The Connection Solution: Bringing Workers Together for Development and Insight
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza March 24, 2025“For a long time, employers have thought that loneliness wasn’t their problem to solve,” said Adrienne Prentice, founder and CEO of coaching platform Keep Company. “I would challenge everyone to say, ‘maybe we’re not paying enough attention,’ because loneliness is not only impacting the health of our individual team members, it’s impacting organizational health as well.”In 2023, then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned of the public health crisis spurred by loneliness and cited a study that estimates that stress-related absenteeism attributed to loneliness costs employers $154 billion every year.Prentice was part of an expert panel during From Day One’s Washington, D.C. conference, on a new era of investing in humans. She and her fellow panelists believe employers can help alleviate the pain of loneliness. “A major ill of our society right now is our lack of community and connection,” Prentice said. “Church membership is down, we don’t know our neighbors. We’re not connected to each other. I think work has the opportunity to be the last frontier.” If connections are built in the workplace, employers can begin to close the gap.Forming Connections by Learning Together “The first time you learn something, it’s likely by observing the behavior of someone else. Your friend, your parents, your brother, your sister–whoever it might have been–demonstrate some behavior that you wanted to adopt in your own life,” said Victor Arguelles, the VP of global learning and development for Marriott International.This can be replicated in the workplace. When we observe how others work, think, reason, and problem-solve, we’re able to learn at a faster rate. Learning new skills and competencies both unites workers and levels the playing field, Arguelles said. “We know that people learn better when they learn from each other, when they find community, and where they can fail or succeed together.”Think beyond individuals or single teams and cast a wider net across the organization, said Matt Waesche, the chief learning officer at defence contractor BAE Systems. “Curate a group of people from all different parts of the company–people that wouldn’t normally find themselves in the same room. You can have legal sitting with engineers sitting with general managers that run a craft trade with someone that might run a very technical type of work.” The diversity of expertise, experience, and thought can yield novel results for both skill-building and community.“You have your people system and you have your work system, and if you want to improve your results, you really have to optimize both,” said Shannon Arvizu, sociologist and founder of Epic Teams, an organizational competency consultancy. She recommends peer coaching for this. Rather than hiring a third-party coach that produces a 20-page report on what a team lacks, “bring the team together to ask questions and co-create an action plan–teach everyone to be a coach.”Uniting Workers In PersonCompanies are calling workers back to the office, but poor planning has made for very public fumbles, like employees arriving to find insufficient parking and no desk to set their computer. Others have been ordered back to the office only to dial into Zoom calls for hours at a time or sit in an empty office, without managers or senior leaders.Journalist and From Day One contributing editor, Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, moderated the panel about "The Connection Solution: Bringing Workers Together for Development and Insight"If you’re going to require workers to be in the office, panelists agreed, then make that time count. Ensure there are enough people in the workplace to make it a social occasion, and pull unique groups together to learn and grow together. This is especially important for young workers, many of whom graduated from college amid Covid lockdowns. They’re lacking workplace experience and hungry for interpersonal interaction.At mortgage lender Fannie Mae, VP and head of learning Michael Trusty gathers interns and campus hires for dedicated, in-person learning programs. It’s expensive, he said, but entirely worth it. If the company wants to retain those employees, then they have to create social networks. “One of my favorite metrics–and I bring this into conversations with our senior leaders–is when I go through the cafeteria, how many of our early career professionals are sitting together? It’s great to see it. People from data science with people from finance with people from business–they’re creating their communities.”Trusty also facilitates employee connections around the organization’s mission of housing affordability, connecting people outside the office. He takes finance professionals into middle and high schools to teach financial literacy. This kind of volunteerism–which the company encourages with paid time off–is a means of building camaraderie among workers.Learning opportunities can be interpersonal, not just professional. Arvizu described a relationship building exercise called the “journey line.”It goes like this: Give everyone a piece of paper and have them draw a line down the middle. Then ask, ‘what experiences have shaped who you are?’ If they’re positive and affirming, put them above the line. If they’re challenging, put them below the line. “No matter who you are, how old you are, or what background you come from, everybody will have a zigzag line,” she said. “Give folks the opportunity to share their stories and acknowledge them for their stories.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism.(Photos by Justin Feltman for From Day One)
Corporate Empathy: Where It Went and Why It Matters
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza March 19, 2025It certainly seems like a bleak moment to be a worker in America. Scroll the news or social media and a picture forms of an uncaring, turbulent, and miserly workplace.Why is this so striking? Empathy, or the ability to understand and be sensitive to others’ feelings and experiences, became a fashionable trait in business just a few years ago. For a while, employers were getting really good at responding to the needs of the workforce. Some companies even traded on it. Empathy, as well as its more active cousin, compassion, took many forms. As more attention focused on how some demographic groups were often left on the sidelines, employers said OK, let’s find ways to level the playing field, and they set hiring goals and stood up mentorship programs. When Covid lockdown closed schools and day-care centers and quarantined babysitters, companies told workers to take care of their families and welcomed Zoom cameos from kids. When employees needed a reprieve from expensive cities and long commutes, companies converted to remote work and hybrid work. When burnout and loneliness pressed on our minds, employers started footing the bill for therapy.The year 2025 feels really different. Much of change in the weather has to do with what the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency are doing to the federal workforce, gutting it haphazardly and villainizing the civil service—and how companies in the private sector are playing follow-the-leader. Meta appeared to ingratiate itself to the incoming administration by axing its DEI programs. And when President Trump ended federal DEI programs, Google and Amazon ended some of theirs. When Elon Musk fired “low performers” from the federal government, so did Meta and Microsoft. Public sector followed private sector in ending remote and hybrid work. First Amazon, AT&T, and Boeing called workers back to the office in late 2024, and the president did the same on inauguration day. Underscoring the dramatic shift: All of this is happening as we arrive at the fifth anniversary of Covid lockdowns in the U.S. In some ways, all those revolutionary changes to the way we work seem to be dissolving. To be sure, many employers insist that employee well-being is still a priority, but surveys show that most workers aren’t feeling it. According to Gallup, the percentage of employees who believe their organization cares about their well-being plunged to 21% in early 2024. At its peak in May 2020, that figure was 49%.These stories and statistics certainly make it seem like employers are pulling the plug on empathy. But while the big tech and banking companies that have toughened up their workplace policies employ a lot of people, as does the federal government, they don’t employ everyone. Do these stories really reflect what it’s like to be a worker in 2025? Is corporate empathy dead? I started asking around.When the Reality Doesn't Match the MessageAs I was working on this story, Lauren Branston, CEO of the UK-based nonprofit Institute of Business Ethics, sent me an email. “I have been hearing people I trust saying they are seeing more and more ‘campaigns’ saying empathy is bad, etc. Which I find worrying,” she wrote. “People are campaigning against a core human value. We aren’t ready for this as an institution or in society because we have assumed these topics to be settled.”For decades, she later told me in an interview, people have operated with the belief that undergirds much of Western political democracy: that those with power can largely be trusted to use that power for good, and if they don’t use it for good, then accountability, in the form of ethics or regulations, will come for them. Now, it’s not clear whether either of those things is enough to stop the rolling tide.“It’s fundamentally challenging, she said. “It’s a moment where your values and beliefs are shaken, and it’s a moment where you have to sit and recalibrate what’s going on. What you see when people’s values are challenged is engagement and collaboration and connection. People organize and get organized. And I think that might happen.”As a reporter, I talk to senior HR leaders and executives every day, and some of them I know well. It’s clear to me that a lot of these people who work in HR are, as individuals, genuinely concerned about the well-being of their colleagues. And some are really pushing for change.In February, I moderated a From Day One panel of senior talent-acquisition leaders, and all of them were insistent on providing a good candidate experience even as they introduce AI into their hiring process and navigate an unwelcoming labor marketplace. In fact, they were most concerned with finding ways to provide feedback to individual applicants, even those who don’t get the job. Comcast, which might get a thousand applications for a given role, learned that what applicants want most is feedback, so its TA team is finding ways to provide that.But when what the company says is not what the company does, a lot of HR leaders are really troubled by this. Lori Osborne is one of them. She has spent her 20-year career in HR, mostly working for corporations and startups, plus a brief stint with a non-profit organization, before leaving in 2024 to be a fractional CHRO for startups. Hypocrisy is why she left corporate HR, after finding that values and behavior just didn’t add up. Publicly, leadership would say, “‘We want you to go on a run at lunch. We want you to go to your kids’ school play. We want you to do this thing that you have a personal passion for, even though it’s during work hours,’” Osborne told me. But behind closed doors, the same leaders debated whether to promote employees who went on lunchtime runs or left early to make the school play. Taking them at their word was a trap. But this didn’t happen in the new, colder environment, it happened years ago, when it was in vogue to be a support-everyone kind of company. Which tends to confirm the worker suspicion that many companies never believed in empathy at all.What It Feels Like When the Vibe ShiftsEven so, I found employees who wanted me to know that they don’t believe corporate empathy is dead. One of them works in product development at a large, U.S.-based tech company. He wanted me to use a pseudonym—we’ll call him Terry—so he could speak candidly.Terry likes his work, which he says is creative and challenging. He also likes that expectations are clear and good work is rewarded. There have been two rounds of layoffs and a reorganization since he arrived, but Terry believes the matters were handled as well as they could have been.Primarily, he told me, empathy is evident in the fact that executives are so accessible. For two years, and especially lately, employees have asked executives during town hall meetings whether they’ll stick with DEI. The answer has always been yes. They ask whether workers will be called back to the office. The answer is no, remote and hybrid work will stay in place. As far as ratcheting up productivity expectations, the company now attaches bonuses to performance, but Terry doesn’t believe that’s meant to hector workers. It’s just what happens when revenue flattens out.But something weird happened. Recently, Terry’s new boss told him to provide weekly status updates, a requirement that sounds suspiciously close to Elon Musk’s ominous email to federal employees, ordering them to list five accomplishments for the week. I asked Terry, does that give you pause? It does, so he’s going to ask his manager why. Is he not trusted? Many workers may be harboring the same concerns, but aren’t confident enough to speak up. “Senior leadership can’t make people ask questions,” Terry told me, “but they can create an atmosphere where you can ask questions in front of everyone, or silently Slack the leadership.” So that’s what he’s going to do.What Does Empathy Have to Do With Business?It may be worth asking ourselves where we expect empathy in the workplace to come from: the executives in the C-suite who represent the business, or the colleagues we interact with on a daily basis?One employee who was recently let go from the Department of Education wrote on LinkedIn about how her colleagues went out of their way to help when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. One tech worker told me how much their manager was a mentor. Federal workers at the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce have told me how they’re banding together to share resources and support. Go looking for empathy, and you’ll find it.What some employees are getting from their employers cannot be dismissed: bullying and badgering, threats and ultimatums. Really big sticks and no carrots to speak of. People are really angry about layoffs. Most people would agree this is really bad humanity. Some would argue really bad business too.Business Insider’s Aki Ito reported on how Meta’s harsh performance reviews may backfire and damage productivity rather than improve performance. “CEOs may think they’re creating a meritocracy,” Ito writes. “but in reality they’re marching their companies straight into a trap of sunken morale, high turnover, depressed profits, and reduced innovation.”There’s evidence that corporate empathy really does affect dollars and cents. Among my favorite examples is a study by a group of researchers in Switzerland and the UK. They examined 510 CEO conference calls by 448 U.S.-based companies on the Russell 3000 stock index that took place in the earliest stages of the pandemic. They found that the more CEOs made statements, even vague ones, that signaled their human concern for employees, customers, or clients, the better those companies’ stock prices fared when overall share prices plunged in March 2020. The researchers call them “human care statements.”We’ve seen the opposite happen in 2025. Tesla’s stock price has been dropping precipitously, for nine straight weeks. Much of that may be politically inspired, but Musk’s gleeful lack of empathy for workers hit by DOGE cutbacks, with references to wood chippers and chain saws, gained viral infamy.The opposite kind of behavior appears to be demonstrably beneficial and stabilizing. “Follow-up explorations unveiled a negative association between CEO human care statements and stock volatility, meaning that market participants discounted these companies’ future earnings less,” the study reads. “Our explorations suggest that it pays off for CEOs to go beyond mere financial information and show some humanity.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism.(Featured photo by Miniseries/iStock by Getty Images)
A New Use Case for AI: Succession Planning in an Era of ‘Squiggly Careers’
