Employee Engagement Amid Workplace Turmoil

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Work Human Spotlight. I'm Eric Mosley, c e o of Work Human. And I'd like to thank you for joining us for this latest edition of the HR and Leadership Talk show. On today's episode, we'll be addressing a convergence of factors impacting HR departments and organizations across the world, which imperil company culture, employee wellbeing, organizational success, and much more. On the one hand, companies continue to face economic volatility as everything from supply chain issues, inflation over hiring, and now fears of a recession are forcing many companies to reduce payroll and budgets, and in some cases, layoff significant numbers of employees at the same time. And somewhat counterintuitively, turnover remains high. In fact, more employees report they want to change jobs in . This erodes culture drives up turnover costs, and when they leave, they take institutional knowledge and capability out the door with them. And remember when they leave, they also take key relationships that reduces the community and it's community that ultimately drives engagement and retention among their peers. Finally, and in part, fueling that turnover, HR departments are still grappling with remote and hybrid models that impacts culture and performance. Even as many workers see a full return to the office as a non-negotiable. In short, as put by one HR practitioner, it's like being stuck between a rock and a hard place and another larger rock. To help you chart a path forward. For today's episode, we've assembled a panel including Adam Davidson, award-winning journalist, author, and co-founder of NPRs Planet Money, Dr. Ragu Krishna Murthy, former C H R O of ge, and senior fellow and director at the University of Pennsylvania, and work human own VP of strategic advisory, Jen Reimert. In a discussion moderated by Jason Abrook, co-founder and c e o of Leap Gen. Afterwards work, human chief customer Officer Zoe Peterson Ward will sit down with Peter Church, c h o of point Health for his perspective, and to talk about his experience building a culture of success amid change and uncertainty. One thing that hasn't changed, however, is the importance of your people to your organization's culture and success, and to each other's happiness and wellbeing. Recognizing them, connecting them, and helping them grow is as important now as it has ever been. Implementing cost effective plans and tools to retain and develop top talent, can't wait. I'll see you again at the end of the show with a few next steps you can take in . And I know your time is valuable. So thank you again for joining us and let's start the show. Hi everyone, welcome to Work Human Spotlight. I'm Jason Abrook, and I'd like to start by thanking all of you for joining us today. A lot has changed since our previous spotlight. The majority of companies have instituted some kind of back to office plan. We've also seen a lot of layoffs. There's been a lot of discussion about the possibility of a recession. What's different about this point in time compared to moments of uncertainty and volatility in the past, like and ? Resignations remain high. What's making this economic slow down different from previous ones and how is it impacting companies? Adam, let's start with you. Sure. I mean, you said the word uncertainty. It is more uncertain than it has ever been in a modern enco economy, and that's at every time scale. So, um, there's never been less clarity. There's a lot of signals that we are headed towards a recession. There's a lot of equally strong signals that we're headed not towards a recession and towards growth. The, the range of forecasts is, is unusually wide and the certainty is unusually low. But then you take it beyond just this year or next year, there's clearly something structural happening in the labor market where workers are thinking about work in a fundamentally different way. I would actually say they're probably related. Do we think this is a structural change or a cyclical change? So there's Definitely a cyclical process, meaning a short term. Um, there's, uh, the standard business cycle that, um, that, that there are those signals, but then there's also the, it's, it's just an uncertainty layer that sits on top of everything. So yes, there's a cyclical crisis, but more importantly, what economists call a secular crisis, a kind of directional sea change, and then at the individual level and just talk to any year old and hear them say things that none of us were saying when we were . Their expectations, in my view, appropriately, they are saying, Hey, you were willing to do stuff at because you had a sort of implicit guarantee of what your life was gonna be like. I don't buy that. Right? I don't believe you. So I'm gonna make different demands. I think it's appropriate for them to feel that way, but it means that generation, that attitude is just gonna populate through for the next , , , , years. And that's gonna completely transform the workforce. I mean, we live in this world where notifications pop in all the time, right? We're in a recession, we're not in a recession, you know, based on some of the reporting that's out there, do you think that we're going to kind of avoid the