hate their jobs to leave,
(10:58):
but I'm telling you to take a hard look, right? Make sure you can
bring that voice up. If you can't be clear and consistent and have
an objective conversation with the leaders in your organization, start
Yeah. And I think that's a good challenge is that, you know, don't automatically make
that assumption. Like you said, like, Oh, I got to leave this organization. This
(11:20):
might be a fantastic opportunity for you to come to
the business in a different way than you have before. So I highly
encourage you to, like you said, Tom, just start asking different questions.
Get really curious about why the organization thinks
that it things about culture the way it does, maybe
you'll uncover something that they think it equals some sort of
(11:40):
business outcome that doesn't actually equal. And you can kind of lean
And it might also lead you down the path of those leaders seeing that
you have greater business acumen than they thought. You
understand way more about the business beyond your
people role, air quotes. You're understanding the
financial implications. You're, you're demonstrating that knowledge and experience to
(12:03):
them, or they may take a look and see, oh, you
do need a seat at the table. We need you at these meetings. Titles
aside, again, it's more, it's like being a leader. You could be a leader
Let's talk about hybrid and remote work for a little bit. This
continues to come up from the perspective of,
(12:25):
you know, how do we give our hybrid or remote employees the
same cultural experience that they've had when they were
in the office? And, you know, I work for a tech company. And so we
have all the tech company things in the office, you know, the free food and
the pool tables and the gym and the basement and,
you know, cafeteria and staff, all the fun things. But
(12:45):
I work remote now 99% of the time. And
so those things that I think we defined as culture, which
I think you accurately described at the beginning, there are activities or
there are items, they're not necessarily the culture. How
do we define then for, for those that are like, man, this
is the mandate I've been given this year is to make the culture feel real for
(13:07):
these hybrid and remote employees. How should they be tackling that?
Like maybe see, they already got their values, kind of their head around that. How
So two answers, as with most things, right? We'll be
vague just because we're in HR and that's kind of part of our course
in life. For the hybrid folks, be very intentional
(13:28):
about when people are together. If
you're going to have them come in, make it meaningful, take advantage of
that. Realize that I use water cooler talk
as an example. I've heard other people use it as well, but
you're probably going to have more water cooler talk time on
your hybrid days when people are together. That's okay. Yeah,
(13:50):
you have work to be done. Don't book yourself an hour meeting
eight hours straight. You have to give them that latitude because
they're not used to being around this social climate as much. And
so you have a little bit more. I promise you when they're back in their home office, they're
probably 120% productive. right? They're pounding
away because there aren't the, I don't want to call it interruptions. That's
(14:12):
not the right phrase, but you don't have these elements that are pulling
you away because someone's got a random question or somebody said something funny or there's a
song in the radio and three people started singing it together, right? I'm thinking holiday
themes, right? Mariah Carey jumping on and so on and so forth. You
know, but realize that it's okay to have a hybrid
culture. It's okay to have two
(14:33):
different types of subcultures, if you will,
how you work and connect with your remote people is going to
be different. That's okay. Find what connects
them to what you're doing in that virtual atmosphere. And
you can ask them, Hey, what have you seen in other organizations or start asking
other organizations that do what you do or in other spaces and other parts of the country,
(14:53):
other parts of the world. How are you connecting these things? How
do you, what sort of things are meaningful for your people? And a lot of times I
like to recommend to people from a networking standpoint,
standpoint. You have different salespeople in different industries talking to each
other. So payroll people like to talk to benefits people.
Great. How are they handling that? Find out from them. You're
(15:15):
not necessarily stealing any ideas. You're just looking for collaboration. One
idea may spin into six different activities and
things that you can build into your work style. That's going to work for your remote
group, for your hybrid group, for your in-person group. There there's
Well, and that's such a good point in general, as I
(15:37):
think about what we need to learn from our employees. You
mentioned at the beginning, as you're trying to define culture, that how
your employees look at it is such an important piece of it. You can't just define
it from the highest level of leadership because their experience is
different than your frontline employees. How have
you coached leadership to start to create that
(15:57):
really feedback rich environment where employees
feel safe to share their opinions. They have psychological safety. They
know that something's going to be done about the information they're sharing.
And and I think this one's as just as important. And
managers and or HR have been coached on how to respond to.
I hear the feedback. It's it's not something we're
(16:19):
going to do because that sometimes is the scenario we're
in where we're empathetic. We hear the feedback, but it's just it's
it's not going to impact the masses. So it's something we're not going to. We're going to
So one of the first things managers can
do. Put their tech on airplane mode when
these conversations start. And what I mean by that is
(16:42):
turn your watch to the silence, do
not disturb mode, turn your phone, put your screen away, turn
away from the screen. There are too many distractions in our life.