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza March 19, 2025Careers are more non-linear than they’ve ever been. This trend puts workers who can flex with the times, moving fluidly across roles and departments, in high demand. This is true not only among early-career workers finding their way, but at every level of the organization.At the top, companies are expanding the responsibilities of executives and adding new seats to the C-suite. Traditional paths to the top are being overwritten by “squiggly” careers. Take, for instance, the role of chief financial officer. Fewer CFOs are coming from purely finance backgrounds, with operational resumes becoming a popular pedigree. Some executives are pulling double duty. Salesforce appointed its first dual CFO-COO in 2025, as did PayPal and outdoor-apparel company Cotopaxi. Chief financial officer is now officially a route to the CEO’s job.As careers become more circuitous than straight, succession planning gets harder. Old paradigms are less relevant. It’s now the skills that matter—and the assessment of them.Workforce demographics further complicate succession planning. During the span of 2024-27, more than 11,200 Americans will turn 65 every day. Retiring Baby Boomers are vacating a record number of senior positions. Identifying and preparing the next generation of leaders is a key exercise for HR.Artificial intelligence may be the answer. Overloaded HR teams are already employing generative AI agents to write the first draft of job descriptions and benefits newsletters, but the tasks AI can complete for HR are getting increasingly complex, like identifying attrition risks. Why not succession planning?Succession Planning for a Skills-Based WorkforceArtificial intelligence is a promising solution because it helps identify employees who have the skills necessary for the role, not only the right career history. HR is already using artificial intelligence to identify skills within an organization, typically to match current employees to open roles or new projects, but “you could easily extend that to succession planning,” says Chris Pinc, the director of product management at consulting firm WTW.Firms like WTW and other industry experts are spinning up their own AI-backed agents. For instance, the Josh Bersin Company launched its new AI platform for HR, called Galileo, in 2024. It looks a lot like ChatGPT; users type a query into a search bar and the tool returns an answer. Galileo can suggest prompts or help you find specific content related to HR expertise.Chris Pinc, the director of product management at consulting firm WTW (company photo)WTW released its own AI assistant, Expert, last month, while HR tech firm Visier has Vee, an AI agent specifically for people analytics. Google is working on its own AI-powered instance for its HR team. Like Bersin’s Galileo, the interfaces of Expert and Vee will be familiar to anyone who has used a generative AI tool. Why use tools like Galileo or Expert instead of ChatGPT? First, these platforms are closed environments, which means that the information employers enter about their workforce stays only within their ecosystem; it doesn’t feed the larger corpus underlying the tool. And second, these platforms are trained on data, research, and thought leadership from respected HR firms. Galileo pulls from the Bersin company’s own collection plus others, like research from Heidrick & Struggles. WTW’s Expert is similarly constructed, with the entirety of the WTW library backing the tool. Users can load in their own proprietary resources, like survey results, skills assessments, projects, plans, frameworks, processes, and original research. Amy Farner, Bersin’s SVP of product and member experience, said, “We’re not letting it go out there and troll the web.” These companies tell the AI what content to trust.Where AI Can Supercharge Succession PlanningLet’s say it’s time to start looking for a successor to your chief marketing officer, who’s likely to retire in the next three years. Let’s use generative AI to find a good fit. You might ask your tool: I need to find employees who have taken on several major, client-facing projects in the last year. Ideally, with the marketing team. They need to score high on our leadership assessment for innovation and creativity. They also need eight to 10 years of people-management experience.The tool returns a list of leaders matching the criteria. You’re surprised to see Kelly Kapoor, a senior manager from business development, on the list. You learn that last year she worked on a successful product launch and still attends regular meetings with the tech and marketing teams. Not only that, Kelly’s name appears on several proposals for new product features and she has created detailed presentations on original competitive research. Plus, her performance reviews are excellent.Amy Farner, SVP of product and member experience for the Josh Bersin Company (Company photo)It looks like she might be a promising candidate, but under the company’s traditional framework, she never would have crossed your radar. So you load the CMO job description into the AI tool and tell it to map a three-year development plan to prep Kelly for the seat. You learn that she hasn’t yet completed a few key leadership-training courses, and she has very little experience working with creative teams. Plus, she’s had only two or three direct reports at a time. Looks like Kelly has a ways to go before she’s ready, but now you have a new candidate and a plan.What Other Talent Have We Been Overlooking?This is a fictional example, but there’s real-world precedent. Pinc has seen it happen. Recently, one of his colleagues in IT was promoted to a senior finance role. “She took on a special project to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of our overall software-development function,” he said. “She learned a lot about finance, then became a logical person to be the finance director for the IT function. She understood the finance work from that project and she understood the IT from her previous role.” Use AI to fill a role like this, and it can be scaled for an entire organization. The success of so many nonlinear careers raises the question: What other great talent have employers been overlooking?AI can lower the cost of succession planning too, said Pinc, who worked closely on the creation of Expert. Companies have long used leadership assessments for succession planning to find people who are capable of climbing the ladder, but it’s expensive to interpret the results, present them to leadership, then work with HR to write development plans. “That’s human time that I think will be able to be taken over by AI,” he said.AI is still relatively new to HR professionals. This is due, in part, to privacy concerns. Companies can’t just throw employee data into a gen-AI chatbot, even if it is a closed system. And HR is not historically a tech-forward department, but that’s changing. For now, HR is primarily using AI for time-saving, says Farner, but that will expand over time. Organizations are beginning to move past tapping AI as an assistant completing admin tasks to tapping AI as a consultant that operates like a colleague.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism.(Featured illustration by Photoman/iStock by Getty Images)
Modernizing Talent Acquisition: Enhancing Efficiency and the Applicant Experience
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza March 06, 2025For any given job opening, an employer will receive hundreds of applications. Multiply that by the number of open recs at any given time, which could be dozens or even hundreds, and you have an impossible task. Use this number for reference: In 2024, the global power management company Eaton Corporation hired 9,000 new employees across the US and Canada alone.Recruiting teams are doing more with less, says Steve Bartel, founder and CEO of recruiting platform GEM. “Thousands of GEM customers and teams are a lot smaller than they were a few years ago. Recruiters are managing 56% more recs. Recruiting teams are getting about 3x the applicants compared to a few years ago. In fact, 20% of our customers see thousands of applicants for a single role,” he said.With too much to do and not enough people to do it, HR teams are looking to automation and artificial intelligence to help. “For a lot of administrative tasks, AI is going to be great,” said Rob Kumengi, who leads North American talent acquisition at Eaton. By automating routine parts of the job, both recruiters and candidates will have more time for human interaction. While Eaton has replaced the back-and-forth of scheduling a phone screening with a tool that lets candidates pick a time that works for them, it doesn’t replace the interview itself—that meeting is still with a human being.Recruiters are aware that job seekers are frustrated, and that many believe their applications are sent into a void, never to be considered. With that in mind, these companies are modernizing recruitment not only in terms of the technology they use, but also in the way they facilitate human interaction with candidates.This was the topic of discussion for a panel of senior TA leaders. During From Day One’s February virtual conference, panelists spoke about how they’re modernizing recruiting with efficiency and experience.The last handful of years have demonstrated the importance of empathy in the workplace, and some employers are resisting the pull to sever friendly contact with applicants in the name of efficiency. For these panelists, feedback for candidates is where they were finding ways to improve connection while preserving efficiency.Employers Asked and Applicants Answered: We Want FeedbackAt telecom company Comcast, where 84% of their applicants are also customers, the candidate experience is also a matter of customer experience, says Shelly Gross, VP of talent acquisition and experience.Comcast centralized its global talent acquisition function in the last two years, and Gross says it’s been a boon to efficiency: more agreement, less redundancy. “We’ve allowed the candidates to tell us where we could get the most experience lift for our buck,” she said, and candidates told them they want feedback.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, journalist and From Day One contributing editor, moderated the session (photo by From Day One)“When we provided feedback after an interview, we were seeing overall [Net Promoter Score] swings of up to 50 points,” Gross said. “That’s just an amazing and unheard of opportunity to take advantage of.” The inverse was also true: “Where we weren’t delivering feedback, we were seeing swings into the negative 50 range.” Turns out they were providing candidate feedback just 40% of the time, so that’s where they put automation to work first, “implementing some feedback capture and delivery mechanisms for our leaders and recruiters in our ATS.”At professional services firm Avanade, Paul Phillips, who leads global HR and talent acquisition, was having a similar experience. Given the flood of applicants, Avanade wasn’t able to respond to each one. “At a minimum, you have to be able to reply to a candidate, and it was clear that many candidates were falling by the wayside,” he said. So, he ran an engagement survey of both successful and unsuccessful candidates. “My scores were horrible,” he said, and it was because they weren’t getting any feedback.OK, but easier said than done, right? When you have hundreds or thousands of applicants, recruiters can’t spend all their time giving notes.Scaling Candidate Feedback“Especially in our world,” said Kumengi. “Feedback is gold.”And employers are finding ways to offer it. Andy Nelesen, global solutions director at talent assessment firm SHL, is one of them. “If we were going to design a hiring program for the candidate that wasn’t hired, what would that look like?”By conducting so many psychometric evaluations, SHL learns a lot about job seekers, “and historically, we’ve only used that insight to help hiring managers and recruiters to make smarter, faster decisions on who to move forward,” Nelesen said. But SHL was forfeiting an opportunity to provide feedback to the ones who didn’t advance, “so we rolled out personalized video-based feedback for all candidates based on the results of the assessments.”Some start the feedback early. At Avanade, Phillips is working on “social talent training,” where candidates can improve their interview technique, whether they get the job or not. “How to answer and ask great questions, how to prepare for an interview, how do you get ready for day one?”Of course, all panelists emphasized the importance of modernizing for augmentation, not substitution. Even when AI is used to review and stack-rank applications, humans need to be heavily involved, Bartel said. “I think companies should be a little bit wary of anything that claims to replace recruiters. The technology is just not there, and I’m not sure if it’s ever going to be there, because that human touch is so, so important.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism.(Photo by dusanpetkovic/iStock)
Learning Defiance When Compliance Is What We Know
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza March 05, 2025In Sanskrit, Sunita means “good.”“As a child, I was known for being an obedient daughter and student,” said Sunita Sah, a physician, a professor at Cornell’s SC Johnson School of Business, and now, an author. “I did what I was told. I did all my homework as expected. And these were the messages I received, not just from parents, but also from teachers and the community: Be good, obey. Don’t question authority. Don’t make a scene. Be polite.”Being a good child, Sah was fascinated by defiance, and often wondered why others could do it much more readily than she could. Over time, she came to realize that compliance was equated with good, and defiance with bad. But she questioned whether that was actually true.At From Day One’s Washington, D.C.conference on a new era of investing in humans, Dr. Sah spoke in a fireside chat about her new book Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes. In it she lays out her decades of research on when people defy, when they comply, and how they decide.“Is it sometimes bad to be so good?”Sah took issue with the idea that compliance is good and defiance is bad. Take some of the examples she used in her book. In one study, “nine out of 10 healthcare workers, most of them nurses, did not feel comfortable speaking up when they saw a colleague or a physician making a mistake.” And “in another survey of over 1,700 crew members of commercial airlines, half of them didn’t want to speak up when they saw an error being made.”Journalist and From Day One contributing editor Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza interviewed Dr. SahThese are life and death situations. If we don’t defy then, when can we? “I just started to think, is it sometimes bad to be so good? What do we sacrifice by disregarding our values?”To defy is simply to act in accordance with your true values when there is pressure to do otherwise. “It is a positive, pro-social force in society, because every act that we do, every act of compliance, consent, dissent, defiance, every single act builds and creates the society that we live in. It affects our lives, our communities, our workplaces,” she said.Compliance and DefianceCompliance and defiance are not binary, but rather exist on a spectrum, Sah writes in Defy. On one end is a “True Yes.” Let’s say you’re asked to perform a task at work. You understand it clearly and it aligns with your values, so you do it. That is compliance that we knowingly and positively consent to. On the other end is a “True No.” That is, when you’re asked to do something at work and it doesn’t align with your values, so you don’t. That’s defiance that we positively consent to.The True Yes and the True NoThere are five elements of a True Yes: capacity, knowledge, understanding, freedom, and consent.Capacity refers to one’s mental capacity to make a decision. “You’re not ill under sickness or under drugs or alcohol, so you have the mental capacity.” Knowledge is the cold, hard facts of the situation. Next is understanding, or “a thorough grasp of the facts, the risks, the benefits and the alternatives. Freedom is the freedom to choose your response. “If you don't have the freedom to say no, you can’t have consent, it’s merely compliance.” Authorization is a conscious choice to say yes (consent) or no (defiance).In fact, a True No comprises the same five elements. A True Yes and a True No are just two sides of the same coin. “It does not matter whether you say ‘yes’ or ‘no,’” Sah writes. “What matters is that your decision helps you live in alignment with your values.”To be clear, “some people get to defy with far less consequences than others,” she said. The further you are from a dominant status or identity, the greater the consequences for defiance. When that’s the case, many people must make the calculation of whether it’s safe to defy. If it’s not, you can defer your defiance to another day.Learning to DefyDr. Sah signed copies of Defy for conference attendeesSah believes that anyone can learn to be defiant, and it’s not an inborn personality trait. But in order to get there, the way we think about ourselves must change. “If you think of defiance as being loud, bold, aggressive, violent, heroic, or superhuman, and therefore not for me–both of those things are wrong. Defiance can be quiet, value-based, and it can be unique to what’s comfortable for you.”From our earliest days, we’re wired to comply, so we need to retain those neural pathways, she said. We can learn to defy. Practice role-playing or scripting out moments where you’d like to be defiant. “We need to get our ears used to hearing those words, our mouths used to saying them.”“We can be compliant one day and we can be defiant the next day,” Sah said. “It’s not about not having the personality or being larger than life. It’s a skill set that we can all learn. So even if compliance is your default, it's not your destiny.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism.(Photos by Justin Feltman for From Day One)
Redesigning Employee Recognition and Rewards for Better Results
