Beyond Burnout: Rethinking High Performance & Why Well-being is Your Competitive Advantage

If you can give these three leaders a warm welcome in the
chat and through the emojis,
we would greatly appreciate that.
First off, I'd love to welcome Katherine Mattis.
She's a workplace bullying expert.
Has a new book coming out soon,
so we'll share some information about as well.
But a topic of focus for her, Alexandra Collina,
she's a global manager of learning
and development at Hendrick.
Let's welcome Alexandra on Maggie Brady, vp, HR
and Talent at Whitecap.
So we're very lucky to have these humans with us today.
I'm gonna stop sharing and, uh, let's kick this off.
All right. Hello to the three of you.
Thank you for taking time outta your busy schedules as well
to contribute to this conversation and serve our community
and collaborate on these
things that we're all trying to solve.
And, uh, yeah, I would love
to jump into it right away with the three of you.
And if you don't mind, maybe we just start
with like a light introduction,
but I'll also target a question towards you right away.
So Alexandra, I'd love to kick it off to you first
and maybe share a little bit about who you are,
what you're working on, but then, yeah, how do you start
to define wellbeing
or how do you connect that to high performance?
What does that look like to you?
Absolutely, and thank you so much, Zach.
I'm so glad to be here with you all today. I'm Alexandra.
I'm a learning development professional about a decade
of experience in leadership development, career counseling,
and workplace wellbeing.
Like many of you on the call, you know,
I believe in helping people
so they can become the best version of themselves.
So I wake up each day excited
to hopefully maybe make someone's work life 10% better so
that they can go home to their loved ones
and be 10% lighter at Hedrick and struggles.
I get to do this by working in wellbeing principles into
every single one of our programs across our catalog,
not just those webinars that the video joked about,
you know, on a world mental health day.
So we really weave wellbeing into our leadership
development experiences.
I also come to this work with a master's in counseling,
so I have a lens from the mental health space.
Um, although wellbeing as we'll talk about today, is
so much more than just mental health,
but that is a unique perspective of where, you know,
your career development journey overlaps with kind
of the mental health space.
So I'm excited to be part of this conversation, um,
and see how all of you are tackling burnout
and creating cultures of, you know, care
and resilience in your companies.
Awesome. Thank you so much for kicking us off.
We're very lucky to have you here with us.
Katherine, I'd love to pass it over to you next. Yeah.
Uh, share a little bit about what you're doing
and maybe tease us with your new book a little bit,
but then, yeah, how do you go about defining wellbeing
and how this connects
to high performance and some of that stuff?
Sure. So I'm Catherine Mattis.
I'm the owner of Civility Partners.
We're a consulting firm focused on turning
around toxic workplace cultures and toxic behavior.
And as you can imagine, uh, if you're,
or you may know if you've experienced it yourself,
being in a toxic environment is certainly not
helpful for wellbeing.
No. Uh, and in fact, the research shows it's very damaging.
You can develop PTSD from being abused at work.
There's a shocker for you.
So it's, um, you know, really important to
think about wellbeing as something beyond an initiative
that's just around wellbeing, right?
It's gotta be the entire culture,
and how do we allow people to treat each other, um,
and what measures do we have in place to, to help people,
uh, maintain wellbeing.
So I'm excited to be here and talk about all of that.
Uh, the dummies over at Wiley Publishing House asked
me to write a book.
So my, uh,
book Navigating a Toxic Work Environment is due
out, uh, June 26th.
So it's ironically titled Navigating a Toxic Work
Environment for Dummies.
I really excited for that.
We'll, we'll be bringing that back in a couple weeks
here, a couple months actually.
So, uh, see you in the chat, check it out.
And, uh, I would love to see in the chat too, I mean,
you hit on such an important point, like how much PTSD
or long-term effects can come from a toxic experience
or things that impact your wellbeing.
I'd love to see chat, like, how many of you have left a job
because of a toxic experience or a bad leader,
or your wellbeing was being so impact.
I was gonna say, this leads well
to the next introduction here, but yeah.
Put in the, have you yes
or no in the chat, has that been an experience
for you at this point, right?
Where you're like, I just had to get out, I had to get out
of there, because at some point
it can't be tolerated anymore, right?
Like it, and you can't perform anymore. So, uh, me welcome.
I'd love for you to share a little bit about your journey,
maybe on this too, and introduce yourself.
And yeah, can you talk to us also a little bit about
how you start to see the intersection
of high performance and wellbeing?
Absolutely. No, thanks for having me.
Um, so I've been in the HR space for 20 plus years.
I started off in change management consulting, um,
and then got my MBA
and since then have been doing, um,
HR leadership across all different parts of hr,
different industries, private, public, um,
and what's called of people for a tech startup.
Um, so I've seen, um, a broad array of cultures
and practices.
Um, and I think for me personally, the past six years, um,
just a lot of personal transformation due to life happening.
Um, and so a lot of that really has carried over into
really uncoupling, like my self worth from job, the job
that I do or my title.
But I really love the work that I get to do,
and my lens at this point in my career is
so much more even fo focused, even more on how do I,
you know, create positive change and,
and create work environments where we really are embracing
like our, our shared humanity, for lack of a better term.
You know, we have to start meeting people where they are.
And that's the key to getting sustained high performance.
