Nearly three years into the pandemic, what has the workplace revolution revealed? Our one-day conference in Dallas brought together leading thinkers and top executives in HR, hybrid work, diversity, benefits, social impact and employee engagement for a conversation about how organizations can build stronger bonds of trust with their workers and their communities. The event focused on such topics as creating equity in a hybrid workplace, balancing productivity with well-being, developing diversity in leadership, and supporting working parents. Among the timely questions: How can companies stay true to their core values, and accountable to their stakeholders, while making enormous changes? Among the highlights:

How High-Performing Workplaces Can Show Compassion 

When news broke in 2022 that the Supreme Court was about to overturn Roe v. Wade, a women’s employee group at the Boise-based semiconductor-manufacturing company Micron Technology requested a meeting with company counselors to discuss their thoughts and feelings on the federal policy change. Leadership obliged, and during the virtual online gathering many workers voiced matching opinions: they disapproved of the ruling, as do a majority of adult Americans.

However, one held beliefs that were contrary to the consensus, and told the group that she otherwise did not feel comfortable speaking. The leaders of the conversation thanked her for her honesty and, later, Micron’s chief diversity officer, Michelle Hicks, spoke to the employee offline to give her a chance to express herself in a setting she found more amiable. 

Hicks said it was a moment that highlighted the challenges in fostering an inclusive culture across a workplace. While common purpose is a worthy cause, there must also be the expectation that not all employees will find agreement all the time. When they don’t, it must be handled sensitively and with respect.

“We are trying to find a way to balance all of these complicated and complex issues among everybody,” Hicks said in an executive panel discussion at the conference. “It’s not easy, but it does need to be collective.”

Moderated by Rob Schneider, managing editor of the Dallas Business Journal, the panelists discussed the ways in which their companies are responding to the current widespread call for business leaders to show employees greater care and empathy, even as some business leaders are exhorting workers to be more productive. The cry for compassion is deeply rooted in the pandemic, when perhaps every person on the planet had their work and mental health challenged at about the same time. 

For Southwest Airlines, it meant severe cutbacks to staff and services. But eventually, when vaccines were issued and people emerged from their homes, desperate to go places, the company found itself in the middle of a hiring blitz. “We hired 9,000 in the fourth quarter of 2021 and so far [in 2022] we’ve hired 12,000 employees,” said Whitney Eichinger, Southwest’s SVP of culture and communications. “A lot of our employees are new, a lot of our employees don’t have the Southwest history, a lot of us need to infuse that culture into those new employees really quickly, and a lot of those employees are joining leaders that have never been at Southwest. So [it’s] a lot of change.”

To try and make things a little less overwhelming for their new hires—all of whom had just endured the pandemic and were about to take on the stress of acclimating to a new job for a company in an industry that had just seen perhaps its darkest days ever—its culture and engagement department focused intently on revamping the employee-onboarding process. They created an onboarding-experience team that worked with the training team to generate a new welcome kit. It’s designed, Eichinger said, to mitigate the disorienting impact that such a large amount of information—who to report to, how to get access to benefits, how to set up an email account and so much more—can have on a new employee.

“We really hope to educate them better and [we] changed what they get on that day one, so that they’re able to get the information they need, but not all the other noise that might come in a little bit later,” Eichinger said. “People know a little bit more about what they’re gonna get when they show up. It has really helped.”

She added that Southwest is utilizing employee surveys as a tool to “make sure we’re getting the pulse of those new hires” and make adjustments if need be to better ensure their comfort. “We’ve learned so much over the last couple of years,” Eichinger said. 

Yet enacting change based on what has been learned can be difficult. “It is very easy to slip into those behaviors of just going with what is comfortable,” said Hicks, the Micron executive. “You gotta get into the uncomfortable space.” For her that was balancing workloads for her new employees at Micron who’ve come on board during this recent wave of worker empowerment. She shared a story about a Gen Z-aged worker who did not hold back from vocalizing her intentions to take time off so she could attend a number of music festivals across the calendar. While Hicks and other company leaders appreciated all the energy, enthusiasm and forward thinking the young employee brought to the company, Hicks felt that the worker’s demands meant that Hicks had to delegate more time-sensitive tasks to others, which brought questions from more veteran workers.

Ultimately, what Hicks says works best for her and her team is that they all hold each other accountable and are able to engage in conversations that get them to a place of contentment with their respective workloads.