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza February 12, 2025Companies are thinking more holistically about benefits than they did in the past, says Britt Barney, manager of client success at financial benefits platform Northstar, where she consults across industries. “There used to be silos where the benefits team was responsible for benefits, and maybe HR and people experience were responsible for rewards, but companies are starting to realize that recognition, rewards, benefits, and salaries are all ways to show appreciation to employees.”Yet at the same time, the focus on employee well-being seems to be waning. The pendulum has swung from taking care of people at all costs, to taking care of business at all costs, says Meredith Haberfeld, founder and CEO of management coaching firm ThinkHuman. “But if we can’t take care of the people, we can’t take care of the business.”Barney has noticed the swing too. As organizations pay closer attention to the bottom line, benefits leaders are being made to look at their packages with a lot more scrutiny, asking “Why? Why are we having these programs? Why are we doing recognitions and rewards? What is it tied to?” she said. But that exercise isn’t a bad one, ultimately. It is the first step in making a better program that employees and the business both benefit from. This was the topic of a panel discussion at From Day One’s January virtual conference on innovation in total rewards, where Barney and Haberfeld were joined by their colleagues in employee benefits, who outlined how they’ve carefully retooled recognition and rewards programs for better results.Redesigning Recognition and Rewards in a Growing CompanyThe multinational energy management firm Schneider Electric saw double-digit growth last year, “which is unusual for a company that has typically grown 2% to 3% per year,” said VP of total rewards Marina Vassilev. To keep pace, she retooled the performance management system, and along with it, the company’s recognition practices. That included increasing the number of reviews, “providing feedback and recognition throughout the year through performance check-ins, not just at the end of year during the annual appraisal process.” Like reviews, recognition at Schneider now happens throughout the year, with “the accomplishments sometimes celebrated publicly on our internal social media network, and this shifts the focus to what we want to celebrate as an organization: Our impact,” Vassilev said. “We are recognizing contributions in real time, and we are motivating our employees and creating an environment where the achievements are acknowledged and celebrated.”At insurance company Assurant, SVP of global total rewards Mike Katz took on a similar project, which included selecting a new recognition platform. Katz had four criteria: First, a platform that can operate in multiple languages. Assurant is a global company, and though English is the preferred language, it’s not the first for many frontline workers. He wants everyone to get the recognition they deserve in the language they want.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the panel about "Employee Recognition and Rewards: How Managers Can Be Empowered" (photo by From Day One)Second, a wide variety of rewards so employees can pick something that’s meaningful to them. Katz doesn’t want to hand someone a Starbucks gift card if what they really like is kombucha. Third, reporting and analytics capabilities, “so you’re able to slice and dice the data to understand what’s working and what's not working.” And finally, a platform that allows for public recognition. When employees see their colleagues recognized for their good work, they may be more likely to pick up the habit too.That kind of culture matters, but it can be hard to scale, says Sonya Mansur, director of global total rewards for ZS, a management consulting and tech firm. When the company was small, it was easy for an executive to stand up and praise a manager’s hard work in a public forum. As ZS grows, she’s carefully shepherding those same habits. Recognition needs to feel pretty seamless in order to work, Mansur said. “It needs to be organic in your company, and very common.” Especially in an ultra-competitive, customer-facing industry like management consulting, recognizing your colleagues’ good work can directly affect business.Haberfeld encouraged employers to build a culture where people can do their best work, then worry about a recognition and rewards program. “I was recently talking to a VP level leader who was like, ‘I get my job done, but the culture here is so challenging, it’s probably only getting 50% of me.” The VP said he’s been given raises and bonuses, but what he really wants is just a better place to work. The company is treating the wrong problem. “ I do good work,” he told her. “But I have so much more I could give.’”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism.(Photo by jacoblund/iStock)
How to Support Workers in Times of Crisis, From Natural Disasters to Personal Challenges
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza February 03, 2025“What I love about benefits is that it’s not stagnant. What was considered a hot benefit 20 years ago ain’t a hot benefit today, and there’s always a need to make sure what we’re providing through benefits–yes, we want to make sure it’s competitive–is truly meeting the needs of the people,” said Chris Smith, a veteran of the benefits field with more than two decades of experience.Yet he’s surprised by how few people will simply ask employees what they need. “There is this belief that, if we ask, if we do a survey, we are signing a promissory note,” he said. So rather than promise something they can’t deliver, some don’t ask at all. But that’s not how Smith sees a survey or a sit-down meeting: It’s not a promise, it’s an exercise.Smith is the head of benefits at Universal Music Group, the music label supporting massive stars including Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Stevie Wonder, and the Rolling Stones. Smith spoke during a fireside chat at From Day One’s January virtual conference on benefits and total rewards. He offered frank advice for how employers can support their workers in crisis and in peace.Smith prides himself on delivering great benefits, so he was disappointed to find, during an open enrollment roadshow, that employees simply didn’t know what’s available to them. The same weakness so many benefits leaders find in their own organizations. And Smith prides himself on great communications emails, so he was equally disappointed to learn that those weren’t making traction.But that was the point of this listening tour, to find ways to make the system better. He’s now exploring creative ways to strengthen comms and lower barriers to access so employees can find and get what they need in good times and in bad.Though this isn’t a part of UMG’s process yet, Smith says he’d like to introduce text messaging or mailers. “People are bored of emails. People are overwhelmed with emails, and because of that, they’re missing really important information.” He’s also exploring old-school methods like mailers. If he can “shock” employees with novel or unexpected communication methods, they may be more likely to listen.Journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza interviewed Christopher Smith of Universal Music Group (photo by From Day One)In the meantime, they’ve made access easier. “People are not thinking about benefits between nine and five. It’s around 5:15 when you’re at the pharmacy and you’re trying to remember, ‘Oh, shoot, who do I call for my pharmacy benefits? What’s that phone number? I can’t find my ID card.’”So, he stood up a microsite with basic information on benefits–which company handles this or that and which phone numbers to call for help. There’s no log-in required, so employees don’t have to bother with a lengthy sign-in process as the line at Walgreens forms behind them.Universal Music Group is headquartered in Santa Monica, at the epicenter of the recent Los Angeles fires that killed 28 people and displaced more than a hundred thousand. When employees came looking for support and resources, Smith was clear on his team’s role in providing disaster relief: They pulled together every resource, whether directly or indirectly related, into a single place that employees could reference and use. Removing barriers to access was priority number-one.He also made himself personally available. “One of the things that I do–and my family sometimes chastises me for doing it–is make my personal cell phone number available in a heartbeat. I might not be able to get to you as quickly through an email, but you will be able to get to me pretty quickly by calling my cell phone. I don’t want there to be any guard rails or barriers to getting information.”Smith is preparing for the next disaster, hoping it never comes. “However, I think we’d all be irresponsible if we came through this, and didn’t take anything away from the experience and ask ourselves, what can we do better? How can we be more prepared?”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism.(Photo by VectorMine/iStock)
People-First, Performance-Focused: Linking HR Efforts to Bottom-Line Success
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza January 31, 2025Despite HR’s new and powerful place in business, many leaders concerned with the bottom line struggle to understand the return on investment for HR’s activities, and many in HR struggle to communicate their value. But bridging human resources to the business isn’t an impossible task; in fact, it’s getting easier thanks to sophisticated HR tech and new access the department has to business leaders and their goals.Ken Matos, the director of marketing insights, and Keren Kozar, senior people and culture officer at HR tech platform HiBob says that the best way to make the connection is with what they call people-first HR.“People coming into the workforce are expecting a leader who genuinely cares about them and genuinely wants to see them be successful in the workplace,” said Kozar in a From Day One webinar on linking HR strategy to the bottom line. “[People-first HR] means that you’re considering your people. They’re not just a number.”“Every single department wants to contribute to a thriving company,” she said, but that may mean different things to different people. “For some, that 100% means the bottom line. For some people, that’s going to mean having an industry-disrupting product, but at the end of the day, happy, engaged employees who feel like they are contributing to an organization that cares about them are going to be the most successful, and that’s how a company is going to thrive.”The Latest and Greatest Business Expense: Artificial IntelligenceCompanies are cutting big checks for artificial intelligence–powered tools and all their promises, and entire organizations are receiving directives from the top: Start using artificial intelligence. But there’s little direction about how to use it, and the tech is still new to many users. Even without detail, departments will be asked to report how it’s improving their work.Ken Matos, Ph.D., the director of market insights at HiBob spoke during the webinar (company photo)Treat AI like a hypothesis to be tested, said Matos. “The first thing is to understand your theory of change for AI.” Identify the problems you believe an AI tool will solve, and “once you have that, you can move on to measurement.” Measure whether people are using it, then track how they’re using it and what they’re producing. “If you know what that chain is supposed to look like, you can pick key places where there are doubts or possibility for failure and focus on measuring those bits. And if the end result is what you’re looking for, then odds are that the whole thing worked.”Linking HR to the Bottom LineIf you want to get business leaders to listen, find out what motivates them. If they want to increase revenue, then it’s your job to identify how people affect revenue with not just what they do, but how they do it.“You can articulate to a leader that you want to get sales revenue up, and here are a bunch of enablers, or obstacles,” Matos said. “My job is to make sure those enablers are maximized. Here’s how and how these obstacles are removed.” With that, those business leaders will start seeing you as an ally, not an admin.And if you’re going to vouch for the efficacy of HR and its work, then you have to speak the language of the business. Kozar once worked for a company where the leader was “100% a numbers guy” who cared only about the balance sheet. “He used to say, ‘HR, you’re so touchy feely.’ And my response would be, ‘people are a measurable metric. They matter. That is a data point. People’s feelings are actually a data point. You need to consider it, just like you would consider absolutely any other analytic that factors into your business decision.’”This can’t end with employee sentiment surveys, though. “We often talk about how to align with leaders and how to communicate with them, but it’s just as important to make sure that HR leaders are speaking to every level of the business,” she said. “So talk to individual contributors, your entry-level folks. The best feedback that I get is from the individual contributors and entry-level people that I’m just sitting with at lunch. That’s how I’m going to synthesize anecdotal feedback and deliver that back to leaders in a way that they’re not going to get through an engagement survey.”Those who chafe against the notion of people-first HR do so because they “don’t realize how feelings change the effectiveness of their business,” said Matos. Think of it this way: How many times have you avoided emails or a project because there’s a person on your team who slows down the work, or is simply a pain to work with?Matos often speaks to business leaders who wonder why it’s their responsibility to motivate the workforce. Maybe you can’t motivate them, he said, but you can certainly demotivate them. “You can strip away their natural desire to do their job, from micromanaging to disrespect to not being communicative. All of these are things under your control.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, HiBob, for sponsoring this webinar.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism.(Photo by Jacob Wackerhausen/iStock)
Aligning Learning Programs With Business Strategy for Global Workforce Agility
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza January 29, 2025Businesses are placing more demands on learning and development teams, says Jamie O’Brien, AVP of learning and development at investment platform Voya Financial. Most importantly, “keeping learners engaged in a rapidly changing environment, and aligning our learning programs with our business objectives,” she said during a From Day One webinar. The pace of change gets faster every year.“We’re no longer designing and delivering training solutions just for different adult learning styles, but also for virtual and hybrid work environments, with rapidly changing technology, and for five generations of workers,” she said.Voya’s learners are increasingly seeking an experiential environment. They don’t want to sit through lectures, O’Brien says. “They want to do it. They want to try it. They want to feel it. They want to feel like they’ve been prepared and they’re confident in their ability to come out of training and then go do their roles.”Fellow panelist Tim Gerrits agreed: Leaders in L&D now do much more than transfer information. Gerrits is the the head of learning and leadership development at pharmaceutical company AbbVie, thinks about application most of all.“As it becomes easier to find whatever snippet of knowledge you need, that’s no longer the real crux of success for organizations,” he said. “It’s not putting information into people’s heads, it’s how you get that information back out and change behavior.” Lynnette Collins, head of global L&D at office furniture manufacturer Steelcase, identified the “most difficult part, and the most critical part,” of her job: “Making the connection between those goals, our learning experiences, and key performance indicators.” Who completed the training and when is not nearly as relevant to the executives as how they’re helping the business grow.Yet it’s not easy to demonstrate the value of L&D, said Ken Matos, director of market insights at HiBob, an HR management platform. Returns may not happen right away and even if they do, learners may need help identifying just how they’re applying their new skills. As businesses become more complex, so do learning outcomes, and measurement follows suit.Journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the panel of experts (photo by From Day One)Ultimately, leaders have to be able to feel the difference, not just see it on paper, says Matos. “Being able to change the stakeholders’ impression of what’s happening in the organization is one of your best, most accessible outcomes, because they are the ones who said it was a problem to begin with. And if they’re not feeling that problem anymore, you have succeeded. Being able to articulate that back to them is a really powerful message.”At AbbVie, Gerrits invites those leading business functions to observe learning in progress at assessment centers. “They see what we’re doing and the transformation that’s taking place with participants, and that gives them confidence that what we’re doing–not only in that assessment center, but overall–is important for the organization.”When Steelcase’s new CEO Sara Armbruster took the role three years ago, “she introduced a long-term strategy for growth, which was new for us in the organization,” Collins said. In the first year, Collins’s team contacted the top 400 global leaders in the company to ask what skills and behaviors they believe are necessary to achieve those new goals, and what might get in the way.“At first, our measurement was really around improving leader perception on how we perform these transformation behaviors,” Collins said. “But now we’re going a bit deeper, because we want to connect it to performance. Ultimately, we want these behaviors to become the way we work to achieve our results.”O’Brien knows her L&D programs are really working when they create a buzz, and managers–or individual contributors–come asking to participate or partner in the design. She knocks on doors, too, to find out whether teams feel that they’re benefitting. If they don’t seem engaged, “that’s a chance for me to ask questions about what their goals are and get closer to what it is that we can deliver.”Business goals can change quickly–just think of how many employers rushed to incorporate some kind of AI into their workflows–and priorities may migrate up or down the list. To stay relevant, L&D needs to change along with them.Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, HiBob, for sponsoring this webinar. 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 Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., Quartz, Business Insider, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.