unemployment that's out there? And what does this mean for the employee and employer dynamic? So Right now, if you look at it, uh, saw that for January we had the highest stock market increase. Hmm. Department of Labor came out of the fact that for every unemployed person, there are two job openings out there, right? So from that point of view, if you look at it, jobs are still there. The stock market is still doing exceptionally well. The real issue seems to be in the tech sector, and therefore me, if you look at tech sector, it only employs % of that entire labor force. So the layoffs are loud, they're not necessarily many. So you have loud layoffs, it's very noticeable, it's very apparent. But if you look at Walmart right, increasing the salary of the, uh, re their in-store employees, you can see that the structural shift has happened. The knowledge worker, the tech worker is taking a backseat right now. Yeah. And they were going through it, their heyday during the pandemic. While the retail sector, the service sector is starting to blow, We're also seeing a generation that is ready to retire, and then the generation that's coming into the workforce, they're smaller in size. So as a result, we're going to have more job openings. Similarly, I think key talent will always have a job. So to me what that speaks to is employers need to think about not only retaining their key employees, they have to treat everybody right in the way they handle layoffs. Can I add on something here? Please, please. I think, uh, your generational point is an important one. Mm. Um, and that goes back to your argument, what is different. Mm-hmm. What is different is the boomers have gone, so the , recession affected the boomers. Many of them are left the workforce of, or have said enough. Mm-hmm. It's the Gen Zs and the millionaires who have taken over for them. This, this situation, uncertainty, I do agree with that, is actually a psychological issue. Mm-hmm. Not an economic issue. Okay. Interesting. And that's what you see in TikTok all the time. Right. The great, uh, you know, resignation or quitting by quitting or presentism, that's the TikTok language for how they feel. Yeah. And the chasm, the psychological chasm between their employer and the employee has widened. Yeah, I love that. I mean, we have employees who even say my four <unk> balance went down. </unk> I'm like, yeah. It's like it's never gone down before. Mm-hmm. And all of that is causing that psychological kind of noise. Yeah. In the system. years ago, we had the jobless recovery where we had an economic recovery in every way except jobs, which is the way that matters the most. Here we have the job, lossless rec recession, even the people predicting a recession still predict very low unemployment, un unemployment numbers, . %, less than % unemployment numbers we'd normally see as a growth period. Mm-hmm. And, um, in part that's because of the demographic changes. And you were mentioning people looking for work, even when they have a job, that's a very healthy sign. Right. In, in really bad times, people are not looking for work. They're trying to clinging to the job Yeah. That they have. Yeah. So my question for Ragu is, from a leadership perspective, this concept of uncertainty. Uncertainty, like how does that impact things like performance and engagement and kind of maintaining culture when everyone's running around like, well, I don't know what's gonna happen next because I agree with your tech comment, but then again, whether you're in the tech sector or not, when you turn on the TV or you open your iPad or whatever you do to get information, it says layoffs, layoffs, layoffs. Mm-hmm. And says, we don't know what's next. Did I, so from a leadership standpoint, what does that uncertainty do? And maybe some tips Yeah. As to how to get through that. I would Say, um, it's very clear that the levels of engagement have gone, has gone down. If you look at, uh, Gallup's latest results, it says that level of active engagement has dropped back to %. Mm-hmm. It also says that those who have been forced to come back to the office are lowered by % compared to the others. So it tells you that, um, there has been a shift during the pandemic and people are still working that through. And as organizations force employees to work from an office situation, the level of engagement is actually worse. The second thing is where is the proof that performance went down during the pandemic? Mm-hmm. Productivity was at an all-time high. That's been proven, right? Yes. Innovation was not that great. Collaboration was not that great, but productivity as a measure was pretty good. So if you are calling me saying that productivity is not good enough, I don't believe you, because there is no data to prove to the contrary. So as organizations think about where they are and what they need to do, this goes to your suggestion. What tips do I have? I think con expansion and contraction of the economy is a normal mm-hmm. Phenomena, and it's gonna happen more rapidly than before. The true measure of an organization's success is resilience, not productivity. Okay. So, I would advise leaders to think about resilience as the predominant measure, not productivity. And how do you think that the employees are