Steve Arntz, co-founder and CEO of Campfire, a community-development platform, said a key goal in his company’s staff growth since it launched three years ago is to create appropriate gender representation. Among the 32 part- and full-time workers among its ranks, 18 of those employees are women, which he volunteered may not be enough. Eight-five percent of the company’s clients are women, so he deduced that perhaps his staff should have that same percentage of female representation. 

“Diversity representation matters, because it’s a creative thing. It creates the policies in your organization, it helps create the products that you’re delivering to your customers,” Arntz said. “If you have 85% men on the leadership team, you’re gonna have some problems. You’re not going to be able to balance that effort and outcomes, you’re not going to be able to balance that compassion, that performance. And so that diverse perspective is something that I really valued as we’ve grown our company.”

At Allied Universal, the security systems and services company, people leaders are leveraging technology to stay connected with the 800,000 employees that make the company one of the world’s largest employers. Kimberly Ardo-Eisenbeis, Allied’s VP of HR and recruiting, said the company strives to treat its employees the way it markets to consumers, by being “there for you.” So they’ve “launched several different campaigns using AI technology to be able to engage with our workers in the workforce, through the mechanisms that are generationally where people want to be,” Ardo-Eisenbeis said. 

That initiative, she said, is part of the company’s “I Care Program,” a concentrated effort to “not only treat others like you want to be treated, but more importantly, focus that energy around how they want to be treated.” She described a more “agile” approach that the company is taking to decision-making processes, with the goal of ensuring its workers are happier in their jobs. One example: placing workers in roles at locations that are the best fit for them after they’ve experienced a major life-changing event. 

Talkspace, the online counseling platform, is another company committed to creating a workplace culture that reflects the same values it presents to its customers. That manifests in employee freedom to openly discuss emotional challenges they may be facing with coworkers and leaders, as well as in the company’s benefits programming that includes mental health care. Amanda Conway, SVP of employer strategy at Talkspace, told the audience that the company sees so much ROI in mental health care benefits that it should be considered in three categories: an overall savings in health costs (poor mental health can lead to physical problems), increased productivity through a greater lack of absenteeism, and better retention rates.  “When you take care of your employees, they’re gonna take care of your customers,” Conway said. “So it truly is good for business to be compassionate and help and support your employee population.”–By Michael Stahl

Supporting the Whole Employee Experience

The pandemic brought about a seismic shift in benefits the American workplace hasn’t seen since World War II. Employers who best support and retain their talent are doing so by supporting the whole employee, both inside and out. How can companies offer the most effective benefits? How can they effectively learn what employees truly need, and what are some of the best practices to offer those benefits?

In a thought leadership spotlight at the conference, Lauren Uranker and Peter Wirth, managing directors at Goldman Sachs Ayco shared insights on how corporate America is supporting its employees by creating equity in a hybrid workplace and balancing productivity with well-being. As the personal financial management arm of Goldman Sachs, Tyco starts with a twofold approach. They begin with defining what it means to be part of an organization, both from a cultural perspective and a career-growth perspective, and the second part is asking employees what they need.

Goldman Sachs Ayco conducts pulse surveys which cover everything from how employees are engaging with the benefits that are offered, which benefits they wish were offered, and whether their employees feel supported. The company then shares the survey results for greater visibility and trust among their partners.

In one example of how this approach was successful, Uranker shared a story: “We worked with one of our corporate partners who has tens of thousands of employees across the U.S., and we found that their organization was particularly motivated by FOMO, right? The Fear of Missing Out. And so we adjusted our messaging. We changed the subject line of the communications we were sending out about financial wellness and the open rate skyrocketed.”

Wirth agreed, and added that the pulse surveys offer an element of trust and ownership for employees. “I think about my own personal experience at the firm with the surveys that you mentioned. The feedback that was provided back to the employees included things like: This is how you all answered collectively, here are the things that we need to work on as an organization, and here are the areas that we’re proud of. That visibility incrementally added trust.”

When it comes to offering well-being and work-life balance, HR leaders are asking how they can help employees remove distractions, or at very least, minimize the impact distractions are having on their lives. “Distractions come in all shapes and sizes,” Uranker said. “We’ve seen a dramatic rise in how employers are thinking about caregiving benefits, for example. Whether it’s for childcare or dependent care of any kind. Of course, we’re very close on the financial side in helping employers remove the financial distractions that come up in an individual’s life. So, how can the benefits that are in place today help minimize additional distractions? Or do we need another solution in place?”

