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A Key to Retaining Employees: Continuous Coaching and Upskilling

Last year, 4.3 million people, or 3.4% of the U.S. working population, left their jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But this wasn’t something that started with the pandemic. It’s a trend that started in 2009 and continues this year. “The trend is continuously increasing in terms of people who leave voluntarily,” said Madhukar Govindaraju, founder and CEO of Numly, a company that provides solutions for coaching, learning and development, and upskilling. Govindaraju presented a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s virtual conference on “New, Active Approaches to Employee Coaching and Recognition.” The people leaving their jobs at the highest rates are women and, and they aren’t just leaving their jobs and companies; they’re moving internally. “Obviously retention is hard. But hiring has also become very hard,” said Govindaraju. “It’s not just the cost of hiring, but in finding the right talent, paying them the right market salaries, engaging them, and attracting them to your company. And it’s not just hard but getting more difficult. Even if you want to throw dollars at the problem.” Add to this the challenges of hybrid work. “Fifteen or 20 years ago, as a manger or leader in my own organization, I was looking at the same thing. I want my team to be very productive. I want everybody to have flexibility in terms of the choice of work location work time,” Govindaraju said. “And everyone on the team, myself included as leader, wants them to feel a sense of belonging. We felt there was a need to upskill and reskill our teams always.” Now, there are rumbles of anxiety and burnout, and there is uncertainty not just from an economic standpoint, but for employees’ jobs and careers within teams, says Govindaraju. “It's not just a lack of engagement, but active disengagement. Existing programs are not working as well as envisioned.” Companies are looking for for skills beyond the technical, like resilience and empathy. Managers need to extend their abilities in these new skill sets to be more effective in the world of remote work–leadership, problem solving, and critical thinking alike. That requires coaching, says Govindaraju. Numly CEO Madhukar Govindaraju (Photo courtesy of Numly) E-learning works in certain areas, he says, “and without e-learning, you can’t embark on developing your teams. When we extend training with coaching it makes a big difference.” Training can mean e-learning, workshops, and other development programs. The productivity numbers that result from the combination of these different types of training show this is “a slam dunk,” Govindaraju said. Combining these types of training can result in four times the productivity and five times the engagement among employees who do both traditional training and have access to coaching. Coaching actually improves the efficacy of learning delivered in other manners. “If you think of doing this not just quarterly, or assigning 25 hours of learning and coaching to managers and top talent, but rather do it across the entire organization,” said Govindaraju, you can quickly see the return on the investment. Coaching Is Different Now Traditional coaching is usually freeform, one-on-one, on-off, involves bringing in outside experts, and produces results that are difficult to measure. The new kind of coaching is different. It includes structured, guided conversations; it is offered universally, is many-to-many rather than one-to-one, and it is ongoing and continuous. Success isn’t measured by skill level pre- and post- training, nor just engagement. You should know whether people are working together, how many sessions happen each week, and the satisfaction rating of each session. You want to know not just how many people participated, but how many completed the programs. “What you can’t measure won’t improve,” he said. You need to find out if users feel psychologically safe during the process, and if there is assurance of privacy– something that HR leaders have told Numly repeatedly is important to any coaching platform. Turning Managers Into Coaches Start with external coaches, says Govindaraju, and have them work with your managers to become coaches themselves. “They aren’t just coached how to coach, but required to practice coaching. Then we take the network of leaders and managers and incorporate them into a network where they can coach their teams and others within the organization.” They need to develop skills to be effective coaches, including those related to dialogue, such as active listening, emotional intelligence, teamwork, empowering and providing recognition, as well as development skills like providing powerful feedback and fostering a growth mindset. These are some of the critical skills needed to coach with confidence, says Govindaraju. “Coaching always correlates better KPIs,” Govindaraju said. “Across the board, according to a study that Google did about what’s the No. 1 factor for people to stay within their company, it was not benefits, not any other compensation related things, or the economy or whatever. It was psychological safety. And if you look at coaching, it improves team functioning, increases engagement, and of course, productivity. Most importantly, it creates a foundation and a very strong trust network of psychological safety within your organization. And you can absolutely expect higher retention within every small unit, your team, your organization, or a division or a company at large.” Lisa Jaffe is a freelance writer who lives in Seattle with her son and a very needy rescue dog named Ellie Bee. She enjoys reading, long walks on the beach, and trying to get better at ceramics.

Lisa Jaffe | December 29, 2022

Making Work Meaningful in an Uncertain World

Earlier this year, the company formerly known as Waste Management got a major rebranding: it’s now known as WM. “It wanted to be known for more than picking up trash. We’re in the center of the circular logistics of sustainability,” Shweta Kurvey-Mishra, WM’s VP of organizational and talent development, said during a From Day One webinar titled, “Making Work Meaningful in an Uncertain World,” moderated by Fast Company senior editor Lydia Dishman. Companies wanting to be known for more than their services and products are in line with the fact that, in the last few years–and especially since the pandemic disrupted our routines, habits, and workflow–people have been expressing the desire to delve deeper in their purpose and their employer’s. Fifty-six percent of the 3,500 respondents of a Gartner survey maintained the pandemic made them want to contribute more to society and, on the other hand, a Harris Poll found out that 86% of business-to-business leaders claim purpose is indeed important, but half of them say they lack the capacity to center their company’s values around it. Yet shifting beyond business results is what makes employees shift from an “I have to go to work” mindset to “I get to go to work,” the panelists asserted. Among the highlights of the conversation: Towards a ‘People First’ Approach  “What gives me fulfillment is to help people, scaffold them and help them through their journey and sort of matchmaking them to the ideal opportunities in our company,” said Heather Wollerman, who at the time of the webinar was the VP of HR and global talent management at the industrial-technology company Enpro Industries. (She is now a VP of talent management at McGraw Hill.) This year, for instance, Enpro started piloting a Purpose Workshop for employees at all levels. The core question is asking people what they’d want to accomplish in a lifetime, and then applying whatever answer they give to the work environment. This matchmaking mindset also permeates Weill Cornell Medicine, where Eric Saidel, a senior director of HR, finds purpose in helping “each individual member to some aspect of our mission,” he said. “The key is connecting people to that mission.” On that note, last year WM launched an Employee Value Proposition Campaign, which revolves around six Cs, which include culture, colleagues, and contribution (among others). “We created Lunch and Learn, with active lunches where people would talk about what C they were being impacted by,” Kurvey-Mishra said. The webinar’s speakers, top row from left: Shweta Kurvey-Mishra of WM and moderator Lydia Dishman of Fast Company. Bottom row: Eric Saidel of Weill Cornell Medicine, Heather Wollerman of Enpro Industries, and Katharine Anderson of Light & Wonder (Image by From Day One) These efforts, however, can transcend physical proximity. At Light & Wonder, which provides gambling products and services, a recent launch was a Global Diversity Calendar. For example, when one joins a meeting with employees connecting from different countries and cultures, one might not know what holidays are being celebrated outside one’s own country, and it also lists a number of events and historical areas of significance related to a particular place. “It was to ensure employees would see the world as global in scope,” said Katharine Anderson, Light & Wonder’s director of HR service center operations. Making Peace With Work Being a Work in Progress  Sure, those initiatives are not a one-stop success formula. “There is more work to do,” said Kurvey-Mishra. “How can we reach the desk-free population in a meaningful way?” In fact, while WM workers do have on-board mobile units in their trucks, they’re prohibited from actively using their cell phone while on shift for safety concerns. Another issue is about balancing people with profits. “I don’t think we've quite figured that out yet,” said Wollman. “It’s something we’ve been talking about but we don't have the magic solution.” A good start, for them, is moving away from traditional performance-review management, which is substituted by periodical engagement questions on a particular topic. A typical topic would be “psychological safety.” In this case, the health-care industry has been a bit ahead of the pack. “We always had the structure of direct feedback,” said Saidel. “If you have a positive encounter with a patient, there’s this opportunity to feel connected to the work that we do.” A way to make the intended points come across more poignantly, however, is through sharing information about the company’s successes in breakthroughs in research and medicine. Meeting Generation Z’s Standards Gen Z, which will make up to 27% of the workforce by 2025, is quite preoccupied with finding a workplace that honors humanitarian, environmental, and social-justice causes, “So, every interview that we hear, we’re creating metrics about what is important for our candidates, and we’re using that to inform our advertising. The storytelling has to be internal too. Anecdotally visible, but also through data and metrics,” said Kurvey-Mishra. “They stay because they understand the mission that we’re on.” That, of course, means looking beyond their product offering in a significant way. The same applies to the health care industry. “We use a lot of water,” said Saidel, singling out the research departments. “Not only is it important to the environment and to the world, but also to the candidates we want to attract. We’re getting those questions. What are we doing to make the world a better place beyond saving lives, treating diseases and advancing research?” Anderson outlined that, upon hiring her company’s first head of corporate social responsibility (CSR), a strategy soon followed. “What we have is four pillars: environmental sustainability; corporate giving; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives; and responsible gaming, because for us as an industry that’s an important area,” she said. “In all of those areas, there are continuous initiatives and efforts, and we drive efforts that encourage their involvement.” It can start with small steps: one way to reduce waste is, for example, curb the use of single-use cups, said Anderson. “Rather than keeping a lot of disposable cups, we went ahead and issued hot-cold mugs in the organization at the Las Vegas office.” Angelica Frey is a writer and a translator based in Milan and Boston.

Angelica Frey | December 29, 2022

Strategies for Coaching Excellence in a Legendary Agency

Early in her career, when she was a software technician, Karen Gilliam, PhD, had to teach an engineer at the company she was working for how to use a software package. Usually, she would proceed in one-on-one sessions. Her boss remarked on how helpful her teaching methods had been and suggested she develop a full-fledged class to teach. “I never taught a class,” Gilliam said. “I was a behind-the-scenes software technician. He could see something in me I could not see myself, and that was the beginning of a productive and meaningful career for me.” Gilliam is now the agency chief learning officer and 0rganizational-development capability lead for NASA. In fact, after occupying managerial positions in communications agencies, higher-education establishments, and environmental services organizations, Gilliam has now been at NASA for the past decade, having started out as chief of the Human Capital Development division. Throughout her tenure, the importance of learning has remained at the forefront. Gilliam shared what she has learned during a fireside chat titled, “Strategies for Coaching Excellence in a Legendary Agency,” as part of From Day One’s May virtual conference on employee coaching and recognition. From a practical standpoint, Gilliam is a proponent of a three-fold strategy when it comes to coaching, a balance between external coaches, internal practitioners, and managers being taught coaching skills. External vendors came in handy in times of stagnating budgets. “We needed a service where we could have 1:1 coaching services, individual assessment, on-demand resources, and curated materials,” she said. “We have rolled this out, officially for all new executives, and then focused on our new supervisors.” Upon promotion at NASA, one has the opportunity to have a coach. “One of the things I like is that we get periodic reports. They’re very informative in terms of letting us know what’s of most importance,”  said Gilliam. “Where do we see some strengths, [or] content we need to focus on more?” For the internal coaches, the International Coaching Federation (ICF) training program is mandatory, but they can elect to do additional work beyond that. At NASA, there are quite a few internal coaches in the Human Capital division, but it’s not unheard of to have a scientist or an engineer who decided that coaching was something they were drawn to. “We use them in some of our development programs, and we add a coaching component,” said Gilliam. The third strategy consists of teaching managers about coaching skills. “That’s something that, at one of our centers, was required,” Gilliam said, while it was an option for those who had a supervisory or management position. Fireside chat: Kelly Yamanouchi, a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, left, interviewed Karen Gilliam of NASA (Image by From Day One) A further component of Gilliam’s methods at NASA is the so-called 70/20/10 approach, which goes back to the 1980s, when it started as a way to measure how seasoned managers learned: 70% was an on-the-job experience, such as a stretch assignment or a rotation; 20% fell into “exposure,” where one gains additional learning by having a mentor through coaching and communities. Finally, 10% is both informal and formal learning. On a more theoretical level, Gilliam’s book Finding Your Voice in a World That Needs It is a continuation of her doctoral studies, bridging storytelling and leadership, and it has practical coaching applications, too. It advocates for finding one’s own voice, meaning one’s soul's code. “I believe everyone has a signature purpose, and finding a voice is not a destination, it’s a journey,” she said. “And the findings from my research suggests that as long as one of the four universal dimensions of life are in the story, that’s the connective glue–those dimensions are living, loving, learning, and leaving a legacy.” Learning, already a key component in Gilliam’s methodology, aligns with NASA’s culture of continuous education. “NASA has been long committed to fostering a culture of continuous learning; it’s part of our DNA, she said. “At this particular time, supervisors are all going through performance reviews. One of the requirements is to identify one of the strategic objectives that tie into a critical element of your performance plan.” Leaders, in particular, are continuous learners. “Being a leader is a learning journey,” Gilliam said, adding that characteristics of a good leader include having focus, a vision, being a planner, a team-builder, a promoter, and being fair. “Those are all places that are a good start. Leadership is an inside-out job–I don’ believe you get to a point where you’re done.” This view entails showing grace towards the idea of unconscious bias, which can be better understood through self-awareness. “We all have our biases, and it’s not that I don’t want to label them as bad. They’re shortcuts, and it’s a way to categorize information that’s coming for us. When it can be harmful is when you’re holding on to beliefs without questioning them,” she said. “It starts with self-awareness, with educating yourself.” Angelica Frey is a writer and a translator based in Milan and Boston.