Um, and that's obviously a complicated, um, a result
to achieve, but I think if we, as long as we remain open
and, and realize how integrated these things all are, um,
that's really where you kind of unlock people's potential.
So that's my goal is to kind of get the best out of people,
teams and organizations
through the environments that we're creating at work.
All right. So we have an amazing crew here to kind
of unpack so many different things.
Like, okay, how do we start building the business case
around this to showcase its connection to high performance?
What are strategies both individuals
and organizations can take?
So we're gonna unpack a lot of these things.
So for those listening, again, if there's certain things
that you're dealing with
or questions that you have, put those in the chat as well,
or the q and a and we'll make sure to surface those,
surface those throughout today's discussion.
Alexandra, I'd love to pass it back to you,
and if you have those visuals up still.
Yeah, for sure. Okay.
I'd love to start a little bit of how we start to unpack
what wellbeing actually means,
and like what are the components of it
and how does it connect to how
that shows up in our environment and how we perform.
And I feel like you had a really good visual
and like kind of a story there that you could share.
Could you, could you start there with us? We'll
Start there. Yeah. So
for, there's lots of different definitions,
theories, frameworks, spaces, um, for a recent session
that we did, this is kind of the model that we took
with the message being, we must be well in order to do well.
And this model is, is intentionally interconnected.
So we've got social wellbeing, physical meaning your,
your physical health and also your environment,
your mental health, which I mentioned emotional is actually
being separated out there.
And then your spiritual wellbeing,
which you can even consider, like your purpose,
your meaning, or like
how you feel impactful in your day-to-day work.
And so they're all interconnected, right?
No one is standing alone or isn't impacted by each other.
So the, the story that I gave when I led this
was I was moving, my husband and I were moving
and I was being ambitious,
and I lifted a desk I probably shouldn't have,
and I totally threw my back out.
And so for a couple days, my physical wellbeing was down.
It ended up causing me to have not a great night's sleep.
So my mental health tanked a little bit,
my emotional health, I was in the worst mood.
Everything was negative.
I was just not feeling great
because I was such in a bad mood.
I canceled drinks with friends. So my social went down.
And then of course, I didn't really have the mental capacity
to feel very impactful in my work.
I was just super fixated on the pain.
So that's a physical example then how it kind
of ex like melds into the others.
But you can see the inverse too, right?
If you have a really bad interaction with your manager
and you have an emotional reaction,
or having PTSD experiences
and your mental health is impacted, the rest
of the di dimensions here on an individual level are also
going to be impacted, right?
It's kind of not rocket science,
but what we did was we spent time with our colleagues kind
of doing a temperature check on each of those,
like just spending 10 minutes to sit and reflect
and think, what is your state today?
How, how is your state?
And we've actually started encouraging folks
to come into their one-on-ones their monthly
or their weekly one-on-ones.
And, and before Zach and I like get down
and start talking business, I'd say, Hey, Zach,
like, how's your state today?
Like within those five sections, like, oh,
maybe you just got off a bunch of zoom calls
and so your back is also bothering you,
or you need a bio break,
or you just had a really difficult client
conversation, right?
Like, just having that moment to check in on
how your state is on a one-on-one basis.
So that's how we, that's one way
that we looked at wellbeing.
Um, but I know Catherine, you know,
and Maggie both kind
of look at it at the organizational level too and,
and defining wellbeing at a larger space.
Um, yeah, I'll jump in.
I know, uh, you had shared earlier, um, sure.
Uh, the surgeon general's thing,
which I don't have up at the moment,
so I don't if you have it up. Yeah.
Let's, yeah, here we are.
Perfect. Um,
and so to piggyback off of this model
that you're looking at, the McKinsey Health Institute
published a fantastic article.
And if you just google McKinsey Health Institute burnout
culture, you'll find the article.
And, uh, the whole article is about how
organizations really focus on the wrong thing.
They make burnout or addressing your own burnout
or having wellbeing, um,
a a personal problem, right?
We give you an EAP, we give you, um, a free membership,
let's have a steps contest.
And like that, that video we watched at the beginning,
you know, we'll put some, well, how
to manage your stress training for, for you
and time management training.
Um, and all of
that is not looking at the root cause of burnout.
So people are burned out in your organization.
It's probably because of the organization.
Um, and so that's what
that McKinsey Health Institute article is all about.
And, and it talks a lot about toxic work environments,
which is my realm.
Um, you know, so if I, if I'm feeling burned out and it's
because I'm overworked, some people got laid off or quit
and then the company never filled their position.
So I'm doing more work.
I have a toxic boss,
I feel like the organization doesn't value me.
I'm, I feel like I'm not getting paid enough.
You know, all of that. That is an organizational problem.
And so that's why I love this
model from the US Surgeon General is,
is burnout is not a personal problem.
It's an organizational problem,
and we need to look at it that way.
Um, and then I'll, I'll just add one other thing, kind
of going back to what I said earlier.
Um, HR I think does a lot of initiatives as one-offs.
Maybe we have DEI, maybe we have employee engagement,
we have a wellbeing thing, but all of that's interconnected.
So for me as a single mother, I need you
to have a diversity program so that, or,
and flexible work so that I can come and go if I need.
Um, and that's also related to my burnout, uh,
or not being burned out.
