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Everlearning: The Key to Your People and Teams’ Growth

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

Christina Cook | May 31, 2023

How to Build Skills to Boost Retention on Multigenerational Teams

“With the population aging, one of the concerns we hear from employers is that they’re worried about a good portion of their workforce leaving,” said Heather Tinsley-Fix, a senior advisor for financial resilience at AARP. “Because when they leave, they’ll take this huge reservoir of institutional knowledge, professional networks, and wisdom with them.”How to keep this lucrative knowledge inside an organization and pass it across generations, was the central topic of conversation during a From Day One webinar about building skills to boost retention on multigenerational teams, moderated by Tinsley-Fix.Among the strategies that panelists shared for moving the knowledge and expertise from older generations to younger ones, mentorship was the most popular.“We have a lot of people who have worked on mainframe technologies for 35 or 40 years,” said Shashank Bhushan, chief talent development architect at IT services company BMC Software. “The knowledge that they have is not easily transferable.”BMC Software matches senior team members with younger ones, even sending the older ones abroad for concentrated mentorship time with their colleagues around the world. As a perk, mentors can take a partner or spouse with them, making a vacation out of the deal. But Bhushan noted that you don’t necessarily have to incentivize mentorship all the time. “People take a lot of pride in being able to transfer and transition their knowledge out to younger people and to mentor them,” he said.At Ball Corp., the world’s largest maker of food and beverage cans, long-tenured employees on the manufacturing floor often transition away from overnight shifts and onto special projects that let them train more junior workers on their institutional expertise. “That works better for them,” said Ball’s director of HR business partners Danae Atkins. “It’s more of a stable 9-to-5, or a consulting basis, but it gets them out of the shift work, it gives them that fulfillment, and it also helps us leverage their knowledge.”At corporate real estate firm JLL, Giselle Battley, the global head of early career talent, facilitates knowledge transfer in both directions. The company lets workers at any level opt in to be mentors. “I might go find someone who’s earlier in their career but has a specialty in a space that I want to learn about,” she said.Mentorship and sharing knowledge across generations is all well and good, but panelists agreed that the challenge for most is finding the time to teach, and learn, something new. “Time is a precious commodity, even sometimes more than monetary resources,” said Atkins. “To carve out the time and the space, sometimes we’re able to get creative about this, like pulling all executives into a cohort program, or when we have some downtime in our plants, using that for training time.” You can encourage people to make time by building it into general performance expectations, she said. “If it’s important to your boss, it’s important to you. That’s often what motivates people to be able to carve out that time.”The full panel of speakers from top left, Shashank Bhushan of BMC Software, Heather Tinsley-Fix of AARP, Danae Atkins of Ball Corporation, and Giselle Battley of JLL (photo by From Day One)When time is a luxury, appeal to a worker’s sense of the future, Atkins said. “That point-of-need use has been very helpful for us. If you can show someone how this new skill will help them right now or how it will help them get to the next role, they’re more likely to jump in.”Battley said young workers are eager in this way, and employers can leverage mentorship from older workers in their retention strategy. “Their intent to stay with an organization is really dependent upon our ability to continue to grow them, develop them, and move them into new positions,” said Battley.Employers can’t expect workers to sign up for just any kind of skill development. “If you go into a room and ask people, ‘Do you want to grow?’ All hands will go up. But when it comes down to actual learning, the numbers drop dramatically, and it’s for a variety of reasons,” Bhushan noted. The first, he said, is time. The second is relevance.Younger workers with a career ahead of them are more incentivized to learn, but the knowledge has to fit into career growth, not just knowledge for knowledge’s sake. “There is an assumption that they have more time,” said Battley. That may be the case, “but they don’t want to use that time for this.”Employees have to know that their new skills will be put to good use, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be tomorrow. “That’s part of the wisdom for getting people to engage in the training: It’s good for me here and it grows me here, but I also know that my company is investing in my future, no matter where I choose to make that future.”Editor’s note: AARP, who sponsored this webinar, has partnered with MindEdge Learning to create a skills-building platform for employers to upskill their employees regardless of age. The course catalog includes a range of high-demand skills as well as durable soft skills to enhance productivity and contribute to the growth of your workforce and company. If you’re interested in signing up or just hearing more about these courses, add your name to the Google form here.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Quartz at Work, Fast Company, Digiday’s Worklife, and Food Technology, among others.(Featured photo by Vanessa Nunes/iStock by Getty Images) 

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | May 30, 2023

Making Diversity and Inclusion Happen on a Very Large Scale

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

Dan Heilman | May 30, 2023

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

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

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | May 30, 2023

Elevating Everyday Leadership: The Power of Team Coaching

A high-performing team that is delivering exceptional results most likely has a leader who took the time to stop and listen to its members, says Naysan Firoozmand, global head of coaching at corporate education provider Hult EF.Adopting a team-coaching approach, rather than leading through command and control, empowers employees, enabling them to generate their own solutions to business challenges, Firoozmand told From Day One’s May virtual conference in a thought leadership spotlight on the power of adopting team-coaching skills. “The team needs to be able to express their thoughts and ideas and ultimately take ownership of the solutions that they come up with, often leading to longer-term success, and increased psychological safety and well-being within the teams,” said Firoozmand.Team coaching, he said, develops communication and collaboration capabilities–two of the top skills that employers want today. “People will be equipped with the communication and leadership skills that won’t be superseded by the latest technology,” said Firoozmand, who has been working in the field of leadership development and behavior change for nearly two decades.The team approach differs from one-to-one coaching. Instead, managers focus on working with the group as a whole to unlock collective awareness and capabilities. Team coaching helps employees develop better ways of collaborating to deal with stress, eliminate ambiguity, and identify the group’s strengths and weaknesses, Firoozmand said. “There is a pivotal role around trust, enabling openness, and embedding an open dialogue,” he said. Managers with team-coaching skills, he noted, “know when listening is the answer.”Naysan Firoozmand, global head of coaching at corporate education provider Hult EFA team that is listened to feels significant and more competent, while suspending judgment allows ideas and dialogue to flow. Creating a safe and trusted environment where employees feel comfortable generating new ideas without fear of encountering an unhelpful critical voice is called ideational fluency, said Firoozmand.“Have any of you experienced hearing your own words out loud and realizing how different it sounds compared to when it was just sitting in your head? This is a necessary component of the team’s development, realizing what a terrible idea sounds like, but equally, what value an idea has to the team,” he told the audience.Asking questions is an inevitable part of what a manager who is using coaching skills will do, Firoozmand said. When asking questions, the purpose should be to fuel the curiosity within the team and explore ideas, rather than to gather information. “It’s thinking about the purpose behind the questions. The last thing you want to do is become a facilitator of the group. This is not the same thing as coaching the team,” he said.And while it’s often perceived as quicker and easier to answer each question from your team, resist that temptation, Firoozmand cautioned. “When the question comes many times from each member of the team, you need to listen to not only what is being said, but how and why,” he said.A business culture centered around learning and development will naturally foster workers who embrace progression and are receptive to new ideas, and this ultimately benefits the organization, said Firoozmand. When a coach can notice the subtle dynamics of what's going on in the team, it can be “incredibly powerful,” he said. “It’s really important that they get to know the individuals, so that they have an understanding of the nuances of individual contribution,” he said.Likewise, managers benefit from team-coaching efforts because they gain a skill set that will enhance their leadership and communication capabilities, as well as improve their ability to notice things across the organization that will help them to influence change. “Organizational change is rooted in behavior change,” he emphasized. If it’s time for the team to be doing something differently, then coaching is needed, Firoozmand said. “Quite often, the precursor to being able to do things differently is having the willingness to think things through in a way that you haven’t thought about before. It’s not about learning a new skill or a new piece of knowledge. It’s having a sparring partner, somebody who’s able to hold you to account, hold up the mirror and say, ‘Do you realize what you're doing and how you're doing it, and how that’s impacting both yourself and others?’ And for the person to be able to go, ‘I never really saw that. That’s really interesting,’” he said.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Hult EF, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Susan Kelly is a Chicago-based business journalist.(Featured photo by PeopleImages/iStock by Getty Images)

Susan Kelly | May 30, 2023

Investing in Employee Well-Being: The Business Case for a Healthier Work Environment

