Search Stories

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | July 01, 2024

Involving Employees in the Journey of Technological Transformation

The abundance of new talent-focused tech tools are changing the way human resources practitioners, recruiters, and people operations leaders do their jobs. But as new tools are adopted, it’s often done with HR users in mind, and omitted from the selection and deployment processes is the end user: the employee.How to create an inclusive dialogue with workers about new tech was the topic of conversation among a panel of talent acquisition leaders during From Day One’s June virtual conference. The group of leaders addressed tech at all points of the employee lifecycle, from recruitment to career development.The Latest in Recruitment TechnologyThanks to the latest in HR tech, people teams now have the ability to hyper-customize the applicant and employee experiences at the earliest points of interaction. “We’re far beyond the days of just being tailored towards persona,” said panelist Shaunda Zilich, senior director of employer brand and talent attraction at hospitality company Marriott. The application experience can now be tailored to individual applicants. For instance, if a job seeker was looking at a housekeeping job at a hotel in the Atlanta area, “when they click on that job, the whole website can then change to say, ‘Here are some other jobs you might be interested in. They have this same skill set, they’re at the Atlanta location, and here’s an associate’s story that is tagged with that experience.’ I think that helps [applicants] self-select out, help them fulfill their purpose, and help us with retention.”According to Nico Roberts, the chief business officer at frontline talent acquisition platform Fountain, this level of customization represents the best in employer branding and recruitment. “Those companies that are absolutely crushing it are the ones that are providing a beautiful, personalized experience to the applicants,” he said. Testing Tools With the End User BaseWhen it comes to identifying new tools and use cases, panelists recommended HR teams get deeply involved as users. The companies that provide the best experience, says Roberts, are “those companies that take their entire teams, not just the workers, and put themselves through the process once every six months to see what’s changed. What’s the experience?” he said.The panelists discussed the topic, "Creating an Inclusive Dialogue With Workers About New Technology" at From Day One's June virtual conference (photo by From Day One)Zilich involves her team regularly. “I challenge my team all the time: When’s the last time you filled out an application on our website or on our competitors’ websites? We should be out there experiencing the technology firsthand and putting ourselves in their shoes.”But don’t forget to include the end users in testing and selection. “If you test with the actual workers or applicants, you start to see where they’re getting hung up. At the end of the day, they’re the ones who are supposed to use this,” said Roberts.Using Tech to Assess Skills and Develop Your WorkforceOne of the most popular applications for HR tech is workforce skill development. Cheryl Petersen, the talent resourcing leader for the Americas region at engineering consulting company Arup, uses regular assessments to gauge technical expertise and identify areas for improvement. Whatever skills and capabilities are most relevant to Arup’s clients get priority. “With all those insights, you can then evaluate your internal capabilities. You’re then determining appropriate workforce solutions and you’re able to say, ‘Are we going to need to recruit new talent? Do we need to develop upskill or deploy current talent? Are we going to have to utilize temp labor or subcontractors to address skills gaps?’” Petersen said. These assessments also help workers identify their current skill inventory–and where they need to develop new skills to stay sharp and relevant. “We want our employees to be improving and focusing on skills development that allows them to be addressing client needs,” she said.As an employer introduces new tools it expects workers to use, it’s natural to meet some resistance to change and even trepidation about how it might affect workers’ future job prospects. At media company Hearst, senior director of talent programs Maris Krieger works hard to assuage workers’ worries about being replaced by the latest tools, like artificial intelligence. “We always are doubling down on this idea that this tool is in your toolbox. It’s not taking over your jobs. It’s not replacing you, it’s augmenting and it’s freeing your time to do more valuable things.” Still, she said, workers should be aware of the skills they need to develop to stay relevant. Long-term resistance could put them at a significant disadvantage. Further, don’t overlook internal applications. Krieger pointed out that skill-development tools are just as relevant to boosting internal mobility as they are for recruiting. Recruiters and HR practitioners aren’t insulated from worry that their jobs are in jeopardy, of course. There are plenty of HR tech tools leveraging AI to improve processes, and it has some in the department concerned about their roles. But, Zilich says, talent acquisition professionals should see it as an opportunity. In particular, using the recruiting and skill-matching tools to take arduous tasks off their plates.“If recruiters really think back to why they got into recruiting, they probably got into recruiting for the coaching and the human side of it, the relationship side of it, and helping people find their fit and organization,” she said. “So if they can actually use the skill-matching and see the impact, they’re no longer going through hundreds of resumes, they’re spending their time coaching the hiring manager, coaching the candidate, and helping the person find the right fit.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Dan Heilman | June 26, 2024