Angelica Frey | December 29, 2022

How Organizations are Rethinking Coaching, Training, and Development

Marriott International is embarking on a massive technical transformation in its hotels in the coming years, which means 120,000 employees will need to be trained on the new systems put in place. So what will that training look like in a post-pandemic, hybrid work environment? “We have a strong focus right now on designing what will that learning strategy be to get folks up to speed more quickly,” said Jayana Garvey,VP of global performance and brand talent advisory for Marriott, during a panel discussion titled “Innovative Ways to Build Skills in a Hybrid Workplace” at From Day One’s Washington, D.C. conference. The days of week-long, in-person training to learn a new system are gone, Garvey says. “We’re seeing an exploration and shift in terms of learning and the flow of work.” That shift includes delivering tips and skills-based content in a more invisible way throughout an employee’s workflow. “Rather than sitting through four days of training on how to use that new piece of technology, you will be served up prompts and information in the flow of using it,” Garvey said, while comparing the concept to getting a new iPhone. “When you get it, you just know how it works. You don’t need to read five manuals. It guides you. It prompts you.” Developing Soft Skills  Marriott, like many other organizations, is trying to figure out how to build skills in a hybrid workplace, in particular, those so-called soft skills. “It’s just more impactful when you can hear things and do things daily,” Garvey said, while noting that many of Marriott’s general managers do a daily standup with their people so they can deliver information every day that helps drive performance in the business. “I think we'll be seeing more and more of that, where you're figuring out how to embed it in one's day to day where it doesn't always feel like a one and done event.” The U.S. General Services Administration, which manages and supports the functioning of federal government agencies, is taking a similar, organic approach to training, sharing information, and relying on personal interaction to develop leadership and management skills, says Merrick Krause, GSA’s deputy chief human capital officer. “We’ve been actually trying to move away from the term soft skills and into just skills or I think of it as leadership,” Krause said. “And it’s leadership training all the way up. That’s something that we’re trying to build into the career paths for at least our mission-critical jobs and then hopefully many others–this idea of soft skills development and skills development that follows someone throughout their whole career arc.” Other panelists said they rely on outside sources, such as LinkedIn courses, to ensure that employees and candidates have the core qualifications needed. “One of the things we were able to do very successfully during Covid was to implement our connection with our learning management system to LinkedIn. We now have a strategy for developing others that includes the first-level supervisor, all the way up to the leadership team that is congruent,” said Lin Burton, chief learning officer with the U.S. Department of Justice. “The second step is to take those skills and embed them within the engagement. We’re not only practicing it, but we’re giving them an opportunity to apply and others to observe.” Meeting Worker Development Goals Through Coaching Career coaching also took on new importance during the pandemic, says Sarah Sheehan, co-founder and president of Bravely, an employee coaching company. “The No. 1 reason that people are using coaching is for development,” she said. Young employees, in particular, expect to have development resources–including coaching–available to them. “We’ve seen a huge shift over the last couple of years, and that this next generation, they’re not going to stay at your company for very long, potentially. But the expectation is that you’re going to serve them while they’re there and you’re going to give them everything that they want and the need to be successful and develop is one of them. They want to figure out how to get to the next level.” Hannah Denham of the Washington Business Journal moderated the panel discussion But even beyond professional development, coaching can give employees a sense of connection with their organization and their fellow employees, says Krause. “When Covid hit, it rapidly became clear also that coaching and mentoring was really necessary. I think even more necessary when people were separated,” he said. “Now we've evolved our coaching to all grade levels, including executives [who] are required to have coaches.” Junior employees are generally coached internally, but for supervisors through management, GSA makes sure external coaching is available, “and I think that’s been very popular,” said Krause. The Department of Justice also introduced coaching–and leadership coaching in particular–at the beginning of the pandemic, Burton says. “We did leadership coaching at every level,” she said. Teams received not only executive coaching in conjunction with George Washington University, but also peer coaching from those who have gone through the GWU program. “We see a lot of movement and staff value for the work that they’re doing and how it's really helping them in the work that they do and how they vision their careers,” said Burton. Supporting the Individual In many cases, delivering training in a hybrid work environment comes down to recognizing and supporting the individual, whatever their learning style, Sheehan says. “When you think about historical learning and development programs, everybody gets the same content. We’re not the same, we’re uniquely different. It’s really important to think about, you know, who your people are individually, and what their goals are and create development plans based on that because my skills are different than your skills.” Sheryll Poe is a freelance journalist based in Alexandria, Va.

Sheryll Poe | December 29, 2022

Modern Management: ‘Growth Doesn’t Happen by Creating Goals You Already Know How to Achieve’

The world of work is changing, and so is the role of a manager, asserts Jon Greenawalt, SVP of customer transformation at 15Five, a platform for performance management. While it’s a daunting task at a time of so much disruption, building the managers of tomorrow is vital to an organization’s success, Greenawalt said in a presentation titled, “The Rise of The Modern Manager,” part of From Day One’s recent conference in Los Angeles. As the era of mass resignation ends, Greenawalt believes employees are looking to build stability at their current jobs. Yet statistics show productivity and job engagement are in serious decline. “Only 33% of employees worldwide consider themselves engaged in their work,” said Greenawalt. “But we know that engagement matters.” Effective managers are imperative to keeping employees engaged, but remote and hybrid work models have presented ongoing challenges. Greenawalt maintains that if companies work to build environments where employees feel supported and heard, productivity will follow.  When utilized by managers, changing attitudes about work environments can motivate employees. Remote work, a solution for the foreseeable future, has caused employees to shift priorities. “They want leaders and managers who care about them and support them in their career growth and development,” said Greenawalt. With talent development in mind, managers can act as an extension of an HR team. Employees “want to work for managers who care about them as the whole person, not just the work person–the whole human being.” Today’s managers are having something of an identity crisis. Greenawalt cited a survey indicating that 40% of employees believe their manager failed to communicate honestly with them about work. Communication issues then lead to more work for HR, including worker retention. However, the modern manager can be an antidote to lingering problems of the past. “The modern manager is self-aware,” said Greenawalt. One of the ways the modern manager succeeds is by building strong relationships. “A good manager knows how to create a culture on their team that is aligned with the values, goals, and mission.” Better communication, he said, can be as simple as opening meetings with chatting about hobbies and topics outside of work to engage employees on a personal level.  Indeed, positivity is a game-changer in the workplace. “We are sponges of people’s energy. How you show up has a direct, immediate impact on people,” Greenawalt said. Positivity can be employed in both feedback and goal-setting. Presenting an observation instead of criticism in a difficult conversation can help employees absorb feedback. In goal-setting, Greenawalt says it’s essential not just to set targets but also to include breakthrough goals that inspire employees to go above and beyond what they believe are their limitations. This encourages a growth mindset that Greenawalt believes is paramount in successful employees. “Growth doesn’t happen by creating ordinary goals you already know how to achieve.” Greenawalt is confident that modern managers will overcome newfound challenges by deploying these skills in the modern workplace. Modern-management development needs to happen in hard skills and soft skills that can be harder to master and more nuanced. “It’s got to be continuous. It’s got to be experiential. You also have to give people the opportunity to have breakthroughs in their own thinking.” Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, 15Five, who sponsored this thought leadership spotlight. Maddie Connors is a comedian and writer based in Los Angeles who has written for the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and W magazine. She currently hosts a stand-up show called Icons Only at the Elysian theater and her stand-up has been featured in the Los Angeles Times.  

Maddie Connors | December 28, 2022

To Improve Communication at Work, Aim to Understand Employee Motivation

It’s always been difficult to maintain meaningful connections with colleagues, said Casey Wahl, founder and CEO of Attuned, a company that studies intrinsic motivation in the workplace, but “with the scale of things and the speed of things, it’s getting exponentially difficult.” In opposition are two “forces,” as he puts it. The first is our natural limit, our ability to maintain only a finite number of meaningful relationships. The second is that technology multiplies the number of connections we need to maintain and the ways we’re expected to maintain them. “All of this busy-ness is limiting our brain capacity to keep track and really understand and motivate and build those deep connective relationships with our team,” said Wahl. When there are so many connections to make and endless ways of making them, how do you form strong relationships at work? I interviewed Wahl about this for a recent webinar hosted by From Day One, titled “Solving Miscommunication at Scale.” His theory is that by understanding one’s own intrinsic motivation, as well as that of others–think values like autonomy, competition, innovation, progress, and social relationships–we can make meaningful connections and communicate effectively in the workplace. Understanding Motivation to Resolve Conflict According to Wahl, conflict arises when one individual’s values don’t align with another’s, and miscommunication happens when we don’t know what that other person values. If employees are made aware of this, then disagreements in the workplace become less about who is to blame, who is the problem, and more about reaching an agreement. For example, one of Attuned’s clients encountered a problem of mismatched values. After a disgruntled former employee returned to the office and vandalized company property, leaders agreed that every time an employee departs, the building would be rekeyed. An expensive policy, but understandable given the damage. When another employee left just a few months later under more amicable terms, the new rekeying process was initiated, but one leader resisted. After all, they had just paid to rekey the building, and it wasn’t cheap. The chief of operations insisted on adhering to the new plan. The resisting manager didn’t value process as much as he valued financial matters, and the COO was more keen on process. When those conflicting values met, conflict ensued. Journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, at top, interviewed Attuned CEO Casey Wahl (Image by From Day One) “We can’t see why somebody is approaching a problem a particular way because we just generally don’t have this information available,” Wahl said. “That’s just not visible for us, and most of us don’t have the techniques to pick it up.” But when you do have that information about how someone is thinking and feeling, you can develop respect rather than conflict. Why Would We Check Our Empathy at the Office Door? We do this in our relationships outside of the workplace—practice empathy and work to understand other perspectives—so why not in the office? Wahl suspects it’s to do with the hard line of separation people want to maintain between work life and home life. There’s value to that demarcation, to be sure, but why not learn from the relationship-building we undergo in our personal relationships? Wahl argued that “if you can use something where you can see my values, you can see what’s most important to me, we can have an honest conversation pretty quickly, and we can break through some of those things much, much faster.” Beginning with Self-Understanding Before focusing on what motivates others, self-understanding should be cultivated, said Wahl. He likened it to the pre-flight safety briefing instructions: “Put on your own oxygen mask first.” “You need to understand yourself and what is driving your emotions or your feelings or your behaviors,” he said. “The benefit for an individual is that you’re going to make better decisions if you know that this type of project, or this type of work, or this type of team gets me excited.” But cultivating self-awareness and an understanding of others’ values is a practice, not a one-time evaluation. Motivation is a result of personal experiences and environment, Wahl believes, and as those influences change, so do our motivations. “Feeling a big emotional impact from something can change our value set, but those change quite slowly. The key is the uniqueness of it,” he said. Building Psychological Safety In one-on-one conversations, gauging an employee’s values can be as simple as asking, “What’s important to you?” Understanding the individual motivations of 11,000 employees is more challenging. Solving miscommunication requires psychological safety, or, as Wahl put it, a workplace where employees can say what they believe without fear of penalty. Knowing that others have values that differ from your own and that those values should be respected is a way of building psychological safety into company culture. “It’s the unwritten rules,” he said. “The way we do things around here.” Embedding the importance of individual values into company culture translates to better communication across an organization. Wahl recommended making it clear that “we’re going to understand each person’s motivations and values. We’re going to have this combination of psychological safety plus intrinsic motivation, so each individual is being motivated, is being inspired in the way that they need, and you put those two together, then you can do it at scale.” Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner who sponsored this webinar, Attuned. Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance reporter who writes about the workplace, recruiting, HR, and women’s experiences at work. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Digiday’s Worklife, and Fast Company.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | December 28, 2022

