Modern Management: ‘Growth Doesn’t Happen by Creating Goals You Already Know How to Achieve’
BY Maddie Connors December 28, 2022The world of work is changing, and so is the role of a manager, asserts Jon Greenawalt, SVP of customer transformation at 15Five, a platform for performance management. While it’s a daunting task at a time of so much disruption, building the managers of tomorrow is vital to an organization’s success, Greenawalt said in a presentation titled, “The Rise of The Modern Manager,” part of From Day One’s recent conference in Los Angeles. As the era of mass resignation ends, Greenawalt believes employees are looking to build stability at their current jobs. Yet statistics show productivity and job engagement are in serious decline. “Only 33% of employees worldwide consider themselves engaged in their work,” said Greenawalt. “But we know that engagement matters.” Effective managers are imperative to keeping employees engaged, but remote and hybrid work models have presented ongoing challenges. Greenawalt maintains that if companies work to build environments where employees feel supported and heard, productivity will follow. When utilized by managers, changing attitudes about work environments can motivate employees. Remote work, a solution for the foreseeable future, has caused employees to shift priorities. “They want leaders and managers who care about them and support them in their career growth and development,” said Greenawalt. With talent development in mind, managers can act as an extension of an HR team. Employees “want to work for managers who care about them as the whole person, not just the work person–the whole human being.” Today’s managers are having something of an identity crisis. Greenawalt cited a survey indicating that 40% of employees believe their manager failed to communicate honestly with them about work. Communication issues then lead to more work for HR, including worker retention. However, the modern manager can be an antidote to lingering problems of the past. “The modern manager is self-aware,” said Greenawalt. One of the ways the modern manager succeeds is by building strong relationships. “A good manager knows how to create a culture on their team that is aligned with the values, goals, and mission.” Better communication, he said, can be as simple as opening meetings with chatting about hobbies and topics outside of work to engage employees on a personal level. Indeed, positivity is a game-changer in the workplace. “We are sponges of people’s energy. How you show up has a direct, immediate impact on people,” Greenawalt said. Positivity can be employed in both feedback and goal-setting. Presenting an observation instead of criticism in a difficult conversation can help employees absorb feedback. In goal-setting, Greenawalt says it’s essential not just to set targets but also to include breakthrough goals that inspire employees to go above and beyond what they believe are their limitations. This encourages a growth mindset that Greenawalt believes is paramount in successful employees. “Growth doesn’t happen by creating ordinary goals you already know how to achieve.” Greenawalt is confident that modern managers will overcome newfound challenges by deploying these skills in the modern workplace. Modern-management development needs to happen in hard skills and soft skills that can be harder to master and more nuanced. “It’s got to be continuous. It’s got to be experiential. You also have to give people the opportunity to have breakthroughs in their own thinking.” Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, 15Five, who sponsored this thought leadership spotlight. Maddie Connors is a comedian and writer based in Los Angeles who has written for the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and W magazine. She currently hosts a stand-up show called Icons Only at the Elysian theater and her stand-up has been featured in the Los Angeles Times.
Building a Better Talent Pipeline to Tap a Broader Workforce
BY Maddie Connors December 26, 2022“One of the beauties of civil service is that the community is happy to tell you where the gap lies,” said Dana Brown with a knowing smile. “So, the city of Los Angeles has certainly risen to the occasion,” added Brown, general manager of the City of Los Angeles Personnel Department. Brown spoke at the beginning of a panel discussion on improving the talent pipeline to tap a larger, more diverse cohort of potential workers, part of From Day One’s recent conference in Los Angeles. Panelist Adam Gefkovicz, co-founder and co-CEO of Untapped, a recruiting platform with an emphasis on diversity, said he poses two questions to prospective clients: “No. 1, can you identify the composition of your pipeline? And then no. 2, can you figure out where there’s a discrepancy and ultimately improve those?” In his work of consulting with hundreds of companies, Gefkovicz found that most companies are still answering the first question. A factor that’s revolutionizing the talent search is artificial intelligence (AI). Mary Burke, the SVP and head of HR for Experian consumer services, said that Experian utilizes AI to screen descriptions to ensure inclusive language. At the hiring stage, Burke explained that it could be as simple as “making sure that your interview slate is diverse.” Otherwise, you might “have an all-male candidate interview slate, which inadvertently creates bias in how you select candidates.” Flexibility is also key to opening up the possibilties, she added. “We don’t require anybody to come to the office. We go where the talent is, and that does open up accessibility, especially as we try to hire more people with disabilities.” Said McCulloch of Taco Bell: “It’s pretty cool for people just to feel like they’re part of something bigger and helping to solve the big challenge” Yet AI has drawn increasing scrutiny for its flaws in diverse hiring, said Lauren Ptak, chief marketing officer for the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. When AI is trained on historical data sets, they will have reflected biases. Ptak has been working to offset this. “We consulted with the city of New York on a law going into effect in 2023, where employers cannot employ technology that does not go through annual bias audits.” As technology is implemented for greater ease and efficiency, Ptak asserted that we should ensure that it’s not intentionally being used to perpetuate bias. One of the more powerful ways to attract new talent is to make the corporate culture well-known for its spirit of inclusion. Kelly McCulloch, global chief people officer for Taco Bell, decided to take a novel approach to inclusion as part of the company’s celebration of its 60th birthday: she hired Disney Imagineering to bring fresh perspective. McCulloch expressed