Overcome Stubborns

An Exploration Into How We Can Eradicate Unintentional Bias and Discrimination

Human judgment—and the prejudices and unconscious biases that it can give rise to—will always be with us.That’s why Jessica Nordell’s critically acclaimed book The End of Bias comes with the subtitle, “A Beginning.”One approach that can help reduce discrimination, Nordell found during her research, is to use objective criteria in making decisions about health care assessments and corporate promotions, among other examples.“It's not so much about changing hearts and minds as it is about changing the decision-making environment, changing the structure within which people make a decision, so that their own biases are less likely to play a role,” said Nordell, an award-winning author and science writer.In assessing the results of anti-bias and anti-discrimination interventions, Nordell focuses on examining data and looking for measurable change, she said during a session at a From Day One conference in May in Minneapolis, where she is based.“I tell stories about people and organizations and cultures that have actually changed in measurable ways and then try to explain and explore what allowed them to do that,” Nordell told moderator Stephanie Sisco, an assistant professor in the College of Education & Human Development at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.Nordell cited a group of trauma surgeons at Johns Hopkins University as an example of the difference that objective criteria can make. After the surgeons began using a computerized checklist, instead of their clinical judgment to assess patients for blood clots, those patients began getting appropriate treatment at much higher rates. The gender disparity for women, who previously were almost 50 percent more likely to miss out on blood clot prevention, disappeared, even though the doctors had not set out to decrease the bias.Businesses have seen positive results from similar efforts. “One approach that decreases discrimination against women and underrepresented minorities in corporate environments in terms of their ability to be promoted into management is using consistent, objective, transparent criteria for making decisions,” Nordell said.Jessica Nordell, pictured, signed copies of The End of Bias for the From Day One Minneapolis attendees (photo by Cassandra Sajna for From Day One)Where many psychologists see two kinds of bias, prejudice based on deeply held beliefs and unconscious bias, Nordell believes another form also exists: unexamined bias.“That better captures the fact that there’s a kind of unknowable combination of conscious and unconscious things happening,” Nordell said. “If we’re holding beliefs that we haven’t examined and we’re acting on those” that requires “deep, personal introspection and deep grappling with our belief system, with our values.”Nordell told Sisco that she had written about bias and discrimination for years as a journalist but became impatient reporting on those issues and trying to persuade readers to care. She wanted to know what to do about bias and discrimination and wanted to read a book that offered “a thorough examination of what change’s people’s behavior, what changes organizations and what changes cultures to become more fair.When she couldn’t find that book, Nordell wrote it. She spent five years on The End of Bias, which she thought would be an 18-month project.While we may never reach the end that the title suggests, Nordell believes “that we can get a lot closer and we can do a lot better.”“We can relate to each other in much more humane ways than we have,” Nordell continued. “And that’s really my goal with the book, to, wherever we are, move us more in that right direction.”Todd Nelson is a Minnesota-based journalist who writes for newspapers in the Twin Cities.