How Far Should AI Go? Exploring the Workforce Limits of Generative AI
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza January 28, 2025Artificial intelligence is like a cool race car, says Marcus Mossberger, future of work strategist at cloud-based software maker Infor. “Everybody wants it, but have you thought about where you’re taking this race car? Have you built roads to drive it on? What are you going to fuel it with?”Companies have been racing to incorporate AI into their workflows, betting that the tech will make good on its promise to make employees more productive and the business more competitive. But despite the enthusiasm, adoption can be stymied by regulation and risk. In other cases, the speed of adoption can be reckless or unnecessary. In a panel discussion during From Day One’s December virtual conference on pioneering approaches to the future of work, Mossberger and other leaders debated the limits of AI in changing the way we work.AI Adoption by IndustryAdoption tends to be high in the tech industry simply because of its proximity to AI and general openness to change, but in others, like healthcare, regulatory constraints slow the process, says Sumana Srikurmam, who leads HR for the network services division at Tech Mahindra, a global tech services firm.“But even within the tech industry,” she said, “no two organizations will be in the same place at the same time, because the cultures differ, the restrictions may differ, and the stage of growth may be different.”Therefore, move with cautious determination, she says. Compliance is an important part of her job, and keeping up with changing regulations is a complicating factor that is currently multiplying the tools needed. Despite its benefits, there will always be risks, like data privacy, biased language-learning models, and misinterpretation. Many companies are required to deploy even more tools that will mitigate those risks.Marcus Mossberger of Infor, Anita Jivani of Avanade and Sumana Srikurmam of Tech Mahindra spoke with journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza during the webinar (photo by From Day One)Yet a rigid deployment plan isn’t necessarily the solution when it comes to innovative applications, says Anita Jivani, global head of innovation at Avanade, a management consultancy that advises on cloud and AI technologies. “In design thinking, we often think about convergent and divergent thinking. When are we in the problem space? When are we in the solution space? This is one where we have to be in the problem and solution spaces at the same time.” Without flexibility, the problem may change before the solution has been decided.Forward-Thinking Applications in HRHuman resources teams are finding their own applications for AI. Most begin with eliminating administrative tasks. “Tasks most of us don’t want to be doing anyway,” said Mossberger. For instance, “you always have to do payroll processing, which includes reconciliation, so you’re looking for errors and exceptions. Why not AI do that for you?”Agentic AI, or artificial intelligence capable of making decisions on its own, also holds a lot of promise for HR. Being able to “outsource” questions about benefits or PTO or company policies to AI-powered chatbots is freeing many practitioners to spend their time on higher-level reasoning tasks.Assisted authorship is another application Mossberg enjoys. He no longer starts a writing task with a blank page, but with a ChatGPT prompt. Others use AI to track and aggregate employee tasks, “so when it comes time to do your performance evaluation, you have a record of all of the great work that you’ve done,” he said.The Limits Practical and Ethical Limits of Artificial IntelligencePanelists agreed that AI will never be a substitute for human empathy or judgement. As AI gets better at generation, we shouldn’t be tempted to allow it to make decisions on our behalf. Nor should we overvalue the accuracy of its results, Jivani explained. “There’s this view that AI is like a god, an all knowing thing, but we need to re-shift and think of it as a super nerdy, really smart neighbor.” That is: fallible.“Anything that is complex and needs human judgment, any ethical decision making, issues, creativity, innovation–these are things that will need human intervention,” said Srikurmam.Mossberger, who considers himself an optimist when it comes to AI, believes that if we use it wisely, we’ll only have more time to interact with each other.And if AI is giving us back time previously eaten up by tedium, “the question is, what are we doing with that time?” said Jivani. “When a meeting ends 15 minutes early, you could take a walk or make a meal, but what you end up doing is refreshing Outlook. Is that what’s going to happen with the extra time that we have? Are we being intentional, or are we just adding more noise to an already very noisy environment?”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism.(Photo by SmileStudioAP/iStock)
Empowering Your Team: How Innovative Companies Put New HR Technology to Work
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza January 22, 2025Ask your nearest HR leader how many pitches they’ve gotten this week from tech vendors promising to make their jobs easier. It’s likely that your company has already shelled out serious money thanks to some of those promises, and all they’ve really gotten is another portal to manage.There’s a lot of noise in the HR tech sector, said Ardie Sameti, senior director of AI and automation at healthcare tech platform Accolade. The overload of tech tools workers are made to use at work is costing businesses time and money, and generating a lot of frustration. “Don’t get caught up in innovation, although that’s a super attractive and sexy thing. Look for practicality,” he explained during From Day One’s November virtual on how the most innovative companies are using new HR tech.Before you even evaluate a new tool or product, identify the problem it’s going to solve. You’ll be in a far better position to shop for HR tech that might actually help. Then, commit to rigorous testing. “There are a lot of free pilots out there that you can use to really measure the impact of what you’re looking at,” explained Sameti. Accolade has a sophisticated in-house process that pulls stakeholders from across the business. “Engineering, product, our HR team: Everybody’s very much involved, and we test assumptions in a very controlled manner.”When vetting new tools, senior director of HR at Sony Interactive Entertainment Ritu Shrivastav asks two questions: First, “what is the lift for the people managers?” And second, “where in the talent journey does this help me?”How HR Is Adopting Artificial IntelligenceAs long as you’re adopting new tools for specific business reasons, there are plenty of possibilities to get excited about. Within the media and entertainment industry, “there’s a leadership-advocated intentional focus on adoption of AI,” said Shrivastav at Sony, where they’ve created a bespoke artificial intelligence training program for engineers.Panelists spoke about "Empowering Your Team: How Innovative Companies Put New HR Technology to Work" (photo by From Day One)Of course, she’s quick to acknowledge reticence toward AI and its job-replacing potential. “Keep in mind that technical leaders have carefully curated their careers over several years,” Shrivastav said. “Yes, change is hard, but enhancements are loved and enhancements are easy, so keep in mind that AI is an enabler. It actually enhances your productivity and takes away a lot of that repetitive work.” Once you can get early adopters excited about the potential and evangelizing, that enthusiasm spreads.Geeta Mahindroo, global VP for finance, HR, and GBS technology at The Estée Lauder Companies, is optimistic about the potential of AI to help employees seamlessly operate the myriad different platforms that exist. “In our personal lives, we have information at our fingertips, but when we go into an organization, we have to navigate so many places to get to the information we need,” she said. Mahindroo is working on a plan to access it all more seamlessly, or what she’s calling “the employee Siri.” By prioritizing experience, she says, “we can say we treat our employees just like our customers.”Using Tech to Adapt to New Working ModelsAs career trajectories take new shapes and evolve from job-based work to skills-based work, U.S. Bank is using HR tech to help employees plan their unique future with the company. “It’s important for employees to have the tools they need to have visibility into what’s out there,” said the company’s head of employee engagement Veronika Lantseva. “What are the different roles that could be a potential next step for me, whether lateral or upward, and what are the skills for those roles? And how do I acquire them?”At Estée Lauder, Mahindroo enlisted a team of tech-savvy interns to update an old employee onboarding process. The team collected feedback from employees across the organization and at all levels, from “interns joining the company for a few weeks to people in mid-career and people who’ve been there a long time.” In just six weeks, the interns had built a prototype.Their thoroughness “gave me a lot of confidence to say, ‘if we were to take this approach and bring that insight and deploy it, it would have much better adoption within the organization because it factors in the insights from everybody,” Mahindroo explained. It was energizing for the interns and the leadership team as well, she said, “to learn how different generations think about technology, how they thought about enabling it–and how fast.”To Ensure ROI, Hold Vendors AccountableOf course, being successful requires a pragmatic, and even ruthless, commitment to numbers. Jeff Williams, CEO of benefits administrator Aptia, encouraged HR leaders to hold their vendors accountable to their pitches. “Many times I talk to clients who just don’t know where they’re at relative to their original assumptions,” he said. “Being a strategic HR leader requires us to talk in real economic terms, and not as much in narrative, to get our fellow executives invested,” he said. “And anyone who’s actually tracking their case on an ongoing basis and revisiting their ROI: They’re in the top decile of heavy HR tech implementation.”Measure your outcomes unflinchingly, and if there’s some tool collecting dust on a shelf, use it or get rid of it,” Williams said. “Drive toward success-based outcomes, not only getting the thing installed, but getting up to the adoption levels that they committed to and they were helping you with your business case.”HR leaders must be active tech evangelists, said Sony’s Shrivasta. A lot of leaders talk about why they’ve adopted some tool, “but very few can showcase in their behaviors, embracing it and using it and holding their [direct reports] accountable to saying, all right, we’re going to embrace this as well.”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 Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., Quartz, Business Insider, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.(Photo by NanoStockk/iStock)
How to Succeed in Marketing? Show More Respect for the Dignity of Consumers
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza January 16, 2025Not long ago, the air conditioning at this writer’s house was on the blink. That wouldn’t normally be a problem in October, but in central Virginia, daytime temperatures can still register 80 degrees when other states are getting their first overnight frosts. I called a local repair shop, the same one that had installed the heat pump two years ago. Within a few hours, I received a text message with a photo of my incoming technician, his name, and phone number. He arrived on time, called me by name, and identified the problems quickly. One of them was a dirty heating coil. I had two choices, he told me: Pay him $350 for a cleaning, or do it myself with a $3 brush from the hardware store. He’d even show me how if I wanted a lesson.This is what professor Cait Lamberton would describe as a dignified customer experience, the focus of her latest academic work. “It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever worked on,” she told From Day One. “Businesses don’t necessarily understand how profound these experiences are for people, so they get them right sometimes by accident–but they could get them right on purpose.”In her 2024 book Marketplace Dignity: Transforming How We Engage with Customers Across Their Journey, Lamberton, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and her coauthors, Neela A. Saldanha and Tom Wein, argue that “treating your customers with dignity means showing every customer that you value and respect them because of who they are, regardless of what they buy from you or how you engage with their brand.”They developed a three-part, marketplace-dignity framework that applies to every part of the customer journey, from pre-consumption to post-consumption. First, representation: Customers need to feel seen by the firm. Second, agency: Customers need meaningful choices when engaging with the company. And finally, equality: Customers must feel that they’re treated as peers.Marketers will recognize already-codified elements of marketplace dignity, even if they don’t go by that name. This is the kind of thing the U.S. Federal Trade Commission concerns itself with. The CAN-SPAM Act, for example, requires businesses to allow consumers to opt-out of email messages. And last October, the FTC released the final text of its new “click-to-cancel” rule, which requires that companies make it simple for customers to cancel subscriptions, and prohibits them from making misleading statements about how those subscriptions work.Objections to–and Misconceptions of–Marketplace DignityLamberton hears resistance from the business world about implementing this framework that respects customers’ representation, agency, and equality—and she’s sensitive to those objections. Businesses seem to really snag on the idea of customer agency, she said. The first protest she hears is that providing consumer dignity must be expensive. “They assume that this has to do with integrating lots of nice perks at every step along the way or redesigning their entire customer service program so their consumers get everything they want at every step in their experience.” But in some cases, the company already uses components of the framework, but customers aren’t aware. For instance, you may already offer customers a choice they don’t know is theirs to make.“Sometimes people think that agency means lots of choices. It doesn’t. It means lots of control, which is a very different thing,” Lamberton said. She notes that agency can actually be a money-saver. “When a firm says, ‘Would you prefer us to reach out to you by phone or by text?’ Half the time, the consumer is going to choose the option that’s less costly for the firm. It’s possible that by giving the consumer more agency, you’re actually going to cut your costs and make them happier.”Others object to the notion of equality, believing that “they’re going to end up having a battle between two groups of people who both want more voice, and if we give these people more of a voice, then these people are going to be mad because they don’t have a voice.” But this isn’t a zero-sum game, she said.Some believe representation is about ticking a box, like a clothing company that uses models of all shapes and sizes, or a retailer promoting rainbow merchandise for Pride Month. Companies have long been accused of “pinkwashing” every June. That is, capitalizing on Pride while ignoring the well-being of their own LGBTQ+ employees or customers. Lamberton notes that those who fail with representation often misunderstand that marketplace dignity isn’t about “being nice.”No matter their feelings on the consumer-dignity triad, companies don’t get to opt out. Not choosing is still choosing, as the adage goes. “Every interaction you have with your customers has some level of voice, has some level of agency, has some level of felt fairness,” Lamberton explained. “You don’t have the option to say, ‘We just aren’t doing anything about this.’ It’s a matter whether you decide to do it intentionally or not intentionally.”Compare my experience with the HVAC company to another one two years ago. Shopping around for a new heat pump and a company to install it, I called a few to visit the house and offer an estimate. One firm sent three techs to do a one-person job (and charged me accordingly). While tinkering around my house, not only was their chatter among each other crude and mostly about politics and their disdain for those who don’t share their beliefs, they spoke condescendingly to me about their inspection. They presented a menu of options, but told me that only one was the “smart choice.” Of course, it also had the heaviest price tag.That, Lamberton might say, is an undignified experience.How to Practice Marketplace DignitySo, how can a business uphold marketplace dignity? It must be systematic, Lamberton said. “If this is relying on people being nice, there’s no way it sticks. It has to be something for which you can actually audit.” You can measure it like anything else. Firms already survey consumer sentiment on a regular basis, so add a question to your polls: “Do you feel that we respect you?”This isn’t quite the same as net-promoter scoring. Lamberton and her coauthors tried creating a “net dignity score,” but they were never satisfied with the design. The correlation between NPS and a measure of dignity isn’t perfect, she said.Cait Lamberton, a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (Photo courtesy of Penn)“In some industries, being respected is really tightly correlated with liking.” She uses Chick-fil-A as an example, where customers say they feel very respected, and they like the company. In other sectors, those scores don’t necessarily match. For example, “there are certain celebrities that are very popular, and people will forward their content on social media—eft, right, and center. Net promoter score: probably pretty high. They have no problem recommending this content to other people, but they don’t necessarily feel that these people respect them.” Banking is similar, where consumers are happy to sacrifice warmth for competence. “Customers may not feel respected by their bank, but that doesn’t mean they don’t see it as a competent business.”When it’s systematized, dignity isn’t “contingent on somebody’s mood that day or some of these other fad-based vacillations,” she said. Marketplace dignity is the remit of more than just the marketing department–it’s a cross-functional responsibility. Dignity is to be upheld at every point along the customer lifecycle: pre-consumption, evaluation, consumption, post-consumption.Discovering the Need for Customer DignityLamberton had an epiphany in 2019, while reading a book by political scientist Francis Fukuyama. In Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, his thesis is that modern ideas of behavioral economics are as old as Plato, who segments soul into three parts: appetite, reason, and spirit. In behavioral economics, however, the first two are recognized (the things we want and the things we need), but the third, spirit, is ignored, Lamberton observed. This is where she identifies the desire for dignity. “I thought, maybe we’re missing something, and because we’re missing something, we’re trying to solve problems using the wrong tools.”Lamberton looked at current events and saw reflections of Fukuyama’s arguments. She watched the riots and outrage following George Floyd’s murder in 2020. “I’m reading one set of reports saying, ‘This is all unchecked emotion. This is irrational.’ I’m seeing other reports saying, ‘This is all a systematic attempt by a highly orchestrated group of leaders.’ I thought, ‘No way, isn’t this driven by a denial of dignity?’ I mean, isn’t that what we saw? Therefore, isn’t this perfectly rational?”She believes that’s why implicit-association training for police hasn’t solved the problems of racism and discrimination (it addresses reason) and why workplace anti-bias training hasn’t either (it addresses emotion). “The problem is actually that we need to figure out how to affirm the dignity of everyone involved.” This idea has undergirded Lamberton’s approach to teaching marketing ethics.Not all industries have a code of ethics, but the American Marketing Association does. It comprises three parts. The first two are to do no harm and to foster and maintain integrity (as Lamberton paraphrases it: “Don’t lie”). Your legal department will take care of those two, she said. As for No. 3: embrace ethical values. “If you dig into [the full text], it says to respect the dignity of the consumer. But of course, we never defined that. If that’s the only unique thing in our ethics that legal isn’t going to cover, then I think we have to talk about it.”When Lamberton picked up Fukuyama’s book, she was writing a commentary on anti-stigmatization cues in marketing. Her first instinct was to write about companies virtue signaling, but she went looking for a challenge to her own ideas. “Maybe there’s something bigger,” she said. That article was the first time she wrote about the idea of customer dignity.As people are more willing to air grievances publicly and divide among political lines, Lamberton believes her work has growing relevance. “I think people are going to continue to be very sensitive to these issues, and I think they should. The good news is that the conversation has sensitized people to concerns for dignity. I’m excited about the fact that businesses are interested because it’s a huge opportunity for them to do something affirmative rather than simply playing defense.”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 Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Business Insider, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.(Featured photo by TommL/iStock by Getty Images)
Seeing the Benefits: Why One Total-Rewards Leader Loves the Work
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza January 16, 2025If you work a desk job in the 21st century, it’s not always clear what becomes of the effort you put in. White-collar workers too infrequently get their hands on products, find out who uses their ideas, or see the fruits of their labor. That’s not the case, however, with employee-benefits leaders, according to Kimberly Young.Young is the SVP of total rewards at Amentum, an engineering and technology giant with 53,000 workers across 80 countries. Young has worked in benefits for more than 20 years, having started her career supervising pension plans in the early 2000s. Young got hooked on the profession because she could see the effects of her work–and she found it immensely rewarding. For instance, if programs to manage chronic conditions among employees are effective, those results show up in the better health of the workers, and “if claims are high, you can trace back to the cause and you can see the measures you’ve taken to curtail or increase employee engagement in those programs,” she said.From Day One spoke with Young about the changes she has experienced in the benefits space, how to deal with the barrage of new benefits in the market, and what skills have made her team successful in 2024. Excerpts:Q: Where have you seen the greatest changes in benefits in your career?A: The needs of employees have changed. From maternity-leave benefits to family-leave requirements to GLP-1 drugs, bariatric surgeries, and legislation around women’s rights and abortion care–just a whole plethora of life events that happened to employees. What’s also changed is the role that an employer and their medical benefits play in an individual’s circle of life.Q: Is there an accomplishment you’re most proud of in your career?A: I worked on a panel of leaders who managed all of the benefit programs for a certain group of companies. We had to totally redesign our healthcare platform and put in high-deductible health plans because of the financial position of the company. It happened at a time PPOs were the prevailing plan and high-deductible health plans were uncommon. The company filed for bankruptcy, and we had to reduce cost dramatically, so we went full-replacement HSA to lower cost while providing quality coverage to employees at a time when HSAs were not that popular. It was a difficult transition for employees because they were not used to the high out-of-pocket expenses for medical or pharmacy costs. The employee education and engagement that went along with delivering a critical, difficult message–it was challenging–but at the same time it was rewarding because it worked.Kimberly Young, SVP of total rewards at Amentum, has spoken at From Day One conferences on employee benefits (Company photo)Q: What did you learn from that experience?A: My biggest takeaway was how to deliver a difficult message. I also learned the empathy you need to have for the employee side of the house, understanding what it means when they’re getting news about increases or changes. Not all employees have the same needs, but if you know that about 20% of your population have very critical healthcare needs, you know those changes will impact them the most.Q: Are you a naturally empathetic person?A: I think so, but I also think it happens naturally over time, hearing employees tell you their stories, tell you their situation, tell you the impact the changes have had on them. You come to understand some of the complexities employees deal with when they’re caring for a family member or a spouse who has a very significant medical condition. If you don’t have empathy, you get it. Sometimes we get lost in the day-to-day, the production numbers, everything else, and if we’re not close to it, we don’t really understand the impact that these changes have on individuals.Q: Amentum has had a big year: A merger and going public, plus a new chief people officer as of early December. What have you learned in 2024?A: That you have to be resilient. Stick to your priorities as best you can and tackle one thing at a time. I’ve learned resilience because it can be overwhelming.Q: What is your biggest day-to-day challenge right now?A: Right now, we’re going through an integration as a result of the recent merger, so trying to manage multiple priorities and strategic initiatives that include harmonization of existing programs between both companies that will ultimately enhance the employee experience and provide better health outcomes.Q: What about long-term challenges?A: I’m figuring out how we position ourselves as best-in-class from a benefits perspective. With all the new features out there and the trends that are in the market, you want to make sure you’re implementing programs that have engagement as well as quality outcomes.Q: What is your busiest time of year?A: The busiest time for me is March to June, doing the diligence review to prepare for recommendations for next year’s benefit programs. That time period could include RFP outcome reviews, pricing strategies, condition-management options, or adding and changing existing programs on the menu.Q: I’m sure you’re being pitched on a new platform or benefits idea all the time. How do you decide what’s worthwhile? A: Like most large companies, we work with brokers and consultants who help us do RFPs and wade through affordability and quality. But for benefits leaders, it boils down to what’s happening in your population and what do you need to help solve for your population. I don’t think one-size-fits-all if you’re seeing trends in things like cancer or [musculoskeletal conditions]. You need to bring in programs to help remedy and treat those and drive better outcomes. But cost is always a top concern and while you also want to manage what’s happening in your trends.Q: What are the best new ideas in benefits today?A: I think it’s on the wellness side of things. The challenge has been to get employees engaged in benefits not only when they need them or when they’re sick, but to get them engaged in the benefits when they’re well. So there are all kinds of wellness options out there from mental health to gym memberships to pilates classes.Q: What would have made this year more successful?A: More resources, I suppose. You can always offer new, more engaging benefits to the menu, and you can only do so much with a budget.Q: What made you successful this year? My team made this year a success. It’s not I, it’s we. I have a whole team of people that we collaborate and work with, and we wouldn’t be successful without them.Q: What are the most important skills on your team?A: I think they’re very detailed and analytical, and they’re great problem-solvers. You can present a strategy, but you have to have people who can pick it apart and go down to the details, find the issues, pinpoint the errors, isolate the gaps, and help bring solutions.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 Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Business Insider, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.(Featured illustration by Nuthawut Somsuk/iStock by Getty Images)
5 Priorities for 2025: How HR Leaders Plan to Meet a New Wave of Change