Leading the Next Generation in the Sports Business

With their run to the Western Conference championship series, the Minnesota Timberwolves showed basketball fans a lot this year. And their success is due in no small part to the minds in the front office.One member supporting their success is Sianneh Mulbah, chief people officer for the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx. During a fireside chat titled “Leading the Next Generation in the Sports Business,” Mulbah spoke about the rewards and challenges of human resources work in the world of professional sports. At From Day One’s Minneapolis conference, Mulbah was interviewed by Megan Ryan, assistant business editor for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.Mulbah’s role doesn’t just sit in the realm of HR. With 13 years experience with the Wolves and two decades of human resources experience, she leads the strategic direction and execution of the team’s people-related functions.“My primary responsibilities with the team are really focusing on our employee experience,” said Mulbah. “A couple years back, I started transitioning the way we think about our employees. Now, [we think about and treat our employees] like we treat our customers, the Timberwolves fans.”Sianneh Mulbah, right, was interviewed by Megan Ryan of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, left“We are hyper-focused on making sure they have a great experience from the time they leave their driveway to the time they get back to their driveway. And we need that same thought when we’re thinking about our employees.”With Mulbah’s profession comes a necessary focus on DEI issues. She points out that the Timberwolves’ leadership team is half female, with 40% of the team’s overall staff being women. Part of fostering that culture, she says, is keeping the lines of information open internally.The fireside chat kicked off From Day One's Minneapolis conference “We host quarterly all-staff meetings, and we start with the state of the business,” she said. “The league has mandates about what we can and cannot share, but we communicate what’s important for them to know, and we try to be open to questions.”Embracing an authentic culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion also means reaching across generations, even when you find yourself puzzled by, say, a younger colleague’s work style.“It means understanding that everyone's different,” said Mulbah. “[People might] want to be addressed in a specific way. It’s about using our real-life experience that makes us authentic leaders.”With a low turnover rate at around 10% the Timberwolves and Lynx organization can boast that the people who come to work for them generally stick around, and this is in part thanks to their values around open communication and inclusion.Dan Heilman is a writer and editor based in St. Paul, Minn.