BY Todd Nelson | June 02, 2023
Overcome Stubborns
By Lisa Jaffe | June 02, 2023

Boosting Performance by Promoting Well-Being

The work rules we learned early in our career no longer apply. The last three years have drastically changed what we do and how we do it, as well as the expectations between employees and employers. As an example, Dr. Tom Van Gilder, chief health officer at the virtual coaching company BetterUp, noted in a From Day One webinar that the rate of skills retirement–the time it takes for a skill to become irrelevant or no longer applicable–has declined from about 5 years 15 years ago to just 18 months. “Everything seems to be always in flux,” he said. Change can be good, but this constant state of change is increasing stress. Indeed, a 2021 Harvard Business Review study found that 85% of respondents felt that their well-being had declined in the past two years. The study also reflected a 25% increase in anxiety and depression. Why does that matter? Because employee well-being has a direct impact on performance – of individuals, of employee populations, and of organizations themselves. “There is a relationship between well-being and performance,” Gilder said, but take heart. “Well-being can be measured, and well-being can be improved over time.”BetterUp data, based on about 2 million coaching sessions with people around the world, suggests that, when it comes to well-being, about 5% feel strong, 35% feel steady, and 55% feel strained or unsteady. The last 5% feel stuck. Unlike the people at the very bottom of the scale, most people who languish in the strained or unsteady category won’t likely show up in mental health claims, Gilder explains. They don’t see themselves as having something treatable. “But they're not at their best, they don't feel their best, they don't perform their best.”There are a variety of resources for measuring well-being, including:     •    The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health     •    The HERO Scorecard, developed with Mercer     •    PositivePsychology.com     •    What Works Center for Wellbeing in the UK While an organization can try to tackle this issue at any time, it’s best to be proactive and not wait until things are unsettled or bad to start a program that measures well-being and looks for methods to improve it, he said. But regardless of when you start, Gilder says that improvements in well-being can drive performance and help create resilience and adaptability in your workforce.Martin Seligman, the originator of positive psychology, conducted a study of more than a million Department of Defense employees that showed happiness was the number one predictor and driver of success. The people who won the most prestigious awards were those with the highest well-being scores at the start of the study – four times as many in the top quartile compared to the bottom one. BetterUp’s own data shows a 16% increase in performance among people whose well-being improved than in those whose did not.What’s the connection? Gilder says resilience and cognitive agility are predictive of well-being and are also drivers of performance. “Resilience allows a person to adapt more smoothly in the face of change or stress, and it provides a buffer to burnout,” he said.Dr. Tom Van Gilder, BetterUp's Chief Health Officer, led the webinar (company photo)On an organizational level, where there are higher indices of resilience in individuals and across the population of the workplace, there is a greater ability to respond to change and to remain competitive. “As things change, the ability to see which way things are going and to react calmly and efficiently and effectively becomes an organizational predictor,” he said. Companies that have higher resilience have over a three and a half times higher annual return on equity, and almost three and a half times higher year-on-year growth, Gilder added. “This component of well-being is good for the individual and the organization as well.”How can you improve it? Coaching works. Even during the pandemic, BetterUp data showed that those who had coaching on well-being ended up with higher markers of productivity than those without coaching. One of their larger clients, Salesforce, has provided a wealth of data to BetterUp. Those accessing services showed a 75% increase in markers associated with flourishing than those who did not. It led to fewer missed workdays, better health, and an increase in the likelihood of delivering a top performance. The people who are really stuck get the most impact from accessing mental health care services. But there is a large percentage of people who don’t access those solutions, either because they're not identified or don’t self-identify as needing something or they are not aware of these options. Make sure that whatever mental health solutions you provide, through your health plan, EAP, or other benefits, that it is communicated to and available across your entire population. If you provide coaching, know that it isn’t therapy, and ensure that whatever coaching providers you use are trained to point to other resources and refer on as needed. EAPs are often underused because people don’t know about them. There also remains a stigma around mental health care. Be sure you are working to tear down those barriers.Don’t forget about financial well-being, too. In these inflationary times, money troubles and concerns can have an impact on overall well-being. Consider whether financial coaching or financial literacy education could help your employees become more resilient. Younger people may be more likely to engage with digital tools. Find out what your people will respond to and offer it. You may need to offer both digital and real-life options, depending on your workforce’s preference. Consider group options, too. This can help with issues of catastrophizing, Gilder said. “If people organize around specific topics, it can help them develop tools to cope with change and help them see positives that come with it. “We can’t change the rate of change, but we can become more comfortable with it.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, BetterUp, for sponsoring this webinar. 
Overcome Stubborns
By Angelica Frey | June 01, 2023