So we, I think we really have to stop looking at things as
or, or implementing these one-off initiatives, right?
And then we're back to building a culture
of wellbeing. Catherine,
I love that so much of what you said resonated.
I, um, and actually that last point about the integration
of HR programs policies, that has been kind of my goal is
to stop, you know, there was reason at the time for like de
and I to be established as a standalone function,
but I've always felt like it has
to be integrated into your overall philosophy around talent
and development and inclusion.
And so one of the things that we've been doing at Whitecap,
I've been there for about a year, is really bringing all
of those teams and strategies together in a just broader
talent and culture way.
You know, you can't address engagement
separate from inclusion, separate from, um, you know, our
employee resource groups like,
and from our talent practices.
Like they all come together, um,
and have to be viewed that way.
And then obviously embedded with the business strategy,
not owned by hr,
but really embraced that comes down
to like the cultural aspect of it, the behavior.
So, um, yeah, I think the,
the integration piece is so important.
And you said something else around, um, yeah,
that just rarely I agree, like burnout
and also failure to deliver results is rarely
the individual's, the individual person's issue alone.
Like they contributed something to it.
But to your point, there are, the root issue is much bigger.
Um, and I think that's where we have
to keep on pushing the mental model around that
and the sense of ownership
and accountability of managers at every level.
Um, and then for the folks who actually influence, um,
policies and programs and practices, like, I think
that's a big shift that has been
happening over the past few years.
But we need to see more of it.
Absolutely. It,
it can't just be like, oh, well that's not my job.
That's hrs job.
Or like, that's even within hr, that's not my area.
That's right. Like I, I work in learning and development.
I'm not employee engagement or performance talent,
but we still need to have this same mindset
as we bring it into every single program.
Yeah. Right. I'm,
I'm gonna go a little off script here and
and say too that, um, I have really come to believe
that vulnerability is a super important part of wellbeing.
And I, I think Covid gave us an opportunity to be,
be more vulnerable at work than we had been able to before.
'cause you could see in people's homes and they had kids,
and all of a sudden it was fine
if kids showed up at a meeting.
'cause we're all home with our kids and all of that.
Uh, and, and to, I think that's part of the training.
You know, if an organization's going to implement
diversity programs, employee engagement, wellbeing,
and all of the things that managers
and everybody needs to be trained, that it's okay
to be vulnerable and say,
I didn't sleep very well last night.
I'm exhausted. I'm not very productive today.
Or, man, I had a huge fight with my spouse this morning
and I'm distracted.
Um, you know, so we to be able to talk more about ourselves
as people, and I'm not saying, you know, cross lines
and be best friends with everybody you work with,
but, um, I think we, we really treat people as cogs
and we've gotta be able to make that safe space of,
you know, I'm, I'm not feeling great today.
Mm-hmm.
I think one thing I'd love to build off of, even
what you brought up, Maggie,
especially just thinking about like,
what is the organization's talent philosophy on high
performance, right?
And, and what on one end, what's the philosophy on
what leads to a high performer within the organization?
And then how do we actually define what high performance is?
And I think I've seen so many leaders who are like, Hey,
let's drive results at no matter what the cost is, right?
Like, let's make sure we achieve this goal.
And that might be their philosophy is like, Hey,
we don't care what the unintended consequences are.
We'll do whatever we can
to get these CERN objectives and goals reached.
Right? But then that challenges the philosophy of
what actually gets us to those objectives and goals, right?
Like, we need these components of wellbeing.
So it's kind of interesting that tension that can show up.
Mm-hmm. And I really liked this definition
of high performance that I came across that I,
I feel very passionate about
as well is like a true high performer is someone
who can perform beyond standard norms over the long term
while maintaining a high level of wellbeing
and positive relationships.
And high performance is not someone, like a high performer,
is not someone that performs beyond standard norms
while along the way to doing that damages relationships
around them and burns out in the long term.
And I think we can know plenty of leaders who are maybe a,
an incredible individual performer
for a certain period of time.
We promoted them because that's
how we defined high performance.
So let's promote the high performers,
but then they're damaging all the relationships, their team
and all these different things around
them along the journey.
Like that challenges that philosophy is like, okay,
that's not a high performer in that def definition, right?
Yeah. I mean, yeah, it makes me think of you.
You've gotta you've gotta incorporate the what, the results
that are being delivered, the impact with the how.
And I just,
and this has been in practice since I started
hr, so it's nothing new.
Um, but I, being a, a bunch
of different companies at different stages of maturity, um,
there's a lot of companies who still don't know how
to really talk about the how
or to have hard conversations about the how.
Um, but I think I am grateful, the company I'm at now, um,
it really is like we have this inclusive culture.
We, you know, we talk about it openly
and there's inclusive behaviors tied to it.
And so to your point about high performance, it, it,
it's both, you can't deliver results at the expense of
destroying or being, you know, uh,
a detractor from our culture, you know?
And that's, that's the muscle I think
that organizations have to build.
And, um, that's how you gain credibility
and people start to feel like, okay,
I can be myself here, feel supported. Yeah.
That, that's the story of my life.
That's who I coach, right?
So civility partners, we focus on toxic behavior
and toxic cultures,
and we coach, uh, individuals who have been accused
of creating a hostile work environment
or, um, you know, who are a bully.