feeling, though? So all that's true. Mm-hmm. But let's put ourselves in the shoes of the employee for a second. How are they feeling? And then what's the message and what are the tools that I should be thinking about to talk to employees? Employees are wanting to feel, uh, that they can make an impact. They wanna feel seen, they wanna be connected to their colleagues. And so the challenge becomes how do you do that when they are productive at home? I, I agree. And so when they come into the office, they're actually looking for something different. It's not about productivity, it's about I wanna get to know my colleagues. And if you think about someone who's just leaving university first job, they're used to being surrounded by students and they love that energy and that collaboration. They come into the office. If no one's there, they don't get that. But if they're home, they don't maybe see that either. So we have to figure out as employers how to foster that level of collaboration, that level of connection. And the new workers are very adept. They know how to use technology to do that, but there is nothing that replaces working together side by side. So it doesn't have to be, I don't think all the time. I've been remote myself and I enjoy it, but I think there's benefit for being in the office. So it's figuring out how to facilitate that, how to also communicate, I see you and I know your impact, and be able to do that very clearly so that people feel seen and heard. Yeah. And I wanna take it beyond just where people work. Yeah. For a second. Because, you know, there's a lot of people that have said return to work. Mm. Like, we've been working the whole time. I dunno what this whole return to work Right. Thing is, in fact, we're working harder. Right. So there's other psychological impacts post pandemic or where we are today, let's just say that we should think about as well. Adam Morgo, you wanna address that? There's a couple things that I notice about right now. So, so one is actually separate from the pandemic. It just is a, um, a realization. We, we had a weird economy mm-hmm. In the 20th century. We never had big companies and we never had huge organizations where there's thousands and thousands of people who are defined by a job title, like a box you walk into rather than themselves. Right. We had hereditary titles. Most people throughout history just did what their parents did. Um, and work and home life and religious life and everything was all intertwined. And then we had this very weird series of events from roughly , , let's say to , that where, where the central organization of so much of our life is this institution cut off from our normal life. And for much of that period, bringing your whole self, bringing your personality, even expecting that your job is gonna support your, your full life and your full life is gonna support your job. Certainly, if you think of the , when I think of my grandfather as a factory foreman in the 1950s and sixties, these would've been embarrassing, naive, dumb things to say. Yeah. Not only would they be dumb things to say, they wouldn't have been accepted. You know, that's I think a really important point and rag I'd love for gen three. Yeah. I Actually fully agree with that. And I think the dimension of the fact that what the pandemic has taught people is before the pandemic work used to define life and people said, that is not what life is all about. And now it's life defining work. Mm-hmm. So what it means is your anchor is life. Mm-hmm. Not work. Work goes to the periphery. And unless people recognize, and there are two, three things that, uh, that factor into this conversation. One is what happened during the pandemic is yes, your health took a toll, economics took a toll, your social life took a toll, but your family life took an up swing. Yep. Right? Your touchpoints with the family increased and anything that now, and now as the pandemic goes away, working from home still retains the family touchpoint. Right. So anything that you force employees to do that takes away from their experience of being with the family is degrading to their experience. So as employers think about what this conundrum means, they need to think about peak experiences as opposed to peak, peak performance. One, they need to think about purpose rather than productivity. Because what happens is when you lay off people tell them to come back to the office, it creates a, creates a fear-based organization. Mm-hmm. But when you talk about mission, purpose mm-hmm. It creates a faith-based organization. Yep. And employees, especially the Gen Zs and the millionaires want to work for an organization that gives more than it takes, right? Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. And that's a powerful driver for people to feel a sense of belonging and connection. We have to create that. So when you think about HR Jen, yeah. I mean there's, think about everything we've talked about here. Mm-hmm. We've talked about uncertainty. Mm-hmm. You know, we've talked about changes from work life to life work. You know, we've talked about this concept of Gen Zs and a whole new technographic of worker. Like, you know, and by the way, I feel bad for HR because they're going through a lot. They're going through a lot right now, you know, but from what you're hearing, besides employees being heard mm-hmm. You know, what else would you say that is important for HR to be doing right now? They, they're always looking for career opportunity and growth. They're looking to, um, accelerate their career. They're looking for different experiences. They're looking to, uh, repurpose skills and grow their skills. There's a lot of discussion about how do we enhance the skills? How do we upskill? Um, and they are looking for a way that they can have a connection to the mission and the purpose. And they wanna understand how they do that. And through that they're looking for ways to communicate and, and constantly be checking in on, am I doing the right thing? They're used to feedback fast and they give it freely so they're open to it. Yeah. And they don't mind being coached. They, a lot of these kids have been coached their whole lives starting mar much earlier than maybe I was or you were. And they're used to that ongoing feedback all the time. How am I doing? Can I do something different? How can I advance? What can I learn? They're very hungry. Oh, I was gonna ask cuz I, I have the enviable or unenviable position that I get to just watch it and write about it and have opinions, but I don't actually have to do anything you guys have been on the front lines of, of hr. Um, the thing that does scare me for people in their twenties, and when I think about my son when he enters the workforce is serendipity. And when, when I talk to labor historians, labor economists, something we know is that in, in your sort of career formative period, say to , something like that, bumping into a boss on the way to a meeting and making a clever comment and the boss saying, oh, that's interesting. Or just being in a room full of, you know, I always wanted to be a journalist. I didn't know what journalists did, but until I was in a room with a bunch of different ones and I was able to say, oh, what that person does is cool, but what that person does I don't like. Um, that serendipity feels like what I would be worried about missing for people who aren't in a structure where they're able to really get that feedback, get that coaching, learn what they're good at, how do you, you know, learn. I think we all entered the workforce kind of full of hope and ambition and not really knowing what we were good at. And then eventually we learned so that, I would just be curious what, what, Well, certainly not all employers are, are good at that, are equipped and, and people who are leaders aren't all equipped to do that either. And that's, yeah. That's where tools and resources and other things can come into play to help with that. And that's where the wisdom of the crowd can help too. It's not a single point of failure that, that the manager has to do everything. I mean, you have peers who can help guide and shape and um, you can find mentors throughout organizations that can be paired up based on I've done that, I've been there, I have the experience and I wanna help. Cuz there's very, it's very rewarding to help others. And I think that's where we really have to think about it in rugby. I'm gonna tie this into a question on Yeah. No, I think psychological safety. Yeah. Like if we're designing with intentionality opportunities for serendipity, that's gonna automatically create some more psychological safety. I think it also changes the role of the leader. And you saw that during the pandemic, right. Leaders who were empathetic and who were able to work their way with their people even though they were not in the same place, actually, you know, were very welcome. Mm-hmm. And in, in, I think it changes the role of the leader from somebody who's got authority and power to somebody who's got influence and trust. And that's the big shift that has happened. Yep. And for, for us, we need to recognize in this conversation, the middle manager is perhaps the most important equation. They are the dynamo for this change, not the Dior. Love that. Right. And from that point of view, most leaders are familiar with the concept of micromanagement, but the new leader needs to be con familiar with the concept of micro understanding. The leader in the new era is a resource. Yeah. Not a power center. Yeah. And therefore being with the, how can the leader be a coach on the side, be involved in the game without being in the game. Right. Making sure that all the obstacles are really removed and they are participating in the outcomes. Right. Become such an important shift in the expectations we have for our leaders. It's definitely been a more challenging two years. In the past two years. I'm A little worried mainly cuz the price of everything is going up. I am a little worried actually because I'm, uh, planning to go into the tech industry and the recession is really affecting jobs right now. I know that with the tech recession, a lot of jobs aren't out there and people are getting laid off. Cost of living suddenly where I'm from in, uh, in the UK is a, is a huge issue. So let's talk about resignations. Are there any red flags or third rails or lines in the sand with your job that would just make you say, Nope. Toxic Leadership, Lack of like a proper, like maternity leave, Egregious lack of