“Toxic workplaces are harmful to workers–to their mental health, and it turns out, to their physical health as well,” proclaimed Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, in a  statement last October. In fact, Murthy added, workplaces should be engines for mental health and well-being.But most employees are experiencing the exact opposite phenomenon. In a June 2021 study of 1,500 employees conducted by Qualtrics, 76% of employees report that they have at least one symptom of a mental health condition, up from 59% just two years ago. And 84% of employees say their workplace conditions have contributed to at least one mental health challenge, while 40% of workers say their employers have not done enough to address mental health.Elizabeth Bille, SVP of workplace culture at the workplace training platform EVERFI, is on a mission to help employers have a net-positive effect on their employees’ well-being. “Employees are experiencing more challenges than ever before, both outside of work and inside the workplace,” Bille shared in a May webinar with From Day One. “And indeed, the line between our work and our personal lives is blurrier than ever before.”Equally though, Bille noted that workers are increasingly prioritizing their mental health, “and they want to work for a company that does too.” Two-thirds of employees say that they would take a pay cut to go to a job that better values their mental health.This state of affairs is not just bad for employees–it’s bad for business. Twenty percent of payroll costs are being affected by employee burnout, leading to poor retention and lower productivity. The good news? Investing in employee health and well-being can have a positive return on investment (ROI) to the tune of more than $4 for every $1 spent.New Approaches for Supporting Mental HealthTraditional strategies for supporting employees’ mental health see it as a personal issue that can be addressed by benefits-centered solutions such as wellness programs and days off. In contrast, new approaches recognize that mental health challenges are workplace issues that require people-focused solutions including prioritizing a healthy work environment and team culture and forging more open manager-employee relationships.Elizabeth Bille, SVP of workplace culture at EVERFIA hallmark effort of this new approach is to address toxic workplaces. One effective strategy is to provide training that addresses disrespectful behavior, teaches bystander intervention techniques, and includes culture-building subjects like respect, allyship, and inclusion.Another useful method to address toxic workplaces is by better aligning an organization’s values with the behavior of its employees. Bille provided some tips:•Check your organizational values•Ensure that your values come up in daily conversation•Check reward and feedback systems.•Address toxic behavior–even if not illegal, and even from superstar employees.•Follow up appropriately on complaints.•Hold people accountable.It is also essential to connect an organization’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategy with its employee mental health initiatives. “This demonstrates and communicates that everyone in our organization is welcomed and valued,” said Bille. “It helps to reduce bias, exclusion, and inaccessibility by increasing feelings of psychological safety, social connection, and belonging.” She urges employers to avoid one-size-fits-all mental health and DEI offerings while providing visible support from leadership. Managers Can Play a Role in Helping Employees’ Mental HealthBille suggests that managers be equipped with tools to support their employees having challenges, such as learning to identify the major signs of burnout. Other strategies for managers include adding time to the beginning and end of meetings for checking in, proactively acknowledging challenges and how hard they are, sharing how they are feeling, and communicating genuine care and concern for employee well-being.For managers, supporting individual employees can also have positive results. Managers can ask how their employees are doing and listen to their struggles. “Keep the door open,” said Bille. Asking how they can support employees’ self-care can go a long way–as can reminding employees to focus on the issues we can control. Additionally, prioritizing tasks and finding efficiencies in daily workflows can help promote a healthy work environment.Managers play a critical role in destigmatizing mental health. “Share how you are feeling because it helps normalize talking about struggles,” Bille asserted. “There’s a misconception that leaders need to be stoic, and that’s actually not true. There’s a lot of literature that's been written about toxic stoicism and the harm it can cause when leaders don't show any emotion because they're trying to be strong.”While it may seem daunting to help manage their employees’ mental health and well-being, businesses are not alone. EVERFI has a wide range of resources to help, Bille said, including an inclusive meetings checklist and a DEI facilitator workbook and scenario builder. With tools like these, it is more possible than ever for employers to prioritize their employees’ mental health and support their wellbeing.Editors’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, EVERFI, for supporting this webinar.Riley Kaminer is a Miami-based journalist, researcher, and content strategist. As a freelance tech writer and researcher, he has profiled more than 400 of the world’s top entrepreneurs and investors. His work has been featured in publications including Forbes, the Times (UK), the Economist, and LatAm Investor 

Riley Kaminer | May 29, 2023

Strengthening the Corporate Role in Revitalizing Underserved Communities

Even before the upheaval of the pandemic and the racial reckoning that followed George Floyd’s murder, businesses were seeking more ways to support and elevate marginalized communities in their midst.Today, that work is regarded as ever more urgent. In companies big and small, HR professionals are harnessing novel ways to mobilize their workforces to foster meaningful change in challenged communities.“The importance of corporate social responsibility has grown tenfold,” said Sofia Terzic, assistant vice president, community affairs manager at U.S. Bank, speaking as part of a May panel discussion at a From Day One conference in Minneapolis.In the past five years, Terzic said that U.S. Bank has expanded company-wide programs that pay employees when they volunteer, match their financial contributions and considers their community engagement as part of their performance evaluations.“We have a chief social responsibility officer who is part of our C suite. That shows employees, hey, this is super important to us as a corporation,” she added.Dean of the Carlson School of Management, Srilata Zaheer (photos by Cassandra Sajna for From Day One)Millennial and Gen Z workers hold high expectations that their employers will tackle difficult societal problems. Srilata Zaheer, dean of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, spends her days with college students pursuing careers in business. Part of their coursework requires them to participate in pro bono projects and partnerships with local non-profits.“Engagement is key, especially with the next generation that really wants purpose in their companies. They're drawn to the mission,” Zaheer said.A generational sea change is cresting, according to HR veteran Scott Peterson, executive vice president and chief human resources officer at the Schwan’s Food Company.Peterson recalled an era in the not-too-distant past when expectations for giving were almost exclusively financial; employees filled out United Way donation cards and figured they’d done their civic duty.“It's not just about money anymore, it's about money and minutes. Employees want to spend their time actually seeing the results of their efforts, making a difference in the communities in which they live,” he said. “I think it's been a healthy progression.”Peterson explained that Schwan’s incentivizes employees to serve on nonprofit boards. Because board membership often comes with an expectation of an accompanying financial gift, Schwan’s matches their donation dollar-for-dollar.The full panel of speakers during the From Day One Minneapolis conference.But too many corporate dollars earmarked for philanthropy never go to worthy causes. “Some recent research shows that there’s about $10 billion of unmatched matching funds that go unclaimed every year. Encourage your employees to really leverage those matching funds,” said Patty Healy Janssen, executive director of the Jeremiah Program, a nonprofit that uses education and stable housing to break the cycle of poverty for single moms.“Not only does it incentivize employees, adding even more value, but it also really benefits the organization,” Janssen said. Despite the volunteer hours, engagement and efforts, nonprofits still need money—and lots of it—to carry out their mission.And that’s where today’s employees too often fall short, according to the Carlson School dean.“I'll give you one statistic which is rather scary,” said Sri Zaheer. “Since 2014 at the Carlson School, we've seen a 74% drop in individual donations under $100. At the same time, we're raising tons of money, but it is fewer people giving larger amounts of money. Giving your time and talent, that's wonderful, we need that. But a lot of nonprofits also need the cash. We need to start building up that kind of giving mindset, even if it's $10, to get them into that practice of giving.”Zaheer’s comment about the drop in small donations got the attention of the panel moderator, Minneapolis Star Tribune business columnist Evan Ramstad. He asked the professionals on the panel and in the audience if they, too, had noticed that employee giving had decreased in recent years and expressed surprise when about half of those in attendance put up their hands in agreement.“Wow, fascinating. There's a column in this, I think,” Ramstad said as he surveyed the group. Today, many of the social issues that volunteers tackle through their employer’s outreach—inequities in health and education, generational poverty, hunger and housing—are complex and stubborn. That’s why companies need to take the long view in their philanthropic vision, according to Art Howard, vice president, global diversity, equity and inclusion for publishing company Wiley.“One of the things that we've learned is that this work takes commitment and we're not going to see results right around the corner,” he said. “But if we stay committed to it and build the right partnerships, you have buy-in to moving the needle in the places that you're looking to move it.”Kevyn Burger is an award winning broadcaster and freelance writer based in Minneapolis.

Kevyn Burger | May 29, 2023

How to Transform Your Coaching Into Outcome Based Skills Development

Across just a six-month span, a large ed-tech company enjoyed a boost in customer retention and customer satisfaction, while worker productivity increased as well. Did the organization achieve this by magically lowering prices while innovating its product and raising employee compensation all at the same time? Nope.Instead, its learning and development leader had a clear vision of driving business KPIs with L&D by improving customer churn and engineering throughput outcomes. The executive recognized that first-level managers were in the best position to facilitate such results. So they cultivated a training program focused on that role, enlisting GrowthSpace, the coaching and mentorship platform, as its partner.Omer Glass, co-founder and CEO of GrowthSpace, told From Day One's May Virtual audience during a recent thought leadership spotlight, that results like these start with a simple formula that sports a fun acronym: POP, which stands for “population outcome program.”“This is something you can do basically tomorrow morning and start experimenting with,” said Glass. “It’s very cool. Once you do it, it becomes addictive.”First, Glass explained, figure out what “population” of the workforce you should focus on, based on their potential to drive your desired KPIs. Ask yourself: “Which population is the most important to invest in?” Is it managers or R&D leaders for example?Once you’ve limited your search to a broad group, narrow it down further to the employees within that group who have the most promise in terms of KPI outcome delivery.When it comes to “outcomes,” the goal, Glass said, is to drive performance, reduce attrition and build a promotable base.Omer Glass, the co-founder and CEO of GrowthSpace, led the thought leadership spotlight (company photo)“If you thought of a population, you can think, ‘OK, I want to drive performance for my engineering [team],’” said Glass. “The next thing, which is the most critical thing that you probably ask is, ‘How do I measure it?’ and ‘How do I know I can really attribute the change to what [I] just did?’”He explained that outcomes can be measured in three different ways, through program surveys, leveraging HR analytics and/or the attainment of defined business or organizational KPIs. Glass recommended a deeper focus on the lattermost option, as it’s the most reliable and informative.“The best way to really make sure that you’re attributing the success to your Learning and Development program is to A-B test,” he said, suggesting that the R&D population and the customer success population each be split into halves with the L&D program being the only variance between the groups.Finally, it’s time to design the “program,” with a focus on driving toward the desired KPIs.“You can do mentoring, you can do training, you can do coaching, could do team coaching, workshops, internal mentoring,” Glass said, suggesting one-on-one coaching as the most effective means of development. “But the outcome you’re trying to drive needs to be connected with what you’re doing,” he added. “You need to focus on a program that’s very focused on a very specific metric.”With that in mind, it becomes easier to execute the crucial next step of pairing employees with their coaches for five concentrated sessions across two months, which allows the process to be scaled (or altered or terminated if it does not appear to be achieving its purpose). Outcomes are then measured and Glass said, overall, GrowthSpace partners that engage in this program report a 50% reduction in employee attrition, a 10% increase in promotable base, up to a 10% increase in internal productivity metrics and up to a 7% increase in functional KPIs, such as sales or operations improvements.“We basically help companies achieve their business outcomes, by becoming more business critical, by helping them deploy human-to-human programs,” Glass said of GrowthSpace.A very tech-forward solution with a human touch? Sounds like a viable balance of old and new school approaches team members can get behind.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, GrowthSpace for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Michael Stahl is a New York City-based freelance journalist, writer, and editor. You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books.