How Family-Forming Benefits Can Save Your Company Money

Picture this: Sarah and Zach are a heterosexual couple in their late 30s, and they’re nervous about how long it will take them to get pregnant, because Sarah has friends who had to undergo treatment. Thanks to her benefit portal, she decides to talk to a fertility coordinator, who introduces her to resources such as nutrition counseling and access to a wearable ovulation tracker. Sarah gets pregnant after 3 months and, thanks to her benefits, has access to prenatal yoga. In the end, she has a healthy pregnancy and delivers a healthy baby.In another case, Emily is a single mom by choice and wants a second child. During her first pregnancy, she needed a C-section, because the baby was breech. She assumed that, because she’d had one C-section, she would need one for her second birth. Emily used her benefits to get pregnant via intrauterine insemination using a donor. Then, after exploring her new company’s benefits, she scheduled a call with a midwife, who asked her if she wanted to attempt a vaginal delivery. Emily then worked with a doula, talked to her doctor, and changed her birth plan. She went into labor and had a vaginal birth. These are just two examples that Allen Niemynski, Account Executive for Enterprise Sales at the fertility and family-forming benefits platform Carrot Fertility, provided during a From Day One webinar, titled “How Fertility Benefits Can Save a Company Money.” He acknowledges that it might seem counterintuitive at first, as family forming benefits are notoriously expensive. But fertility challenges can result in frequent doctor’s appointments and medical treatments with side effects that lead to absenteeism and other expensive consequences. Fertility benefits can help lower overall costs by retaining valuable employees, helping meet DEI goals, and, by intervening early in the process with less invasive options, curbing high-cost claims. Retention always takes significant resources, as replacing and training a new employee can require six to nine months.In fact, what would have happened without access to these benefits? Many companies would have required that Zach and Sarah try getting pregnant for one year before covering assisted reproductive technology–first, intrauterine insemination, followed by IVF (in vitro fertilization). Each round of IUI costs $4,000, while IVF costs $21,000 per round, and many people require more. Preventative care allowed Zach and Sarah to get pregnant without intervention.In Emily’s case, C-sections increase costs; by avoiding a C-section, someone working at a self-insured company would save around $20,000–and would have a safer birth experience. Since education is still lacking, only 13.3% of women opt for a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). That’s where robust pregnancy resources come in: talking to a doula reportedly reduces C-section rates when the alternative is medically safe.Allen Niemynski, enterprise account executive for Carrot Fertility, led the webinar (company photo)Fertility benefits allow employees not to use their insurance plan to access these resources, so employers  save even more money when employees manage to grow their families without intervention thanks to preventative measures. Providing personalized care means, say, offering IVF if it’s right for the patient. In certain cases, though, IVF can cause more harm than good and have bad business consequences. Niemynski likens IVF to treating back pain with back surgery. “More than 66% of Carrot members selected non-invasive interventions over surgery as a first line,” he said. For example, one of the first-line resources is discounted access to an ovulation tracker, which measures five different parameters and identifies fertile windows. Here again, the need for education can come into play, as there’s a general lack of awareness that one can only conceive during a limited amount of time in a cycle.“In the last 10 years, fertility benefits were mainly focused in the tech sector, but that’s changing,” said Niemynski. “We’re seeing industries, across all sizes, embrace fertility benefits, and it’s because we really need to. One out of eight couples experiences fertility challenges.” Historically, fertility has been a taboo subject, but people have become increasingly comfortable with sharing their personal stories. Male infertility is also being discussed more and more: the sperm count dropped 60% in the last 40 years. Despite the misconception that most fertility challenges lie within women, 40% of issues actually start with men. “Everybody needs the option to start the family they want,” said Niemynski. Carrot’s benefits extend beyond fertility strictly speaking, and Niemynski favors the phrase “family forming.” Family-forming benefits can help companies reach DEI goals by providing options to the LGBTQIA+ workforce and by boosting equity, ensuring that all employees have access to high-quality care. Supporting a diverse workforce makes smart business sense, as diverse companies experience better business outcomes.Niemynski explains the case of Michael and Nick, a same-sex couple who want to adopt a child. Intending to adopt in the United States, they assume they’ll go through the agency route. But their benefit portal routes them to an expert, who lets them know about common costs associated with foster-to-adopt, agency, and independent options. Michael and Nick inquire about self-guided options and research platforms that operate without an agency. A self-guided route, through which the majority of costs are related to legal work, means that the couple can spend $10,000-15,000, as opposed to $30,000-60,000. They chose this option and welcomed their babies. A benefit package covering up to $20,000 for family forming would completely support this journey. Adoption-related family-forming benefits are crucial for the LGBTQIA+ workforce: 26% of same-sex couples adopt, but only one out of five companies offer adequate resources. In parallel to family-forming benefits, Carrot also offers resources for menopause, a natural part of aging. Since menopause is not a disease, it’s under-researched, and only 25% of OBGYN programs provide menopause training. Still, menopause has a significant impact on health. Changes in estrogen and progesterone affect the brain, the reproductive system, and other organs. These symptoms can also negatively affect life score, decrease productivity, and impair daily activities. 7% of women experience early-onset menopause, which carries the additional risks of osteoporosis, heart disease, and more. Take the case of Rebecca, the VP of finance at her company. At 49, she starts having hot flashes and trouble sleeping. One year later, symptoms worsen: she becomes fatigued during the work day and can’t sleep at night. Her GP says the symptoms are just a part of life. But during a work meeting that offers an overview of benefits, she learns she can find a doctor who specializes in menopause, as well as join a support group addressing the pros and cons of HRT. She starts treatment and finds that her support group is invaluable. “We estimate $10,000 in retention savings,” said Niemynski. “But for a senior leader like her, savings might be much higher.” There is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to creating a suite of family-forming benefits, but Carrot does have one rule when it comes to connecting patients with resources: “No Google,” Niemynski said. “There’s a lot of terrible information that can lead you down a dangerous rabbit hole, and that will make people invest money in places that will not help them achieve their goals.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Carrot Fertility, for sponsoring this webinar. 

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The From Day One Newsletter is a monthly roundup of articles, features, and editorials on innovative ways for companies to forge stronger relationships with their employees, customers, and communities.