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza December 18, 2024In 2025, HR will be at yet another inflection point. With high levels of employee detachment, anxiety about the arrival of AI, and a huge demand for new skills, corporate CEOs are saying to their chief people officers (CPOs): We need you to fix these things. And by the way, restructure how your own HR operations run–and keep spirits high too!It’s a lot, but chief HR officers are gearing up for another wave of change, even after the incessant disruption in the five years since the pandemic arrived. The consulting firm Heidrick & Struggles interviewed 70 chief people officers around the world about what it takes to do the job. Jennifer Wilson, the co-head of the global HR-officers practice at the firm, wasn’t surprised by the substance of their findings—artificial intelligence, generational changes, and the need to adapt to a stream of curveballs are all priorities they expected to find. What surprised her is the urgency that CPOs expressed, and the evidence that CEOs are leaning so heavily on them for answers. CPOs are super-connectors, the report says, with demands on their attention coming from all sides. As a result, “progressive organizations are playing with their HR functional models,” Wilson said.From Day One spoke to HR leaders and the consultants who work with them about their plans for the new year. Among the myriad responsibilities on their plate, what will they focus on in 2025? This is what they told us they plan to do.Renew the Focus on Company CultureSpeculation about the future of work once conjured images of workers zipping around the office on hoverboards, said Dan Kaplan, senior partner at consulting firm Korn Ferry. Now, futurists train their focus on culture. “It should be the guiding light for companies,” he said, but “they’ve gotten away from that.”The percentage of U.S. workers who say they’re thriving in life has hit a record low: Just 50% of workers Gallup surveyed in 2024 are feeling good about their current life and future prospects, a figure that has declined in the past decade. Gallup also found that employees are detached from their jobs. The chief culprit: rapid organizational changes and the persistent uncertainty around flexible work schedules. If CPOs are still fighting with their CEOs and boards about workers returning to office in 2025, “then you’ve lost,” Kaplan said. The HR leaders who will win are those that can push executives closer to their employees, and inspire them to deliver.Elaine Becraft, the SVP of HR at global medical-tech company Siemens Healthineers, believes that company culture must connect workers to each other and to the mission of the business. Long gone are the days of clocking in and clocking out to collect a paycheck. In 2025, she’s going to focus on holistic employee care.Workers need a new relationship with their employers, and that responsibility has been handed to HR. “There is a recognition that the workforce overall is tired,” said Wilson at Heidrick & Struggles. “We’ve been through a lot over the last few years. The nature of work is changing. Mental health issues in the western world are more prominent than they’ve been in the past, and that’s really become a reality for chief people officers.”Get to the Next Steps on AIArtificial intelligence is unavoidable, but there’s a gap between expectations by CEOs and the actual embrace of AI by workers. “So far, employee adoption of AI in the workplace is lagging behind the hype,” Gallup reports. If your company isn’t an early adopter, it’s probably trying to catch up. Among the innovators is media agency VML, where the global head of organizational development, Loren Blandon, is prioritizing AI upskilling. “In our industry, it’s really critical that we position ourselves as a leader in integrative use, application, adoption, and innovation of AI. We need people fully embracing and using it,” she told From Day One.How do you get world-class creatives to adopt technology that poses an immediate threat to their jobs? “You have to show them that it’s going to amplify their work,” Blandon said. “Then you get them to understand that whether you accept this or not, it’s coming, and it’s in your best interest to start using it rather than fighting yourself into being obsolete.” She’s found that many who dig in their heels just haven’t experimented with AI yet. But when you invite them in and show them how to play, the wheels start turning, and suddenly it’s cool.Ninety-one percent of early-adopting firms report positive results with AI, including increased productivity and cost-savings, according to a report from the Institute for Corporate Productivity, or i4cp. And companies that operationalize AI will outpace their peers.Workforce concerns about AI will continue, with employees anxious about their being displaced or replaced. “That has landed in the CPO’s lap,” said Wilson. HR executives are responsible for equipping the workforce with AI skills, but with no precedents for use, it’s still not always clear when, where, how, or why they’re meant to apply those skills–at least not yet. Of course, HR has its own misgivings about AI encroaching on its territory, and CPOs will have to quell concerns from their own teams at the same time they upskill their colleagues.Invest in the Skills-Based WorkforceForget the traditional concept of a job. It’s a skills-based world now, with much more malleable definitions of roles and projects. And “until companies shift their cultures, efforts to scale skills-based marketplaces will stall,” i4cp’s report says.In a skills-based workforce, employees flow from one assignment to the next, pick up skills in fractional roles, dip into new teams with temporary projects, and volunteer their expertise in new departments. Ideally, all work is promotable and company tenure is no longer a deciding factor. There’s a large share of the workforce that may be attracted to the fluidity of skills-based work. Sixty-five percent of workers feel stuck in their current roles, according to a Glassdoor survey, a situation that can breed resentment. “It used to be that you stepped into a defined job with tasks, and that was your role all the time. Now it’s more project-based,” said VML’s Blandon. For one team you might be the brand leader, and for another you’re the project manager. “I think jobs need to be fundamentally redesigned to tap into people’s ‘gig desires.’ They want to bring more skill sets to the table. They want to explore more things, and I think we can be savvy in leveraging that.”Maintain a Commitment to DEI, But Change the LanguageDespite recent high-profile changes in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs by the likes of Walmart and Ford in the face of anti-DEI activists, the overall corporate commitment to DEI’s principles isn’t dead. “Activists are overstating the surface-level changes many companies are making to get rid of the heat,” CNN reported this week based on a review of company policies. “Nearly all the largest companies in America still say they are committed to promoting DEI.”Companies are motivated to persist with the principles of DEI because, in an increasingly diverse population, it has been proven to be good for the bottom line, as well as employee retention and motivation. That said, companies still want to avoid the political flak, so they have shifted the emphasis of their language, focusing more on inclusion and belonging. The values have already been operationalized and, in some cases, leaders have asserted that they have not abandoned those values, but are waiting to see what the temperature will be under a second Trump Administration before speaking out more.How can HR make sure thier companies evolve their practices, and not just the labels? The NeuroLeadership Institute’s DEI Impact Case recommends three actions that organizations can take to maintain their investments in DEI, no matter what they’re calling it, as Fast Company reports: “prioritize diversity by aligning it with specific business goals, habituate inclusion through targeted learning and performance tools that integrate it into daily practices, and systemize equity by examining policies and procedures to embed and sustain fairness throughout.”Reshape Organizational StructuresThe new skills-based economy is shaking up corporate structures, and companies are “delayering” their organizations, removing expensive middle managers believed by some to stymie productivity, while companies are also trying to teach managers to be more effective. Blandon says we’re due. “When was the last time we truly thought about reframing that? Manager, subordinate. It hasn’t been really tweaked in a long time, and people are questioning it.”Some companies are delayering to usher in the next generation of executives. Baby Boomers in the C-suite are retiring, and “you’ve got to get that next layer ready,” Wilson said. As vacancies open en masse, “how do you make sure that you don’t have business disruption from that newness?”Kaplan hopes that a shallow hierarchy will shrink the distance between the CEO and the rank and file–and motivate the workforce. “The CEO should be the most inspiring leader in the company,” he said, and by bringing workers closer to their leader, they may feel more connected to the company.At many comppanies, the HR department is getting a reorganization of its own. The traditional “centers of excellence” model, in which HR segments specialize in narrow disciplines, is on its way out, and a cross-functional model, in which HR teams are multi-skilled and capable of working with all departments, is gaining popularity. People ops no longer waits for requests, but goes problem-solving on its own. “We’re seeing agile teams form and disband for specific organizational issues,” said Wilson.Experiments abound. Some companies have moved all administrative tasks to a general shared-services center, leaving HR to “focus entirely on talent, leadership, succession, bench strength, organizational design, and [organizational development].” And, according to Wilson, this could be “a smart way to get HR out of the administrative chains that it’s been under for so many years.”Maybe it’s time for HR and people operations to get a new name? “Talent operations,” Wilson suggested, but then paused. Even that suggests the team is doing more admin than it really does, and the discipline continues to grow. “Maybe talent advisors?” Whatever the name, she said, it should demonstrate that talent is at the center of its responsibilities.“We’re like the lookout on a boat,” Becraft said about her team at Siemens Healthineers. “We see issues, challenges, and opportunities coming toward the company, and it’s our responsibility to bring those to the right people and make sure they understand what’s going on out there.”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 Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Business Insider, and Fast Company.(Featured image: Photo by Kobus Louw/iStock by Getty Images)
A Decade of Change: The Evolution of Employee Experience
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza December 13, 2024When people feel like they have an impact in the work, when they feel valued and respected, they’re more likely to be happier and more engaged employees. The need for agency is something the management consultancy United Minds has been monitoring closely, and it’s what they believe will play a significant role in workplace engagement and satisfaction in the coming years.United Minds has been tracking employee sentiment for a decade. Their first survey, taken back in 2014, focused on the emerging notion of employee advocacy. Today, that’s part and parcel of the workplace. Though they’ve added or subtracted questions over the years, the goal has always been the same: to understand how sentiment is changing across the global workforce.In 2024, “we were really curious to see, given what’s happened in the last five years, how these expectations have shifted,” said Anthea Hoyle, managing director, North America, at United Minds during a From Day One webinar. The good news is, Hoyle and her team found that workplace sentiments have improved. Overall, employees are happier with pay and with benefits, and they’re more likely than in the past to feel connected to company leadership. “Everything that leaders, communicators, and HR professionals have been doing in the last few years to improve people’s experiences of work seems to be working.”For instance, almost three-quarters of respondents told the firm that people in their workplace treat each other with civility and respect, and 70% say they’re able to balance work priorities and personal life. As the employee experience improves, so do employee expectations, Hoyle said. “The bar keeps getting higher, and as we’ve seen in the last few years, there is greater awareness of the role that employers play in people’s lives, the types of experiences people want from work, and the expectations people have of employers to make these changes possible.”Among those higher expectations is that employees want to work for organizations that trust them to act independently. Employees who feel they have agency are more likely to be satisfied at work, more likely to advocate for their employer outside of work, and more likely to stick around. There are four levers employers can pull to improve the employee experience and agency, said Ellyn Michalak, senior principal at the firm.Journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the session about "A Decade of Change: The Evolution of Employee Experience" with leaders from United MindsFirst, a strong company reputation matters. “In the external world, your company has a positive reputation on what they’re doing to impact society. That really helps employees feel a strong sense of connection to you as an employer,” Michalak said.Secondly, encouraging supportive managers is important. Avoid the “frozen middle,” said Michalak, describing managers that can, inadvertently or not, stunt progress within an organization. They need to connect with their employee base. “If you can crack that direct manager nugget, you’re looking at employees feeling more valued. They will agree that their employer cares more about health and well-being because they have that direct access to their managers.”Third, leaders at the top need to set the tone for a healthy culture, which can then spread to the rest of the organization. And finally, Michalak said, link all of these goals with consistent communication. Those who unify their strategies with communication “can move the needle on mental health and well-being and employees perceiving how well the company is doing.” If they do, she explained, “morale is likely to be higher.”If your end-of-year surveys are painting a different picture of employee sentiment in your organization–maybe one that’s not so rosy–it’s not necessarily cause for alarm. Employers just need to figure out why they’re bucking the trends. The root cause may be obvious, like recent layoffs, a company acquisition, a change in leadership, or just a struggling sector. “All of these things have a big impact on people’s day-to-day working lives and feelings of commitment and certainty,” Hoyle said.If the results aren’t what you want them to be, identify where you want to land at the end of 2025 and then lean into the four pillars: “Equip your managers to really drive that feeling of having people feel like they’re making an impact.” Hoyle said. “Partner with your communications teams and bring home those stories of people making an impact and really generating that sense of pride. And make sure that people feel rewarded and recognized.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, United Minds, for sponsoring this webinar. 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 Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Business Insider, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.
Is Coke’s Use of AI in Its New Christmas Ad a Little Too Uncanny?