And that, that's always the story.
They've been doing it for a long time
and HR has been asking the CEO to be able to address it.
And, and everyone's afraid to poke at them
because they'll apparently run off
and go bully somewhere else
and take all their great results with them.
That never happens, you know?
And it's just really about the accountability.
And I, I think, um, to your point, it's,
it's the what and the how.
So I think performance management is an easy, um,
avenue to take to hold people accountable
to high performing behaviors, which are getting results
and treating people well, being collaborative, right?
So you can take a, a core value like collaboration
or inclusivity or customer service,
whatever your core values are, somewhere in there.
Uh, there's no room
for bullying in anybody's core values, right?
Um, but then you can turn those core values into core
competencies, so then you can say, you met your sales quota
and you, uh, also are living these core values
of collaboration and respect and what have you.
So that, that's, again, I say easy
'cause performance manage is a lot more than competencies,
but I, I think it is where I think we overcomplicate
what culture could be
and make it all abstract when it could be very tangible
to achieve a certain culture.
Absolutely. I love that, that lever right there, right?
So for some of you that are thinking about like, okay,
how do we hold people more accountable
to these healthy behaviors and,
and things that ref reflect a culture of wellbeing?
Look at how you identify talent and,
and your performance management practices, right?
Does it include key behaviors that
you are clarified on that connect to a high performer?
And is it beyond just the results, right?
Because so often it's like, okay,
are they hitting the quota yes or no?
And then they're a high performer.
It's like, no, we need to add another gate here
of evaluation that includes these behaviors
that we prioritize prioritize as a company.
Yeah. And Jenny, um, my, from my team,
she put an example in the chat if anybody wants it.
There's, uh, an example
of taking a competency like inclusivity
and making it something you can measure people on.
Love it. Alexandra, did you wanna jump in
or, I feel like you had something to say. Okay.
No, just that I, I couldn't agree more.
And I think setting those expectations up the top is a
critical for the folks who are people leaders.
Um, we're really excited to be sharing
what those competencies are to the entire firm, regardless
of if you're official people leader or not.
So that the low, the the youngest person
who just joined the firm, the analyst knows what's expected
of their manager when it comes to holding those behaviors,
um, and those core competencies.
So we're, we're really looking forward to making sure
that the entire company,
not just the people in management positions, are aware
of those core competencies
and what's expected to be a high performer
and a, and a strong manager.
I would, so I'd love to, oh, go ahead.
I was gonna jump in. I just saw a comment that I,
I resonated the just kind of
how sometimes nothing happens at the top.
So sometimes you establish all these things,
there's all these words and posters on walls,
and then you see a disconnect with how certainly, you know,
senior leaders are acting.
Um, and that is like, you know, you'll have hotspots like
that gets under my skin like no other.
So the beauty of having, um,
when you have a common language
and like expectations around that I have, it gives me just
right more confidence to go and address it head on.
Like this behavior, we see it, it's this, it's not aligned.
And the reality is, you know, a culture is, I forget
that I'm gonna mess up, I always mess up common saying,
but it's something, you know, it's like the,
the culture is like the thing
that you tolerate and don't address.
Like that's the best you're ever gonna be, no matter
what you're saying or what your aspirations are.
So my encouragement, I'm talking to,
to folks at different stages in their HR career,
just in leadership, it's, um, take it as your responsibility
and you're like, you're right.
And to go have the hard conversation
and call out the behavior that's not aligned.
That is what we're here to do.
And I think for a long time in my,
I don't even know a long time, but there were points in my
career where I felt more insecure doing that,
but now I'm like, Nope, it's part
of my job, you know, let's talk about it.
So I, I just encourage people to feel empowered, you know,
no matter what your role is.
So if you're looking for permission
to assert yourself into these conversations, Maggie just pro
provided it to you, right? Like tell
Maggie Maggie's legit.
Exactly. In my book, I have a whole thing about
what are your level, you're accountable
for the culture and you're part of it.
So there's all sorts of tips in there.
This tees up this next section that I'd love to unpack
with the three of you, which is, okay, if we are trying
to get top management on board, we have to kind of speak
to this in a way that gets them engaged
and motivated to get on board with this.
And that involves understanding the business case,
like the ROI, the impact this is gonna have,
clearly showing them why this is gonna unlock higher levels
of performance within the company.
Like that is the type of stuff
that management is motivated by, right?
And you're gonna get the change that you're looking for.
So let's unpack that a little bit,
and Alexandra, I'd love to pass it to you.
And you talked about like there's a certain point
or stage where the company started
tying wellbeing to business outcomes.
Can you talk about like what catalyzed that
or how did you get there and
what were some of the things you found?
I'm grateful to share that it actually
came from our management committee.
They created their own working group, um,
on wellbeing in the workplace.
And so they were pretty bought in.
I think this is a, a perfect statistic,
but it's, I had to write it down,
a global employee burnout cost company's
322 billion in turnover and loss productivity every year.
Um, so you just share that
and it's pretty quick for folks
to get on board with the business case, right?
Um, it's also in our strategic plan that creating a culture
of excellence for employee being one of the best places
to work is a goal of ours.
Like that is in our strategic plan, it's at the core
and the foundation of the slide
that lifts up all the pillars for our business imperatives.