Michael Stahl | May 26, 2023

Empowering Inclusive Career Growth and Leadership Advancement in Your Company

The art of building an equitable workforce starts with the complicated and expensive process of recruiting, hiring and onboarding diverse candidates.The next step is implementing DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) processes, policies, programs and procedures that build internal pathways for promotions and empower diverse workers to ascend to satisfying careers. That deft execution is key to retaining talent and reaping the benefits that accompany a truly diverse workforce; multiple studies find diverse workplaces are both more profitable and more productive.But too often, businesses are not transparent about how they measure behaviors that determine whose career gets elevated. When the process is mysterious to employees, it can thwart their ability to advance, according to Rebecca Taylor, chief customer officer and co-founder of HR platform SkillCycle.“It's being very clear about, these are the behaviors that we expect, these are the competencies for these roles, and really making it clear so that someone could always see themselves in that role,” Taylor said. “They can live those behaviors or find a way to embrace them if it's a skill that they have to learn.”Panelists Rebecca Taylor of SkillCycle, left, and Joffrey Wilson of Mortenson, right (photos by Cassandra Sajna for From Day One)At a From Day One conference in Minneapolis in May, Taylor was part of a panel of top HR and DEI leaders who spoke to an audience of HR professionals. They shared their strategies for building a pipeline to elevate the careers of diverse employees.“The intentional DEI mindset makes sure we are removing barriers for talented individuals. We never want to leave talent on the table,” said Mahogany Ellis-Crutchfield, strategic diversity, equity & inclusion projects lead at Cargill.Ellis-Crutchfield explained how Cargill, the nation’s largest private business, has adopted a range of steps to broaden inclusivity. It has expanded career prospects for its diverse workforce by giving employees a work equivalency option for a college degrees, adding apprenticeships and launching more opportunities for job shadowing.“We revamped our HR system to allow employees to create a kind of internal LinkedIn profile [that's] browsable by certain leaders. It has your work experience, you also put in things like where you'd like to go,” she said. “There's a lot of mystery and kind of this black box around who gets chosen to move up. We want to empower our employees and say, you can take part in that. We've created opportunities for people to participate in their own career growth.”Megan Thompson, Special Correspondent for PBS News Weekend, moderated the discussion.One way Land O’Lakes has changed to achieve its DEI goals is to expand the colleges and universities it has traditionally recruited from, adding HBCUs. The agribusiness and food company has also helped employees burnish their resumes through a mentorship program that pairs talented diverse individuals in the early stages of their careers with top seasoned managers.It’s a strategy that has created growth and empathy in both sides of the mentoring relationship.“Employees are getting higher level access to leadership and leadership has a better understanding, what are some of those barriers (in the workplace)? What are some things that get in the way?” said Philomena Satre, director of diversity and inclusion and strategic partnerships at Land O’Lakes. “When leaders hear the voice of employees and some of the challenges that they face, that really makes the difference.”New employees coming into an organization and existing employees who are leaving can each provide an internal window into where a company may be falling short in achieving success in diversifying its workforce.“Think a lot about how candidates are going to perceive you through that interview experience,” suggested Dannette Hanson, head of talent acquisition for Nielsen.Noting that diversity efforts include bringing women into nontraditional fields, Hanson went on to explain a problematic pattern identified by her previous employer.“Time and time again, our recruiters would do the great work of going after female engineers, getting them excited to come and interview,” she said. “But we discovered through feedback that they offered was, ‘every person that I met was a white male in their 50s, and that's not really a team that I want to be part of.’”Joffrey Wilson, vice president of diversity, equity & inclusion at Mortenson, said his team learned surprising lessons through exit interviews. Wilson said that Mortenson, a construction and real estate development company based in Minneapolis, created problems for itself by not clearly communicating career plans for top talent who had been internally identified as high potential.“Team members that we wanted to retain that we lost, we'd have conversations with folks, there'd be a consistent theme that the organization saw that person in a certain light and that person didn't know it,” he said.Wilson said Mortenson has taken steps to become “very intentional” with high-performing, diverse employees. Leaders have taken steps to routinely intersect with them, customize their career planning and ready them for moving up.“We can communicate to them, no promises, but communicate where we see them going and how we potentially can get them there,” he said. “This may include  Mortensen leadership development opportunities, it may be external opportunities. It could be a coach, it could be a sponsor.”But initiatives to open doors for career growth and leadership advancement have been made more difficult coming out of the pandemic in a changed work place, warned Rebecca Taylor of SkillCycle.“It's been a lot harder for companies who've been adjusting to a hybrid work model or remote work model because all the norms that we knew before have changed,” she said.“It's about always being open to revisiting and revising how you identify high potential in your organization to make sure that you are being inclusive across the gamut with every single role.”Kevyn Burger is an award winning broadcaster and freelance writer based in Minneapolis.

Kevyn Burger | May 26, 2023

How HR Leaders Can Focus on the Whole Lives of Workers–and Boost Productivity Too

More than a year out since the onset of the Great Resignation, business leaders are still adapting to seismic changes in the workforce. Workforce talent is demanding empathy, flexibility, and respect for their personal lives, while HR leaders are focused on productivity and retention. Leaders are faced with the challenge of creating structure and expecting strong performances, while still honoring the individual needs of their employees.At the From Day One conference in Dallas, Associa’s Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer, Chelle O’Keefe, said “leaders can focus on the whole person by really knowing who your employees are. Supporting the whole employee isn’t about offering everything to everyone. It’s about identifying the key needs of our employees, and making sure that the benefit offerings speak specifically to who they are and what they need.”While HR leaders are eager to support their company’s talent, CFO’s might have a more tempered response. Thinking about whole-person health may seem like an added cost, especially now with an uncertain market. Liz Pittinger, head of customer success at Stork Club, offered insights into how benefits can actually reduce costs for self-insured employers.First, Pittinger said, “If you’re going in front of the CFO, you need to know the key concepts that are going to draw them in. You need to know your data points. And if retention isn’t your overarching strategy, it should be, given the Great Resignation.”On average, it costs a company 1-2 times the leaving employees salary just to hire, train, and onboard a replacement. So, how do you drive retention?Pittinger said, “The data shows that if you are a company with a strong DEI strategy, you are more likely to outperform all of the other companies that don’t in terms of revenue, market share, and employee performance. Do you have a DEI strategy that’s supporting women?”Pittinger said that at Stork Club, they don’t call it the Great Resignation. She said, “We call it the Great Confrontation. We have millennials out here saying: “We’re going to leave if you don’t have inclusive fertility benefits for everyone. If your company offer inclusive benefits, employees will stay.”She said, “Recognize where women suffer in silence. That needs to go away. And you’re the folks in the room who have the power to drive those conversations forward.”Dr. Lia Gass Rodriguez, chief medical officer at ActiveHealth, said that in addition to a successful benefits package, “you have to think about body, mind, and spirit. You need to take all of the things into consideration. Having a shared understanding of what that is, is key.”When thinking about the whole person, she said, companies “need to be reactive. There are some people who already have high cost conditions.” ActiveHealth takes a data-driven approach to identify what opportunities exist for a person whose health needs improvement, whether in mind, body, or spirit.There are also proactive solutions. ActiveHealth educates its clients with services that will help them take control of their health before it becomes a reactive problem. Rodriguez said, “We take a data-driven approach to try to offer a multi-modal engagement solution. That data can help us predict where additional support might be needed.”She also suggested focusing on deliberate solutions like preventative health. She said, “’you know how we’ll talk about generational wealth? Well, I like to say generational health. Taking proactive steps to manage health and well-being trickles down in a positive way.”Will Maddox, right, the senior editor at D CEO Magazine, moderated the conversation in Dallas (photo by Steve Bither for From Day One)An important aspect of whole person health includes considering how benefits and policies will affect the workers. In any business, there are inherent differences in the amount of responsibility, compensation, and influence that employees have. HR leaders are learning best practices for balancing those realities with a desire for equity and equality in the workplace.Jennifer Chopelas, head of HR for Merlin Entertainments Limited, said, “Some of the successes that I’ve seen is equity and fairness coming from our global key stakeholders. They are essentially putting their money where their mouth is. It’s not a wink and a nod to we care about diversity. No, we mean it, and we want it to be part of our culture. We are filtering this down to our team level. And we want our employees to feel their true authentic self at work.”In companies like Merlin Entertainments, teams have age ranges starting as young as 16, going all the way to post-retirement age. So, a culture of equity and inclusivity translates when working together.Still, potential challenges arise in sensitive conversations. Chopelas said, “In a leadership meeting, we could be talking to someone in their 20’s and someone in their 50’s. The older person might be thinking, am I the right person to talk about race? But, if we’re not willing to have that conversation in a respectful space in the workplace, we can’t reach that goal of equality.”Ultimately, companies need to make their DEI efforts a part of the culture.Chopelas said that at Merlin Entertainment, they are rolling out equity training. In the training, she said, “I ask them a simple question: Within the role that you sit in now, how can you contribute to equity? It might be as simple as senior leadership influencing the budgeting for DEI initiatives, and frontline team leaders can find out more about their employees, and if they need accommodations or a particular area of support.”Finally, Chopelas said, “It’s really about getting to know our teams, building a rapport, and meeting them where they’re at so that we can ensure they have the proper tools to do well in the workplace.”Christina Cook is a freelance writer based in Dallas, TX, where she covers a variety of topics, with favorites including Art, Film, and live Theatre. Her work can be seen on Rawckus.com, RedDirtNation, and DallasArtBeat.com. Christina is also a creative writer. Her children’s book Your Hands Can Change the World was a 2017 regional bestseller.