Anticipating the Job Skills of the Future

In response to the tight labor market, especially in the tech sector, cutting-edge companies are investing more in training their current workforce to meet employment needs of the future. Four HR executives at forward-thinking organizations discussed what they anticipate to be the job market needs around the corner with journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, who moderated a From Day One webinar titled, “Anticipating the Job Skills of the Future.” The speakers focused on the fast pace of change, especially in digital fields. “Customer service has completely changed during the past few years,” said Judith Almendra-Rodriguez, VP of global human capital and talent acquisition at TTEC, a customer-experience tech and services company. While communication and service orientation are still key, now this role also requires complex problem solving, analytical skills, and a lot more cognitive flexibility. “The basic [customer service] things have been completely automated,” she said, “So now, you are dealing with a much more complex interactions, and multiple software. And as the market got tighter, there became a lot more jobs available than people looking for those opportunities. It’s an area that we need to continue to upskill.” This is the kind of transition HR managers and other business executives are trying to anticipate. The mass exodus from the office to work-from-home brought about other changes too. “The last two years taught us the importance of the ability to inspire and lead teams, and manage through significant change,” said Giselle Battley, senior director and global head of early-career talent at JLL, a commercial real-estate services company. She anticipates those trends to persist in the future. Rachel Lipson, co-founder and director of the Project on Workforce at Harvard University’s Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, flagged resilience as another skill that became a “must-have” during the pandemic. Tamara Jolivette-Smith, director of HR at Houston Methodist, one of the largest medical centers in the world, added that having an open mind about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is crucially important. “Embracing how that applies in your organization is also a necessary skill,”she said. McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza asked what kinds of jobs and job functions are most in need of upskilling. Lipson pointed to the tech sector in general as the toughest talent to hire, but added that companies need to also think about future needs. “The jobs that are growing the fastest now and will continue to do so are those jobs that have a mix of technical and soft skills,” she said. “So not just pure programmers or pure data scientists, but dual players who are needed to deal with humans and work in teams–and lead and manage–but also have strong technical competencies. Building skills like communication, management and teamwork, and leadership are going to transfer easily from role to role and also persist over the course of someone's career.” Expert speakers, top row from left: Rachel Lipson of Harvard University and Giselle Battley of JLL. Bottom row: moderator Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, Judith Almendra-Rodriguez of TTEC, and Tamara Jolivette-Smith of Houston Methodist (Image by From Day One) How can organizations identify specific skills that need updating within an organization?Almendra-Rodriguez pointed out the importance of a robust assessment tool. TTEC launched a platform tool that combines performance management, talent assessments, mentorship programs, rotation, and e-learning into one single platform. This tool allows for self-assessment or peer-assessment. Jolivette-Smith said that Houston Medical relies on a partnership between HR leaders and executive leaders, as well as employee focus groups, to get an understanding of where the skill gaps are and develop a plan for filling those gaps. As far as how the actual training gets done, Battley explained that JLL has several initiatives. “We have a very robust learning and leadership development team that is constantly working hand-in-hand with the business to identify what the key skills needed are, and what the learning journey should be within each of our business lines,” she said. JLL recently created a talent-partner role, which focuses on understanding where the skill gaps are, where the future of the business is headed with our current talent landscape, and helping to bridge all of those things together. McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza brought up that a strong culture of DEI in an organization be a huge talent attractor, and asked how that can be used for recruiting. Lipson, who has studied this, explained that creating opportunities for work-based learning, especially for those who might not have had the economic opportunity to achieve an advanced education, needs to be more of priority for companies in attracting and keeping a diverse, skilled workforce. “We can learn from other countries that have invested much more heavily in apprenticeships,” she said. Battley added that it’s important for companies to walk the talk of DEI by offering in-house training and also  promoting from within. More than 80% of JLL’s leadership team has grown within the company, based on a continuous commitment to employee development, she said. “It’s key that we actually execute the StrengthsFinder assessment for early-career professionals early on in the recruitment process,” added Almendra-Rodriguez. “We need to show our commitment to understanding where their strengths and not necessarily just their gaps are, and show our commitment to continuing to work on their strengths along the way.” Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner who sponsored this webinar, Lever, which provides employers with recruiting software. Jennifer Haupt is a Seattle-based author and journalist.

Jennifer Haupt | December 28, 2022

Inclusion: ‘It’s About Evoking a Culture Change–Not Just Checking Boxes’

Instead of recruiting employees who are a “culture fit” to reach benchmarks for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), experts say some introspection might be a better use of your time in the new year. “It’s important when you look at inclusivity to look not just at the demographics, but also the way people want to work–and how they want to work,” said Darren Chiappetta, VP and global head of employee relations and policy for Sony Pictures Entertainment. “The workforce has expectations that senior leadership might not share. The workforce wants to be respected, and emerging workers are a lot more supportive and curious about diversity and belonging.” Clear DE&I initiatives are increasingly important for companies as they try to attract and retain the next generation of top talent. Four out of five members of Generation Z, the segment of the population born between 1997 and 2012, say it’s important for companies to address DEI, according to a survey by the market-research firm Quantilope. Experts say the priority needs to come from the top down. “If you have an organization where leadership is not committed to using DE&I tools to run a better business, you’re not going to succeed,” said Mason Williams, global head of DE&I for toymaker Mattel. “So you have to hold your leaders accountable. We’re in an age now where we can hold leadership accountable,” he said in a panel discussion titled, “Is Your Company Developing an Inclusive Culture?” part of From Day One’s recent conference in Los Angeles. Among the highlights of the conversation, moderated by reporter Jonathan Landrum Jr. of the Associated Press:  Incorporate Inclusion Effort Into All Departments  Inclusion metrics are often siloed into numbers related to headcount or advertising. The experts urged company leaders in attendance to go deeper and look at ways to weave diversity into the very fabric of their company culture. “Studios are the factories that build content,” said Chiappetta. “The [entertainment] industry has not always been the easiest place to break into. So for us, part of this is making sure the stories are more varied and inclusive. That means bringing people who have these lived experiences into the writer’s room. It includes the camera people, the hair and makeup artists, everyone.” Associated Press reporter Jonathan Landrum Jr. moderated the discussion Stacie de Armas, the SVP of DE&I, diverse insights, intelligence, and initiatives for the audience-measuring company Nielsen, challenged attendees to go even further with how they define and incorporate inclusion. “At Nielsen, one way we approach inclusion is to take those same DE&I principles and apply them to our products and services. When we think about something like inclusion in content, one of the things we wanted to do was operationalize inclusion, so that it doesn’t need to be counted manually. We asked ourselves the question: ‘Could we build this into our work streams?’ This idea of taking DEI and operationalizing it means that everyone can evaluate more effectively, and this also helps brands objectively look at content output.” Several panelists noted that younger workers may be too intimidated to speak up, but that they have ample data at their fingertips to form perceptions and opinions of company culture for themselves. “There’s this discomfort with telling the truth,” said Odessa Jenkins, president of Emtrain, a workplace culture e-learning and analytics company. “These new generations of workers are enabled with data in a way that past generations were not. They are born data-literate.” External communications on online forums like Glassdoor and Fishbowl, an app where professionals can go to have semi-anonymous workplace conversations, can also shape company perception in the eyes of younger employees. Jenkins emphasized that, to deal with these outside reviews, companies must take control of the conversation via clear and demonstrable messaging. “If you don’t define what your components of culture are, you will be beholden to that external information,” she said. “The other thing that’s really important is this: What are your mission and values? And are you allowing those to be cannibalized by these external things? If you have a strong position on who you are, what your core values are, and what your objectives are, that will drown out external noise.” Panelists emphasized that a company’s approach to inclusion can’t be cookie cutter, and must integrate well with current company culture. “I don’t think it’s a one-size-fits-all,’” said Deborah Kuness, senior business psychologist for Workday, which provides enterprise cloud applications for HR and finance. “The important thing is to not be afraid to open up these conversations with our own people. As Mason said earlier, it doesn’t need to be complicated.” Connect DE&I Back to Business Outcomes “Do leaders respect the data behind DE&I?” Landrum asked. “Or is there skepticism about it?” “You align it to their business outcomes,” Jenkins said. “The truth is that most leaders don’t have a great understanding of what’s happening deep down in their organizations. And really, they shouldn’t. I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact that we are still running a business, that we are still for-profit, when we try to prioritize diversity. Be fair to your board of directors, and your C-Suite, and show them what you’re out to do.” De Armas agreed, citing the shift in how consumers shop. “Consumers want to invest in brands that are doing good, and this wasn’t a priority before 2020 and before George Floyd. In 2020, everyone began to care about who they were spending their dollar with. In that moment, DE&I changed; it moved away from something about [employee resource groups] and supplier diversity and into the spotlight.” Acknowledging the work still to be done can be a productive step toward a more diverse and inclusive workplace, said Kuness. “It’s about evoking a culture change–not just checking boxes.” Nick Wolny is a senior editor at NextAdvisor, in partnership with TIME. He has previously written for Fast Company, Fortune, Business Insider, Entrepreneur Magazine, and OUT Magazine, and was named a “40 under 40” by the Houston Business Journal in 2021.