the importance of making everyone feel included through setting up incubator sessions fielded by a Disney Imagineer. “It’s pretty cool for people just to feel like they’re part of something bigger and helping to solve the big challenge,” she said. Once talent is brought aboard, the issue becomes retention. The city of LA’s Brown offered the analogy that inclusivity could act as a party. “We do a lot of employee outreach, a lot of surveys and sessions where employees are telling us if they want to dance and or how they want to dance,” she said. Employee engagement can be as simple as outreach. “We have used those relationships to also fashion programs that are beneficial to the employees in Los Angeles, so that those who want to dance, can.” At Experian, diversity is embedded into promotion. “We look at promotion rates on women and underrepresented communities’ survey results. We break down sentiment by each underrepresented community, making sure all our leadership programs have diverse representation,” said Burke. This holistic approach looks at inclusivity across all stages of employment. Among other initiatives, Experian has also employed a membership program that includes training. “It doesn’t have to be HR’s job. There’s a lot of passion around this around the organizations.” Said the City of LA’s Brown: “We do a lot of employee outreach, a lot of surveys” Throughout the panel, Gefkovicz noted that diversity could not just be one person’s job, but an organization-wide effort. Too many companies hire a diversity recruiter and assume their work is done, he said. “For literally every single person at the company, it has to be within their top three priorities, from the VP of engineering to the head of sales to the folks on the ground.” Other opportunities could be launching a recent-graduate or internship program. “And if you’re doing that while inviting people to dance, you’re going to build an incredible, inclusive, and diverse company.” Gefkovicz also pointed out that the future workforce, Generation Z, has rigorous standards for diversity in the workplace. “Two-thirds of the 1,000 Gen Z candidates we interviewed would reject their dream job if the company had a poor [diversity, inclusion, and belonging] reputation. That’s a big difference.” Maddie Connors is a comedian and writer based in Los Angeles who has written for the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and W magazine. She currently hosts a stand-up show called Icons Only at the Elysian theater and her stand-up has been featured in the Los Angeles Times.
Inspiring Workers to Take Action in the Movement Towards Social Justice
BY Maddie Connors December 25, 2022In the summer of 2020, in the face of ongoing racial injustice, Hoai Scott’s mission began to change. “I dedicated my life to changing narratives. And I fully intended to retire early from the corporate world in order to do this work full-time. And that all changed with George Floyd’s murder,” said Scott, the SVP of HR for the filmed-entertainment division of NBCUniversal. Scott decided to use her passion for social justice within her company to create an anti-racist workplace. In a fireside chat about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace, part of From Day One’s recent conference in Los Angeles, Scott first addressed her personal ties to diversity. She was a refugee from Vietnam in 1975 and experienced both the warmth and isolation of the immigrant experience. Married to a Black man and being the mother of a biracial son, she had many worrying conversations with her son about police brutality. As anti-Asian crimes and inequality were mounting during Covid, Scott began to share her story in the workplace. “All of a sudden, I was talking about this, and our employees’ eyes were opened. We’ve never really talked openly about racism before at work.” These conversations created compassion, and Scott’s coworkers were eager to be part of the solution. Inclusivity needs to be a universal value throughout the company, Scott told moderator Alison Brower, Los Angeles bureau chief for Insider. She emphasized the need for a top-down effort, which has been achieved at her workplace through an inclusion committee. “This group has five pillars of work: culture and belonging, workplace practices, business practices, and partnerships, as well as creative partners and storytelling because we are a film organization,” said Scott. “And the final piece is around social transformation, which is how to create equity and justice in our local communities.” With a concerted effort, Scott explained that employees feel proud that their company has a meaningful culture outside of HR. Scott also spoke enthusiastically about the company’s work with second-chance hiring, a program that gives formerly incarcerated people employment opportunities. NBCUniversal has hired 17 formerly incarcerated people as interns, which have become full-time roles. “The stereotype is that formerly incarcerated people are dangerous and threatening. Untouchable. And what we’re trying to change the narrative to hard-working, organized, an important contributor.” Scott said that the program has been an opportunity to help people reimagine their future, many of which have been affected by systemic racism and unemployment. Storytelling can also be a powerful tool in uplifting marginalized voices, Scott argues. In recent years, NBCUniversal has been committed to telling stories about marginalized communities. “We have a very good history of telling these stories.” Over the years, Universal films like Straight Outta Compton, Brokeback Mountain, and more recently the gay romantic comedy Bros, have showcased diverse perspectives for communities that don’t often populate the silver screen. Finally, Scott expressed that inclusive workplaces give companies a competitive advantage. Diverse teams offer top-level creativity and innovation, she asserted. “When you allow an opportunity for people to really come and thrive, they’re going to give you their best work.” One of the ways to ensure these employees’ success is through feedback to develop their skills. “And so, when you give feedback, it really is an act of equity. It's an act of justice.” Scott concluded that, with support from leadership, inclusivity measures can be integrated every day. “There are so many practical day-to-day ways to implement DEI. And I think we have to because employees expect it right there, holding us accountable for it. And so, we keep the work going, and we make it a priority.” Maddie Connors is a comedian and writer based in Los Angeles who has written for the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and W magazine. She currently hosts a stand-up show called Icons Only at the Elysian theater and her stand-up has been featured in the Los Angeles Times.