Christina Cook | May 25, 2023

Equipping Workers With the Skills to Thrive in Times of Constant Change

Alicia Lopez is a true embodiment of Cisco's core belief in “One Company, Many Careers” and the principle that “An Individual Owns Their Career.” Lopez holds the position of head of learning and careers at Cisco, but her journey within the company began in 1996 as an operations manager. Over the years, she has taken on various roles, including chief of staff, manager of business operation and director of operations leadership and intelligence.The software development company has a four pronged approach in its learning and development efforts, all focused on how people’s personal brands, networks, expertise, and experience apply to a career mindset. “Your career shouldn’t just be something when you’re looking for a new job, but it should be something intentional and nurturing,” Lopez told journalist Kelly Bourdet during the closing fireside chat at From Day One’s April Virtual conference.Personal brand is the first line of action. When one thinks about personal brands, it’s easy to associate it with something outwardly facing, such as LinkedIn and Twitter. But it’s more than that.“It’s important that you’re known in your team, but it’s also your legacy: what do you want to create, what do you want people to know you did?” said Lopez.Journalist Kelly Bourdet, left, interviewed Alicia Lopez, right, during the virtual fireside chat (photo by From Day One)Learning and development also places a lot of emphasis on career exploration. The exploratory phase is one of the five mindsets that Lopez discussed during the fireside chat. “We always want to make sure you’re running towards something, not running away,” she said. To that, internal mobility is highly promoted: for the first 60 to 90 days, open positions are solely advertised internally. After exploration comes the establishing phase. “For the best role, you shouldn’t go to the role where you have 100% the skill,” Lopez said. “You always have to move and learn something different.”Once someone establishes themselves, the next mindset is achievement mode. This one is focused on upskilling opportunities. The following step focuses on giving back, and after that, there is reinvention, especially in light of recent technological developments like Chat GPT. “Reinventing is an important space. How do you want to show up and create a different soundtrack?” said Lopez. “How do you want to ensure [that your skills] stay relevant?”This approach also actively helps people interview and optimize their resume “We give a lot of support, which is sometimes met with resistance—part of the pushback was ‘you’re gonna train them to leave us,’” said Lopez. But, “it’s our job to nurture them.” Lopez said.“What we need to acknowledge is that there’s a war on talent, especially in skillsets that haven’t been created,” said Lopez. “One of the things we’re testing is how we can do some reskilling. A lot of places can do upskilling, but how can we help you reinvent yourself when we know what leaders are going to say you need”For now, they utilize something that Lopez calls self-driven reskilling. “We’re offering a variety of learning opportunities, similar to a master’s program,” she explains. “From a cost perspective it’s a break even, but we get loyalty and following, and that’s priceless.”At Cisco, learning is at the forefront and reskilling is rapid. Recently, Cisco started Cisco Illuminate, a quarterly event for all employees. The company takes employees offline for these events. Past speakers include Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Robin Arzon. The last Illuminate event attracted 45% of the workforce. “What we found is that employees are canceling meetings and saying we’re going. Leaders are moving meetings,” said Lopez. The next Illuminate event will focus on teams in a hybrid workforce. “What we’re finding is that we still need connection when it’s relevant. We’re starting to see studies where career is impacted,” said Lopez. “We’re just paying attention, we don’t want to pull people together to have coffee together, we want it to be purposeful.”Angelica Frey is a writer and a translator based in Boston and Milan.

Angelica Frey | May 25, 2023

Changes to Employee Benefits in an Uncertain Economy: 2023 Priorities for HR Leaders

Employee benefits are a crucial ingredient in attracting and retaining workers. But the area of benefits is a shifting one. What are the benefits that employees want, and that employers can afford?That was the theme of a thought leadership spotlight session by Jess Marble the director of growth marketing for Care for Business, a care solutions provider based in Massachusetts, during From Day One's Minneapolis conference. Marble’s presentation, titled, “Changes to Employee Benefits in an Uncertain Economy 2023: Priorities for HR Leaders” took a look at how human-resources executives are trying to optimize benefit spending with an eye on workforce productivity and retention.“It’s an evolving narrative,” said Marble. “Our research shows that 47 percent of employers are trimming benefits. We’re all being a little conservative.”In fact, employers’ concerns about productivity often outweigh their desire to keep workers, according to Care for Business’s research.What are employers getting rid of? Thirty-five percent say adoption and fertility benefits are first on the chopping block, followed by commuter benefits and financial education/wellness resources. What’s being most widely preserved are benefits aimed at workers with kids or parents who need care.“Seventy-three percent of the workforce are the primary caregiver for a child or an adult,” said Marble. “Since 2020, 16,000 child care centers have shut down. So even during times when our budgets are tight, when we’re asking employees to come to work and be more productive with fewer resources, we need to prioritize child and senior care as a way to keep those workers.”Jess Marble, the director of growth marketing at Care for Business, led the thought leadership spotlight in Minneapolis (photo by Cassandra Sajna for From Day One)The burden of employees who pull double, sometimes triple duty as caregivers is imposing. A quarter of parents struggle to find daycare, and about one in six cares for an aging loved one. Not surprisingly, when asked which one benefit they would insist on keeping, 22 percent of workers choose senior care services.“Employees don’t identify as senior caregivers until it’s too late,” said Marble. “Employers lose between $17 billion and $33 billion each year due to absenteeism and turnover related to that issue. Senior care is consuming the minds of your workforce.”As is often the case, that burden falls to female employees. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, employers face potential losses of $840 billion in economic output due to diminished workforce participation of women. How best to walk the line between productivity and retention? An important first step is to survey employees about benefits. Second, advocate for care, and then take your data and use it to shop for the right benefits and their providers.“Don’t ask [employees] what benefits they want,” said Marble. “Ask them what’s keeping them awake at night and go from there.”A frequently overlooked ingredient in benefits packages is proximity, she added.“Provide options that are where they are,” Marble said. “If they have to drive 45 minutes to see a provider, odds are they aren’t coming to work that day.“I am passionate about the mission of making sure that every single one of your employees has child and senior care benefits, because it is the only way that we are going to keep women in the workforce,” she added. “It’s the only way that we are going to bring our economy back to a healthy place.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Care for Business, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Dan Heilman is a Minneapolis-based journalist. 

Dan Heilman | May 24, 2023

How Business Leaders are Creating a Purposeful Return to the Office Experience

Business leaders are seeing a direct correlation of employee engagement to employee attendance and presence, emotional wellness, and productivity. With leadership rightfully focused on how to enhance productivity, what can companies do to enhance employee engagement? Jamie Walsh, risk management consultant at Anco Insurance said, “The companies that I've seen be the most successful are focused more on employee engagement, and less on a mandate of returning to the office. How can we make our employees feel like they're being heard right now? And how can we support them and their dependents? Because presenteeism at the workplace can be a direct effect of what's going on at home. If we can support our employees and their family members at a higher level, that actually will enhance employee engagement.”During a From Day One Dallas conference panel moderated by Alcynna Lloyd of Insider, business leaders shared how companies can make employee engagement a reality by creating the kind of experience that re-engages workers with their leaders, their colleagues, and their roles. How can employers be intentional about the office as a welcoming community? Business leaders are learning to guide company culture toward being a consistent space where workers can fulfill their need for connection, purpose, inclusion, and belonging.Dr. Yetta Toliver, global head of diversity, inclusion and belonging (DIB) for Xerox, suggested companies should consider volunteerism to create a sense of purpose and belonging within the company. She said, “What we're trying at Xerox is to encourage employees to come back into the office together, and to create teams to do some volunteering together. We are looking to encourage our employees to get excited about coming into the workspace, but not demanding it.”Calli Hartman, head of customer success for Blackbaud’s corporate impact division, said the key to a successful employee volunteer program is “offering plenty of options for your employees to meet them where they are. Junior associates may have more time than money. Senior members of the company might have less time, and hybrid employees may not be able do in-person opportunities. Also, consider skills-based volunteering. Do your volunteer opportunities activate your employees’ sense of purpose?”While volunteering is known to create unity among teams and a sense of personal purpose, employees want to feel safe and comfortable at the workplace. Toliver said, “Looking through the lens of DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging) is ensuring that people feel trusted, and they feel that they're respected. That’s important to consider as we start to bring our employees back into the workspace.”Hartman said that at Blackbaud, she, “leans into education and sharing. We do a lot of workplace education around discrimination, anti-harassment, anti-bias, and belonging. I think that is really critical of meeting our employees where they are. We also want them to be learning to meet their peers where they are and supporting each other as a whole team.”The full panel from left, Yetta Toliver of Xerox, moderator Alcynna Lloyd of Insider, Jamie Walsh of Anco Insurance, Paula Moore of JLL, and Calli Hartman of Blackbaud (photo by Steve Bither for From Day One)Creating a workplace where employees feel seen can also include practical improvements to the office culture, and companies can design whatever experience they think is best for their employees. Paula Moore, managing director of global experience strategy at JLL, said one of the best practices she has observed was last summer. She said, “I worked with a company who did a portfolio savings. They had about $400,000 and they chose to reinvest that into their employee experiences. Because they were listening to their employees, they realized that they had all purchased Pelotons during the pandemic, and there was this huge following. So, they bought Pelotons! Now when they come into the office, they can ride with their peers. From an experience perspective, you can really tailor these to your company’s culture.”Many companies see the benefit of a hybrid work option, and even as businesses are trending towards in-office work, there are still remote employees to consider.Creating employee engagement in a remote team has its own set of challenges, but business leaders are trying a variety of approaches. Hartman shared that at Blackbaud, she hosts weekly win meetings, where the focus is on wins and impact that were made in the previous week. She said, “We’re not focusing on the numbers. It’s a lot of relationship building and connection building, and we've leaned into impact and purpose.”Toliver said the skill of active listening can help create a sense of belonging with remote employees. She said, “This helps our managers do a better job. After 15 years of experience with remote teams, I have learned when my employees sign on and say hello, I can tell whether their energy is high or if something might be going on. It may not be time in the meeting to ask them about it, but I guarantee you I am calling them after the meeting to ask them if everything is ok.”In addition to creating a work environment that is safe and inclusive, Fisher said “Again, it’s allowing your people to be heard. College grads who are evaluating a company want a chance to personally and professionally develop. They are also looking for emotional wellness support and solutions. It’s encouraging, and it’s also a sign that we need to be able to understand our employees better. Then, from there, you can make some strategies and try to build upon the culture that is perfect for your company.”Christina Cook is a freelance writer based in Dallas, TX, where she covers a variety of topics, with favorites including Art, Film, and live Theatre. Her work can be seen on Rawckus.com, RedDirtNation, and DallasArtBeat.com. Christina is also a creative writer. Her children’s book Your Hands Can Change the World was a 2017 regional bestseller.