Nick Wolny | December 27, 2022

How Leaders Can Cultivate Trust in a Changing World of Work

Your people don’t work for the company. They are the company. This was one of many takeaways from presentation by Tran Andrada, sales engineering manager at HiBob, an HR platform named last month as one of Time magazine’s best new inventions. “If you get the culture right, everything else will follow suit,” she said. “Culture is how we feel at work. A lot of the successful businesses out there today are the ones that fostered culture, then leveraged it to scale the success of the business.” Every leader wants to empower their team at work. But what happens when the very definition of work itself is changing? Andrada shared tips with attendees at From Day One’s recent conference in Los Angeles. Among the highlights: Why Culture Is Shifting Andrada noted that the definition of culture is in transition because the world of work is in transition–in more ways than one. A job used to shape much of a person’s identity, she said. Employees worked full time, at an office, probably in a city, and with little or no technology. These days, “work” includes considerations like: •Location independence: Building systems that allow for flexibility and enable work-from-home arrangements. •Avoiding burnout: Addressing hybrid work, life-work balance, and mental health initiatives. •Identity and belonging: Awareness of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. Shifts like this are what led HiBob co-founder Ronni Zehavi to start documenting his personal interactions across the corporate ladder, from C-level executives to employees and line managers, Andrada said. Since 2015, Zehavi has interacted with over 3,000 customers around the globe, and incorporates the ways work has transformed into the company’s offerings and overall value proposition. HiBob opened its first office in London in 2016, offering HR solutions in Europe, then opened a New York City office two years later. The HR unicorn’s technologies have attracted sizeable investments. HiBob has had three recent funding rounds: a $26.5 million Series A in 2019, a $70 million Series B in 2020, and a $150 million Series C in 2021, for a current valuation of $1.65 billion. As Companies Scale, Culture Often Begins to Erode Scale often leads to culture erosion and attrition, said Andrada. More perilously, employees who leave sometimes go to your competitors. HiBob uses what they company calls the “triple T” to jumpstart culture: trust, transparency, and teamwork. “Even though our corporate headquarters are in Tel Aviv, our CEO hosts a global, all-hands call once a month,” she said. The company uses this call to cultivate transparency; Andrada cited one recent call in which Zehavi narrated a recent slide deck he had presented to the company’s board. Even if companies aren’t growing in size, their workforces are changing, and younger employees value work differently than their predecessors. In one data set, 15% of chief HR officers said company vision was at least somewhat relevant to resignations on the part of their employees. But at those same companies, 62% of employees cited company vision as relevant, a notable discrepancy. Andrada also cited research that outlined the “top 5 aspects of work viewed by employees as “very important” for an employer to provide.”  1.) Positive culture (48%). 2.) Mental health and/or well-being benefits (42%). 3.) A sense of purpose/meaning (40%). 4.) Flexible work (38%). 5.) More than the standard two weeks of paid vacation time each year (36%). As for continuing to navigate the shifting world of work, Andrada said a trust-first approach can keep employees connected and engaged, even when they’re thousands of miles away from each other. “When you build a culture of trust, the ‘Am I producing at the same level at home as I would if I were in the office?’ conversation will go away,” she said. “As Simon Sinek likes to say: ‘Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.’” Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, HiBob, who sponsored this thought leadership spotlight. Nick Wolny is a senior editor at NextAdvisor, in partnership with TIME. He has previously written for Fast Company, Fortune, Business Insider, Entrepreneur Magazine, and OUT Magazine, and was named a “40 under 40” by the Houston Business Journal in 2021.

Nick Wolny | December 27, 2022

Building a Better Talent Pipeline to Tap a Broader Workforce

“One of the beauties of civil service is that the community is happy to tell you where the gap lies,” said Dana Brown with a knowing smile. “So, the city of Los Angeles has certainly risen to the occasion,” added Brown, general manager of the City of Los Angeles Personnel Department.  Brown spoke at the beginning of a panel discussion on improving the talent pipeline to tap a larger, more diverse cohort of potential workers, part of From Day One’s recent conference in Los Angeles. Panelist Adam Gefkovicz, co-founder and co-CEO of Untapped, a recruiting platform with an emphasis on diversity, said he poses two questions to prospective clients: “No. 1, can you identify the composition of your pipeline? And then no. 2, can you figure out where there’s a discrepancy and ultimately improve those?” In his work of consulting with hundreds of companies, Gefkovicz found that most companies are still answering the first question. A factor that’s revolutionizing the talent search is artificial intelligence (AI). Mary Burke, the SVP and head of HR for Experian consumer services, said  that Experian utilizes AI to screen descriptions to ensure inclusive language. At the hiring stage, Burke explained that it could be as simple as “making sure that your interview slate is diverse.” Otherwise, you might “have an all-male candidate interview slate, which inadvertently creates bias in how you select candidates.” Flexibility is also key to opening up the possibilties, she added. “We don’t require anybody to come to the office. We go where the talent is, and that does open up accessibility, especially as we try to hire more people with disabilities.” Said McCulloch of Taco Bell: “It’s pretty cool for people just to feel like they’re part of something bigger and helping to solve the big challenge” Yet AI has drawn increasing scrutiny for its flaws in diverse hiring, said Lauren Ptak, chief marketing officer for the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. When AI is trained on historical data sets, they will have reflected biases. Ptak has been working to offset this. “We consulted with the city of New York on a law going into effect in 2023, where employers cannot employ technology that does not go through annual bias audits.” As technology is implemented for greater ease and efficiency, Ptak asserted that we should ensure that it’s not intentionally being used to perpetuate bias.  One of the more powerful ways to attract new talent is to make the corporate culture well-known for its spirit of inclusion. Kelly McCulloch, global chief people officer for Taco Bell, decided to take a novel approach to inclusion as part of the company’s celebration of its 60th birthday: she hired Disney Imagineering to bring fresh perspective. McCulloch expressed the importance of making everyone feel included through setting up incubator sessions fielded by a Disney Imagineer. “It’s pretty cool for people just to feel like they’re part of something bigger and helping to solve the big challenge,” she said. Once talent is brought aboard, the issue becomes retention. The city of LA’s Brown offered the analogy that inclusivity could act as a party. “We do a lot of employee outreach, a lot of surveys and sessions where employees are telling us if they want to dance and or how they want to dance,” she said. Employee engagement can be as simple as outreach. “We have used those relationships to also fashion programs that are beneficial to the employees in Los Angeles, so that those who want to dance, can.” At Experian, diversity is embedded into promotion. “We look at promotion rates on women and underrepresented communities’ survey results. We break down sentiment by each underrepresented community, making sure all our leadership programs have diverse representation,” said Burke. This holistic approach looks at inclusivity across all stages of employment. Among other initiatives, Experian has also employed a membership program that includes training. “It doesn’t have to be HR’s job. There’s a lot of passion around this around the organizations.” Said the City of LA’s Brown: “We do a lot of employee outreach, a lot of surveys” Throughout the panel, Gefkovicz noted that diversity could not just be one person’s job, but an organization-wide effort. Too many companies hire a diversity recruiter and assume their work is done, he said. “For literally every single person at the company, it has to be within their top three priorities, from the VP of engineering to the head of sales to the folks on the ground.” Other opportunities could be launching a recent-graduate or internship program. “And if you’re doing that while inviting people to dance, you’re going to build an incredible, inclusive, and diverse company.” Gefkovicz also pointed out that the future workforce, Generation Z, has rigorous standards for diversity in the workplace. “Two-thirds of the 1,000 Gen Z candidates we interviewed would reject their dream job if the company had a poor [diversity, inclusion, and belonging] reputation. That’s a big difference.” Maddie Connors is a comedian and writer based in Los Angeles who has written for the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and W magazine. She currently hosts a stand-up show called Icons Only at the Elysian theater and her stand-up has been featured in the Los Angeles Times.  

Maddie Connors | December 26, 2022

Walmart Has Become a More Socially Conscious Company. But Is It Enough?

The world’s largest employer, Walmart, which has 2.3 million workers around the world, has poured billions of dollars into conscious capitalism in recent years. A new book explores whether the investment has succeeded in compensating workers enough so that they can even afford their basic needs. To do the reporting for Still Broke: Walmart’s Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism, author Rick Wartzman was given unprecedented access to Walmart’s inner workings as the company decided to increase its minimum wage in 2015, the first increase of its kind since the company’s inception in 1972. Wartzman, who is head of the KH Moon Center for a Functioning Society, a part of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University, was initially an unlikely candidate for such an opportunity. “I approached Walmart as someone who’s been a critic of the company for so long,” he said. “I pitched them, but noted that I would need to be able to be 100% honest in my reporting.” Since 2015, Walmart has invested more than $5 billion to lift its starting hourly wage from $7.65 to $12, a trend long advocated by workers and their advocates. Yet many of the company’s employees still struggle to make ends meet. Which raises the question: Is a win/win scenario even possible in our modern economy? The topic was explored a part of From Day One’s recent conference in Los Angeles in a fireside chat titled, “The Promise–and Pitfalls–of Walmart’s Socially Conscious Capitalism,” moderated by Margot Roosevelt, a reporter on the California economy and labor for the Los Angeles Times. ‘We’ve Dug a Hole So Deep’ Walmart’s wage increases since 2015, which have brought average pay to $17 an hour, amounted to $5 billion to $6 billion in total, the author said. But in the same timeframe, the company also invested $44 billion in stock buybacks, raising the value of its shares, which enriched investors and Walmart executives. “What does that tell you?” Roosevelt asked Wartzman. Fireside chat, from left: Author Rick Wartzman and Los Angeles Times reporter Margot Roosevelt (Photo for From Day One) “I think they can do much more, and I think they should do much more, so I don’t want to let them off the hook,” he said. “But this is a company that, given all their pressures, has done some positive things. They’ll never go far enough or fast enough in the eyes of their workers, and that’s true for corporate America in general.” Wartzman said he believes that because of stagnant wages and growing economic inequity, we’ve “dug a hole so deep that the Walmarts of the world can no longer get out.”  Is a Federal Mandate the Answer? In the book, the author makes several recommendations on what corporations can do to create greater equity. His biggest recommendation is both a plea to lawmakers and a long shot: a government-mandated $20 minimum wage. “Four out of five Americans live in a county where the minimum living wage needs to be $20 an hour or more,” he said. “For 40% of Americans, that number is $25 an hour.” The problem for publicly traded Walmart is that when the company has invested in wage increases for frontline workers, Wall Street has responded negatively, wiping billions of dollars from the company’s market value. One announcement resulted in a same-day, 10% drop in its stock price, equal to about $20 billion. “Imagine what Wall Street would do if they lifted it to $20 an hour,” Wartzman said.  Roosevelt asked if unions could offer compromise, but, as the author noted, Walmart’s attitude toward organized labor hasn’t exactly been welcoming.  The company has a track record of doing whatever it takes to stave off unions, and has racked up labor-law violations along the way. “It highlights the wage crisis in this country, and I don’t use the word “crisis” lightly, Wartzman added. Wartzman noted that the social dissonance between C-suite leaders and their workers can create a damaging rift, and that companies of all sizes can work proactively to close this gap. “Make sure that the highest levels of the company and the CEO know what’s happening [with employees],” Wartzman said. “There’s a real social dissonance between the C-suite and their workers. There’s an empathy gap, a lived-experience gap.” As for wages at Walmart, Wartzman says making sense of the paradox is all about the data. “Is Walmart doing conscious capitalism? Yes. But is shareholder primacy dead? As journalists, we look at the numbers.” For further reading: In a recent virtual conference, From Day One spoke with Walmart’s head of learning and development about the company’s efforts to help its workers pursue career growth. Nick Wolny is a senior editor at NextAdvisor, in partnership with TIME. He has previously written for Fast Company, Fortune, Business Insider, Entrepreneur Magazine, and OUT Magazine, and was named a “40 under 40” by the Houston Business Journal in 2021.