respect, toxic Workplace pay Cuts. There Has to be a point at which you say, this culture doesn't align with my own personal values. And if you don't respect and value me, then that would be something that would, that would move me On. I once had an employer that told me we couldn't talk about wage, so that was, I left after that. And what are your biggest priorities in your job after compensation or maybe before compensation and why? The kind of company culture and values. People want to feel valued by their company and feel like they're an important part of that machine rather than just a number on a, uh, on a balance sheet. Work life balance is really big for me. My last firm had none of that. I worked all the time. Having Like, proper vacation time and having like an opportunity for like career growth is very important to me. I say money's definitely a big one. I won't lie. What motivates you to give your all at work? Why do you stay? My students motivate me to give my all trying to, you know, make them be the best they can. It says my own personal motivation, I guess it's, uh, it's professional standards, uh, and a kind of sense of professional pride that I have, um, towards the work that way. Being in an environment with people who are like, constantly striving to do better and who are ambitious. But I think what makes you stay somewhere is if you en generally enjoy the people that you work with. I think a job is a job and I don't live to work. I work to live. So I think that that balance is what keeps me going. So I think we've like established that we're at a unique moment. Mm-hmm. You know, it's gonna be very critical that leadership gets this. Right. So when you think about that, like what's one thing you'd advise organizations to do right now besides run or besides go into academia to get it right. Well, I mean, I'm biased. I mean, I work at a company that does and and promotes recognition, but it's, I, I'm here because I believe in it. So maybe I park my bias for now and maybe flow to you or Well, let's have Adam start then we can end, we can come back to, sure. Okay. Great. I Do think recognition is, is a key part. And I'm not, nobody told me to say that I'm free to say whatever I want about recognition. I think that a fundamental reframing of that relationship between employer and employee. And I love what both of you said about, um, what you said about leadership being a resource. And it, it's also sort of an invitation to share a vision rather than an insistence on following a program. Love that. Mm-hmm. I think there's a ton of structures in how we do HR that are outmoded. They're just simply, um, uh, just not help people think anymore. Dinosaur. Right. Dinosaur. Dinosaur. And if you're not communicating to employees, I see you as you to say, Hey, you are unusually good at being the person in the meeting who brings everyone together towards a vision or you're unusually good at listening quietly and then coming up with the plan the next day. Mm-hmm. That's gonna get us to the place that that other person, because it Creates Feelings. Yeah. And when a person moments of a service knows that, oh, they see me and they're at, they're, they're seeing who I am and who I think I am, but they're also giving me hints as to who I could become, then that's a relationship that's gonna last in both directions. The employee feels, um, valued and the employer is really seeing who's valuable. Now obviously that might mean some of your employees you're noticing, huh? I'm not really having a lot to recognize here. And that's a complicated issue, but much better to do it that way than to just say, mm-hmm. , people with this job title are gone today. Ragu critical moment. Yeah. There are two things. I will come back to the recognition topic, but I would say the first thing organizations need to realize is talent is the new cash flow. And what do I mean by that? Um, they're not disposable. And the more you treat them that way, the less it's going to be for you to get them back. Right. However, if you treat them like the way you treat cash, sometimes you borrow money from people, it's equity, it's debt, and so on and so forth. Talent. Now, the way you need to look at it is that some of them are gonna be gig workers, some of them gonna be partners. Are they gonna be outsourced? You gotta look at the entire landscape of talent that's out there so that you, you broad base the understanding and appreciation for talent. That's one thing you need to do, but for the people whom you really want in-house mm-hmm. Recognition is the new currency. In fact, for me, the way I see recognition, it's the fuel that ignites passion. And how do you ensure that you have a culture that automatically ensures that recognition flows through the veins of the organization? That's great. So, I mean, for the sake of transparency, right? We, uh, you know, our viewers know that we're human mm-hmm. Is a recognition company. And I know we've touched upon it, but what's the role of recognition right now? Cause we've, we, we do recognition once a year. Hey, good job, et cetera, et cetera, you know? And if I, if I don't have a recognition program, is now the time to look into it. So I used to lead total rewards and by far it was the most, um, economic and the, the, the