Christina Cook | May 24, 2023

Is Your Company Inclusive About Career Growth and Leadership Advancement?

Corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts that gained urgency after George Floyd’s murder three years ago are losing momentum. As mass layoffs sweep across the U.S., evidence is accumulating: More workers in DEI roles (33%) have been laid off since late 2020 than those in non-DEI positions (21%).“Some of those are the very first roles to be cut,” said Meghan Pickett, leadership trainer at management training company LifeLabs Learning. The disproportionate rate at which DEI professionals are losing positions correlates with sharp declines in diverse hiring, according to Revelio Labs, which tracked attrition levels at more than 600 U.S. companies.Pickett, a Ph.D. candidate in industrial and organizational psychology, shared the troubling statistics during a panel on inclusive career growth and leadership advancement at From Day One’s recent conference in Chicago.Journalist Maudlyne Ihejirika, who moderated the event, said in the wake of Floyd’s murder, corporate America made many promises to embark on or expand DEI initiatives. “We subsequently saw an explosion of DEI officers across industries,” she said.Ihejirika began the conversation by asking, have the efforts of the past three years been successful in achieving career advancement for employees of color and propelling more of those employees into leadership positions?“The short answer, I think, is no,” said Pickett. After Floyd’s death, a lot of companies sought out LifeLabs’ “Behaviors of Inclusion” workshop, she said. Now, “that's starting to ebb a little bit,” Pickett said. “We're really having to push to say, ‘No, this is actually a core part of what we're teaching. It's embedded into what we teach in all of our content.’ So I'm seeing what used to be that commitment wane.”Jamie Adasi, head of inclusion, diversity, equity and allyship (IDEA) for hiring software provider Greenhouse, said she’s hearing about layoffs hitting DEI teams from colleagues at networking events. “I’m seeing lots of cuts,” she said. Still, companies that have ingrained DEI into their businesses and consider these values a competitive advantage have seen excellent progress, said Adasi. “It really does depend on where you're at and the vision and mission of the company and your leaders,” she said.Northern Trust's senior vice president, FaLisa Jones, said the 134-year-old bank’s commitment to DEI has produced measurable results. “Our hiring practices and our recruiting practices were scrubbed. We looked for biases. We ensured that career advancement, senior leadership positions, were more diverse,” said Jones.The bank demonstrated accountability through performance appraisals and oversight at the global, regional and business unit levels, she said. “Those are the things that are going to curb the temptation to go back to business as usual. Those systems that hold you accountable had to be concrete and in place,” said Jones. “We had strong systems already, and this was a lightning rod to make us enhance everything that we were already doing well,” she said.The key now is to make sure progress that has been achieved and sustained in career advancement for minorities and underrepresented groups, Jones told the panel. “We can't all of a sudden grow silent, just because we're comfortable now having a seat at the table. What are you doing with your seat to ensure that sustainability is happening and we're holding executive leadership accountable to what they said they were going to do?” she asked.Representation MattersJones zeroed in on why diverse representation in senior management matters. She told the story of being the only woman of color, representing her organization, on a panel at Howard University. “I got to see this beautiful room of excellence, of people of color, who were hanging on my words, and waiting in line to talk to me afterwards, just to figure out how I got where I am,” she said. With her title, said Jones, comes a responsibility. “There is a generation of people that are coming behind me,” she said. “I realized that it is up to me to do something with it.”Diverse teams are a business asset that adds different perspectives and prevents groupthink, said Mariana González, diversity, equity and inclusion leader for Schneider Electric’s North America operations. “There's ample research that shows that diverse teams are more innovative, they're more creative, they problem-solve in different ways,” she noted.Avoid Blurry FeedbackThe From Day One panel next tackled the problem of blurry language in performance evaluations. Panel moderator Ihejirika pointed out that a common complaint by employees of color is that their annual reviews or work evaluations typically leave them unsure of the assessments.The expert panelists spoke during From Day One's Chicago conference (photo by Tim Hiatt for From Day One)Use of so-called “blur words” that mean different things to different people can be problematic when providing feedback, said LifeLabs’ Pickett. She gave the example of her brother, who was told he was “not engaged” at his job. When pressed, the manager who made that assessment explained to Pickett’s brother that he was observed always doodling and fiddling with things. But her brother has ADHD, and fiddling is how he stays focused, she said.Women tend to receive blurrier feedback than their male counterparts, Pickett noted, citing a Harvard Business Review article on the subject. “I don't think it's an extreme leap to say that other minority groups are experiencing the same thing,” she said. Without effective feedback, people can’t improve and advance. “So it’s really important that we’re training folks to spot their own blurry language, but also to spot it in others,” she said.The panelists shared additional performance development tools used by their organizations: training on inclusive behaviors to emphasize meeting employees where they are in their life stages, requiring all employees to contribute ideas that support the company’s success, and asking people to provide anonymous upward feedback. The latter involves team members giving feedback to managers to help them develop their leadership skills.Taylor Amerman, who leads global social impact at IT services supplier CDW, said she spends a day getting to know each new person who reports to her during week one of employment. The new employees discuss how they like to work, what motivates them, and how they like to communicate. Amerman recommends that managers proactively create the time for feedback rather than wait until an issue arises.Addressing the NaysayersHow should companies go about setting goals to make sure that leadership grows more diverse and inclusive when people challenge goal-setting for DEI programs by comparing it to quotas or affirmative action? Ihejirika asked the panel.DEI programs, said Greenhouse’s Adasi, must measure progress from a baseline and have a clear vision for where they aim to be in one, two, three or five years, just as every other function within the business measures data and establishes those goals. “We literally look at our data monthly, quarterly, yearly. We refresh them, we report back to staff, we report back to the industry at large, our clients. We make sure that the accountability doesn't stop just within the HR function. This is every department’s work, to make sure this is moved forward. …  What gets measured, gets improved,” she said. Without a “whole ecosystem” approach to goal-setting, “you’ll see what we have been seeing recently, which are the layoffs of those teams and really starting to de-prioritize DEI efforts,” Adasi cautioned.Social impact metrics are important, agreed Schneider Electric’s González, but she advised focusing on what she called process goals for achieving a diverse team. That means examining diversity partnerships to support a strong pipeline of job candidates that enables hiring managers to make the best decision for the organization. “We want to be careful of not driving the wrong behaviors or the wrong impression, because ultimately, we want the best people in these roles,” González said.Building a “pause” into employee development plans and training managers to have those conversations can help guide people to the next step in their career paths, said Pickett. Panelists also emphasized the importance of quality learning and coaching solutions for leadership over quick-hit, self-paced training modules, as well as rooting out the causes of measurable DEI gaps to be strategic about how to close them. Pickett said the mantra at LifeLabs is, “If you're not being intentionally inclusive, you're likely being unintentionally exclusive.”Susan Kelly is a Chicago-based business journalist.