Um, so that was wonderful
and helpful from an HR standpoint to have that much buy-in.
It then turned into how do we weave this into all
of the programs that are exist
and all the programs that are yet to come.
That's awesome. And I, it's a, I mean,
obviously shows a lot about the management team surfacing
this and prioritizing that.
How did that, maybe just as a follow up for you too, um,
lead to some of the things you took action on,
like you even mentioned having an external
expert that came into place.
Like Yeah. How did that lead to kind
of what's next for the company? Well, it,
And like I said, we're trying to like infuse it
everywhere, but we still have global mental health day.
So instead of global Mental Health Day this year being,
you know, an independent thing that you have to take care
of yourself, we acknowledge that employees are more likely
to tell their friends, not even their manager,
but like their buddy at work,
that they're having a rough day, that they're having a a,
that they're further south on the spectrum
of wellbeing, right?
So if that's true, we need to skill up our colleagues
to be there to support each other, not just,
here's a pound in the back, not just I'm here to vent
with you and have, you know, a vent session.
Um, but like, how can you actually
help folks in those moments?
So we partnered with Talkspace to come in
and we did a global web, a global wellbeing webinar.
It was one, but the whole idea was to train them
and give them the specific tools, the specific script,
the specific language, the steps, when to get HR involved,
um, with the caveat from legal that
you're not being asked to diagnose, to treat, to plan for,
like, you are not expected to manage their mental health
or their wellbeing, but here's exactly
what we can support you with.
If and when someone comes forward, either within the firm
or your, you know, your kids at home, like, here,
here are the actual skills that we can do.
So peer-to-peer coaching was the approach
that we took rather than, you know,
it's all on the manager to manage mental health.
And that went over really, really well.
That's amazing. I love to unpack some
of these strategies a little bit more in a bit.
So, um, thanks for, for kind of sharing that with us.
And, and Maggie, can I pass it to you now?
And how do you start to measure the impact
or talk to leadership about the business case
and why this matters and how do you go about that?
Like, what are some of the ways you're approaching it?
Well, I'll say I'm very fortunate, um,
like when I joined White Cap, Whitecap was part
of a bigger company and spun off five years ago,
and it's now private equity backed.
Um, and when they spun off,
I give props to the leadership team.
They prioritized values and inclusive culture
and defining that and setting the foundation.
So for me, it's not, it's never been, um, a matter
of having to build a case.
It's, it's known. Um, I think now what I,
what I love, and I think that it's an example of
how you could go into getting data to build a case.
Um, you know, most companies do engagement surveys.
We, ours is called a culture survey.
And it's, it's more than engagement.
Engagement really is an important index,
but it's really narrow in terms of what it's assessing, um,
and it actually does not necessarily tie
into wellbeing at all.
Um, so we also ask questions that measure things
around sense of belonging, um, fairness, um,
wellbeing, uh, respect and trust.
You know, there's just a, there's a couple different
buckets, and I really love this.
Um, I mean, I've, I've been at companies where we had one
or two survey questions, you know, on these topics,
but now we have actual categories
so you get a good sense of employee sentiment.
Um, and so we, we do that survey annually
and we take it really seriously.
Um, and there have been enterprise decisions and,
and initiatives that were born out of employee feedback.
Um, so for example, we created our CAP groups,
which are employee resource groups, um,
two years ago based on survey feedback.
And one of them that I'm really proud
of is the mental health awareness.
And again, this is a first for me to see an ERG group
that's dedicated to mental health at work.
And we had similar conversations like, like the risk
of we don't want people to, we can't become counselors,
we can't, you know, we are not trained to do that.
And so the way that we've positioned it really is we are
just, we are normalizing the conversation.
We are human, we are messy, we are vulnerable,
let's support each other.
Um, so I love, I love what you guys did the talk space
and having some of those peer-to-peer scripts.
We have not done that yet.
Um, but I think happy measuring, yeah, measuring,
I guess measuring what matters is important
and either it can help strengthen your case and,
and get you to evolve your programming.
Or if you're earlier on in the process,
it gives you real data to say, okay, we're achieving results
or not, but like our wellbeing score is, you know,
25th percentile.
Like you can ignore that.
I was gonna say, I like the connection here between,
like Alexandra, you talked about some external research
that showcases the impact
and then combining that with some internal data and,
and insights from the organization itself.
So for some of you that're like, Hey, I'm trying
to get this executive team on board,
or hold people more accountable,
or start to kinda reinforce the business case around this.
Like those are like, one, are you already measuring some
of these things internally beyond the employee engagement
score so that you can start to show
how this is showing up internally
and then pull in some of this external research as well
to kind of just, you know, amp it up a little bit
and really reinforce the impact here.
Uh, so I, I appreciate you breaking that down, Maggie
and Catherine, I'd love to hear
how you approach building the business case as well.
And I know you do your own types of analysis,
so maybe you can share about that.
But specifically, I, I would love your point of view on this
as well in a way where we kind of heard from Alexandra
and Maggie how their management team was a little bit on
board already with this.
And I'm assuming there's a lot of cases
where you get brought in
and you really have to almost like they're not bought in.
Maybe you got brought in from the HR leader who's bought
into it and they just need some help getting this executive
team on board to see this.
And you have to help build that business case, right?