smallest investment I could get the biggest bang for my buck. Because if you think about you want to send signals to employees frequently mm-hmm. And you don't have to do big amounts because it goes back to just a fundamental need of, am I on the right path? Am I doing the right thing? So if you think about all the stages of an employee, even beginning with people who are looking at your company, how you treat people, they're going to decide, I wanna work at that company because of their brand. So if you are a brand that treats people correctly, recognizes what they do, demonstrates how they add value, that all adds into your employer brand. Then they're hired at the time of hire, immediately they're brought into this culture of appreciation and gratitude and they are told, you're doing this right. Or you have this unique capability as you pointed out, Adam. And that helps them to feel a part of it. And then they can also learn from seeing what others are recognized for. Oh, that's what good looks like. Oh, that's what I need to do. Oh, that's helpful for my team. It's a, it's a learning tool. It's a communication vehicle and a recruiting tool to your point. Yes. And a recruiting Tool. And it's a information, if we think of the way a lot of people still think of a company. It's, there's, there's the C-suite, then there's this level of manager, then there's that level of manager, then there's that level of manager. Um, and so if I want to know, is this person good? I look at their job description that someone wrote, are they doing that job? When you have a really healthy recognition system and everybody is free to kind of acknowledge who has been helping them, you'll very quickly notice that you have a much more networked organization. That's much, that's totally, it could be, depending on the company, it could be wildly different from the official org chart. And you're gonna really identify those nodes. And we've all worked with those people who might actually be a lower status person, but everyone knows if you want to get something done, it's Shirley or it's whomever. Yep. Mm-hmm. And, um, and then we also all have worked with the people who have the right title. They are in the right node in the chart, and there's dozens of people working their way around them to get things done. So it it, it's closer to how an organization actually functions to, to simply acknowledge, I mean, recognition. Great. But it's also just acknowledging, it's like, we all know this. It's saying, let's record this thing we all know and let's, so that we're able to look at it. Let's Put it up in front of you so that you can't not see how work gets done. Exactly. Yeah. And we've shown that to clients and they are amazed to see all the different communities within communities that they never would've seen on an org chart wouldn't have seen in a project team. And it's how you can also see who is a high performing team. We talk about agile work. You need to know who can get something done. You can go right into the data as you put it, Adam, and you can see these are what they're good at. We need to pull people together of these skills. Ragu, I'd love to just get your thoughts on this because it, you know, hrs got so much going on, you know, and when employees get another thing from hr, the first thing they're like, oh yes, another thing from hr. That's not what happens. So when we think about using recognition strategically, one of the things you mentioned is how important the managers are. Can you go into that just briefly? I think the, the conversation on recognition is shifting. There are two or three things. First is it's an expectation. If you're a Gen Z, that's what they're used to. Because every time they put something on TikTok or on social media, they're looking for the likes. Yep. So recognition now is an expectation of being not performance, of being second. I think the shift is also an apprecia recognition used to be a celebration of contribution. Now, in a remote world, when people are working from home and you don't see them, recognition is an acknowledgement of your relevance. Lovely. That you're there. Yep. Mm-hmm. I'm, I appreciate you. Right. The third thing for me is recognition for me is the fact that it's a demonstration of caring. Mm-hmm. It's a demonstration of empathy. Mm-hmm. And therefore, you can look at it from many different angles. Not only are you contributing, but are you learning, are you learning recognition of learning, recognition of, uh, challenging. You're creating a culture through recognition. And that, for me is a much broader conversation than a system or a tool or an app. Yeah. That is part of recognition as an important anchor of your culture. I love that point. It makes me think of, when I think of my moments in my career that have been the most impactful. Mm. It's often when I screwed something up terribly and then learned from it. And a traditional hierarchical system doesn't, what are they gonna do promote you? Wow. You really screwed that up. We're gonna promote you. But if there's, if there's an ability to say, I saw how you learned from that. Right. And that's it. You don't get a raise, you don't get promoted, but you get that acknowledgement that you are growing. One of the companies that I worked with had a brilliant idea. They came up with a campaign called Sometimes You Win, sometimes you Learn. And that was to celebrate learning from failures. And it really shifted the culture to create that psychological safety. We are talking about not just safe spaces, but brave spaces where people are able to actually open up to their failings. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Because failures are a conversion experience. Right? Yeah. We've really spent the last two years watching work change. Mm-hmm. I think this year is a real important year for us to take action. And we could talk about this for hours, but that's about all the time we have for today to our panel. Thank you so much for being here. But stay tuned. We'll be right back with point Health's Chief People Officer Pete Church to learn about building thriving cultures through times of disruption. Right after this, Sir, it's the resignation numbers. There's more. Why is this happening? Apparently our complete lack of employee recognition is making our workers feel invisible. What about the Lobster House gift cards? I, uh, hand out and the swag? That was a year ago, sir. Several of our staff have shellfish allergies and those sweatshirts gave them braes. Not that you could tell it's too late. They're all going to companies with, we're human. We're human, we're human. The recognition platform that creates cultures of human connection, where people feel seen and appreciated for the work they do and who they are, even if they work remote driving happiness and business results at thriving companies. Companies like mine. Yours I turned in my two weeks, two weeks ago. You just never read the email. We're human, because without the human, it's just work. Welcome back to Work Human Spotlight. I'm Zoe Peterson, ward, chief Customer Officer at Work Human. And I'm very pleased to be joined by Pete Church, chief People Officer at point . Health. Welcome, Pete. It's good to be here. Thank you. You're welcome. Before we get started into the topic of the day, I would love to hear more about your story, the story about point , health and the culture that you're fostering there. Sure. Well, thank you very much. It's, it is great to be here. I appreciate the opportunity. Um, point . Health is a new company. We've been a company now for about two years. I joined the organization about a year ago, and I, I've been doing human resources work for almost years. Uh, joining Point Health, when I did was post-merger. We had two iconic organizations that had served the Greater New England area for the better part of almost years each. And, um, in a post-merger environment, there's a lot of disruption in any organization. Uh, a post-merger environment, post pandemic, uh, when many colleagues had not been brought to one location interacting with each other, that also had a lot of disruption. And for us, as we were introducing a new strategy for our organization with a new leadership team, uh, a new culture, and how we define what we, what we believe we are, where we came from, but also narrate what we aspire to be, became the primary focus of, of work this past year. That's Incredible because mergers, as we know, like you just described, come with so sometimes a lot of disruption and volatility. And I'm curious what lessons that you may have learned about building a culture through that kind of environment. Um, what could we apply to today's world of work? Um, a ton of learnings to be, to be candid. Um, first of all, I think there's, there's an appreciation for what we all feel as people these days. And when I say these days, I mean, um, a post pandemic environment is different. Many of us, we, we wanna go back to the whatever the way it was, was. Um, and that's not possible. So there's that, there's been varying levels of, um, social unrest, some of it way overdue and some of it much needed. But that sits in, uh, in all of us. You know, when you, when we sent everyone to their homes in March of , we took down the physicality of what was work and what was home. And we put them together and concurrently, um, all of the things we have felt as people over the past several years. So I say all of that to say is that empathy and compassion as leaders becomes increasingly important to appreciate what people feel and therefore how people should and might want to be treated as you move forward on things like reconciling two organizations, bringing people together and trying to narrate what a future might look like, both in terms of hmm, what you need to be, uh, what you want to be and what you have to be. So you sent all of your workers home during the pandemic, and I know you point health, just like so many other organizations are still operating in a hybrid environment. I believe a big part of your workforce is still in that situation. And conventional wisdom tells us that that could be a detriment to building a strong culture. So I'm just curious, what are you doing to bring your culture out to those individuals that are still working in that remote environment? Yeah, I really appreciate the question because it is, um, it's the intellectual challenge of our era really, is how do you create community and sustain it when we don't see each other every day. Uh, so a couple different