Susan Kelly | May 23, 2023

Budgeting for Family Caregiving: Tangible Metrics that Drive Impact

Mike Quigg spends every day thinking about caregiving, and not just because he is the VP and head of strategy of the caregiving platform ianacare—where ‘iana’ stands for I am not alone. In fact, he told the audience of a From Day One webinar, he has been the primary caretaker of his mother throughout her 15-year journey with cancer. In this role, Quigg alternates between periods of well-being and more challenging times. “She is on medicare; it was my responsibility to sit through and understand the coverage and allowances, and understand what to do when benefits maxed out. Short and long-term planning,” he told Cara Obradovitz Flavin, national health and productivity consultant of the insurance service provider Alliant.Worker access to caregiving benefits directly impacts an organization. The burden of caregiving leads to increased turnover, absenteeism, decreased productivity, and people leaving the workforce, Obradovitz Flavin explains. “It’s difficult to quantify the need, but we know it’s there,” she acknowledged. “Making the business case for adding benefits is a little different: we have quantifiable success metrics for diabetes, nothing as straightforward with caregiving.” Statistics can offer some perspective: Starting in 2030, BCG reports, the United States will lose $290 billion in GDP per year due to the care crisis. By 2034, adults 65+ will outnumber children under the age of 18.Understanding Consumer Preferences in Terms of UXBenefit platforms that focus on a 100% personalized, 1:1 approach, as well as those that are 100% digital, both fall short in some areas. As for how to weigh the options, Quigg suggested “moving away from what we feel is best and moving to what consumer demands and data is needed. Human beings behave in ways that are tied to immediate gratification, and anything that causes friction reduces the likelihood a consumer will continue engaging with a solution.” Culturally and societally, we’ve come to expect a certain level of ease, and many innovations feed in the ability to self-serve. “People prefer chatbots and FAQs, convenience, and their own timelines,” he continued. “It might feel better to have human support, but solely focusing on that might ignore how consumers behave.” (Is this convenience-focused behavior good for society? That’s a question for another webinar.)A Multi-layered ApproachQuigg believes in a multilayered approach, which constitutes the user experience of ianacare: it’s the ideal third way between a one-size-fits-all approach and the frustrating multi-point solution that leads to decreased usage.Mike Quigg, the VP, head of strategy & growth for ianacare (company photo)“The way we look at this is aligned with considering consumer behavior and demand. What that has led us to put together is five unique layers, a combination of technology-focused intervention paired with on-demand, 24/7 dedicated support,” he says.  “Both are important to appeal to the entirety of the population, no matter whether they prefer immediate access and self-solving or they run into more complex scenarios where an expert would alleviate the burden.” Just relying on one approach is insufficient and would drive away some participants and lower a program’s impact.The first layer is the patient’s social circle: when a loved one is diagnosed with a new condition, one of the things you hear is “friends and family.” It seems quite simple, but coordinating, communicating, and contextualizing what kind of help is needed is a burdensome task for caregivers. Often, they go without coordinating and communicating. This leads to a negative impact on financial, physical, mental well-being. “What we’ve done from a tech perspective is bring people’s support circles into the platform in order to communicate needs to the people who want to contribute,” said Quigg. “It’s a powerful tool: more than 90% of users tap into the personal network, and 90% of tasks are fulfilled by that group.” The second layer is the integration of local resources: ianacare compiled the ability to pull in, by zip code, tens of thousands of local resources that can help with food, lodging, financial and legal issues, finding care, and locating durable medical equipment. As of Q1, 2023, it points to 1.17M different resources for users.The third and fourth layers have to do with expertise, as literacy in health and caregiving across the US is dangerously low. “The average person is going to have a hard enough time following written instructions on a prescription bottle, not to mention benefits and the complexity of the healthcare landscape,” said Quigg. “We created a robust set of expert content to make sure people have the right info they need.” Finally, the fifth layer is a caregiver navigator.The Employer PerspectiveAn employer ought to understand how caring for both children and parents can be a significant burden. “Even employees who don’t have children can be burdened,” warned Obradovitz Flavin. Another challenge is finding maintenance and backup care: “I recommend that employers consider all the situations we talked about, so they develop inclusive policies, with an eye for DEI. it goes beyond child care and elder care.”The financial impact can be difficult to measure. “Presenteeism, absenteeism, decreased productivity, attrition, and retention all paint a good picture. Any measure that reduces distraction and the competing interests of an employee’s focus is going to lead to a more fully engaged and productive employee,” she continued.A good way to garner that data? Listen to workers. What are you and the HR team hearing? Why aren’t people coming back from leave?A well-oiled caregiving machine has both financial and time-related benefits. Quigg cites a study conducted by ianacare, Healthcore, and Jmir Publications to point out that caregivers save 200 hours annually, along with about $10,000 in personal savings, by tapping into local resources. Those savings of time and money reduce stress. “What you can see is that there was a statistically significant decrease in the amount of stress, anxiety, and burden that people felt,” said Quigg. “But I think outcomes are never going to be realized unless you can get people to actually use them.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, ianacare, for sponsoring this webinar.Angelica Frey is a writer and a translator based in Boston and Milan.

Angelica Frey | May 23, 2023

Making the Employer-Value Proposition More Inclusive to the Diversity of Working Families

Jessica Kim has cared for her mother during her battle with cancer, has three kids, and is now caring for her 84-year-old father. “I am living for the need of caregiving support for all ages, all stages,” she told journalist Megan Ulu-lani Boyanton during a panel at a From Day One virtual conference. Kim’s personal story led her to establish ianacare, a platform that helps navigate care in the home for caregivers. ‘iana’ stands for “I am not alone,” and, while unique in its unfolding, her life experience is mirrored in the situations more and more workers are facing as they are navigating employment, caring for their offspring, and caring for their aging and/or ailing parents.“I had my grandmother living with me until she passed at 92, my mother-in-law lives with me, and my son has ADHD and came out as part of the LGBTQ+ population,” replied Singleton Beato, global EVP and chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer at the global advertising communication company McCann Worldgroup. “I am living in the middle of ages, stages, and life experiences.”Inequities affect the caregiving population, but organizations are striving to create benefit packages that meet and address their needs. Caregiving populations are part of workplace demographics that, while not faced with outward hostility, have suffered from neglect. “Many issues are cultural,” said Kim. “When we think about how we respond to neglect, we have to see how we approach it: not just data or checkboxes.” Mental Health as a Springboard“In the last few years, the common element was wellbeing and mental health,” said Livia Konkel, global diversity, equity, inclusion and corporate citizenship leader at the pharmaceutical company Charles River Laboratories. “Everything we do is centered on belonging and mental wellbeing. We have 5 pillars we work around: career, financial, physical, social, emotional. In all of that, we try to focus on benefits that will serve the whole person: one of the things we excel at is the emotional space.” On a related note, Charles River Laboratories eliminated the four-year degree requirements and added a tuition reimbursement for up to $20,000 “to make workplace easier to access,” said Konkel, herself a first-generation college graduate.The full panel of speakers, from top left, moderator Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, Singleton Beato, Shalin Kothari, Kristen Carlisle, Jessica Kim, and Livia Konkel (photo by From Day One)“Financial health is mental health is physical health,” said Kristen Carlisle, VP and general manager of the financial wellness benefits platform Betterment. “You’re not gonna be able to address every single thing, but you need to take time to step back: what’s working, what’s not working. 70% of people say their finances stress them. And when you are the employer, you say you do benchmarking, but in my own experience, I was making okay money but was also a caregiver and I was barely getting by.”Taking a Holistic Approach“What comes to mind when it comes to neglected demographics,” said Kim, “[is that] you don’t solve for what you don’t see: they don’t raise their hands and go to HR.”It’s not an easy issue to address. “There is a lot of work to do: assessing the places in the world where the organization has facilities to understand what the underserved communities are, then building policies from there,” said Beato. “You need to make sure you understand what your folks need.” One example is making sure that one’s workplace and office building are, indeed, accessible to everyone on the spectrum of ability and disability. It’s also important to add policies and consideration for people going through menopause and to create gender-neutral facilities. “You need both the written policies and the physical conditions, [including] space to pray, and spaces where people like my son, who has ADHD, can collect themselves.”The most obvious hurdle, in this instance, is funding. “Since the pandemic, people are more careful in how they spend their money. One of the things we need to improve is to make a business case showing how these implementations decrease healthcare costs, increase retention, and drive down attrition,” explained Shalin Kothari, vice president of people and DEI strategy at the digital automation company Schneider Electric. “We understate the cost of a new hire. There are a lot of hidden costs we don’t take into consideration.”The Leading Role of Middle ManagersIn order for these implementations to be successful and lasting, involvement has to go beyond executive leadership. “You have to ensure that your leaders are invested and also that they communicate and cascade their expectations down the chain to people’s managers, so that when these initiatives are pushed forward, the managers are going to help make the conditions and employees can take advantage of them,” said Beato. “A lot of executives are proponents of an inclusive culture,” said Kothari, backing up Beato. “Middle managers are often overwhelmed. Many of them today have a more diverse, multigenerational workforce, and the expectation is not just to manage their team, but to deliver as well.”Given the way managing people has drastically changed in the last fifteen years, and will most likely continue to do so (compare managing six months into the pandemic to managing three years into it), “We decided to retain career coaching,” said Carlisle. This solution has been a way to help her own company’s middle managers. “We’re a benefits provider, and we provide our own: a whole lot of feedback!”Angelica Frey is a writer and a translator based in Boston and Milan.