So like how do you approach that and,
and really start to, you know, get the team on board? Yeah,
And that is absolutely correct.
It's hrs hearing all the complaints
and, uh, been trying
to get the C-suite on board for a while.
Uh, before I answer your question, I just wanna echo
what Maggie said.
Um, you can be very engaged
and also in a toxic work environment you can be
burned out and engaged.
So please don't use an engagement survey
as if it's a measurement of culture.
So we also, that's one, our survey is a,
we call it a climate assessment.
Um, and we look at communication, you know,
'cause that's an easy way to stress people out if I'm not
getting what I need to do my job.
Um, so we're looking at similar things, job satisfaction,
inclusivity, um, you know, so beyond and,
and we do get survey scores where the people are engaged.
This, that construct is high, is great,
but they also, uh,
feel like they're not being communicated with or what have you.
Um, so to answer your question, um, often we do
start with the survey.
And so it's kind of like if we're able to get the C-suite
to at least agree to the survey, then we can use
that internal data.
I find, um, a lot of times
CEOs aren't necessarily interested in those big numbers
where, you know, Gallup says a bazillion dollars are spent.
Like, I think that's hard
to really tie into your own organization.
So we find that actual information is, is helpful.
Um, we also have a culture calculator on our website,
and so we can speak to the cost
right there on a call with the CEO.
Um, so we ask HR to fill it out
before I get on that call, um, where we're talking CEO
to CEO and I can say your HR persons, you know,
put in some numbers and this is costing you $3 million,
you know, um, so that's helpful.
Um, Catherine, that's so cool. Yeah, thank you.
Yeah, took, I just have to dork out for a second data,
like from MIT and Gallup
and we kind of, you know, made our own calculator.
So yeah, she's just on my, oh, Jenny, put it in the link.
Thanks, Jenny. Um, congratulations.
I just have to That's very cool. Thank you. Thank you.
Um, one other, two other answers.
One is, um, you can talk to CEOs sometimes if,
if you're having a hard time getting them on
board about their legacy.
And so especially if they're on the other side
of their career, um, you know,
just start having those kinds of conversations.
What do you want your legacy to be?
And they care about that.
And so you could start to push them in a direction of,
you know, do you want your legacy to be
that everybody hated you?
Not that you would do that. Um,
and then I'll, I'll add one other thing.
Um, if we can get permission to do
what we call an HR culture review.
So in addition to the employee survey, um, we love
to look at sort of audit
HR processes against the culture they say they want.
So you want a culture of wellbeing.
Well, what does your PTO look like?
Or you want a culture of high performance?
What's your performance management look like?
What, so we review all of this stuff against
the culture you're telling me you want to have.
Um, and that's really important
because it again, takes the onus off the, the workforce.
Let's look at how the organization behaves, not just
what people are feeling.
Love that. That
Is such a good stepping stone
to let's talk about some strategies now.
Right? And I think we've already kind of talked about
how another steps challenge is not really the solution here
and another webinar and
so much is put on the individual, right?
Like, hey, let's part of this resource program,
you get a discount at the gym down the street type thing.
And maybe you even built in a gym within the office, right?
So, all right, we checked those boxes.
Now let's start to talk about maybe ways organizations can
start to craft a better environment and,
and practices that reinforce a culture
of wellbeing react like proactively.
'cause I think also we've already kind of to touched on
how many reactive things that we're doing to kind
of mitigate the burnout that's happening.
So what are some proactive measures?
And Megan, I'd love to pass it to you to start,
because you already one talked about
how you built up an ERG internally around this, like
to help create that peer-to-peer community
to support this culture of wellbeing.
What other ways have you maybe operationalized wellbeing
into the organization so that it's supporting
this in a proactive way?
Yes, uh, I mean, so I'm, again, I'm really proud of, of
what Whitecap has done.
Um, so, you know, I mentioned we have,
we have branded it inclusive culture.
It is one of our like anchors really, of our org strategy.
Um, and so we, uh, rolled out inclusive behaviors,
um, a few years ago to, to make that come to life.
You know, what are, what are we talking about
at a behavioral level?
And it's like listening with intent,
assuming positive intent, um, you know, giving
and receiving feedback in a constructive way, um,
supporting each other's wellbeing.
And that means things like encouraging PTO when needed
knowing that there are EAP resources, resources
and how to direct people there
and a bunch of other things, right?
But I thought that was such a, a really thoughtful way to
make the culture come to life.
Um, and so we rolled that out.
We did, and now we have it integrated into our new asi new
associate onboarding training.
Um, you know, we track to what extent
pe it's an on-demand training.
It's really quick, you know, kind of micro learning.
So we do track and see
how much it's utilized on an ongoing basis.
And now what's top of mind for us is figuring out how
to embed it into our formal performance management.
So, you know, we, we talk about the how,
but it's not right now at a granular level.
And so we want to kind of bring that to the forefront
and again, make it another sticking point where we're like,
no, this isn't just words like we value this.
We actually think if you do more of this,
you will get better results.
Um, so that's gonna be, we're kind
of doing a road mapping process now, um,
to see how we can integrate that.
So that's, that's kind of a one way that we are kind
of operationalizing it.
Maggie, I hope you'll, um, publish some sort
of white paper on the other side where,
because that's, I think even if it's data from a different
company, just going back to getting your CEO
to buy into this, that, that, if you could say,
here's a case study from a company.