Matthew Koehler | June 26, 2024

How Employers Are Boosting Talent and Career Development

Millennials and Gen Zers are often accused of being feckless employees, ready to jump ship at another opportunity. But this isn’t entirely true. Gen Z is loyal when there’s connection, collaboration, diversity, and growth in their jobs. To earn that loyalty, companies have to offer collaborative spaces where younger workers can grow their career.Christa Emerson, VP of talent for UnitedHealthcare Group, says that since July of 2022, turnover is trending down and retention higher. “[We often hear that] the reason an employee joins UnitedHealth Group is because they see this opportunity for a huge growth, career, and ability to grow over time. We also hear when people leave that one of the reasons that they leave is because they’re able to find more growth or broader responsibilities at another company.”During an executive panel discussion at From Day One’s Minneapolis event, Evan Ramstad of the Minneapolis Star Tribune spoke to Emerson and several other experts in the field of HR and talent acquisition (TA) on what younger workers want out of a career, and what employers can do to keep them.Internal Mobility Matters BigAt UnitedHealthcare, Emerson says they've leaned into internal hiring and mobility. “We specifically put a practice in place that required almost all positions to be exclusively internally posted first, and you have to exhaust all of that before we can go external.”According to Emerson, internal hiring is now at 55%, up from 45% the previous year.“We’ve really been clear and intentional about our key strategic priorities and how everyone sees themselves in that vision. If you want to be a contributor, if you want to be a leader, you really can see yourself through succession planning, through our executive coaching, we really invest in those key players,” said Monica Gockowski, the SVP of leadership development at U.S. Bank. They’ve also seen a decline in turnover.“I think what it always comes back to is, how do we focus on identifying the future skills? And then how do we focus on putting together the appropriate collections, pathways and programs that really look at identifying upskilling opportunities that tie back to how we’re going to deliver ROI at our organization, while also increasing retention or employee mobility," said Korie Holden, enterprise account director at Coursera.Holden says that top of mind for everyone in the industry is not how AI will automate certain roles, but, instead, how companies will need to upskill and reskill their HR organization to “move the needle forward, both from a business perspective, but also as that human-centric perspective.”SVP of Sales and Customer Success at Randstad RiseSmart, Chris Harrington says that turnover for a lot of adaptive companies has gone down since the Great Resignation of the Covid years. “Organizations are beginning to invest more and more in solutions and benefits, perquisites, whatever you want to call it, to retain people,” Harrington said.“It’s not just about your high potentials, or your executive leaders, it’s really about how you can do it for everybody within the organization. The second thing is about internal mobility. And candidly, we're still trying to figure out how to answer this one.”In a recent survey they did, Harrington says that 45% of TA professionals said that it was easier to fill roles from outside the organization. Another 55% of employees said it's easier for them to find their next job outside the organization. “So there is some sort of a trick that we need to unlock within this space,” Harrington said.There’s a lot going on in practice in bringing in new talent and retaining it, but the conversation on internal mobility is just beginning. And, for younger workers, not getting those new on-the-job skills and growing their careers “is a deal-breaker when it comes to joining an employer.”Evan Ramstad, Business Columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, moderated the executive panel discussion “I think there is a stigma that if we just focus on internal mobility, there’s no innovation. There’s not a diversity of thought or imagination,” said Gockowski. She says that to make internal mobility work, companies have to be intentional about skill development, and not just be focused on ‘the shiny new talent’ they bring in.“Think about answering that question around mobility and what’s the benefit. The benefit is the person, right? The person feels like they’re cared about, and that what matters to them in terms of how they care for their families, or their lifestyle, is important to the company. And that’s what gives you that kind of stickiness with a company where people feel like this is where I want to stay. This is where I want to grow my career,” said Chief Talent Officer for Schwan’s Company, Kari Ziemer.It’s not enough to just talk about new skills, says Holden. You have to have a way of identifying them, testing them, and measuring them. “We’ve moved away from this buffet style of learning. We’re providing learning as a benefit [and] creating it all in house. It’s very intentional learning that delivers ROI. You are consistently reporting to your executive team on how this learning is really making an impact in our organization.”Emerson pointed out that even if your company doesn't have the tech, or can’t afford to invest it, there’s still an important role to play in collecting and fostering talent. “What is your culture of mobility? What are managers looking at as their accountability for being talent stewards, instead of talent hoarders? And what are the cultural elements that you can work on, either ahead of a technology, or despite not having funding for technology.”Ziemer says that companies need to dial in to what they are trying to accomplish. “We’re trying to solve a problem, right?” After seeing a spike in supervisor turnover, Ziemer says they created a supervisory development program, and tested it to great effect. “If they’re not good leaders, and supervisors, they're not leading people in a way that’s helping us produce the product.”Opportunity for New Skills“Historically, coaching was kind of reserved for the top segment of leaders within the organization. So it wasn't the most inclusive solution out there,” said Harrington. But now, there’s a focus on scalable coaching, says Harrington.Harrington says this type of coaching is as needed, whenever the employee needs it. Some of this coaching is done through external, more generalized solutions but many other companies are creating their own internal bench of coaches for a pool of those in leadership roles and those who want to learn to mentor.“The more you can create personalized learning and development spaces, for really the most personalized thing you can have, which is a one on one interaction with a human – we think that that’s really powerful.”Gockowski says that at the end of the day, people are concerned with their career and what they can get from it. “It doesn’t matter about all those different things, but what am I doing to use these tools for the end game for me.”“What the research is actually telling us is that though it seems like we need to shift our focus to upskilling in these really technical areas, no matter what part of the business you fall in, what we really need is a focus on the human skills. Because human skills drive everything else,” Holden said.Matthew Koehler is a freelance journalist and licensed real estate agent based in Washington, DC. His work has appeared in Greater Greater Washington, The Washington Post, The Southwester, and Walking Cinema, among others.