Angelica Frey | May 22, 2023

Unraveling the Science Behind Why Volunteering Works

Chris Jarvis divided the audience at From Day One's Dallas conference into two groups and asked us to engage in a thought experiment. He said, “Imagine a happiness scale that ranges from one to ten, where ten is an amazing day, ranging all the way down to one, which would be a pretty rough day. Now, on your way to the conference today, you come across a crisp, clean $100 bill on the ground. There is no one around, so you pick it up and you put it in your pocket. How many points did your happiness level go up after you found the money on the ground?” The audience members in the first group reported their happiness points going up about one point.On the opposite side of the room, the experiment was similar, except instead of spending the found money on yourself, you have to spend it on someone else. I was in the second group, and my response was among the majority. My happiness went up about three points.Why do humans help other people? This is a fundamental question, and the idea behind the company Realized Worth, of which Jarvis is co-founder and chief strategy officer. Why do we help others, and what happens when businesses include volunteering in company culture?This question, and the thought experiment Jarvis offered springs from a study conducted by Michael Norton at Harvard. Whether Norton carried out the study at Harvard, in Africa, or among colleagues, the results were largely the same. When the money was used to help someone else, happiness points were higher. The act of giving is what matters.Jarvis said, “It comes down to a process in our brain called the Reward System. Think of a runner's high. Those naturally occurring endorphins in your brain are part of the brain reward system, and that is built-in neuro-behavior.”Jarvis led the Dallas session (photo by Steve Bither for From Day One)In addition to the reward system, our brains have something called the pain matrix, and that means there are neurons in the brain that light up when you're in pain. But, these neurons can't tell the difference between being in pain and seeing somebody else’s pain. When our pain matrix lights up, we have one of two responses: intervene, or get up and leave. So, we feel compelled to help because it feels good to help, and we feel pain when we see somebody else in pain.“But this last part presents us with a bit of a weird problem,” Jarvis said. “Because empathy is really only felt for those who are like us. It only works for our in-groups. What I mean by this comes from Social Identity Theory. Think of concentric circles of identity: Do we have enough commonality that we can connect? For every in-group that you're part of, it shares some of your interests and perspectives. And this is why we can feel great concern for people that are close to us in proximity and core alikeness.”Jarvis continues, “For example, when catastrophe happens in another part of the world, we acknowledge it, but our pain matrix doesn’t light up. We are easily susceptible to dehumanizing those outside our groups. And this is the great crisis of humanity as a species, the ability to look at another group and say: We’re not safe because of them. They want what we've worked for.”Luckily, there is a solution. “Because,” Jarvis said, “your brain tends to be plastic. It is incredibly flexible, like bones and cartilage when you're younger.” This flexibility is referred to as neuroplasticity.In neuroplasticity, when we are confronted with a situation that doesn’t fit our expectations, a chemical called acetylcholine is secreted, and we grow new neural pathways. Jarvis said, “We need to have experiences that challenge the reality of what we think of as normal. And we need to be guided to this new place.”When applying this concept to DEI initiatives in a company, Jarvis said, “Experience is key. You need to have the experience of the mind and the body, these two things together, for creating memories and for creating new neural pathways.”For Jarvis, this is why employee volunteering is such an important feature of a company's program, especially regarding DEI. Without experiences to challenge the way our brains are wired, we can’t understand the human tendency to dehumanize another group.Jarvis said, “Hidden biases stay quite hidden unless you go looking for them. And if the checklists are there, and we're meeting all the obligations, somehow, maybe we become more insulated. Because we have combined all of these external constructs, but never do the internal work. So, now we know just not how to show it, but that isn’t the direction we want to go. We want a workplace where we can bring your whole self, and we can belong.”He said, “We need to inform people's experiences so that we don't carry these half understood biases and truths forward in life. Then, act. And that's where we'll see the behavior change. As a result of these experiences, we see ourselves differently in the world. Employee volunteering could be the best way to address this idea.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Realized Worth, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Christina Cook is a freelance writer based in Dallas, TX, where she covers a variety of topics, with favorites including Art, Film, and live Theatre. Her work can be seen on Rawckus.com, RedDirtNation, and DallasArtBeat.com. Christina is also a creative writer. Her children’s book Your Hands Can Change the World was a 2017 regional bestseller.

Christina Cook | May 22, 2023

How to Future-Proof Your Employee Experience Strategy

When Rob Catalano decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life with his girlfriend, he picked what he thought was the perfect spot for a proposal site, at the top of a mountain after an enjoyable hike. Just before the pair were set to go on what Catalano hoped would be a fateful excursion, authorities closed the mountain to visitors. Disappointed but determined, Catalano proposed at a later time and a different locale. His girlfriend still said yes and, wanting to hold the ceremony quickly, their wedding planning was ramped up in double time. They quickly booked a venue, established a guest list of 250 people and decided on a honeymoon destination. Then, the Covid-19 pandemic swooped in to disrupt it all. Their wedding was delayed, the venue was changed and the guest list was whittled down to 30, with a number of loved ones who would ordinarily have been thrilled to experience the celebration forced to merely send a gift and congratulatory greeting card. Eighteen hours prior to the nuptials, a problem with Catalano’s suit arose and he rushed to secure a new one. More than a year later, when Catalano and his betrothed were allowed to travel and finally embark on their honeymoon, they wound up in hospital beds abroad suffering from a flu bug. However, when people ask Catalano about his wedding experience he doesn’t delve into those details. For him, recalling that period brings nothing but joy. He tells them the proposal—which happened while on vacation in Hawaii—as well as the outdoor wedding they had with family and friends and even the honeymoon were the stuff of dreams. “All in all it was this fantastic experience, an experience I’ll remember forever as a positive one,” said Catalano, the co-founder and chief engagement officer of the employee experience platform WorkTango, during a From Day One webinar titled, “How to Future-Proof Your Employee Experience Strategy: Navigating Through Economic Uncertainty and Beyond.” The relevance of his wedding to the workplace?“​​If we think about our employees and our organizations, we want our employees to remember their experience at our organizations as a really, really positive one,” he said. “Perception is made up of moments. The only way we can contribute to the overall experience of our employees is thinking of that employee experience as a collection of moments that happen on a regular basis.”Workers will encounter unpleasant challenges at work no matter what—just as people do in all aspects of their lives, just as Catalano did across his entire wedding experience. But what companies can do to create an enjoyable employee experience, Catalano said, is develop favorable “moments that matter, the things that really define that overall perception, that overall experience.”Company leaders can do this, according to Catalano, by first adopting what he called the three pillars of the modern employee experience framework: working, living and growing, all of which are cultivated on a nourishing foundation of corporate culture and enablement. The first pillar, “working,” is about “designing an optimal work experience,” he said, and “aligning it towards making employees successful.” The ways in which a given organization might establish this vary from organization to organization. But a foundational principle can carry a leadership team to success: “Companies need to focus on the success of the employees, not on the success of the company,” Catalano advised. “That’s a critical mindset to be in.”In regard to the “living” pillar, Catalano said it requires “a consistent, intentional focus on the employee experience strategy that supports the living human being, not just a working employee.” The serviceable mindset for people managers here, he said, is “focusing on the whole person, the wellbeing needs of a purpose, and the equity and impact of support allowing the human being to recover and return to work.”When Catalano thinks about the “growing” pillar, to him it means the facilitation of an employee “growth experience”—their opportunities to develop as a worker over the long term, a natural inclination. “People want to grow, they want to thrive,” Catalano said. “Employees don’t want to work for business anymore, they want to work with your business. Growth goes both ways [and] if you’re just a company thinking about growth of the company, not your employees, again, it’s not going to be the experience they want [in order] to go on that journey with you.”Rob Catalano, co-founder and chief engagement officer of WorkTango, led the webinar (company photo)Optimal work productivity, comfortable well-being and professional development within an organization are powered by a company culture that has purpose, vision, values and rituals, Catalano said, as well as practical enablement tools that leverage technology, agility and good leadership. Once this framework has been established inside an organization, team leaders can start to build what Catalano called those “moments that matter,” which will help build a truly amiable employee workplace experience. His first piece of advice: Take inventory of what you do well and not so well through self-reflection—keeping in mind the three pillars of experience framework—and thinking about moments in terms of “beginnings and endings.”“When people think about experiences, they typically remember the beginning and the ends and high points,” Catalano said. “When I shared my wedding experience, it started with a proposal and the honeymoon at the end [because] that’s just the way people react and how they absorb moments.”He also said that the employees themselves need to be engaged on the matter, through conversations and surveys that cover what’s working in the office and what isn’t. Some questions to ask include: “What’s been the best moment at work?” “The worst?” “What are your past memorable experiences?”Once they’re understood, leadership should do their best to shape and define the moments that matter, Catalano said. “You can’t control all the moments,” he said. “So how do you define the ones that really matter? And the way to do that is, first, you scribe and identify all the negative experiences that you’ve learned.” From talking to employees, maybe a leader learned that employees didn’t know what to do before their first day or they felt lost in their first week. “That’s not a great experience,” Catalano continued. Find out what isn’t working and figure out “how not to repeat those items,” he said, and instead foster more of what workers respond to positively. When leaders identify moments that matter that employees appreciate, Catalano advised that the leaders “make it a big deal” when they happen. Instead of just a team welcome card, maybe a handwritten note from an executive is in order. “​​The idea is…how do you add excitement and fireworks to that moment?” he said. These outreach efforts should be curated so that they feel not only authentic but uniquely representative of the organization, as well as personal and intentional, too. Instead of a gift card to celebrate a work anniversary or some other achievement, the employee is perhaps sent what Catalano described as a “culture package,” items the worker will enjoy that are somehow tied to the company’s culture, mission and values.“You need to make it recognizable,” he said, adding a third tip. “How do you ensure that the intrinsic motivation and pride that goes into your employees when they accomplish something happens?”Again, the execution of this outreach should be contrived by an individual company, but Catalano said he recently learned of an organization that sent a new hire’s family a gift in a show of appreciation for their support of their job change. “​​These are simple [acts] that create wonderful, memorable moments and contribute to that overall [workplace] experience,” Catalano said. Ultimately, the best way to ensure the success of this approach is to make it “foundational” to the business, Catalano added. “The reality is, once you have all that, now you can start bringing these moments that matter, which influences your better employee experience overall,” Catalano said. And we all know the benefits when you have people that are enjoying their experience: less turnover, more engagement and productivity. That’s what you’ll start seeing in your organization.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, WorkTango, for sponsoring this webinar.Michael Stahl is a New York City-based freelance journalist, writer, and editor. You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books.