It's not Gallup's, you know,
8 million bazillion big numbers.
It's Maggie's company, they started off this way
and productivity was this, and they did this whole thing
and productivity went up, or they saw revenue go up,
or operational costs go down, like, please, I'm begging you
to something so we can all use it.
I love it. I Love it. I'll, I'll replant a seed.
I know when Megan and I last met,
we talked about maybe her coming in
to do a deeper masterclass within the EX leadership network.
So maybe that'll be something I'll, I'll revisit with that.
That'd be awesome. Uh, Catherine, while,
while you're hot on the mic here, I'd love
to hear your thoughts on this whole, like being proactive
with our wellbeing, right?
Because it sounds like also you
get brought in more in a reactive way, typically.
Like there's this big issue that happens,
so there's obviously reactive measures that we can take,
but how do you start to spin it and educate
or support a company into being proactive with these aspects
and avoid maybe some of those big things
that we have to react to?
You know, what the, the things that Alexandra
and Maggie have already talked about,
those are all the types of same things that we do.
We, similar to your peer to peer, you know,
we do trainings on things like how to be an upstander
and doing something like that gives permission
and tools to everybody to be in charge of the culture
and not just leave it to managers.
And we do a similar exercise
that Maggie was just talking about with the, um, we,
we ask the question, how do you wanna be treated at work?
And then everybody gives their answers, you know,
in a virtual format, and then we can move that into themes.
And then the, if you don't have core values,
those become core values
and then we can turn them into core competencies.
They get added to your performance management system.
Um, I think we all know everybody leaves a manager,
not their job, right?
So investing more in management training is another
really proactive way.
And, um, so funny that we still have this problem
that people leave managers where's like,
we all know we're supposed to do manager training,
are we still not doing it?
Um, but making sure managers have specialized training
around encouraging wellbeing, allowing yourself
to be vulnerable so you can draw it out in others
proactively creating wellbeing versus, um, you know,
so management has to be these sort of leadership courses
around the interpersonal skills of being a manager.
Um, so that's another proactive way.
One thing I found with one of our
CPOs in our ex leadership network, they also shared
how they reinvented their approach
to pips within their company.
Mm-hmm. Part of it is they basically got rid of pips and
but reinvented them into learning journeys that
included the manager.
So if you had a direct report
that was underperforming having issues performing, yes,
there was a development plan
and a learning journey created
to help this individual reach performance again,
but that manager also had to go
through their own learning journey
because it's a reflection on their inability to coach,
mentor, and lead,
and create a safe environ environment
for that person to perform.
So it's kind of like, I really liked how high performance,
like the way we manage high performance with the individual
involves how their leader is also
developed and invested into.
I love that. I, I'll add one other thing to
that I saw recently, I don't remember
what company unfortunately,
but they talked about how they're exiting employees,
their alumni, that's the goal.
They're not employees who stomped off and quit
because they hated working here, that they're still part
of the employer brand.
And they could even if they left for more pay
or wherever they went, if they enjoyed working there,
enjoyed their manager.
Um, so let's not like, oh,
you're gone tie, all ties are cut.
I I loved that. Employ alumni.
Yeah, that's a great indicator too of
what type of workplace you have.
Like, if you do not have a strong alumni network,
that's probably a poor reflection
of their experience with your company, right?
Like, they don't wanna recommend anyone to
that company after working there.
Like that's a great indicator if you have a
toxic workplace or not.
I only add a couple other suggestions.
Um, these are excellent for the organizational level.
I think there are ways that individually the shadow
of the leader, if we're all, if we assume
that everyone's a leader, then each of us individually get
to create a culture of wellbeing.
So I, in my own life, in my shadow, I, I try
to emulate this.
I only do 25 minute or 45 minute calls.
Outlook only gives us the 30 and the 60,
but if you just cut it down just a little bit,
it makes such a difference for the back to back zoom calls.
And then, uh, in my coaching sessions
or in my one-on-ones, I offer,
do you wanna go for a walk and talk?
Do you wanna like get away from the laptop
and go for a lab around the block instead?
And that for some reason just shifts everything
and like your own concept of how you're feeling in that day.
And then we're also looking at more kudos work.
Um, so for all ev for every one negative piece
of feedback you get, the amygdala requires seven positives.
So we need seven times more positive feedback from our
colleagues and our managers.
So if teams can give shout outs
to each other on Slack channels or give availability
or insight to how great you are more frequently,
that makes you feel more connected, more purposeful,
more excited, more motivated, just does everything.
So those are my a couple extras at the small level.
They're great. I love that.
Yeah. And I think that reminds me also,
this came from our appreciation program last year
and how it connected to wellbeing.
Because one thing we know is like the task load
is not gonna go down.
Like organizations, they're never gonna be like, no, let's,
let's just eliminate some of the work that we have to do.
If anything, they're trying to do more with less, right?
So that part is not going away.
So what we've found though is people need to feel a sense
of momentum within their work, a sense of forward
progress with their work.
And it's not as much of the amount of work that's the issue.
It's them doing a lot of work
and not feeling like it's having an impact and
No one wants to do that, Right?