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza December 09, 2024Coca-Cola’s latest Christmas ad is earning headlines and parodies, but it’s making many consumers uneasy. The 2024 “Holidays Are Coming” ad reimagines Coke’s classic commercial from 1995: Semi-trucks trimmed with lights, bearing the Coca-Cola logo and a likeness of a cheerful Santa Claus roll through a quaint town as trees, bridges, and houses are instantaneously illuminated. The script of this year’s ad is largely the same as the original’s, but the people look a little too airbrushed; their eyes twitch; their hands are a little wonky. Spotlights in the forest come from nowhere, and the wheels on the trucks don’t turn–because the ad was generated using artificial intelligence.The ad has produced discomfort among many viewers, anger in some, and it spawned a meme. YouTube users have posted manipulated versions styled up like horror movies and folks on social media were quick to air their disgust. Zevia, which makes zero-sugar sodas, spoofed the ad and used the opportunity to position itself as “something real” to Coke’s something strange. The tagline for Zevia’s spot: “Delicious, not suspicious.”Some brands may be able to get away with an AI-generated ad, but not Coke, says Sara Hanson, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Richmond who conducts research on AI in advertising. “Coke, as a brand, is a sincere, classic, traditional, trustworthy, Americana-type brand,” said Hanson. “It’s really like thumbing their nose at the way that people perceive them.”Hanson’s research has found that while consumers are generally open to AI-generated ads, they are sensitive to messaging and are more likely to accept AI-generated ads that use rational or logical appeals than ones that use an emotional appeal.Some controversy around AI-generated art stems from the fact that AI is seen as a threat to jobs and creative livelihoods. This fear isn’t limited to AI. This summer, Apple released a commercial, called Crush!, that featured a massive hydraulic press flattening paint cans, musical instruments, records, a bust sculpture, and cameras–all symbols of human creativity–into a single iPad. It’s not clear whether the message is that the new iPad Pro will make you more efficient, or destroy creativity. The ad was so poorly received that the company issued an apology. “Apple misread the room,” Variety reported.It isn’t possible to tap a button and generate a TV spot, at least not yet. Ads like these still require vast amounts of human effort. It took 17 artists three weeks to create Coca-Cola’s ad, according to a behind-the-scenes account by Secret Level, the agency that worked on the campaign.Still, the line between human work and computer work hasn’t been firmly drawn. Secret Level said it cast real people as models for the AI-generated faces. But that raises the question: Why not use those people in the ad?It’s cheaper, it’s faster, but “a big brand like Coke that has the money, has the time, has the resources, and has the brand that should really be supporting art,” Hanson said. “It just doesn’t feel authentic to the brand or really authentic to what marketing is.”“Innovative brands can do lots of new, interesting, ground-breaking things. But these traditional, classic, sincere brands—people are less likely to forgive them when they make a mistake,” she explained. Eventually, AI-generated advertising will be so sleek that it’s impossible to identify. But for now, people are fearful about tech that seems ready to replace jobs, alter reality, or deceive our senses.In 1995, the commercial’s tagline was “Always.” In 2024, the company touts “Real Magic.” “It links to the politics of what’s going on right now,” said Hanson. “How important is authenticity and truth in our world at this moment?” Coca-Cola said it wanted to reimagine the classic commercial for today. But instead of invoking nostalgia, it hit a nerve. 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 Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Business Insider, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.
Creating an Optimal Workplace for Hourly Employees: Essential Tips for Leaders
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza November 21, 2024In an industry where employee turnover is famously high, what might keep a grocery store employee with the same company for decades?Mayerland Harris, group VP of talent at Texas retailer H-E-B, started at the company right out of college, taking her first job in store operations before moving into HR. She spent some time in the pharmacy department then held a few corporate roles where she oversaw all the centers of excellence for compensation, talent development, recruiting, and people analytics. Recently, she’s taken over HR for all store operations. Harris estimates she’s had a new role roughly every three years, and more than three decades later, she says the experience still feels fresh. Though Harris isn’t an hourly employee, the majority of H-E-B’s 160,000 employees are.“But the fundamental reason I’ve stayed all this time is the company has never really given me a strong reason to look outside,” Harris said during a From Day One webinar on creating an optimal workplace for hourly employees. “To take another job, you have to take that call from the headhunter, and you have to go on the interview, and you have to have some level of curiosity or dissatisfaction.” Harris just hasn’t felt that. “By the time I started thinking, ‘Hey, this doesn’t seem right,’ the situation would change, or my role would change, or that person would leave.”Lots of hourly workers start at H-E-B with a temporary summer job—then they end up staying, and it’s not uncommon for careers to last decades like Harris’s has. Some have been at the same store for 55 years. “I believe it is 100% the family orientation,” she said. “People will tell us they feel like when they work here, they’re a part of a family. Your [direct supervisor] is a big part of that, but so many people have best friends that are co-workers that they feel like they’re coming to, if not a reunion, at least a place that’s very, very comfortable.” Those who come from other organizations tell her they feel a genuine sense of respect from all levels of the team that they haven’t felt elsewhere.When Harris goes into the stores, she doesn’t put her title on her name tag, just her years of service. “The line employee or sweeping the floors or bringing the carts in is just as important as a manager or a leader, because it’s all about serving the customer.”Mayerland Harris of H-E-B spoke with journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza during the webinar (photo by From Day One)A good employee experience depends on having a good team. “We try to find people who are able to start and hold a conversation easily. There is an expectation that we’re talking to our customers as they’re going through the line or while we’re bagging groceries without being too intrusive about what you’re purchasing. We’re looking for people who genuinely like talking, who like interacting, especially for those roles that are customer-facing. Everything else, you learn on the job.”Growing the Careers of Hourly EmployeesAt H-E-B, even hourly roles can expand. There are career development tracks for those who want to be a specialist in their department. Hourly employees who want a chance at being a department manager can apply for a multi-week program called the School of Retail Management, where they gain both technical and leadership skills they still need for the job. Those who want to can keep going, progressing through the organization to become a top store leader or move into corporate. “We love when partners who start in hourly, non-management positions rise all the way to the top.”It helps that the company doesn’t contract with external companies for any of its store employees. That means they employ their own doctors and nurses for on-site health clinics. They also have pilots, engineers, and food scientists on the payroll. “We joke that we have every single career path in the world except for astronauts,” she said. “People see that and they feel like, ‘OK, I don’t have to be stuck here in this one role.’ There’s so much flexibility to do different things.”The operational implications for such a large organization are huge. Those who regard grocery retail as boring soon learn this isn’t the case. Front-end managers might be responsible for 500 or 600 people in a store that’s open 17 hours a day. Inventory and store experience has to flex with consumer preferences. “We’re always having to reinvent who we are, having to reinvent what we are providing. Do we do self-checkout or not? Do we provide meal solutions and all the different things people are looking for? You have to stay on top of that.” One TikTok video or news story can spike demand for a single item, and stores need to meet that need quickly. “That speed of change keeps everything pretty exciting.”Rewarding Excellent Work and Long TenureTo reward those with outstanding contributions, H-E-B has a company-wide recognition program where employees can nominate a colleague or a manager can nominate their direct report. The rewards are prestigious, she said. “You can win at your store level, your facility level, your regional level, or your division level, and then you can make it all the way up to the top person in the organization.”To get a sense of what it’s like to be an hourly worker, Harris uses the annual engagement survey to find a company baseline and identify aberrations, then address them at the store level with on-the-ground research and focus groups. “We have a whole department called customer insights, and these people are amazing at talking to customers and doing focus groups,” she said. “Well, now we’ve been using them to help us internally, because they are so good at asking questions and coming in with recaps. We use them also to spot-check and get feedback from our employees. And then we figure out what we can do to make the environment better.”One thing that makes the store environment so great is that the hourly workforce is so diverse, and that’s something employees really love, Harris said proudly. Hourly workers range from teenagers to octogenarians. “You’re not just working with people who have your same life experiences or your same background; the thing that you have in common is that store or that facility that you work in; the thing that you have in common is H-E-B.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Deputy, for sponsoring this webinar.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 Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Business Insider, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.
The Flexible Workplace: Making It Fair for Employees and Effective for Companies
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza November 14, 2024As remote workplaces become hybrid and hybrid ones adopt on-site requirements, how do companies ensure that opportunities are available to all? It’s a challenge for many. Workers made to return to the office may feel like they’re not trusted, and those who cannot report to HQ may feel like they miss out on opportunities afforded to their in-office peers.Distributed workplaces have their benefits and drawbacks, of course, but they can still be inclusive, equitable environments for all. This was the topic of conversation during a panel at From Day One’s October virtual conference on modernizing workplaces for a more flexible and inclusive era.Remote and hybrid work has expanded talent pools for employers and opened job opportunities for workers. But with dispersion comes isolation, said TJ Mercer, the director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at biotech company AbbVie. He misses the interpersonal connections that form naturally in a shared office environment. “I’ve worked in the organization for two and a half years and never got to see anybody out of the blue Zoom box.” There is value in the passive time before meetings start, when people sitting in a conference room swap stories about their weekends or their families. “Some of that small talk just doesn’t happen as organically or naturally [on Zoom]. And I think that people do miss that from time to time.”Seema Bhansali, VP of employee experience and inclusion at Henry Schein, a company that distributes medical and dental supplies to healthcare providers, sees the benefits of remote and hybrid work for DEI. A lot of folks need to be able to work from home to care for a family member, for example. But she too knows that staying connected is a challenge and, sometimes, a problem. “You don’t really get to see people that often. And what does that do for your wellness in terms of relationships and relationship building? That is one of the balance issues we still have to work out.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the session about "The Flexible Workplace: Making It Fair for Employees and Effective for Companies" (photo by From Day One)To encourage workplace camaraderie, “we bring people together, either virtually or in-person, for ‘connection days,’” Bhansali said. Their most recent connection day was spent building care kits for colleagues who were affected by Hurricane Helene. “We try to do these across the globe in different, culturally relevant ways, with some frequency.” They also gather people virtually for games and good-spirited competitions. “We try to be really intentional about how we are setting the culture,” she explained. “What do we want people to experience? And how are we making sure it’s good for folks who are in person, folks who are hybrid, and folks who are fully remote.”At insurance company Aflac, where employees living within 50 miles of an office are on-site at least three days per week, VP of total rewards Kelli Henderson encourages managers to make the most of those in-person work days. “That’s the day that you have your team meetings,” she said. “There are things that you have to be really purposeful about. It does take a little bit more time, a little bit more coordination and organization, but we have seen the benefits.”Of course, Henderson has felt resistance from employees who don’t want to return to the office at all. “We announced last March that we were going to have a 60% return-to-the-office. Our executive team really saw the importance of bringing people together, having people work together, and we got a ton of pushback from our employees.” Many equated the mandate with mistrust since they have been working fully remote for years. “We had to have a lot of conversations about the importance of coming together to be able to collaborate,” Henderson explained. The company expected some workers to leave as a result of the change, but they ultimately lost fewer than a dozen. “I think as much as you hear griping and complaining, we do work really hard to show the importance of being in the office, so people understand.”Calling the workforce back to the office must be done tactfully, said Michael Watson, senior director at AI-powered talent intelligence platform Eightfold. “It can’t just be about ‘Well, this is the way it used to be, and I’d love to see you now, and I’m the boss,” he said. Such a mandate won’t land well. “That’s not the type of organization that I’d want to work in. But if the organization said, ‘Mike, love the work you’re doing. We would love to see if it’s possible for you to come back in. Let’s have individual conversations. Let’s understand everyone’s circumstances.’” With that request, he says, he may be inclined to change his tune. Allowances should be made discerningly for those who need them: Someone might be a caregiver and needs some flexibility, and employers need to be willing to help them out. “You just can’t have a blanket policy,” he said.If you do have a distributed workforce, managers must be careful to not favor on-site workers over remote ones if their results and productivity is the same. “Those intangibles are really starting to show up,” AbbVie’s Mercer noted. But overall, he’s been pleased with managers’ cognizance, and they’ve lately seen a number of women promoted within the company.Aflac examined the experience for remote workers and found it lacking in some ways, so Henderson and her team made adjustments. “We went as far as testing all of our conference rooms because we realized that it wasn’t [a great experience] for those that were remote–maybe they could see one person or they had trouble hearing–so we really had to beef up the equipment and technology. That’s important to do if you’re going to have a mixture of on-site and off-site employees, so that everybody feels that they have the same seat at the table.”Sponsorship and mentorship can also help level the playing field within a distributed workforce. “Sponsorship is taking somebody’s career under your wing, having the conversations about them in rooms where they aren’t and don’t have access to,” Bhansali explained, proud of their practices at Henry Schein.Mentorship can be especially helpful for the youngest members of the workforce, many of whom started their careers during Covid lockdowns and have little exposure to office environments. The Washington Post reported in October that office etiquette classes are increasingly popular.“How do early career team members really get some of the unwritten rules of the workplace?” Henderson asked. The company set expectations for both technical and soft skills all workers need, then encouraged both sponsorship and mentorship to reinforce those skills and behaviors. Early career development is not the task it used to be, she says. “I think the mistake people make is they just try to use what worked and keep going, and that is not functional today.”At Eightgold, Watson helps workers create a path between where they are and where they want to be, and the appetite is there. “That’s where our business is really booming with these large organizations–just getting a grip on what skills they have, and not just skills, but what skills adjacencies they have.”“Expectations are different than they’ve been in the past,” Bhansali said. “And that’s not just about the hybrid workforce. That’s about a generational change in the workforce.” New workers expect skill development and a chance to exercise those skills, and leaders expect support. “Those layer onto the hybrid conversation in ways that folks don’t realize, but we have to put all these things together.”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 Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Business Insider, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.