Overcome Stubborns
By Dan Heilman | June 01, 2023

Retaining and Motivating Employees by Showing Them Their Work Matters

Whether you’re a human resources professional in the private or public sector, motivating employees goes hand in hand with keeping them. And neither task is an easy one.A five-person panel recently went through the ups and downs of that process in a discussion titled “Retaining and Motivating Employees by Showing Them Their Work Matters” at From Day One's Minneapolis conference. It can be tricky to zero in on the intangible but important sense among employees that their work has meaning not only to the company but also the world at large. Part of that equation has to do with having employees buy in to your company’s mission, according to Laura Lorenz, vice president of human resources for 3M’s Transportation and Electronics Business Group.“The focus is aspirational,” Lorenz said. “We’re the world’s largest provider of N95 masks, and during COVID we kept our prices the same. That was a source of pride for our people.”In the public sector, keeping workers motivated and happy can be extra challenging. Toni Newborn, chief equity officer and director of human resources for the City of Saint Paul, said that tight budgets and the structure of the city government can be an obstacle.“We have 15 operating departments that are essentially their own businesses, with 3,000 employees,” Newborn said. “Our challenge was that during COVID, our budget wouldn’t allow people to work from home. So we set up a fund to create stipends for people to make working remotely a little easier–for Internet, for day care. It was a gesture that government employers usually don’t offer.”Ryan Faircloth, politics and government reporter at the Star Tribune, left, moderated the panel discussion (photo by Cassandra Sajna for From Day One)A natural outgrowth of retention effort is a benefits package, and as surveys have shown, the one most sought after among employees is one that provides help in having and caring for a family.“When people talk about work/life balance, what they usually mean is work/family balance,” said Jeni Mayorskaya, founder and CEO of Stork Club, a company that provides family and fertility-based benefits. “Twenty-five percent of women who give birth quit within a year. It will happen if they don’t get the support they need at work. They’ll put their family first.”Another obstacle in the way of attracting and keeping employees can come from above, according to Hannah Yardley, chief people and culture officer for Achievers, a Toronto provider of employee voice and recognition solutions.“I believe more than 40 percent of H.R. leaders don't think their leadership teams are ready to make change,” she said. “Leaders aren’t listening, and if you don’t take action, employees won’t trust you to make the changes they want.”One method for finding out what employees want is by, yes, asking them. Newborn said that when Saint Paul put together an employee engagement survey not long ago, a city employee of some 45 years said it was the first one he’d ever seen. “We didn’t know how important it was for employees to take ownership of city policies,” she said.One important thing to note is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to attracting and keeping workers.“Like everything in H.R., there’s no one simple answer,” said Julie Kline, chief human resources officer for North Memorial Health. “There’s no, ‘Oh, just offer better benefits.’ With COVID, we needed to look at what would motivate our employees. And for them, it was providing a solid foundation. It doesn't sound exciting. But the reality for us was that we really had to look at how we could provide them with stability in their roles.”Dan Heilman is a Minneapolis-based journalist.
Overcome Stubborns
By Christina Cook | May 31, 2023

Everlearning: The Key to Your People and Teams’ Growth

In an era of constant change, how can business leaders keep up? Whether it’s collaborating in a hybrid environment, creating policies for the use of AI, or recalibrating benefits packages, leaders are reimagining the post-pandemic workforce. On top of it all, there are still organizational goals to meet. One approach offers a solution: Everlearning. A new way of thinking about learning, evergreen learning empowers individual teams and organizations to develop core competencies and grow their strengths.  Everlearning puts learning at the center of every stage of the life cycle. This shift in mindset makes learning easier to absorb and administer, and creates long-lasting positive behavioral changes in individuals and strong company cultures.SkillCycle combines the entire talent and learning ecosystem with performance management, engagement, and goal setting, all into one hub that drives personalized learning paths. At the From Day One May virtual conference, SkillCycle's CEO Kristy McCann said “Everlearning is a culture of initiative, it is not a point in time. It's meant to be evergreen. It’s meant to continue to help with the overall change and evolution of not only your people, but your organization, and to get them where they need to go.”  To start, companies need to establish baselines. McCann said, “You need to look at the value that we're seeing within our company goals. It's not just about [accomplishing] a goal, it's about how you get there. And what do those competencies and values look like?”Evergreen learning is successful when applied to the employee life cycle. McCann suggested that leaders can look at where they are hitting the most roadblocks in their hiring process. By identifying these gaps, HR can become revenue drivers because they reduce the turnover rate.Kristy McCann, SkillCycle's CEO, spoke at the From Day One May virtual conference (company photo)When companies begin to take action on changes in company culture, McCann said, “It’s all about instilling that communication, but also making sure that you have the accountability within the organization that is connected to people's goals and roles. I have been doing this in organizations where the turnover has been atrocious. But the minute that we took down the turnover, I was able to yield $10 million in revenue. In addition, because we brought down that turnover cost, people have the skills they need to do their job, and we are able to succeed within our overall revenue. This is how you get the buy-in from your leadership team. Drive it from an overall revenue perspective as to what you can do and what you can yield.”Evergreen learning can then be tied to goals, and then tied to the accountability, competencies, and the values within an organization. McCann said, “You're never going to learn everything all at one time. It's going to be constant, even with everything that's going on with AI, and ChatGPT. If we don’t have the skills to do our job, this technology will not be an enablement, it will just be another distraction. We saw this happen within social media. Social media killed critical thinking and inference skills. These powerful and durable skills of empathy, situational leadership, change management, communication, and collaboration are at the heart of everything that we need to do. And if they're at the heart of everything that we need to do, it's going to yield that profitability.”This perspective also measures success versus how many employees left and how much money was lost. Instead, goals and benchmarks are forward-looking. McCann said, “When you're trying to put in an everlearning culture that has a growth mindset, often what hinders organizations is their accountability factor is gone. So we want to make sure that we're providing that evaluation of progress consistently, and how it yields savings.”Often, business leaders are hindered by budget concerns. McCann reiterated that this is where measures and accountability become important. As companies launch cultural changes, every HR initiative should be attached to the company’s bigger picture. She said, “Numbers are going to be your beacon. Engagement is going to be your beacon. Feedback and measurement [are] going to be your beacon. Showing the results of how the company is succeeding is going to be your beacon.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, SkillCycle, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Christina Cook is a freelance writer based in Dallas, TX, where she covers a variety of topics, with favorites including Art, Film, and live Theatre. Her work can be seen on Rawckus.com, RedDirtNation, and DallasArtBeat.com. Christina is also a creative writer. Her children’s book Your Hands Can Change the World was a 2017 regional bestseller.
Overcome Stubborns
By Judd Bagley | May 31, 2023