Nick Wolny | December 26, 2022

Inspiring Workers to Take Action in the Movement Towards Social Justice

In the summer of 2020, in the face of ongoing racial injustice, Hoai Scott’s mission began to change. “I dedicated my life to changing narratives. And I fully intended to retire early from the corporate world in order to do this work full-time. And that all changed with George Floyd’s murder,” said Scott, the SVP of HR for the filmed-entertainment division of NBCUniversal. Scott decided to use her passion for social justice within her company to create an anti-racist workplace.  In a fireside chat about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace, part of From Day One’s recent conference in Los Angeles, Scott first addressed her personal ties to diversity. She was a refugee from Vietnam in 1975 and experienced both the warmth and isolation of the immigrant experience. Married to a Black man and being the mother of a biracial son, she had many worrying conversations with her son about police brutality. As anti-Asian crimes and inequality were mounting during Covid, Scott began to share her story in the workplace. “All of a sudden, I was talking about this, and our employees’ eyes were opened. We’ve never really talked openly about racism before at work.” These conversations created compassion, and Scott’s coworkers were eager to be part of the solution.  Inclusivity needs to be a universal value throughout the company, Scott told moderator Alison Brower, Los Angeles bureau chief for Insider. She emphasized the need for a top-down effort, which has been achieved at her workplace through an inclusion committee. “This group has five pillars of work: culture and belonging, workplace practices, business practices, and partnerships, as well as creative partners and storytelling because we are a film organization,” said Scott. “And the final piece is around social transformation, which is how to create equity and justice in our local communities.” With a concerted effort, Scott explained that employees feel proud that their company has a meaningful culture outside of HR.  Scott also spoke enthusiastically about the company’s work with second-chance hiring, a program that gives formerly incarcerated people employment opportunities. NBCUniversal has hired 17 formerly incarcerated people as interns, which have become full-time roles. “The stereotype is that formerly incarcerated people are dangerous and threatening. Untouchable. And what we’re trying to change the narrative to hard-working, organized, an important contributor.” Scott said that the program has been an opportunity to help people reimagine their future, many of which have been affected by systemic racism and unemployment.  Storytelling can also be a powerful tool in uplifting marginalized voices, Scott argues. In recent years, NBCUniversal has been committed to telling stories about marginalized communities. “We have a very good history of telling these stories.” Over the years, Universal films like Straight Outta Compton, Brokeback Mountain, and more recently the gay romantic comedy Bros, have showcased diverse perspectives for communities that don’t often populate the silver screen.  Finally, Scott expressed that inclusive workplaces give companies a competitive advantage. Diverse teams offer top-level creativity and innovation, she asserted. “When you allow an opportunity for people to really come and thrive, they’re going to give you their best work.” One of the ways to ensure these employees’ success is through feedback to develop their skills. “And so, when you give feedback, it really is an act of equity. It's an act of justice.” Scott concluded that, with support from leadership, inclusivity measures can be integrated every day. “There are so many practical day-to-day ways to implement DEI. And I think we have to because employees expect it right there, holding us accountable for it. And so, we keep the work going, and we make it a priority.” Maddie Connors is a comedian and writer based in Los Angeles who has written for the New York Times, Vanity Fair, and W magazine. She currently hosts a stand-up show called Icons Only at the Elysian theater and her stand-up has been featured in the Los Angeles Times.  

Maddie Connors | December 25, 2022

How to Make Reskilling and Coaching Part of a Corporate Culture of Learning

As companies brace for tighter budgets in 2023, one talent acquisition strategy might be sitting right under your nose–if you’ve developed a coaching culture along the way. The strategy is reskilling: the act of training existing employees to prepare them for lateral or departmental moves within the company–and it’s one of the most cost-effective ways to bolster your talent bench. “Reskilling is different from upskilling,” said Nicole Husband, VP of people and culture at Warner Bros. Discovery. “Upskilling refers to developing skills that make you more effective in your current role. Reskilling refers to developing skills that would enable a transfer into a different job or department altogether.” Recession buzz has led many companies to keep their budgets conservative for 2023, forcing some professionals to get creative with their learning and development initiatives. By cultivating a reskilling culture now, talent leaders will not only give themselves more flexibility; they’ll also be able to identify and cultivate the cream of the hiring crop early on in the onboarding process. “We look for people who raise their hand for new challenges,” said Jennifer Rice, SVP of learning and organizational development for Universal Music Group. Reskilling and coaching culture were a hot topic of conversation at From Day One’s recent conference in Los Angeles. Here were some of the insights shared by industry leaders in a session entitled “How to Make Reskilling and Coaching Part of a Corporate Culture of Learning,” moderated by USA Today editor Pamela Avila. Start with What (And Who) You Already Have Reskilling doesn’t require additional programming. Before you try to incorporate new approaches or curriculum, first take an honest look at how well your current employees retain existing resources. “Research shows that we lose about 75% of the knowledge we gain from traditional, class-based learning,” said Kevin Meyer, PhD, an industrial organizational psychologist and VP of people insights at BetterUp, which provides coaching and development for employees. “We have to give people bite-sized pieces of learning more frequently, rather than deep intensives.” Meyer said that mixed modalities get better results, because they appeal to a number of learning styles, according to industry research. The full panel, from left, Rice, Husband, Meyer, Mark Allen of Pepperdine University, and moderator Pamela Avila of USA Today “Budgets were tightened during the pandemic, and L&D was one of the first things to go,” said Mark Allen, PhD, professor and academic director for the graduate HR program at Pepperdine University. “When most people think of a coach at work, they think of an executive coach. But executives already have the most experience and career success. Everyone has a manager, though–the manager can fill that coach role.” As you reskill, panelists agreed that an experiential approach yields better retention and overall results. “Seventy percent of what we learn and know how to do, we learned experientially. Try to give [a mix of] experience, coaching and mentoring, and actual instruction,” said Allen. Of course, if your program does require funding, panelists agreed that aligning your pitch with overall enterprise objectives will be the key to getting things off the ground. “It has to drive business outcomes,” Allen added. “You’re not there just to create better leaders; you’re in business for a reason. Choose outcomes like customer service.” Husband agreed. “Reskilling has to address the fact that we are in a labor shortage. The research says it’s much cheaper to train someone internally, reskill them, and move them, rather than try to find that person externally.” Document Your Results, Then Share Them Loudly The panelists spoke to shifts they’ve seen both across the industry and within their own companies. “At UMG, I oversee “U.M.SHE,” a women’s development program,” said Rice. “It’s a nine-month cohort that you apply to join.” Rice reported that 56% of participants were promoted within two months of the cohort ending, a success rate she attributed to “a blended-learning approach.” She encouraged HR leaders in the audience to be rigorous about tracking and reporting to better advocate for their departments. Reskilling “has to drive business outcomes,” Allen said “Get with your marketing departments to figure out how to spread the word on your programs,” Rice said. “Get into the habit of producing impact reports to document what worked and advocate.” “Also shout from the mountaintop that this was a great use of your time,” added Husband. As leadership professionals grapple with tightening budgets, it can be tempting to put learning and development investments on pause. A closing quip from Allen illustrated why such a decision sets teams back in the long run. To the hypothetical bean-counter who might ask, “What happens if we train these people and they leave?” his ready answer would be, “What happens if you don’t educate your people, and they stay?” Nick Wolny is a senior editor at NextAdvisor, in partnership with TIME. He has previously written for Fast Company, Fortune, Business Insider, Entrepreneur Magazine, and OUT Magazine, and was named a “40 under 40” by the Houston Business Journal in 2021.

Nick Wolny | December 24, 2022

You Need Them as Much as They Need You: Why Older Workers Are a Good Bet

The country is aging and so is its workforce. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 45% of civilian workers will be 45 or older by 2030, and workers over 75 will account for nearly an eighth of the total. Some employers view this as problematic: older workers are more expensive, they are slower, they are more likely to get ill or need time off to care for their even-older parents. Or so these employers think. The reality is far more nuanced. Heather Tinsley-Fix, senior advisor for financial resilience at AARP, said that younger workers also need time off–to care for children, for instance. And while workers with longer tenure do cost more than someone just starting out in their career, there are costs associated with replacing them. Tinsley-Fix said there is data showing it can cost upwards of $30,000 to hire and train someone new, on top of the salary you will pay. You also lose a lot of expertise and intellectual capital when you turf an older employee for a cheaper replacement.  AARP studies have found many benefits among organizations that have multigenerational staff: better resilience in tough times, more diversity of views and capabilities, improved stability, and better retention among the entire workforce. Older workers are often more flexible in terms of schedule, and according to BLS data, they are more likely to seek part-time employment voluntarily. At Vivo, a fitness company that provides real time virtual training for those over 40, an older staff also helps attract more clients, said Eric Levitan, founder and CEO of the Atlanta-based company. Often older people are less comfortable with the trainers at traditional fitness studios and gyms, and older trainers feel the same disconnect with younger clients, he said. His model leverages that and gives another compelling reason for people to spend their fitness dollars with Vivo rather than somewhere else.  Many industries are facing labor shortages and a dearth of appropriate talent. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce lists hospitality and the retail industry as suffering most from this, while HR consulting firm CXC cites health care, non-flight-crew-related aviation and airport jobs, and construction as industries in dire need of staff.  Retaining Older Workers: What Do They Value? Given the demand for their labor, the question becomes: What are the best ways for employers to retain older workers in their jobs? Tinsley-Fix said that older workers want the same thing as younger ones in terms of feeling valued and respected. “Research shows people want the same core things across generations.” If you are doing a good job providing any of your workers with a feeling of mission and inclusion, and if you are providing adequate compensation, you should be able to inspire loyalty among the older workers in your organization. “The only potential difference is that what younger people think respect means may be different than what older people think it means,” she said. It’s a good question to survey employees and candidates about. Heather Tinsley-Fix, senior advisor for financial resilience at AARP (Photo courtesy of AARP) Using older people to fill employment gaps has worked well for Susan Cornish, a Columbus, Ohio-based franchise owner with the childcare company Jovie. “Some people are looking for something different after downsizing, or they are interested in something part time while they retrain,” she said. While that implies that the childcare gig is only temporary, Cornish has found many stay on. One of her older employees was going to stay only until she completed some additional education. Several years later, she’s still on the job–one of the increasing number of older people Cornish has among her 150 employees. “We tend to skew young, but that may be due to the old name,” she explained. Until early this year, the company name was College Nannies and Sitters.  Increasingly, Cornish is looking for older workers because they have more patience, compassion, empathy–and driving experience. The latter can be a point in their favor for a prospective employer, Cornish said. “A crying baby or a mischievous toddler won’t rattle someone who has already raised their children as much as it might someone who is 17. They bring life experience lessons that you can’t train for.” Finding and Recruiting Them: It’s About More Than Just Money The biggest issue she has in attracting older workers is knowing where to find them. Cornish said come January, she has a new hire whose job will be to figure out how older potential workers can be reached and entice them to consider a job at Jovie.  Cornish said that older workers are often more flexible about money than younger people. She pays for experience, and a couple of years ago, she would have called older workers more-expensive-but-worth-it. Now, however, she has 17 and 18  year olds with no experience expecting $17 per hour, or more than double the $9.30 state minimum wage. It can take longer to train older workers on the apps they use as part of their operations, Cornish explained, so managers “pack their patience” when they train. Having a multigenerational workforce helps because often the younger employees can help get older ones up to speed on new tech, a practice often called reverse mentoring.  The longer learning curve is something that Levitan has experienced, too. All his trainers are over 40, and some are over 60. They may not have used scheduling apps or know all the bells and whistles that are available on Zoom, which Vivo trainers use to deliver their classes. “We use our onboarding time to get them up to speed.” Both Cornish and Levitan have signed the AARP employer pledge to facilitate older workers and aim for multigenerational workplaces. Both think it makes business sense, but Levitan said there are softer reasons to consider it. “They bring a trifecta of wisdom, knowledge, and experience that provides enhanced customer experience. “ Cornish has her own non-data related rationale: “Our tag line is ‘We hire role models,’ and older people are role models, not just to our clients, but also to our younger workers.”  Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner AARP, who sponsored this story, the first in a three-part series. Lisa Jaffe is a freelance writer who lives in Seattle with her son and a very needy rescue dog named Ellie Bee. She enjoys reading, long walks on the beach, and trying to get better at ceramics.