How Companies Can Lead in an ‘Age of Outrage’
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza November 04, 2024The nation is on edge. We’re anxious and angry, distracted at work, and eager to brawl out our differences in public. At the highest level, our presidential candidates have framed Tuesday’s election as “an existential battle for the nation’s character, its democracy and the safety of its residents.” Social media influencers on both sides of politics have turned pain and rage into a lucrative business model. More and more families are becoming estranged over disagreements great and small, while contempt and disrespect have become ingrained habits for many.The mood seems contagious, with “assuming the best in others” in rare supply. Boeing endured a costly, contentious strike by unionized machinists who demanded restoration of their pensions. In September, Fortune reported that employees at Amazon were “rage applying” for other jobs after their CEO ordered workers back to the office five days a week.Is this our new modern culture–or are there ways to reduce the rage? Karthik Ramanna, professor of business and public policy at the University of Oxford, describes the moment as an “age of outrage” in his new book, The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World, published last week by Harvard Business Review Press.As election season in the U.S. reaches its peak, rhetoric is sharpening (not to mention quite foul) and the public is feeling nervous and emotional. While tension and even anger over political, ideological, or values differences is nothing new, for the title of his new book, Ramanna chose the word outrage. There’s just something different about the current tenor of the moment: A hotter temperature and a higher pitch. For companies, dealing with this force is no longer a PR task, but a “critical capability,” he writes.Managing in the age of outrage is not the same as managing isolated incidents of disagreement, Ramanna told From Day One. It’s a mistake to treat corporate mishandling of these ongoing issues as mere PR problems or temporary. Those who do will find themselves playing defense day after day. “Tomorrow there’ll be a new issue, and the day after there’ll be a new issue. That approach isn’t going to work,” he said.The outrage Ramanna writes about is typically focused on leaders and institutions, and HR and business executives are preparing for stress and heightened emotions following the election season. Learning from embarrassing corporate gaffes, many firms have been increasingly proactive, institutionalizing their responses to angry employees and the public with social-issues working groups. These are cross-functional committees assembled to prepare for crises, both internal and external, and determine whether the company will respond–and, if so, how–when they arise.Ramanna warns employers against prioritizing processes over outcomes when preparing a response to outrage. Agree to rules of engagement, but “we don’t want to get too bogged down in that process. We want it to be more of an informal guidance to the way we operate. It’s more important that we actually trust each other than that we have written rules that say we trust each other.” The rules should be simple, he said, “things that people can recall in an instant. If people can’t recall what the rules of engagement are when they’re in the heat of the moment, then they’re not very useful.” For this reason, Ramanna is reluctant to overly formalize the process, “because that might actually kill what you’re trying to do.”As a leader, you should temper expectations. “No matter what you do,” he writes, “you can never fully address the demands made of you.” Remember also that “you will always be seen as part of the problem.” Instead of wrongly believing you have the power to solve all problems or quell all outrage, aim for “turning down the temperature.” In The Age of Outrage, Ramanna describes how.A Framework for Turning Down the TemperatureRamanna offers a four-part, cyclical framework for turning down the heat. First, identify the source of the outrage. That is, the deep-seated and underlying causes fueling the anger. Look beyond the inciting incident to the wound it has irritated, and manage your own preconceived notions of your antagonists and their motivations.Second, determine the extent to which the organization can effectively respond. What is within your responsibility to address, and what is within your capability to address? This is where your company’s values and mission can guide you. If you say you will protect reproductive rights, for example, then it’s imperative to step up when the issue arises in the public arena. In fact, moments of anger present an opportunity for clarifying an organization’s values, Ramanna writes.Third, take stock of the leader’s influence. Now that you’ve identified what is an attainable and appropriate response, how will the leader win the support of others in influential positions as well as the support of the workforce?And finally, build resilience. “A resilient organization (or system) is characterized by the delegation of authority,” Ramanna writes. “By situating decision-making close to ground realities, the organization both improves the informativeness of its decisions and diversifies its thinking and, as a consequence, can endure and even thrive amid negative shocks.”Are Corporate Values Outmoded?Values statements and public commitments to causes or communities may be useful guideposts for how to focus corporate response in the age of outrage, but they can also make it harder to deliver. Companies have caught themselves in dreadful thickets in the name of transparency and principles. When corporate behavior, or the behavior of business leaders, doesn’t reflect publicly stated values and beliefs, companies feel the pain. Ramanna cites Disney’s entanglement with Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill in 2022. Despite being a public advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, the company did not publicly oppose the bill and was at the same time writing checks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to politicians who sponsored it in the state senate. NPR reported that “Disney employees shared their outrage on social media when the company did not denounce the proposed legislation.” (In 2024, Disney resumed political donations to Republican candidates in Florida who voted in favor of the bill.)Being publicly “good” and values-forward can indeed make you a target, according to New York University professor Alison Taylor, who, in her book Higher Ground: How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World, points out that those seeking a target for their outrage will look for the companies and leaders most vocal about their principles.“Some companies can legitimately argue that these are not part of their value proposition. That’s not the case with Disney,” Ramanna said. “Part of why they got into the problem in the first place was when the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill was initially being proposed, they said, ‘Oh, we’re neutral in this.’ No, you’re not neutral. You’ve already established that you’re not neutral, and now it looks opportunistic to claim that you’re neutral.” Where the issues are directly related to the business or its stated values and identity, then you can’t step aside. You must proactively engage.Despite shifting political winds, “there is also little doubt that many institutions today have adopted a more progressive culture,” reported the New York Times this week. “They acknowledge bias and power imbalances between people of different genders and races. Despite efforts to roll back D.E.I. programs, few businesses or schools would doubt the importance of recruiting people from different backgrounds. A range of progressive causes—climate change reduction, workplace protections and higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans—remain popular.” Even so, in an age of outrage, corporate values aren’t as simple as they used to be. As belief systems diverge so severely, it can be tough to get people to agree, even in the workplace. Ramanna distinguishes between “opportunity values” and “outcome values.”While outcome values tend to divide, opportunity values can unify: Even if you can’t agree on the outcome, at least you can agree on the rules of engagement—how a group arrives at conclusions and makes decisions. “The commitment to the opportunity values is more meaningful than the commitment to outcome values, especially when you’re dealing with this outrage,” he said.Bracing for a Polarized Workplace Post-ElectionTo be clear, Ramanna isn’t interested in prescribing values or making ethics judgements, nor does he offer advice on business strategy. Companies have to do that on their own, he said. But when it comes to managing in an age of outrage, he does advocate a kind of corporate stoicism: Concern yourself only with what you can control.With the election and its aftermath upon us, Ramanna urges employers anxious about the workplace climate not to quit before they start, but make a plan to lead in an age of outrage. “Look, it’s never too late. On one hand, you might say, ‘Oh my God, I should have started this six months ago, five years ago,’ whatever it is. But on the other hand, if you don’t start it today, it’ll still be too late in six months.”Despite the outcome of the election, he said, leaders can count on two things. “No. 1, that we’re not going to have some magical healing on the day the elections are over or the results become clear. If anything, we’re going to be sharply divided. The second thing is, as a business, you have to figure out a way to work through that.”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 Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.(Featured photo by Solstock/iStock by Getty Images)
Using Education Benefits to Attract and Retain a Uniquely-Skilled Workforce
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza November 01, 2024Collectively, Americans carry about $1.7 trillion in student debt, second only to home loan debt. “So even if you are one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have any student debt attached to your name, you probably know someone who does, and you have probably not been able to escape the chatter around just student debt today,” said Michaela Rubin, VP of operations at financial wellness platform Candidly, during a From Day One webinar on tuition reimbursement and student loan benefits.Because of the size of loans and the damage such debt can do over time, education assistance is becoming a popular benefit category among employers, says Rubin. “There are a lot of legislative tailwinds, like the CARES Act of 2020 and Secure Act 2.0, that are also feeding into this conversation. While we started primarily as a student debt repayment platform, we’ve seen the importance of combining these newer benefits with traditional benefits like tuition reimbursement. Employers need to set themselves apart and stand out, and this becomes a really big differentiator, especially when there are a lot of eyes on this right now.”It’s certainly a differentiator for the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, says Heather Galvin, the organization’s compensation and benefits analyst, who joined Rubin for the webinar. “Not only is pursuing higher education financially burdensome for the workforce, it can affect mental health too. An offering like this just goes to show employees and workforce members that you’re invested in their whole health and their whole well-being.” The non-profit, headquartered in Center City, Minnesota, operates centers for drug and alcohol treatment as well as mental healthcare.Though tuition reimbursement is more common than employer contributions to student debt, “participation in tuition reimbursement programs is historically pretty low,” said Rubin. The majority of workers say they want some kind of upskilling or training, but only a small fraction participate, often because they’re not aware it’s available.Tuition reimbursement requires the employee to put up the money for the training or education, complete the program, and then file for reimbursement from the company. For student loan repayment, the company contributes to paying off an employee’s pre-existing student debt. Both have their tax boons for employees and employers.Journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the discussion about "Tuition Reimbursement and Student Loan Benefits: A Smarter Way to Attract, Retain, and Engage" (photo by From Day One)Galvin said the decision to offer tuition reimbursement was an easy one. They want and need uniquely educated employees, and they offer a graduate program of their own, the Hazelden Betty Ford Graduate school, where students can earn master’s degrees in addiction and mental health counseling. “It’s one of our strongest recruitment pipelines,” she said. “Aside from career advancement and professional growth opportunities for our workforce, we saw this as a great opportunity to increase loyalty and job satisfaction. We know we’re creating a more motivated and engaged workforce. We feel that by investing in our workforce and their future, we are simultaneously investing in our own.”Running a Successful Student Loan Benefit ProgramWith her clients, Rubin discusses goals, budget, and workforce makeup. The latter is particularly important for employers that require their workers to have secondary or postsecondary degrees to qualify for the job. Those employees likely enter with considerable debt and would benefit from loan repayment benefits. Other employers may be heavily focused on upskilling the workforce they already have and would be wise to explore tuition reimbursement. Some will need both.Any student loan program requires a carefully prepared communication campaign that builds awareness and clearly outlines expectations. Rejecting reimbursement requests because the student disqualifies on a technicality or mistakenly promotes benefits to ineligible workers, will significantly damage the reputation of the program.At the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, Galvin folds the organization’s education assistance program into its benefits guide and stores it on the intranet. She also likes to promote it in sync with the school calendar when people are typically thinking about their education. Rubin said she likes to promote quick-start user guides and quarterly toolkits. But don’t wait for employees to arrive to advertise your program, they said, make it a part of your recruitment strategy. Tout it on your careers page and in your job postings.Galvin said the program has been remarkably successful for her organization. Those who have registered and activated their tuition reimbursement have stayed. “This has potentially retained 23 workforce members who may have otherwise left. Said another way, it’s potentially saved us over a million dollars in turnover costs.” Currently, there are 167 graduates from the Hazelden Betty Ford graduate school working at the foundation. “Those are employees who, more than likely, participated in tuition reimbursement and/or are now eligible for student loan repayment.” This, she says demonstrates the organization’s appreciation for those who both further their education and stick with the organization. Plus, it works.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Candidly, for sponsoring this webinar.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 Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Business Insider, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.