Mapping the Human Genome of Potential

“The resume is one of the worst business tools on the planet,” said Scott Dettman, CEO of entry level career matchmaking firm Avenica. “Employers are missing anywhere from about 75% to 83% of the available talent by relying on these antiquated tools.”Dettman’s attacks on the oft-maligned resume only grew more fierce as his talk at From Day One’s live event in Salt Lake City progressed.“This happens because recruiting is heavily based on skills and keywords listed in resumes. So if you don't have those right, you are going to be missed,” he added.Dettman’s passion for this topic is informed by his own experience entering the job market following his graduation from college in 2009, at a time when jobs were scarce as unemployment levels approached ten percent. 400 job applications later, he finally received an invitation to interview for an opening. While he expected to meet with a recruiter, Dettman was surprised to instead receive an audience with the CEO. “Oh, it’s him,” Dettman remembered the CEO saying while glancing over his resume. “You applied for an entry level marketing position. But you have a political science degree. So you have no business applying for this job.” Crushed, Dettman decided that as long as he was there, he’d make the case for hiring him based on his abundance of grit over lack of experience.“And so I shared my story with him, I kind of poured my guts out. I told him everything I've been through, that I grew up in the south side of Milwaukee in a bad neighborhood, that I was born with a neurological disorder and had a lot of health issues, and an unhealthy home environment. But I'd overcome all that and played Division One, college football, I had done all these different things.”The CEO responded, “I'm not going to hire you for this job. But come back tomorrow, I've got a better one for you.”That position ended up being a great fit for Dettman, catapulting his career in vital ways. Eventually Dettman would be the CEO of his own company at just 32, far ahead of the average age of 58. And yet it almost didn’t happen. Dettman points to that experience as proof of the inability of a piece of paper to capture the true essence of a newly minted college graduate’s suitability for any position.“The important thing to note here is that I only accidentally got a chance to pitch myself like that. Most people don't get the opportunity to spill their guts as I did, and tell their story. And that's a real problem.”During his talk, Dettman referred to the irony of leading the presentation at the facility located within Salt Lake City’s famous museum, The Leonardo, named for Leonardo DaVinci. “The first resume was used 541 years ago, created by DaVinci,” he quipped. “We've been doing this thing for 541 years, right? Maybe we can evolve it a little bit.”As bad as he feels the resume is, Dettman said it’s only part of the dysfunction plaguing the talent acquisition equation today.Scott Dettman, the CEO of Avenica, led the thought leadership spotlight (photo by Sean Ryan for From Day One)“Most job descriptions are not well-crafted. They’re vague. They say things like “self-starter” or “collaborative” or all sorts of meaningless things. But at the same time, they're also calling for an increasing number of skills to be present, and skills are important,” Dettman said. “But we should also acknowledge that skills by themselves, without the right fit, without the potential, without the right environment, are almost meaningless. And most job descriptions are written to be exclusive. As are a lot of job postings. And don't get me started on job titles. All these issues contribute to this massive translation problem.”And the dysfunction of the status quo extends to the talent side, Dettman said. “The other side of this is employees are only making themselves available to the companies they're aware of. But a political science major from a state school has no sense for the entire variety of employers that are out there. There's no college course about that. Plus, they don't really know the kinds of jobs they could succeed at, or where they could do them. So it's a recipe for disaster.”Recognizing all these flaws, Dettman determined that there must be a better way, and the outcome was Avenica.“Before we ever take a look at a resume or send a candidate to an interview, we take them through a process called leveling, like in a video game. We have these individuals perform micro tasks on our platform. We'll send them a link, and it'll be to watch a video, and at the end, there'll be an instruction to follow, such as sending an email with the video’s three most salient points. And we're tracking every little movement, every data point along the path,” Dettman said. “We send them proprietary assessments that reveal their workstyle and workplace preferences. So we're building this big data cloud around these individuals. So they're not only demonstrating what their preferences are, what they're capable of doing, their ability to communicate and problem solve, to be responsive and follow directions. They're also demonstrating commitment, grit and intent.”The outcome of this process is a very granular mapping of a candidate’s talent genome, which produces insights offering the same kind of explanatory power that comes from decoding one’s DNA.“And we're mapping that to a hiring partner and their needs. This is the reason why we're focused on early career—because there's no better time to avoid resumes and besides, these people don't have experience anyway,” Dettman explained. Dettman said the data back up his iconoclastic approach, pointing to a particular client company, where 67% of promotions during one mid-year cycle went to candidates found by Avenica. “It just goes to show you that when you free your mind of the constraints that we've created on talent and the way that we look at things and the bias that we use to evaluate candidates, you realize that you can unleash all that human potential, and really make a difference.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Avenica, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Judd Bagley is a Utah-based marketing communications professional and freelance journalist.
Overcome Stubborns
By Tania Rahman | May 31, 2023