Webinar Recap

Making All Paths to Parenthood More Inclusive For Your Employees

At experiential outdoor sports company Woodward, the VP of talent and culture, Dan Kwong, is just getting started with family support benefits. Starting with the basics: nailing down an employer value proposition to guide the choices he will make, and underscoring current benefits, like paid parental leave. Perhaps most importantly, Kwong is taking his time to figure out what the workforce needs with two questions. First, “What are the key demographics of the talent pools that we currently attract, and that we want to attract? It’s not just the talent you currently have, but also the talent you want to grow in future years,” he said. Second, “What are the needs of each talent pool? We assume we know what people want and need. Sometimes we’re wrong.”Kwong was a part of a panel of talent and benefits professionals for a From Day One webinar titled “Making All Paths to Parenthood More Inclusive For Your Employees.” The group discussed strategies for identifying workforce needs and how to design a package that is as inclusive as possible.Kwong is careful to not make assumptions about what family structures look like or even who qualifies as family. Woodward employs a relatively young workforce, many are aged 18–24, often living far away from their biological families. Their needs outside of work aren’t necessarily typical or predictable. “This one’s pretty personal to me,” Kwong said. “Most of my family is abroad in Hong Kong; I’m a single guy in Utah. My family structure may be non-traditional or different, and my family may not be genetically or blood-related.”Woodward isn’t the only employer taking note of the diversity of needs. “Everybody’s family looks different,” said Corrinne Hobbs, the general manager and vice president of employer market at family health platform Ovia Health. “[Employers] are recognizing those differences by making sure there are solutions that support people where they are. For women’s health and family-building, it’s having a solution that’s inclusive of preconception maternity, parenting, menopause, and then general health in between. Wherever and whatever journey people end up on–and it could be two or more journeys at once.”Hobbs sees the appetite from companies for kinds of new family-building benefits, ones that encompass more employee experiences and needs. Inclusion of all workforce demographics is top of mind for employers, and for some, it’s become a differentiator.The panel included Dan Kwong of Woodward, Corrinne Hobbs of Ovia Health, journalist and moderator Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, and Shawna Oliver of Manulife (photo by From Day One)A particular point of interest for employers, says Hobbs, is finding healthcare support for workers who live outside of major metropolitan areas, often in “care deserts,” where healthcare isn’t easily accessible. And much of the care that’s needed is for members of the LGBTQIA+ community and women, especially black women, and their family-building needs.Identifying the Diverse Needs in Your WorkforceTo design inclusively, HR teams have to know who’s working there, how they identify, and what they need. But that’s not necessarily easy. “People don’t always feel comfortable speaking up,” Hobbs said. “There’s also the element of loneliness, and that feeling limits a person’s ability to speak up.” To remedy this, tap the knowledge of your employee resource groups, says Hobbs.Kristy Lucksinger, head of global benefits and commercial real estate firm JLL, does this. She proactively asks the firm’s ERGs about their needs, and the resource groups approach her too.“We also do employee surveys to find out directly from our employees what they’re looking for and what they’re interested in,” Lucksinger said. “We’re in the process of considering, evaluating, and moving forward with a conjoint survey across the world to find out exactly where our employees’ wants and desires are.”Still, employers should allow for some margin of error when surveying workers, says Shawna Oliver, the head of global benefits and wellness at investment management firm Manulife. “As much as we put a big effort into gathering identity and demographic data about our employees, the truth is, we don’t always get 100%. Some people aren’t comfortable [sharing] vulnerable and personal information. We have to assume that there are pockets of people within every population that need every sort of benefit that’s out there.”Promoting Family-Building BenefitsBenefits teams can put together the most rock-solid communication plan and the slickest guides, but it doesn’t mean people will read them, or use those benefits.A few times a year, outside of annual enrollment at Manulife, Oliver and her team host informational sessions about benefits, beyond the basics of copays and deductibles. They could be about anything: family-forming benefits, mental health, retirement, or financial resources. Then they open up the floor for an Ask Me Anything. “It’s unfiltered,” she said. “We ask people to not share personal information, but we have a very candid conversation in those moments. It’s humbling, the amount of questions we get, from things as basic as ‘how do I find a provider?’ to ‘I used these benefits, and it didn’t work for me.’”Opening the door for employee feedback helps ensure every dollar invested in family-building benefits counts. “The total rewards pie is only so big,” said Lucksinger. “We really want to hear from our employees about where they feel the most value. So we reach out to our employees and say, ‘We understand there’s an interest here. What’s more important to you: This or that?’ It’s about offering a vast array of benefits, but investing the money where our employees see the value.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Ovia Health, for sponsoring this webinar. Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | June 24, 2024