Through this work, Uranker and Wirth have learned that offering employees multi-pronged access points to their benefit options is crucial. “Offer multiple ways to engage: Maybe on an app, one on one, in person or virtually, or in group education sessions. We certainly offer those three delivery channels when it comes to financial wellness and planning. We have found those three channels to be really effective,” Uranker said.

Inevitably, she added, once employees are ready to make a decision, whether on the financial side or health care side, they want to validate their decision with a human being. In the end, Uranker said that the work they do at Arco comes down to “building those pipes and helping employees get from one resource to another in a more seamless way. And that’s something that’s been really great to be a part of.”–By Christina Cook

How HR Leaders Can Look Ahead During Uncertain Times

With a changing workforce, wise HR leaders are shifting to a strategic outlook that goes beyond hiring new team members. Proactive HR leaders are questioning: What will be the workforce needs in 2023 and beyond? What are the emerging skills needed–and what investments of resources will be needed for workers to acquire them? 

Vijay Swaminathan, CEO of Draup, a talent-intelligence platform, presented a thought leadership spotlight on these questions at the conference, sharing emerging micro trends in the labor market as well as Draup’s perspective on where and how HR can contribute to a changing workforce. 

First, Swaminathan addressed staffing shortages. Presently, employers are faced with an interesting challenge in that the roles of AI were overestimated, at least initially. As a result, there are not enough knowledge workers to meet the demand. In the past, when we looked ahead to potential technology, we imagined a much more sophisticated and advanced reality, Swaminathan said. “In some ways, even within our understanding of how the frontline work would be eliminated or minimized, we’ve been disproven. As a result, we have a huge shortage of frontline workers across industries.”

As shown by trends like the Great Resignation, the workforce is asking for work that is purposeful and meaningful, and forward-thinking business leaders are leaning in to this shift in priorities. Swaminathan cited the Microsoft Word Trend Index and said, “about 26% of the labor force are reassessing their work. So the whole re-imagination of work or the Great Resignation is really a result because people are reassessing what they want to do.” 

Today’s workforce shortages are also the result of what he called “low intensity innovation.” Basically, there are a lot of new technologies, but few of them are brilliant innovations. “Take, for example, robotic process automation like UiPath. These are not a-robot-sitting-next-to-you-and-watching-TV type of innovation, right? These are what we call less-brilliant innovations. But, they have fantastic impact in terms of automating things like a call-center worker opening a case, or a paralegal going through documents and ordering them in a particular way. As a result, these solutions have created the opportunity for different types of work. Someone could potentially be a gig worker with these solutions, and as a result, HR has the huge challenge of integrating them into the mainstream workforce.” Swaminathan added that one way to combat this challenge is to bring non-traditional talent back into the workforce.

Among the most exciting micro trends is the potential of metaverse technology, he said. “Meta is going to foundationally shift the way we work and the way we interact with our employees.” Swaminathan predicts that meta will create more collaborative workspaces with asynchronous capabilities and a significant rise in the use of AR/VR technologies. He said, “We will see a 3-dimensional way of learning, using AR and VR technologies.  Which offers the opportunity to do really targeted training. Meta is a fantastic opportunity for that.”

Given the possibility of technologies like the metaverse, what type of skills do we need to develop to be successful in this complex world? One skill is data literacy, Swaminathan asserted. “Reimagining data as a required skill across all sections of the enterprise requires a journey that HR would have to define and sustain in terms of training, learning and development, skills identification, and such. And when I say data analytics, I definitely do not mean just programming. There are a lot of skills around that that we would have to understand and unpack. This is a great opportunity.”

When looking at skills, the professional or soft skills came most into focus. “[Draup] conducted one very interesting study. We talked to managers who were really looking at experience levels, and were asking for critical thinking. It’s not just technical alone. About eight of the ten skills we gathered were on the end of the professional or soft skills.” He added that HR professionals have the opportunity to define learning tracks for all of these components, and to have a learning track that would make these roles available to early career professionals.

“The biggest thing that is happening in AI is human-AI convergence. There are a lot of activities that need to happen at an analyst level to enable that because it’s not a race against machines. It’s a race with machines. In the next five years, there are going to be a lot of opportunities for everyone in the room.”–By Christina Cook

Key Steps Business Can Take to Harness and Activate Their Purpose

As we transition into a post-pandemic workforce, it is important for business leaders to recognize that the desires of employees have changed. One result of the pandemic is that it gave us all permission to be more purpose-driven as part of a shift in priorities. The workforce is demanding more from employers, and there’s a desire to work for brands that stand for something and do good in the world. 