After Three Years of Crisis, What Will Keep Employees Engaged and Motivated?

Over the past three years, workers have had to learn how to adapt and build new skills in order to succeed in a constantly changing work environment. In the aftermath of the pandemic, this same workforce is now experiencing extensive burnout. Now, organizations are tasked with finding ways to help their employees exit survival mode, through means of building an inclusive culture that supports a sense of employee engagement.During a panel discussion at From Day One's Brooklyn conference, moderated by Lydia Dishman of Fast Company, a group of panelists offered their perspective on how their business is renewing a sense of meaning among its employees.Widespread Employee BurnoutAccording to Dale Cook, co-founder and CEO of Learn to Live, people often think in two ways when it comes to burnout.“There’s the external forces that we all experience, heavy deadlines, heavy workloads, life pressures. There’s [also] the internal side of how we manage those things on a day to day basis.”He said that when his organization works with partners, they tend to focus on the internal side: the things that are within their control, like reframing mental health, and providing the right tools at the right time. Cook cites his own experience struggling with mental health in college and his access to mental health services as a key influence on his company’s mode of helping others do the same to manage their burnout.And yet, Lydia points out that frontline managers are often the ones truly shouldering much of the burden as they watch their teams get burned out. The key to combating this and building stronger relationships with employees, Dale said, lies in a manager’s ability to be vulnerable with one’s own mental health journey.One of the biggest shifts that Liz Pittinger sees as head of customer success at Stork Club is in the transparency behind communicating any strategic decision-making for the sake of diversity, equity, and inclusion. She points to how fertility journeys and menopause are silent stressors that contribute to burnout. These are aspects of health care that Stork Club incorporated into its benefits portfolio.The critical aspect here is how these decisions are shared to the organization at large, so that people have an understanding as to why certain health care benefits are necessary.Engaging the WorkforceA simple change in scenery could be the key driver in building engagement among employees.At MasterCard, Charman Hayes highlights the value of in-person connection with colleagues. As EVP of people and capability, technology, Hayes helps underpin activities like volunteering, mentorship, game engagement, and learning and development to fulfill human connectivity.“It's been a great opportunity since we've come out of our basements and our bedrooms.”Noting MasterCard’s goal in using technology to bring people together, Charman indicated that human connection can be tastefully met in person where it matters, and they can also be met virtually.Giving employees a sense of purpose through social impact programs is a priority at NBCUniversal. Jessica Clancy, who serves as SVP of corporate social responsibility, said the media company’s Talent Lab allows employees to be “nominated for a learning experience that wraps around inclusive leadership, the principles and values we care about at NBC, and integrates it with social impact.”The full panel of speakers, pictured, discussed how they are focusing on engagement, inclusion, and motivation within their organizations (photo by Cassandra Sajna for From Day One)Clancy said that having employees “not just participating in community service, but actively working on leadership development alongside young people from that community” is an important differentiator.“It really helps employees to think about the skills around empathy, listening, inclusivity that they are practicing in the community, and that they’re going to bring back to the job,” she said.From a leadership perspective, ensuring employee engagement is often personal.“I feel a very deep sense of responsibility to ensure that we are positively impacting lives, whether it's other employees in the organization, fans, especially in the community more broadly,” said Jane Son, co-head of foundation and community engagement at the New York Mets.Encouraging Empathy and Inclusion in the OrganizationAccording to Dale, isolation is one of the leading issues for mental health. “As much as we’ve advanced our conversation together around destigmatizing mental health, it’s still the number one barrier for people in the workforce that often translates into fear of discrimination.”To combat potential discrimination, his organization offers programs and services that are completely private and confidential.For Stork Club, the path to effective inclusion in their mission is simple: reduce the cost of health care.“Every single day, we're dealing with people who are desperate to start a family or not, who don't know if they can financially afford it. When we promote empathy, we start with the member experience,” said Liz.“When our care navigations share member stories with us, we’re getting the celebrations, the picture of their newborns, and we convey that back to the customer and through the entire company to make sure everyone understands and feels connected to what our purposes are.”Discovering the Next Steps in Professional DevelopmentOften, a natural transition from volunteering in the workplace is finding an opportunity to utilize new skills and apply it to positions of leadership, development, and service. This makes internal initiatives like that of NBCUniversal and MasterCard useful for those in leadership to recognize when an individual wants to evolve to the next stage in skill building.“Leaders can talk about the skills they need for projects, and employees can share that they want to build on and develop those skills,” said Charman. “We add this into our talent review process which translates into human resources.”At Learn to Live, there is a strong belief that acts of service is an important part of a mental health journey.“What I'm intrigued about is that interconnection between best practices, community service, and skills building, coupled with how people are working on themselves at the same time. That intersection is something worth exploring for organizations,” said Dale.Tania Rahman is a native New Yorker who works at the intersection of digital marketing and tech. She enjoys writing both news stories and fiction, hot chocolate on cold days, reading, live music, and learning new things.
Overcome Stubborns
By Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | May 30, 2023