So it's like, that's why the recognition and the kudos
and the appreciation piece is so important
because it takes that huge test load
and makes people feel like, Hey,
I'm actually making some forward progress here,
either within the project or my career
or the impact it's having on the bottom line.
Like there's, there's this sense of like, movement with it,
and that's actually an energizing factor
and it gets 'em to create, you know, take on more work.
So it's not necessarily the task load that's the problem,
it's then environment around the task load
that either creates it more of a sense of burnout
or more of like a energizing experience for that individual.
Oh, that hits home right now.
But just like the, the, the, I guess as a leader, I, one
of your big roles, right,
where you can really drive job satisfaction is being in the
trenches when you need to, to, to unblock
and like reduce friction between teams.
And so it's just a, it is a challenge as
as companies scale especially, right?
So, um, but again, like that was something too that surfaced
to us through our culture survey was this accountability.
And as we dug into that, there was a little bit of like
friction between functional teams and regional teams.
And so we're actually now really deep diving into that
to figure out how do we address that.
Um, so yeah,
Like any teasers you can start to give us,
like are there certain things you're starting to see
to help eliminate some of the friction that's leading
to Yeah,
I mean it's,
and it's, it's like going back to ba So we have grown
and invested in new technologies.
Like we're, we're really becoming more matrix so
that we can scale profitably going forward.
And, and that's creating, right?
There's just a lot of, um, we need more decision,
like better decision rights.
We really need to talk about what level in the organization
can certain decisions be made, um, who to go to for what.
We found that there's variability even within a function on
who, who you talk to, you get a different
experience and different answer.
And so then everyone starts going to that one person
and all of sudden they're overloaded.
So we kind of, you know, our plan is to just work
with each functional leader to do, kind of inspect
what you expect, have you been clear, you know, on who does
what and what the service level agreements are even
internally, you know, treat other teams
as internal customers like.
So that's some of the stuff we're starting to talk through.
But again, it's not, it's not rocket science,
it's just taking time to listen
and get to like the nitty gritty
because that's the stuff that will
make a huge difference over the long run.
Huge. Yeah.
I, I'll just add something.
Um, kind of going back to the question about proactive ways
for wellbeing, um, Jenny's posted our facilitator guide
for leaders, um,
and there's 12 exercises in there,
so you could do one a month and,
and they're all these proactive ex, they're,
they're proactive, right?
So for example, going back to language
and calling your exiting employees alumni, one
of the exercises in there is to have, you know,
and these are just 15 minute conversations managers can have
at a, a team meeting.
Um, but one of the exercises is what are some
of the words we use that maybe we could adjust
to be more positive or focused on wellbeing?
Um, terminated employees versus alumni,
or Disney's a great example.
You know, they're, they're not employees,
they're cast members, and lunchtime is,
um, you know, not lunch.
It's like, uh, intermission or whatever.
And so they're, um, so
that just the proactive conversation all the time instead
of, or in addition to like, we have a problem,
we wanna fix it and let's do that.
It's, you attract what you focus on, right?
So, um, giving your managers the tools
and permission to proactively focus on wellbeing
or whatever kind of culture you're focused on
creating is super important.
They need to have those conversations all day, every day.
I love the empowerment piece here too.
'cause it's like, leaders are often felt like,
why am I supposed to be this wellness mental health expert?
And it's like, actually no,
it's much more simpler than that.
Like, here's just a simple facilitation guide
and couple questions just to check in.
Like, we're not asking you to be therapists here.
And I think that's nice to alleviate that pressure.
And yeah, we're about one minute left here.
So this is just flown by, uh, an amazing discussion.
Maybe we just do some like quick closing thoughts
around the horn for our network
and for everyone who joined, can we give some appreciation
to these three amazing individuals for, for showing up
and giving us some of their perspectives
and experiences on this.
But yeah, maybe round robin, like rapid fire here.
Uh, closing words for the, for our HR leaders attending.
And Maggie, you wanna go first?
Um, I mean, I kind of hit on it earlier.
I just, you have such a important role
and it's often not thanked
or even noticed the impact you're making.
Um, and so I just would really want you to feel empowered
to, you know, lead from the front on some
of these hard conversations and ideas.
Um, you know, companies need you
and they need folks who are people centered.
So, um, I see you and appreciate you
and, um, yeah, thanks for, for joining today.
Thank you, Maggie. Alexandra. Yeah,
Just ditto. I
think we need you now more than ever.
Our world is constantly changing
and we need you to be well to do well
for all of these initiatives.
So I would just center taking care of yourself as well.
Amen. And Catherine, just say amen. Yes.
Um, and again, I, you, you attract what you focus on.
So focus on creating a positive
and, you know, fruitful work environment versus
solving negative problems.
And it just shifts the mindset a little bit.
I appreciate the three of you so much.
I feel like I got more energized in my own wellbeing
and things through having this conversation with you all.
So that would be my last advice for everyone.
Like leverage the community, leverage your peers
and your social support systems
to help catapult you forward into some of these things.
You're not alone in this, uh,
and, uh, no achieve engagement.
And these three leaders are here with you on the journey.
So, uh, thank you so much
for taking time outta your days with our network.
Thank you everyone for taking outta your days
to develop yourself and grow
and continue building a better world of work.
And, uh, really excited to have you part of this.
So have a great day and afternoon everyone,
and we'll look forward to seeing you at the next one.

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