Brittany Hill, CEO and founder of Accelerist, a platform that seeks to make it easier for companies and causes to work together, explored this trend in a presentation at the conference. She described Accelerist’s approach to uncovering your company’s purpose, how to take action, and how purpose-driven work leads to higher levels of employee retention, job satisfaction, and business growth.

Hill said she has always been a “do-gooder,” but her career didn’t start out that way. She got her start as a professional dancer, and while living and working in New York City, she woke up the day after the 9/11 attacks and decided she wanted to live her life with more purpose. After launching her new career at Fortune 500 companies in the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR), she worked in nonprofit fundraising before launching her own organization.

Accelerist is a software platform that supports companies in their CSR efforts by identifying what those efforts should be, activating their consumers and workforce around those efforts, and how CSR efforts are affecting business growth. Accelerist also measures the impact of CSRs in the community.

The future of work is moving beyond workforce engagement into workforce purpose. In response, there has been a 75% increase in hiring people who are devoted to supporting purpose in a company, Hill said. Corporate giving and philanthropy has increased by 25% in the 12 months ending last fall. “Companies are standing up and recognizing that this is important. And executive pay is tied to environmental, social, and  governance (ESG) goals. Companies are investing in purpose-driven goals, and we all are benefiting from it. As a result, they have higher retention, they have greater customer loyalty, and they have increased brand reputation.”

How can companies focus in on their purpose? Hill said it starts with “5 key principles.” The first principle is the Butterfly Effect. This theory states that the actions we take create a ripple and can ultimately affect events across the globe. Hill said, “That’s what we have to remind ourselves every day. One thing today can have a huge impact on others around you tomorrow.”

Second, there’s a focus on objectives and key results (OKRs). How do we bring that into purpose? What’s our objective here? And what are the key results that we want to see?

The third key principle is the power of three, in which you focus on your three most important goals of the day. This leads into the fourth principle, one of “ruthless prioritization.” Hill said, “What is our priority today? How can we be ruthless about focusing in on that? There are so many of us that are drinking from the firehose. What are the things that we’re just going to focus on today, this week, this month, this quarter, this year? And that’s how we make progress.”

Finally, companies need to focus on motivation. Citing a survey conducted by Accelerist on the topic of workforce engagement, Hill said, “96% of employees said that volunteering in their community is important to them. Forty percent said that they would feel more positive about their employer if the company provided more opportunities for them to get involved. So, two things remain true: Consumers and employees want to lead and work for a purpose-driven company, and purpose investments have an impact on bottom line.”

Now that business leaders understand the positive impact of purpose-driven work, how can they put it into action? Hill shared four tenets, beginning with engagement. “Second,” Hill said, “is moving beyond engagement and providing true ownership for the workforce. They want to have employee resource groups (ERGs), they want to help you build culture, and they want to contribute to the strategic development.” This all contributes to the third tenant: belonging. 

Finally, Hill said, “Its transparency. We want to know the impact we are making. We want the brands that we love to stand for something and to do something, because it’s not only critical to our survival as people. Now it’s actually critical to the survival of business.”–By Christina Cook

Is Your Company Developing An Inclusive Culture?

While having so many organizations discuss the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is a tremendous positive, it’s even more important for companies to build and execute corresponding programs. Someone has to be accountable for that, but it’s probably not the first person in the C-suite most would think of.

“The chief diversity officer is not accountable for DEI,” said Iesha Berry, chief diversity and engagement officer and head of people experience at DocuSign. “Neither is the chief people officer accountable. They have roles at the table of executive leadership, where the accountability lies with the executive leadership of the firm, which ultimately ends at the CEO. So when it comes to accountability for DEI, it really starts with the CEO and then is modeled in behaviors.”

Berry spoke on an executive panel exploring the question, “Is Your Company Developing An Inclusive Culture?” and moderated by April Simpson, senior reporter for the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit news organization focused on inequality.

Berry as well as Allison Lyons, VP of HR at Frontier Communications, both indicated that the CEO has to bear the bulk of a company’s DEI accountability burden. “We have a CEO that believes in it, that speaks to it,” said Lyons. In painting a verbal picture of her CEO’s passion for DEI at Frontier, she said his messaging to those who do not also recognize its importance amounts to: “If you don’t want to work in our organization, that’s fine. Move on if you don’t believe in this initiative.”

The organization has recently developed focus groups, including ones composed of veterans and women, that discuss what Lyons said are “non-customer-service-related aspects of the business,” with Lyons acting as administrator. Frontier also conducts DEI-focused polls of its employees.