Providing Learning & Growth Opportunities for Employees, Even in Austere Times

Finding low-cost learning opportunities can be the difference between keeping an employee and losing them. According to an international poll by McKinsey, 41% of workers who quit their jobs in recent years did so because of a lack of career development opportunities, the most commonly cited reason for voluntary departure.“It’s important that we’re retaining our employees because we need that knowledge internally,” said Nicole Underwood, VP of HR business partners at visual media company Getty Images. The company’s workers are highly specialized, and it can be tough to find replacements. If they’re not able to backfill a vacated position, Getty offers others the chance to volunteer for the responsibilities on the table, opening up reach projects and promotable work. Underwood sees it as an investment “not only in the individual who gets the opportunity, but in the others who are surrounding them and see this as an opportunity to look for their own.” Watching colleagues grow can spark the motivation to do the same.During From Day One’s May virtual conference, Underwood and four other leaders in people operations and learning and development participated in a panel discussion, which I moderated, on how to provide career development opportunities for employees even in austere times.Fellow panelist Madhukar Govindaraju, the CEO at coaching and networking software company Numly, said that in the past he’s been in the unfortunate position of choosing who gets access to opportunities like coaches and mentoring. It’s a choice he’s not willing to accept anymore.“Even in a public company, I could afford executive coaching for only the top 4% of my organization. What do you do with the bottom 96%? Do you tell them to wait until they get promoted? You have to do something about it,” he said.“We do find ways to be scrappy,” said Jennifer Muszik, the head of worldwide field learning at biotech company Biogen. For instance, if you’re forced to roll back a third-party coaching app, replace it with an internal program. “Not everybody can get a coach, but who can get a mentor?” Biogen pays for some of its leaders to train as certified coaches with the expectation that they pass that knowledge along. “They’re going out into the organization and coaching others, then others get the benefit of that skill, and then can apply that within their own teams,” she said.“Internal talent is an amazing resource, and I’m always surprised at how interested people are to hear from one another,” said Greg Hill, the chief people officer at corporate wellness and fitness center operator Exos. He calls it “relatable learning.”The panelists from top left, moderator Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, Madhukar Govindaraju of Numly, Nicole Underwood of Getty Images, Jennifer Muszik of Biogen, Gina Larson of Teneo, and Greg Hill of Exos (photo by From Day One)Internal programs have their limits, and not everyone who wants a shot will get one, so panelists recommended selecting workers who already have specific goals in mind. “A lot of people say ‘I want to grow,’ and then when we talk to them about how they want to grow, they’re not really sure,” Hill noted.Gina Larsen, the senior director of talent development at PR advisory and executive consulting firm Teneo, said she likes to identify an employee with leadership potential, someone on the succession plan, but with some obstacle in their way, like a missing or underdeveloped skill.If you’re in a position where you do have to roll back a development program or be more selective with participants, speak frankly, but don’t spook the staff, said Hill. “Personal professional development and career growth is a non-starter, if you don’t offer it in this day and age,” he said. So rather than telling employees, “we’re not doing it right now,” tell them, “we’re going to do it differently for a while.” Some employers are designing elaborate development programs inside their organizations. At Getty Images, cohorts of about 25 employees go through a nine-month intensive where they learn how the business works and receive mentorship from senior leaders. At the end, they’re expected to document and pitch a new business idea.Not all proposals are chosen, but some are. Underwood said that one of the first cohorts came up with a mentoring program for members of underrepresented demographics. “It’s been wildly successful, and all of our senior leadership team has been tapped,” said Underwood. “We’ve seen over 75% of these employees have been promoted into the next role.”If you don’t have the HR budget for learning and development, check the sofa cushions, panelists said. Sales teams have learning and development budgets, and so do employee resource groups, said Govindaraju. “We have had very good success working with companies that have ERGs that are already chartered to drive engagement because now we’re bringing learning and engagement into one bucket.”If budget isn’t the problem, then it’s time, Govindaraju added. The HR department is overloaded, as are people managers, and there’s often little time left for running skill development programs. “Managers [are] already burdened with various things. Now you’re adding an element of learning how to code, and now suddenly you are responsible for the development of your team members,” he said. Teneo’s Larsen argued that austerity doesn’t require sacrificing ambition. When time is a luxury, she chooses fewer but bigger projects. Teneo recently flew in 25 senior leaders from around the world with the remit to collaborate and grow the business plan. It was a huge financial investment–but she was confident in the returns. If they put in $150,000 and just one of those leaders produces a $500,000 increase in revenue, the investment would be worth it.“It goes back to rigor and discipline,” said Larsen. “I think a really important part is not overburdening the learning team, because this takes a lot of time. So if we do an ambitious program that makes a big impact, you say goodbye to another program or two that’s less impactful so that you have the bandwidth and opportunity to make something that [requires more money], but is super impactful.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women's experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Quartz at Work, Fast Company, Digiday’s Worklife, and Food Technology, among others. 
Overcome Stubborns
By Dan Heilman | May 30, 2023