Lisa Jaffe | December 22, 2022

How to Get Your Ambitious Project off the Ground: ‘Do It Today’

It’s almost an understatement to call Kara Cutruzzula a go-getter. Cutruzzula is a widely published freelance writer and editor, a playwright, lyricist, and librettist who pens musicals, the author of the creative productivity newsletter Brass Ring Daily, and the voice behind the podcast Do It Today. How does she keep herself inspired, productive, and bold enough to delve into new creative projects? And what lessons does she have for strivers of all kinds who need a jump start to get ambitious projects off the ground? Cutruzzula captured her infectious energy in two motivational journals: Do It for Yourself, released by Abrams publishers in 2020, and Do It Today, released this fall.   Do It for Yourself is a beautifully illustrated, easily digestible journal with creative prompts to stay motivated and make things happen. Do It Today was crafted in light of the pandemic, in which so many people struggled to find motivation. It’s an empathetic, gentle guide with short essays, prompts and open-ended questions to give readers space to dream and plan–even if it just means accomplishing a small goal today.  From Day One spoke with Cutruzzula about the wisdom inside both journals, what will resonate with business professionals, and what to expect from a third journal now in the works. From Day One: I’d love to hear about you and what led you to this first motivational journal, Do It For Yourself. Kara Cutruzzula: I had been writing the daily newsletter Brass Ring Daily about work life and creativity for three or so years. I chronicle my creative output–highs, lows, in-betweens, talked about rejections, failures, and how I kept trying–and got a readership from that. Through there, I was connected with an editor at Abrams, and they were looking to do a motivational journal and said that the themes were basically what they wanted to cover in a journal. It’s sort of a roundabout way to publish a book, but I liked that it happened this way. It’s a perfect example of just doing work that you care about, that you are naturally drawn to, and then being recognized for that and having something else grow out of it.  The journals take you on a journey and build off themselves. How did you structure them, were you pulling from your own motivations and habits?  I feel like every creative or professional work project has all of these different stages. And sometimes we forget that there are stages, and we just think, OK, this is taking forever, or, I have a new hurdle and don’t know how to handle this one.  Breaking down projects into different stages was really helpful for me as I moved through my own work. I wanted to share that and outline that for readers and mimic the experience of going through something like this.  There’s always this stage of internal motivation: How do you get going? How do you beat back the fear that might prevent you from thinking about your mission statement, thinking about the things you might even want to be doing? Eventually you do move out of that to doing the daily work, like building momentum in the small tasks, the big tasks, creating micro and macro goals. Once you continue to build your project, whether that’s a business or a creative project, you will come across setbacks. You’re looking at that point at your routines, anything you’re procrastinating doing, all of the things that feel really complex and like roadblocks that come up, thinking about how to push past those.  Even in talking about these different stages, you could see there’s so many different ways to get stuck. And the whole point of both of the journals is to keep you moving forward. And once you’re finished, it’s about finding a finish line, or creating a finish line for yourself, and then figuring out how to move onto the next one. And then you start the loop all over.  The message of the first journal resonated with readers enough to lead to the second journal, Do It Today. What were you trying to communicate through the second journal?  I think that people have soured a little bit on the idea of motivation. Five years ago for me, it was much more about “Rah rah, let’s hustle and get motivated.” After going through the pandemic, that message personally doesn’t resonate for me as much.  I think if you can make progress on one small thing relating to meaningful work, I think that feels really satisfying. So it’s not looking at a strict, hard, punishing motivation, but more this gentle encouragement with yourself and admitting you might be tired, you might have a setback, you might put a project aside. It’s about not beating yourself up about it. I think that message relates to people a lot more these days. Both journals are beautifully illustrated and very creative. Tell me about working with the illustrators and why that was an important component. We had two wonderful illustrators: Tessa Forrest illustrated the first journal. And Tyler Spangler illustrated the second one.  I think there’s been a hole in the market in what’s available to readers that are both nice to look at and can and can provide really tangible, concrete advice about how to move forward. A lot of business, productivity and time-management books feel a little clinical. I just found myself not really drawn to pick that up all the time.  I was thinking about what feels good to open, read, and would feel encouraging even if you just have 10 seconds. The idea was to marry concrete advice with something with high aesthetic value that is encouraging that would speak to a wide, universal audience.  Much of From Day One’s readership are HR and other business professionals. How do you think they can best utilize the journals?  I’ve heard from software engineers, entrepreneurs, lots of professionals who relate to the ideas inside. I don’t think you have to be “creative” to want to move more towards the things that are important to you, and to spend time on the work that is meaningful to you. One of the principles in the book is to start before you’re ready. I feel like that is a mantra that definitely relates to people in business, where sometimes you need to embrace this idea that you’ll never have everything you need to begin, you might not feel ready, but you’ll figure it out anyway.  What are other mantras or tips from the journals that have really resonated with readers or that you yourself turn back to again? Two things come to mind. In the first journal, one of the prompts is writing your future Wikipedia entry. It sounds kind of silly, but I think it really forces you to look at what you actually want to leave behind and what will be the main bullet points. I’ve seen a lot of people write their Wikipedia entries and they end up finding that the things that they actually want to do or that they want included in that entry are not the things that they’re working on every day. So where is that disconnect, and why are they not able to do the work that is most meaningful to them? It’s a macro overview of what you want to do, where you want to spend your time, and what you might want people to say about your career 30 years from now. Kara Cutruzzula, author of Do It for Yourself and Do It Today (Photo courtesy of the author) In Do It Today, I have a chapter on rejection and failure, which is a popular topic. One technique I’ve used with my own projects is writing a thank you note to whatever rejection comes your way. Thinking about the risk you took to even approach the thing that led you to failure is incredibly helpful, because you’re reminded again that you’re trying to do something, you actually put it out there, you applied for the thing. Closing that chapter is always so satisfying to me and it allows you to move on.  What is your latest project? What are you working on now? I write musicals, books and lyrics for musicals. And that was a very challenging thing to do during the pandemic, when we were all on Zoom. But now that I’m back in person, I started writing a new musical with a collaborator, a composer named Kristoffer Bjarke, about people running a marathon. It takes place physically in the heads of people who are running in a small-town race and the places you mind goes when you’re stuck out there for 26.2 miles.  I also have a podcast called Do It Today, which is an interview series where I talk to notable figures and friends in creative industries and non-creative industries about what they’re doing that day and how they’re doing it.  I noticed a lot of people coming out of the pandemic with these incredible projects, writing books, musicals, career pivots, all sorts of things. I wanted to know about the micro, day-to-day behind that, so I call people up and talk about challenges they’re facing that day, what’s their biggest goal, and finding advice and habits and things that hopefully listeners can adopt in their own lives. It’s been a very instructive experience to see a lot of these techniques play out in real life. Will there be a third journal?  You know, three is a nice number. So we are doing a third coming out in fall of 2023. It’s going to be Do It–Or Don’t: a Boundary Creating Journal. This one is about how to say no to all the things you don”t want to do, and how to create helpful constraints and containers for the work that’s most important to you. Because all the encouragement in the world cannot get you to a finish line if you don’t have the time and space to do the work. I can’t wait to read it and feel inspired in a different way. Thanks so much for this work. Thanks, it helps me. I do it to help me with my own creative work too. I hope people can find things to relate to there, because we’re all just working through it. Just bringing people in and having conversations about these things is always really helpful.  Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and other publications. 