Michael Stahl | May 19, 2023

A Resurgent Hospitality Company Finds Innovative Ways to Grow Its Workforce

Three years after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, most industries have recovered their lost employees or brought their workforce close to how it was pre-pandemic; except for the hospitality industry.The hospitality and leisure industry has the highest share of jobs lost from the pandemic (6.5%) of any industry except for mining, with 1.1 million jobs still lost. Hyatt Hotels, the multinational hospitality company headquartered in Chicago, has been leaning into new innovative ways to grow its workforce since the COVID-19 pandemic. Jin Ivacic, global head of talent acquisition at Hyatt, spoke about workforce solutions with Edward McClelland, contributing editor at Chicago Magazine, during a fireside chat that closed out From Day One’s Chicago Conference.“During the pandemic, one in three [hospitality workers] left their jobs and 45% went outside of industry altogether,” Ivacic said. “So we knew we had to focus on retention of those that we still had, and reaching out to different talent pools.”The unemployment rate for hospitality and leisure workers has improved significantly from its highest point in April 2020 at 39.3% to 5% in May 2023, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Data. But job openings in the industry have steadily remained around 1.5 million per month after jumping from 900,000 in February 2021, when vaccines became more widely available in the United States. In the pre-pandemic years, job openings rarely entered the seven-digit range. Now, the challenge is filling those job openings.Hyatt, Ivacic explained, has taken an innovative approach to fill those openings in both its corporate offices and on-site at its hotels.Prioritizing Immigrants and at-risk YouthHospitality and leisure is a unique industry in that most jobs do not require a high school diploma or equivalent. With so many avenues to choose from, including front desk work, food and beverage, housekeeping, and management, employees who come in for an entry-level job can easily find themselves rising through the ranks.“It’s really a special industry, because you’re able to really discover a career that you didn’t know existed,” Ivacic said. “When you came in the door, you were just looking for a job, and now that has evolved into a career.”Hyatt has initiatives to prioritize communities with fewer diplomas or formal certifications, such as at-risk youth or immigrants. For example, Hyatt’s Rise High Initiative aims to employ 10,000 at-risk youth before 2025 (with “at risk” described as not in school and not employed).“So this is a typically forgotten about population…but we found that when we invest in them, we get back so much in gains because they’re more loyal. We’ve been able to promote them, and we’ve been able to retain them at higher levels than other employees,” Ivacic explained. “So it takes a little bit more work on the front end with the development, but it’s really hiring that sticks.”She also spoke about immigrants’ historical role in the hospitality industry, especially because many positions do not require a working knowledge of English.The vital part, Ivacic stressed, isn’t whether or not these employees have a specialized skill set yet. When hiring, she often looks for a growth mindset and a willingness to learn so the employee can scale up.“So if they have that growth mindset, then we can really kind of take somebody and move them across a wide variety of positions, again, that they didn’t really know existed,” she explained.Hyatt has also worked to remove barriers to employment for at-risk populations. One of the biggest barriers, Ivacic said, is the lack of access to reliable transportation. So to help, Hyatt launched a pilot program allowing new hires in certain roles to work from home as they grow and learn in their role.Jin Ivacic, the global head of talent acquisition for Hyatt Hotels, was interviewed during the fireside chat session (photo by Tim Hiatt for From Day One) “And it was so successful that we’re doing another [cycle]; we’re actually recruiting for it now. So we’re excited to see that continue to be a pipeline for us,” Ivacic said.For employees who cannot work from home, Hyatt has been testing flex and compressed schedules to take some of the pressure off of employees who do not have access to reliable transportation.Ivacic is also a board member at BUILD (Broader Urban Involvement & Leadership Development) Chicago, a nationally respected gang intervention, violence prevention, and youth development on Chicago’s West Side.Retaining Talent Through Upskilling and Workplace CultureAnother recent challenge, faced by all industries, has been retaining talent. Although Ivacic thinks this will be less of a concern as employees seek more stable jobs in the face of massive layoffs (such as in the tech industry), retaining talent is still one of Hyatt’s primary goals. One of the ways Hyatt aims to retain talent is through its workplace culture, which Ivacic calls the company’s “secret sauce.”“Our purpose is to care for people so they can be their best at Hyatt. We can’t get to the point of caring for people if we don’t know who they are,” Ivacic said. “So, you know, it’s really built in that we have to know people, we have to meet them where they are, we have to support them, we have to develop them along the way.”Some examples of employee development include diversity business resource groups, heritage celebrations, wellness weeks, and gratitude days. Ivacic also explained that she and her colleagues have seen many people return to the company after time apart.She also noted that new hires are especially interested in company culture when interviewing for a new role. They want to know what the company stands for, both in terms of its relationships with its employees and its greater impact on the world. Investing in employees is a considerable part of company culture. Ivacic sees it as intrinsic to keeping talent invested in the company and creating a pipeline where they can work their way up. “So we’ve really just seen that organically happen,” Ivacic said. “And I think a lot of companies are starting to really put action and intentionality around that upskilling theme.” Future Advice for HR ProfessionalsIvacic recommends three pieces of advice for HR professionals working through this challenging time. First, she noted that time is everybody’s most valuable resource. And because hiring is so busy right now, it’s best to save time wherever possible. That might look like using automation tools to cut out some recruiting, hiring, and onboarding work. The second piece of advice is that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for recruiters or HR teams, so testing solutions on a small scale before fully diving in is advisable. Having proof of what works and what doesn’t can help professionals adjust their processes.Lastly, Ivacic stressed that HR professionals need to take time for themselves.“I think this has been a really tough time for all of us. And you know, HR tends to take care of everybody else before themselves,” Ivacic said. “So I think it’s good to kind of pause and protect your personal time as much as you can. Perhaps go on vacation.”Erika Riley is a Maryland-based freelance writer.

Erika Riley | May 18, 2023

How It All Fits Together: Hiring, Equity, Advocacy, and Community

How does a company tie together the roles of chief diversity officer, chief sustainability officer, and chief social impact officer to bring about holistic change? Steve Koepp, chief content officer and co-founder of From Day One, posed this question to Brian Tippens, senior vice president and chief social impact officer at Cisco Systems, to open a discussion on hiring, equity, advocacy, and community, which kicked off From Day One’s Houston conference.Cisco Systems, a company that boasts 80,000 employees, has created a culture in which purposeful work, diversity, equity and inclusion, and social impact operate in concert to make it rank highly as one of the best places to work. In answering Koepp’s question, Tippens noted that organizational constructs such as those at Cisco are starting to combine different pieces related to purpose and impact, as customers truly care about the purpose of the companies they’re doing business with. Currently, certain areas of the workforce are continuing to experience tumult, with hundreds of thousands of workers being laid off, for example, in the technology sector. At the same time, other areas have seen hundreds of thousands of new jobs created in the new year already, Koepp notes. Now that DEI has become a priority to many workers and, presumably, to companies, more workers can pursue opportunities that align with their values and provide the environment they’re looking for, Tippens says.“Gone are the days where every employee has to have a college degree. We can invest in apprenticeships and upskilling programs,” Tippens said. “Certainly, diversity, equity, and inclusion play into how we go out to find that next workforce, which I think is critically important.”Tippens, the senior vice president and chief social impact officer of Cisco, kicked off the Houston conference (photo by Cassandra Sajna for From Day One)Tippens went on to emphasize that the racial reckoning of 2020 particularly influenced how Cisco, which had already been focusing on DEI, now invests even more in social justice and prioritizes having a representative workforce. This effort has included structuring a social justice action office with several areas of focus, including hiring a more diverse workforce, building wealth, and launching even a $50 million venture fund for African American-led startups.“We usually wouldn't talk about the numbers, but it just goes to show how seriously we take this and tie it back to our workforce,” Tippens said. “Our team members really appreciate the fact that we are making investments in communities beyond thoughts and prayers in these troublesome times.”Both Koepp and Tippens acknowledge that picking and choosing what investments will have the biggest impact can be hit-or-miss. Tippens notes that it’s key to communicate with employees to find out what causes they’re passionate about, as well as simply to check in with them about mental wellness amid conversations on social justice, such as the one sparked by the recent murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis. These efforts can be extra challenging as a possible recession looms and budget cuts are disproportionately affecting DEI investments and job positions. “Purpose is best done when it's operationalized inside the business and not just a nice, touchy-feely thing to do over in the corners of HR or the corners of philanthropy,” Tippens said. “You’ve got to treat it like a business, which is not to say you're always going to have an unlimited wallet to invest in good and communities. But you can't cut away those programs when they're very much embedded in the business.”Koepp also questions whether companies are still as committed to doing better on the social-justice front as they promised to be in the wake of the tragic murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor in 2020. Tippens anticipates seeing the media doing some naming and shaming in areas where big players have not followed through. He stresses the need to focus on corporate social responsibility to enhance a company’s image and brand and to ensure that the diversity of a workforce reflects the diversity of the communities where a company does business. He says this kind of work can create some level of competitive advantage to help attract members of Generation Z as companies fight for the best talent.Finally, Tippens believes that the world of work will be forever hybrid from here on. Cisco, having already embraced a hybrid model for its global workforce prior to Covid-19, has been particularly adaptive to workers’ needs. He notes that, while the company is leaving requirements up to managers, it is leading with flexibility rather than mandates.“We also have to think about the inclusion ramifications of that, if there is proximity bias for the people who are in the room versus those who aren't in the room,” he said. “And I worry as we talk about being hybrid, and being dispersed, and not having the benefit of being able to do the water cooler chats and have the mentorship from being in the office. I think that's a bit of the challenge to think through and address.”Emilia Benton is a freelance journalist primarily covering running, health, and fitness, as well as lifestyle, entertainment, and personal finance, among other topics. Her work has appeared in publications such as Runner's World, Women's Running, SELF, Women's Health, and more. Emilia is also a 10-time marathoner and lives in her hometown of Houston with her husband, Omar, and Boston Terrier rescue, Astro.

Emilia Benton | May 18, 2023