That airplane mode is critical. You have to give them the attention when you
have them live or on screen. Give them the attention they deserve. They're
coming to you with solutions, challenges, issues, feedback, venting,
(17:03):
whatever it is. You're their work parent
in some regard, work, wife, work, husband, whatever you want to call it. They're
looking to you for a sounding board to feel validated. And your primary
role is to guide them along the path. And if you can't give them 100% of
intentional attention, then
you're doing something, you're doing a disservice to them. You
(17:26):
could be providing some insight. You could be learning a whole lot. And sometimes in
those scenarios where you can't do something about something, explain to
them why. We're not going to get to that. Not because it's out of my control. That
is the last answer any employee wants to hear. That means you don't
give up. Poop, right? You just, you're
placating me because you don't want to dig into the why, right? Go
(17:46):
find out why for them. Get the answer from above and
press the buttons. If you think it's a good idea or worth warranting, plenty
of organizations have operational brainstorming sessions. Hey, you know, so-and-so
suggested this, or I've asked my people and three of them say
X and Y and Z. Bring the conversations up the next rung
and if needed, go a little bit higher. Suggestion boxes
(18:09):
of old are just gone and they shouldn't be. Employees are
coming from all sorts of different environments where they've seen different things work or
things that they like. That's what makes it meaningful is that people are going to listen
to them, that transparency of communication. If you
don't have it, people aren't going to be generating new ideas. They're
not going to be creative. They're going to feel sheltered or scared or only do
(18:29):
the minimum necessary to not
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. As I
think about how we're running out of time here, I have a couple more that I want to make sure
we get to. And you mentioned the
feedback box. And the reason it
(18:50):
kind of made me think about this is because we've leaned so far
into technology now, you know, the pandemic really forced us
to go through a kind of a digital transformation a lot faster than I think some
organizations had planned. And in the last, you
know, two and a half years we've been inundated
with all this language around A.I. and
(19:11):
how we should be utilizing it. And, you know, I as well have
talked about on the podcast a lot. How do you see that marriage
of A.I. and technology and this need for feedback and great culture all
kind of coming together and influencing how we see,
I think the A.I. piece is a
what I call it, purple squirrel. Right. The
(19:34):
unicorn that it's always going to be shifting. It's going to
constantly evolve. That's going to keep bringing new ideas and new ways to
get information. And I think it's something we can take advantage of and
learn from and adapt to. You know, I use it from time to
time for idea generation. Use it as a tool. You know, if you
think about woodworking, maybe it's the hammer and chisel. Maybe
(19:55):
it's a router. Maybe it's a drill. But it's a tool. And
so as you weave that into things, use it as such. Morph it,
teach your people how to use it, see what creative ways they can use it. And
then as you evolve things with people. Reframe
Well, I'm just curious how that technology is going to
(20:18):
influence how we think about culture in the future. You know,
I've been considering this idea around, you know, remote work
and how we define culture for our remote environment, that it
should match what our internal environment is experiencing. Maybe
that's not the case. Maybe there's a flip the script on how we
are defining things, which makes me think how we think about AI
(20:40):
and digital and the things that are changing, how we define
work going forward. How do you see that influencing
Like I said earlier, they can be in two different silos. You can't
be everything to everyone in the same approach. And I'm not saying
play favorites. There's a different conversation to
(21:01):
be had there all along. You have folks that are performing, you're going to naturally do
more for them. You know, when you have little kids and you have four
kids, two of them are listening, two of them aren't. The two that are listening,
all right, you can have your ice cream. You know, the other two, no,
go to your room. You're going to need more work. You need to practice saying please and
thank you and so on and so forth. You have to kind of morph the approach to the
(21:21):
audience. Some of your remote audience, much
like your in-person audience, is going to be tech averse. Some of it's
going to be tech forward. Find ways to reinforce and
have that technology meet them where they're at. I
was at some SHRM meetings recently and they talked about AI
isn't going to replace the employee. It's
(21:44):
going to replace the person who doesn't know how to use AI or hasn't
taken the approach. The AI tool is there. If you don't know how to use
a hammer and you're in a woodshop, you're not going to be in that woodshop very
long. Right? You have to learn how to use the tools.
And if you need some guidance and some programming around how to develop that skill
set, all right, now bring in some experts who can teach your people how to do this, create
(22:06):
And that's a great example of a topic we're not going to get
into, but upskilling, right? Are you thinking ahead and upskilling your
population? All right. As we wrap our conversation, what's one
piece of advice that you'd give to leaders who really want to start improving
I think you take advantage of both what's working, right?
(22:28):
Realize what you're doing really well and celebrate that and
be. be the
person that's looking inside and find that gap where you
have a shortfall. And it doesn't need to be a huge shortfall, but
find an area we could be doing better in this one thing. Let's
start there. Let's get that from point three to
(22:50):
point four. And that's the whole like I chose my company name very specifically.
You don't need to be a 10 on everything. You just need to be a little bit better at one
thing. Once you're a little bit better. All right. Now the game changes.
So just get a little bit better at one thing, then add to
Such great advice. It reminds me of earlier in my
career when I was told if you can think of the concept of plus
(23:12):
one every day, can I be plus one better than yesterday? So such
great advice, Tom, for our audience. And I appreciate you sitting
Shari, thanks so much for having me. This was a lot of fun. I enjoy it. And getting
to have these conversations with lots of people, I feel like is what we're doing is
(23:40):
Come back often and please subscribe, rate, and review.
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