Emily Nonko | December 20, 2022

Data’s Power of Persuasion: How People Analytics Is Changing HR

Workforce analytics is no longer just a headcount of employees, a list of compensation packages, or a report on exit-survey responses. Strategic leaders are connecting their traditional HR reports with business metrics, which is transporting their insights from the HR department and into executive meetings where it informs the strategy of the C-suite. To advocates of using data for more rigorous decision-making, this development was long overdue. “It wasn’t clear why we don’t focus on HR analytics as much as we focus on customer-data analytics to make decisions on how to grow a company, how to develop talent,” said Maria Dolgusheva, HR systems and analytics manager at PandaDoc, a company that builds document-workflow software. Since employing a workforce is often the largest cost of doing business, said Dolgusheva, “Why wouldn’t you look at the dashboard from the same approach with which you look at the financial dashboard?” As the influence of the HR department continues to grow across the business, HR professionals like Dolgusheva are positioning the department as a source of invaluable business information. That’s what Jackie Bassett does at University of Chicago Medicine as director of people strategy. “Our role as it pertains to people analytics is to take the analysis, translate that into a business context, and bring that into conversations with the leaders that we support and advise them and work with them on making decisions based on the data.” Because it’s a burgeoning discipline in HR, part of the job is leadership evangelism. Bassett said it hasn’t been a hard sell. After all, the C-suite is a strategic group, and they’re looking at the value of people analytics accordingly. Old-School People Analytics The HR department has always had reams of data: headcount, compensation numbers, tenure, performance scores, and more. Yet until recently, this data has found limited applications outside of the HR function, and so business leaders have largely disregarded it. It’s HR stuff. Part of the problem was a lack of connection, said Vahed Qazvinian, co-founder of talent-retention software platform Praisidio. “People data alone is not sufficient. People analytics that relies only on people data sits normally within HR and interfaces with other HR folks and rarely with the business leaders.” That’s how it has been in the past: too far removed from the business of the business, responsive only to executives’ requests, and only backward-looking. On top of that, when business leaders do request data, the providers in HR seldom know how it’s used. Some executives may still think of workforce analytics as simple reporting on one metric, like headcount, for example, and therefore haven’t considered it a source of new or insightful information, said Tiffani Murray, the director of HR tech partners at LinkedIn, who has worked in organizations where this has been the status quo. Maybe those reports include a second number, like compensation or tenure, but they’re not otherwise revealing, and they’re not used for making decisions about the future of operations. Tiffani Murray, the director of HR tech partners at LinkedIn (Photo courtesy of Tiffani Murray) “You can have an organization where you just have a strong set of reports, but there’s a difference in maturity when you get to actual workforce analytics and strategic people analytics, and you can’t just get to that with a bunch of disparate reports,” Murray said. HR doesn’t live a lonely corporate life anymore, and as the department’s influence reaches beyond its own department in the form of initiatives like technology and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), forward-thinking HR professionals are lobbying for new applications by combining HR data with business data. Qazvinian believes that effective people-analytics practices will strengthen the. relationship between the C-suite and HR. “When you augment people data with business data, then suddenly people analytics can start making sense because the business leaders understand business data and behavior data and it has direct connection with the KPIs of the business, and this increases the frequency of meetings between these folks,” said Qazvinian.  For example, one of Praisidio’s clients needed to lower its time-to-resolution for customer complaints. The company combined time to resolution (business data) with tenure of customer service staff (HR data). “The time resolution was low because they have high attrition among high-tenure support staff,” he said. “High-tenure support staff are the ones that know how to close these tickets faster.” Putting People Analytics to Use People analytics in this new sense of a collaboration between the HR and business functions is still fresh and green, and when business and HR do work closely, the combinations are compelling.  One of the most popular uses of people analytics at the moment is employee retention. At University of Chicago Medicine, Bassett and her colleagues are lining up turnover data with tenure data with exit interview surveys to find out how reasons for departure differ between workers in their first year and long-tenured employees. Already, they’ve spotted a problem in the organization’s onboarding process and have corrected course. This coming year, Bassett will introduce another layer of data to look for diversity gaps. “For example, what does turnover look like for nonwhite employees versus our white employees? What does turnover look like based on tenure, based on age?” said Bassett. She’s also thinking of ways to slice and dice the information to ensure they’ve reached pay equity. At From Day One’s December virtual conference on the future of jobs, Ernest Marshall, the chief HR officer at power management company Eaton Corp., described the way his company is using workforce analytics to improve the representation of women and global ethnic minorities into general manager roles.  “Anecdotally, you’d say, ‘Well, do we have the right people? Do we have enough of our folks on succession plans?’” But, “what if we looked at it differently?” Marshall said. So he identified areas in the company that tend to funnel into general-manager roles. “Then we said, ‘OK, let’s narrow it down. What are the numbers of people that we have in the ethnic minority category and women that are in those groups today?’ Shockingly, we found that we had a larger percentage of those people in the groups than we thought. So what does that tell us? The reality is we’re not pulling them through.” Being Careful About the Pitfalls People analytics is not without its flaws, of course, and in some cases it comes with a bright red warning flag. Perhaps most problematic is the idea of predictive analytics.  Kirsten Martin, a professor in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, where she teaches the ethics of business analytics, told From Day One that any time a company introduces a use case for people analytics, it should be treated as a new workplace policy. “These programs of who should be hired, who’s hirable, who should be promoted, or who’s promotable are, in effect, like the organization putting forth a new policy of what they think is correct. It just happens to be coded.” Martin said that when a company introduces new technology like predictive analytics into its operations, “there is a mistaken notion that the normal rules don’t apply. They don’t think about the fact that they still have all the same obligations that they have as a company to both explain why someone got promoted or didn’t get promoted, or someone got hired or didn’t get hired, and they have the same obligations around justifying that it was all legal,” she said. “The question would be, Would you use it if it wasn’t automated? And if the answer is no, then it shouldn’t be used in a hiring decision.” Many HR professionals consulted for this story said they’re excited to see what tech can do. For example: Predictive analytics about which workers are most likely to leave. But at some point, almost all of the HR leaders pumped the brakes and acknowledged that there is tricky ethical territory. Ideally, predictive analytics around attrition can help employers identify workers at risk of leaving and then give them reason to stay. But in the wrong hands, that same information can be used to penalize workers or even clean house. “As soon as we predict, we tend to treat people differently,” Martin said. For example, “If I identify 20 future leaders, I put them through a leadership program, and what do you know? They look like they’re future leaders. We just told them that for two years. We gave them promotions above and beyond anyone else, so they start to act that way.” By the same logic, those employees who weren’t selected for the program, they don’t look like leaders now, and they might be missing opportunities they deserve. Mona Sloane, PhD, senior research scientist at the Center for Responsible AI (Photo courtesy of NYU Tandon)   “AI is a scaling technology, which means when there is a problem, you have a problem at scale,” said Mona Sloane, PhD, senior research scientist at the Center for Responsible AI at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, who is currently running a research project on the use of AI in sourcing and recruiting. “The risk is just so much bigger than when you have, for example, one biased recruiter or one biased hiring manager and you can get to the bottom of it and you can fire that person. It is extremely risky.” In some cases, these tools are based on problematic assumptions, like what makes a leader or doesn’t. They may not be culturally sensitive, or they may “interpret culturally different behaviors in certain ways that could negatively affect certain communities,” Sloane said. Regulation for such technology is in the works. The European Union is on the verge of passing the Artificial Intelligence Act, which affects AI across all industries. “It adopts a risk-based approach, which means that any and all AI technology has to go through a risk assessment, pre-deployment and post-deployment, and, according to its risk tier, then has to have additional checks,” Sloane said. Beginning in April 2023, employers in New York City that use AI in employment-related decisions will be required to submit to an independent bias audit. This “marks the first time employers in the U.S. will face heightened legal requirements if they wish to use any automated decision-making tools,” wrote reporter J. Edward Moreno for Bloomberg Law. The Promise of Wise Use Despite the risks, overall the outlook for people analytics is promising. “If we have good technology, we can uncover human bias, or if we are already aware of it, we can flag it and take action,” said Sloane. Current practitioners, and prospective ones too, are approaching the discipline with optimistic caution. Bassett is well aware that people analytics can’t be done without proper education. “I think to really do people analytics well, it requires substantial investment,” she said. She and the people-strategy team at University of Chicago Health are taking analytics courses “to get more comfortable in looking at the data, informing HR analytics team what kinds of analysis we want to see, and then being able to translate that to the business and have those conversations where we can advise and influence where they’re putting their focus,” Bassett said. Murray is encouraged by workforce analytics’ rising reputation. At Linkedin, her HR tech team works closely with the people-analytics team. Their current project is building self-serve dashboards for business leaders and training them on their applications. “We’re helping [people analytics] understand the needs of the business and they are helping us understand the mechanisms by which they can structure and provide these layers of data to be self-serve,” said Murray. “It’s actually one of our strongest partnerships.” Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a reporter writer based in Richmond, Va. She writes about the workplace, DEI, hiring, and issues faced by women. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, Fast Company, Digiday’s Worklife.news, and Food Technology, among others.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | December 19, 2022

The Talent Hunt: Learning to Look to Non-Traditional Sources

While no industry dodged the effects of the pandemic, almost none was impacted as much as leisure and hospitality, which saw its unemployment rate peak in April 2020 at a staggering 39%.  “It was a gut-wrenching time,” recalled Jin Ivacic, global head of talent acquisition for Hyatt Hotels. Even as the industry recovers, she added, “We’ve experienced the challenges of uneven supply and demand.” Ivacic joined Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, a business reporter for the Denver Post, for a fireside chat on the evolution of the industry’s talent hunt, which includes looking to non-traditional sources, part of From Day One’s November virtual conference on workforce diversity. “It’s more of a candidates market than we’ve ever seen before,” Ivacic pointed out, so it’s up to companies to step up. The underlying theme of the conversation was the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to the talent hunt. “It truly needs to be embraced at all levels, starting from the top,” Ivacic said. “It should be a company-wide initiative, not looked at as something for HR to do and champion.” As the industry ramps up again, it enjoys the benefit of having many roles that don’t require a high-school diploma. “Our hires have traditionally come from diverse backgrounds and experiences,” said Ivacic. The industry focuses on employee potential, including transferable and adjoining skills. “With additional training we can bring people on board,” Ivacic said. “We’re really looking to see what’s intrinsic within them that has the potential, if you invest the time and energy in what could really become something special.”  Two initiatives proved successful for Hyatt in recruiting from non-traditional sources. A fireside on talent acquisition, from left: moderator Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton of the Denver Post and Jin Ivacic of Hyatt Hotels (Image by From Day One) RiseHY is the company’s goal to hire 10,000 “opportunity youth” globally by 2025, defined as people being between the ages of 16 and 24 who are not in school or employed. “We partner with local nonprofit organizations and have had a number of successes over the years–there’s actually very high loyalty and retention among this population,” said Ivacic. The company also set a commitment to hire refugees and piloted a program hiring them for remote, customer-service positions at its global contact center. “Knowing that transportation can often be challenging, we thought this would be a great way to alleviate some barriers,” said Ivacic. “The test was successful and we’re looking to launch more cohorts in the coming months.”  When companies recruit from non-traditional sources, and increase the diversity of their workforce, a truly inclusive culture is imperative, alongside liveable pay and benefits. “It’s really non-negotiable and needs to be truly embedded in the company culture and the strategy of the business,” Ivacic said. “If there’s a strong culture that recognizes people as individuals, and there’s a place for them and they are seen, and that they have a voice, they’re more likely to stay,” she added. Emily Nonko is a freelance journalist based in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to writing for From Day One, her work has been published in Next City, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and other publications. 

Emily Nonko | December 15, 2022

Pursuing Progress on Diversity and Inclusion, Even During a Downturn

When business is good, it’s easy to justify and implement programs designed to improve representation and retention among disadvantaged groups. But when a downturn comes, those programs are often the first to be cut back, often because of a lack of recognition that they can contribute to an organization’s financial success. At From Day One’s November virtual conference on workforce diversity, a panel of experts focused on “Persisting With Progress on Diversity and Inclusion, Even During a Downturn,” moderated by Spencer Whitney, digital editor at KQED in Oakland, Calif. The speakers made five essential points about why support for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is an imperative regardless of what the economy is doing. 1.) DEI isn’t an HR strategy, but a business strategy. Paul Francisco, the chief diversity officer for State Street Corp., the financial-services firm, said that when things get tough, no one suggests getting rid of the finance department. “In the same way, we need to look at this work as critical to our business, critical to our sustainability. critical to our competitiveness. If anything, we need to lean in to make sure that we are getting the best, the brightest, the most diverse workforce.” It’s not just about optics, either. Marginalized communities have immense purchasing power, and they are more likely to use that at companies where they feel seen and represented, he said. Commercial customers often see it as part of their agenda. After one client booked business specifically because of State Street’s DEI efforts, Francisco’s boss said he should get a raise now that he was positively impacting revenue. “If you can get business leaders to understand the impact that it has on their business–not just from a people perspective, not just from an altruistic perspective or doing the right thing, but from a dollars and cents perspective–they will move it from a disposable piece of strategy to an imperative part of your business,” said Aryeh Lehrer, VP of talent management and acquisition and DEI at Comcast. 2.) Make sure layoffs don’t disproportionately hurt the people DEI is supposed to help. Because so many organizations still adhere to a policy of last-hired, first-fired, those who came in under new programs designed to improve diversity may end up being let go in larger numbers than the more homogenous group that has worked for your organization longer. One way to make you have more options than just to fire someone is to create development programs and mentorships that give staff transferrable skills, says Mona Sloane, PhD, a sociologist and professor at New York University Tandon School of Engineering, who studies inequality in the context of technology and policy. “We need to extend extra care and training,” she said. 3.) It’s not just a department. “You have to find ways to integrate diversity, inclusion, belonging and justice into every area of your company, and it has to be organic,” said Rebecca Warren, director of customer success at Eightfold AI, a talent intelligence platform. “We have an employee led EIB council, we have a virtual company meeting every week to share topics of import to our employees, we have various employee-resource groups (ERGs).” The all-company meetings often include presentations on topics related to DEI, like what it’s like to work at Eightfold if you are neurodivergent, or some of the different holidays people celebrate. “It gives us a glimpse into the lives of others, makes us more empathetic, and makes us more connected,” Warren said. The expert panel members, top row from left: moderator Spencer Whitney of KQED, Aryeh Lehrer of Comcast, and Paul Francisco of State Street. Bottom row: Mona Sloane, PhD, of New York University Tandon School of Engineering and Rebecca Warren of Eightfold AI (Image by From Day One) 4.) Being resilient means looking beyond the traditional. Lehrer noted that if you want a workforce that can flex with the times, you can’t just look in the usual places, nor can you look for the usual candidate. “Open yourselves up to non-traditional backgrounds and you get complementary skill sets that lend themselves to a variety of roles,” he said. “You will miss out without diversity of ethnicity, gender, background, or thought.” His company, Comcast, partners with local organizations to create upskilling programs for people in disadvantaged and underrepresented communities. This provides a pipeline of diverse potential candidates that can be tapped when hiring heats up again. The company has similar programs for existing staff internally. Warren said it’s easy to get caught up in looking for a specific candidate profile. “But when you start looking for skills that are transferrable, you find a different pool.” At Eightfold, the firm found success with people who have previous experience as consultants, but not just any consultants–those who had experience as teachers as well. Francisco recommends reviewing promotional material and job descriptions to ensure that the language they use is welcoming and inclusive. If it isn’t, it doesn’t matter if you go where that candidate base you seek is; they won’t consider what they don’t believe is “for” them. “This population is not just going to show up on your doorstep,” Francisco said. “You have to go a little bit deeper and ensure the people who are doing the recruiting are representative of the diversity you want to see.” Beyond diverse people in recruiting, Lehrer said you need diverse people doing your interviewing, as well, so candidates “can see themselves and find kinship within your organization.” 5.) Shut it down at your peril. Warren said that often when executives get nervous about a downturn, they shut down departments and programs. “We see that a lot in talent acquisition. But if you aren’t doing the work when things are bad, it will be hard for people to believe you are serious about it when things get good again,” she said. “People need to know that there’s a place for them, regardless of what’s happening in the economy. Layoffs are part of a cycle. But the way we do business is an old-school model. We have to think about who we need to ensure stays in an organization and who we can redeploy. How you show up and invest in people, regardless of economy, matters.” There’s a common assumption that during an economic downturn, employers don’t have to worry as much about employee retention because workers don’t have as many choices, Lehrer said. “But I think it’s the exact opposite. If you’re not locking those people down and making them feel stable and valued within your organization, they’ve got less incentive to stay with you if another opportunity presents itself.” This is the time to invest in employee development and prove that the employee is a priority for the organization. While the economy certainly impacts how many organizations view, fund, and implement DEI efforts, Francisco thinks the biggest threat right now is activist investors, who may use the downturn to “punish” companies they feel aren’t focusing on what they view as important. “They are going after companies who are, in their opinion, injuring other demographics, i.e. white males,” with their policies. “That is going to make some companies jittery in terms of what programming they put together. They don’t want to be on that radar.” When money is tight, it is easier to “other” different communities, and view opportunity as a zero-sum game, Lehrer added. “People will point fingers, and I worry this work, because of its very nature, is a target.” But you can’t let that stop you, Warren said. “When the market is good, you should be doing DEI well. When the market is bad, you should be doing it really, really well. As soon as a market recovers, you will lose folks if you don’t. It’s important that it is embedded as a business strategy, not just a virtuous side hustle.” Lisa Jaffe is a freelance writer who lives in Seattle with her son and a very needy rescue dog named Ellie Bee. She enjoys reading, long walks on the beach, and trying to get better at ceramics.