things. I I first start from a place of things that are deeply personal, like family members. I don't, I choose not to live with my, my brother as an adult. We spend time younger living together. Uh, but I don't, I don't see him every day. I don't see him every week or every month. But we do have mechanisms to connect. And when we do get together, our time is useful. It's purposeful. Um, and we're intentional with what we're trying to create out of that time together. Now, colleagues at work aren't family members and, and there's oftentimes different sort of things that emerge from that, but the principles, I believe are the same, which is you need to declare what's your intent. So for us as an organization, we are a hybrid organization. We're not waiting to determine is it time to ring a bell and everybody runs back in. Um, there are certain inherent benefits that we have all learned from having a hybrid work environment. And one of those benefits, as an example, is for something in the spirit of caregiving that's particularly important. And I mention it because of its impact on our workforce. People have responsibilities outside of work. The flexibility of hybrid allows people to attend to things that, frankly being in work every day precluded people do. So our belief is, is that from a, from a perspective of health and wellbeing, hybrid matters, it's a competitive advantage for many people too. But in terms of bringing culture together in this environment is hard. Just cause it's hard doesn't mean you don't do it. Mm-hmm. And so for us, it's required us to rethink and be very deliberate about the intention in which we use time. So we use something at our organization called Core Days, and we use that time not to just come in and do the work you would've otherwise been doing at home, but we use it for community oriented events. Hmm. Team meetings, in person collaboration sessions with each other, innovation labs, town hall meetings, large group meetings, volunteer efforts, social responsibility, education and learning opportunities. Those things are intentional. They're not fluff, they're just deliberate with how we use time to bring people together so that when you go back to wherever it is you came from geographically or otherwise, wherever that is, you're connected in some way. The relationships are stronger. The second thing we're doing is we're trying to be extremely deliberate with the tools we put in place to help reinforce the importance of culture when people are not together every day and finding ways to bring that to life. You've Indicated that recognition is one of your strategic pillars. Yeah. And I'm curious why you decided to do that and how you're using recognition strategically at point Health. Sure. Um, when we think about tools and tactics we have, uh, at our disposal, there's lots of different things we can do. Lo I mean, there's, there's literally dozens and I I think of this often, like the way we might go to a grocery store. We see all sorts of products, but sometimes there's products that are put on the end cap or at eye level. And what that does is it, it, it draws our attention. We go to those first for a certain reason. And I try to think about the importance of recognition in that same way. Mm-hmm. I'm trying to bring a spotlight to the things that I want to have used most at Point Health. One of the things we've described ourselves as part of our culture journey is that we are a community of care. We believe that to serve others, we need to serve ourselves and to serve ourselves means finding ways to allow us to do our best work, to bring our whole selves to work and to create an environment where we can be our best. So using our own data in our organization, we know that there is an outsized impact that recognition has on supporting increased engagement. We established a baseline in early last year around what do our colleagues feel about our culture, what's our engagement levels in the organization? And what we know through feedback is that feeling recognized is extremely important. It has a high correlation to engagement. And of course, engagement is, is an opportunity to see where people are willing to give additional or discretionary time, their intent to stay. And that's the second metric, which is the frequency of recognition that people have received over the course of the year correlates to intent to stay or retention in the organization. So those two things in these early days of our utilization, or I should say our first year of utilization has had a tremendous impact. That's fantastic. And such a credit to the work that you all have been putting into your program. So I'm excited to hear as you continue to mature. So, Pete, thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to thank you for joining us today. Hopefully we leave you with some new insights and inspiration for navigating the uncertainty and turmoil of today's talent market. If you'd like to learn more about building a culture of engagement and resilience with social recognition, we'd love to set up a time to chat about how recognition can create value for your organization. That's it for this episode. Thanks again to all our guests. We'll see you next time.

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