Making Diversity and Inclusion Happen on a Very Large Scale

The 2020 murder of George Floyd was a watershed event in the Twin Cities, including more subtle reasons than the ones most often noted.To Antonio Henry, vice president of global diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for UnitedHealth Group, the murder and its fallout provided lessons and incentives for the work he does.“It reinforced the need to move mast traditional DEI training and into tactical planning,” said Henry. “The challenge we face most often is having the time it takes to achieve sustainable progress. We want to do things fast, but we need to do them the right way.”And what’s stopping large organizations from reaching that goal? A number of factors, including lack of education, the ever-shifting social/political climate, lived experience that can either encourage or discourage empathy.“It’s difficult for any of us to say we can effectively walk in someone else’s shoes,” he said. “I want to understand the shoes you walk in, not necessarily walk in them.” Henry was a guest at a fireside chat-format discussion during From Day One’s recent Minneapolis conference. He was interviewed by Steve Koepp, chief content officer at From Day One.Henry said he’s encouraged by seeing organizations be more proactive and deliberate about provoking thought equity and leadership around DEI initiatives.“How do we continue to say, ‘Hey, we’d love to hear your thoughts on this’?” he said. “And the resisters in your organization are just as important as advocates for (DEI) work because they can show you what the pulse of the environment is like.”Henry, whose background is in banking and finance, understood early in his career that it was crucial to connect finance to community. That connection, he found, was even bigger and more important in the world of health care. That has led to what he calls a hyper-focus on people when he’s designing and effecting DEI initiatives.“You have to look at the whole person before you look at them as an employee,” he said. “You need to ask, How do we contribute to the lifestyle they want? The employee’s performance absolutely matters, but you won’t get their best unless you put them in teams that can leverage their true potential.”Antonio Henry of UnitedHealth Group kicked off the From Day One Minneapolis conference (photo by Cassandra Sajna for From Day One)One key to making that happen revolves around the idea of sponsorship, as opposed to advocacy or even mentorship. What’s the difference? Sponsorship, as Henry sees it, creates the opportunity to speak on a promising worker’s behalf in important settings such as meetings, as opposed to simply providing one-on-one coaching. United Health’s sheer scope, more than 400,000 employees, offers its leadership greater and more effective opportunities to sponsor.“It lets you speak about someone’s work, their character, their ability to learn and succeed,” he said. “A sponsor, even if it’s a peer, can not only provide ongoing feedback, but determine how that person is seen in meetings and how their work product is seen.”As far as implementing and fostering DEI efforts, Henry advised working with the appetite for change that comes with volatile times. COVID, he said, has taught businesses the value of employing flexible strategies that might not be considered when external forces aren’t causing disruption in the workplace.“A good DEI strategy will be forward-thinking and agile enough to thrive when things are uncertain,” he said. “It’s those times that cause you to ask if you have a strategy that deals with an employee whose responsibilities might shift because of those circumstances.“I went from business operations to talent management to where I’m focused on social-impact things I wouldn’t have ever imagined,” he continued. “That was made possible because the organization saw me for more than just my current role. Look to your people for aptitudes, things that are special to them, that you can tap into.”Dan Heilman is a Minneapolis-based journalist. 
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