Lisa Jaffe | December 11, 2022

In High-Performing Workplaces, Compassion Flows from the C-suite

A senior manager recently came to Federico Demarin, the chief people officer for advertising giant GroupM’s Latin American business, seeking advice on how to manage his team’s pandemic-induced burnout. “He said, ‘I keep fighting for more resources so my team can have a break,” Demarin recalled to attendees at From Day One’s recent Miami conference on “Workers and the Corporate Values Revolution.” Unfortunately, there were no additional resources to be had–something that this manager knew well. So Demarin instead focused on the manager’s behavior. “I asked him what he himself was doing on a daily basis to help his people. ‘Are you stepping up? Are you giving your hours so they have more time?’’’ For Demarin, this experience was a prime example of how business leaders need to “show that they really mean business” when cultivating a high-performing yet compassionate workplace–the topic of a panel discussion moderated by Trina Robinson, a Miami NBC News anchor. The Pandemic Has Changed How Managers Create Compassionate Workplaces “The pandemic taught us that you have to be the voice to put people first,” said Demarin of the power of HR professionals in a post-pandemic world. “Your decisions matter, and you need to show how you care for employees.” Debi Yadegari, founder and CEO of Villyge, a digital platform that helps managers lead with empathy, asserted that the major change in a post-pandemic HR environment has been employee expectations. “Pre-pandemic, most employees were narrowly focused on benefits,” Yadegari said. Now, there is an increased focus on the overall experience of workers, including initiatives to promote a healthy work-life balance. “What are the behaviors to look out for and encourage?” asked Microsoft’s Tracey Haynes “Employees have had their lives turned upside down,” continued Yadegari. “We need to respond to that.” This is particularly true for Millennial and Gen Z employees, who place an outsized importance on having their voice heard. Yadegari added that showing empathy can drive profit. “We need to empower managers to care for employees. We’ve seen that reminding them to do something as simple as check in on their employees can lead to a positive return on investment.” Spreading Compassion From the C-suite to the Whole Company For Tracey Haynes, HR director for Microsoft’s U.S. Commercial Business, a compassionate attitude must start in the C-suite. “First, it is important to define what empathy means for us. How do employees demonstrate empathy? What are the behaviors to look out for and encourage?” Haynes said that storytelling plays a key role in spreading these values at Microsoft. “We need to give managers the messages they can evangelize,” she said, noting the usefulness of symbolism in everyday things like coffee cups with inspiring messages. Isabel Montes, VP of HR at gold-mining company Newmont, asserted that the key to compassion is curiosity. “We have to be very active listeners and show that we as leaders are open to devising solutions that are tailored to their needs.” Montes urges executives to get out of their office and visit workers in the field, where they can hear about and see their experiences first-hand. “We listen thoughtfully to our people and respond to their needs,” she said. David Bator, managing director of the Achievers Workforce Institute, the research arm of the employee-recognition platform Achievers, agreed with Montes’ perspective. “Rarely do the best ideas come from the boardroom,” he said, noting a disconnect between the business that executives are building and the lived experience of workers. Trina Robinson, a Miami NBC News anchor, moderated the conversation “We can create an experience that makes employees feel welcome, feel known, included, supported, and connected,” said Bator. “By talking with employees and understanding who they are as individuals, we can recognize the things–small and large–that drive their success.” What Does Empathy Look Like in Competitive Workplaces? Employers must delicately manage motivating employees while also showing sensitivity. “Empathy does not scale, but it’s an investment we need to make,” said Bator. “We need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that everything we build for emotions will scale,” and that’s OK, he asserted. For example, starting a team huddle by asking how employees are doing is not necessarily a scalable activity. But, in Bator’s experience, it can go a long way in reminding employees that their employers prioritize their well-being. “Driving empathy in the workplace is not just telling your employees to be nice,” Yadegari added. Instead, the key is continuing to push productivity forward while meeting the needs of employees today. “There is a direct correlation between compassion and productivity,” she said. Haynes echoed this sentiment, further emphasizing the business case for compassion. She shared a story of a Microsoft employee who created technology to enable a blind colleague to read menus at restaurants, so he could go alone. This innovation was eventually deployed more widely across the company. “That is a great example of how building empathy can bring real business solutions,” she said. The full panel, from left: Robinson, Yadegari, Haynes, Bator, Demarin, and Montes Demarin offered some practical advice for building an empathetic and compassionate workplace. “In the infinite game of human progress, you can’t worry about moving mountains. But you can move a stone. Always focus on progress, on evolution.” He encouraged the audience to think about their personal role in large-scale change. “We all have this opportunity. What are you doing? What is the little stone you are moving?” 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 Forbes, the Times (UK), Rest of World, LatAm Investor, Refresh Miami, Cities Today, and more.

Riley Kaminer | December 10, 2022

Navigating Through a Historic Crisis: the Carnival Cruise Journey

From the moment Bettina Deynes took on the role of SVP and chief HR officer for Carnival Cruise Line, she was already feeling overwhelmed. “It was 2019, a historic year for Carnival, and I was brought on to develop a world-class HR team,” Deynes told participants at From Day One’s recent Miami conference on “Workers and the Corporate Values Revolution.” “Within a few weeks of arriving on the job, I had concerns that I made the wrong choice in taking the position,” Deynes said. She described feelings of self-doubt, and a sense that she would have difficulties understanding the intricacies of this highly complex business. And then Covid hit. “I went from feeling inadequate and thinking about things like overall strategy, goals, and tackling environmental concerns to managing this monumental moment,” she said in a fireside chat with Tim Padgett, the Americas editor for Miami NPR affiliate WLRN. Before the pandemic, Deynes fought to ensure HR got a seat at the table where cruise-line executives made major decisions. “During Covid, HR became the table,” she said. “There was not a single conversation in which our team was not involved.” This pandemic hit the cruise-line industry harder than any other, essentially shutting it down and triggering mass layoffs. This traumatic period was an opportunity for Deynes to learn how to do more with less. Her 90-person team shrunk to 27. A staff reduction of magnitude would be difficult to navigate even in the best of times, asserted Deynes. But it was even more challenging during the early days of the pandemic, when her team was tasked with assisting tens of thousands of team members from 200 different countries, each with their own laws and regulations regarding the pandemic. Deynes underscored the magnitude of this task. “The employee-relations issues we had to deal with were life and death.” “We had to help employees regain their lives,” she said. “Throughout the pandemic, we were very conscious of taking care of our employees. At the end of the day, this business is all about our people.” In the face of this uncertainty and upheaval, Deynes thrived. “This period is when I gained my confidence,” she said.  How exactly did she do it? She credits the spirit of garra charrúa, a refrain from her native Uruguay referring to the resilience of this small, underdog nation. “Being an immigrant and being a woman, sometimes you have to work in industries where you’re underrepresented,” she said, highlighting her years leading HR for the Washington Nationals baseball team. Deynes was interviewed by Tim Padgett, the Americas editor for Miami NPR affiliate WLRN While Deynes’ key to success was having grit and breaking through self-doubt, she was conscious of remaining humble and honest. “It was about realizing that we will get through this, and knowing that I worked for a company that was committed to doing what was best for our employees.” Over the course of the pandemic, Carnival ended up re-engineering almost all its HR processes, from benefits to remote-work policies to how they respond to new legislation. These efforts were ultimately a success, with Deynes retaining every member of her HR team. But getting through the pandemic would turn out to be the easy part. “The return was twice as hard as the pause,” she said. To get operations back to cruising speed, Carnival was now competing with every other cruise line to ramp up operations and attract as many consumers as quickly as possible. From an HR perspective, Deynes and team had to deal with a deluge of logistical headaches such as visa delays and quarantine requirements. Despite it all, Deynes maintains that Carnival emerged from the pandemic stronger than ever, noting that the company now has 27 ships, up from 24 in 2019. Looking forward, Deynes painted a picture of Carnival as a leading employer in the cruise industry and beyond. “The most important thing is to create a culture that is inclusive,” she asserted, noting the continued importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Deynes signaled that questions of remote work, benefits, and environmental footprint will also remain top of mind in Carnival’s HR plans. Successfully managing the pandemic has equipped Deynes to accomplish these initiatives as well. “I learned to have faith and to keep reminding myself that everything is OK, that everything will be fine, and that I have the tools to get through tough times.” And now Deynes is in an even better position to spearhead this mission. In October 2022, the executive who was at first unsure of herself was promoted to global chief HR officer for the cruise line’s parent company, Carnival Corp., a tenfold increase in her responsibilities. 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 Forbes, the Times (UK), Rest of World, LatAm Investor, Refresh Miami, Cities Today, and more.

Riley Kaminer | December 09, 2022