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | June 21, 2024

Well-Being at Work: Creating a Culture That Truly Cares

“The role of the employer is expanding,” said Matt Legere, the SVP of employee benefits consulting at brokerage firm Brown & Brown Insurance. “You have to be relevant to what employees are talking about and what they’re stressed out about at their kitchen table. Are you as an employer offering something that’s relevant in those moments?”At From Day One’s Manhattan conference on building a culture for workers and companies to thrive in times of change, Legere and his colleagues in employee wellness gathered to discuss how employers can use company culture to demonstrate their commitment to well-being. Crucial to success, the group agreed, are making well-being a centerpiece, respecting individual boundaries, and localizing policies and benefits to the people who use them.Make Well-Being an Ordinary Topic of Conversation“We’re humans, we’re all at work, and we’re here to be productive, of course, but our humanity doesn’t leave us just because we get to our desk,” said Morgan Bass Roper, director of inclusion and belonging at financial services firm BNY Mellon.Leaders must set this example openly and consistently. Some companies are making mental health and personal wellness a centerpiece for discussion, hoping to make it an ordinary part of the employee experience. BNY Mellon invited Maeve Duvally, author of Maeve Rising: Coming Out Trans in Corporate America, for a fireside chat with the company’s corporate affairs chief.“They had a conversation around authenticity in the workplace, allyship in the workplace, and about the coming-out journey. But in particular, they talked about Maeve’s mental health journey and how the resources and the allyship she received allowed her to feel comfortable to come out at work,” Bass Roper said. “Bringing Maeve to our company–a financial services company that’s been around for over 200 years–sends a message to folks who were listening to that, that ‘Maybe I can feel comfortable sharing a little bit more of myself and my journey, because it’s being put on this big stage at work.”Set the Example for Work-Life BalanceNobody but you can draw the line for world-life balance, says Chuck Abramo, the VP of human resources at hospitality company Delaware North. “Make sure you understand where your boundary is, both on the professional side and the personal side. Be able to say, ‘This is where I need to close the laptop today.’” It’s imperative that leaders do this in full view of their teams.Abramo says that he might prefer working late at night, which some might perceive as an imbalance. However, this approach enables him to work more flexibly. “I think that flexibility, and knowing that I can do that without somebody looking at me sideways, is incredibly important. Creating that culture is key. You could never put a dollar amount on it, I could never get X amount of comp at a different organization to replace that flexibility.”In conversation moderated by Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, the speakers discussed the topic "Does Your Company Genuinely Care About Well-Being? How to Show It Through Your Culture"Alyson Watson, founder and CEO of employee healthcare platform Modern Health, sets aside time in the work day for therapy and coaching sessions, and every evening carves out an extra hour or so to spend with her son–absolutely no work interruptions allowed.Everyone will balance the portions of their life differently, and the balance will certainly shift over time. For Watson, whose position puts her on call at all hours, wellness and high-performance are not mutually exclusive. “A lot of life is sacrifice. There may be moments in my life where I need to prioritize my family, and maybe the way I show up at work slips a little bit. Sometimes it’s the opposite, and I’m really focused on work because we’re raising around a funding or we’re launching a big new client,” she said. “I think there’s a world where we can do both: We can take care of ourselves, prioritize our mental health, prioritize our physical health, and support people to reach their potential.”Localizing Well-Being for All WorkersJust as work-life balance is best judged by the individual, so are the benefits workers use to achieve that equilibrium. That’s why HR leaders must commit to soliciting employee feedback and taking advice with an open mind. “We don’t know what they need until we ask them,” said Legere.He’s become quite keen on localizing wellness benefits and policies too. “You can look at your plan from a wellness perspective, physical, emotional, financial, and social,” Legere said. “But you can’t apply broad-based philosophies to every single location.”Legere pays close attention to communication and language. There’s little value in providing benefits and policy information to a predominantly Spanish-speaking workforce only in English, for instance. “Do they feel valued if we can’t communicate something that’s really complex in a way that they can understand?”In order for everyone to uphold a culture of well-being, and reinforce it consistently, Abramo says it begins as soon as workers walk in the door. “As HR leaders, we have defined it in our values so that we can tell people as we’re bringing them on board, so that we can take this to the other side and say, ‘Hold people accountable to those values.’”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Mary Pieper | June 21, 2024

The Best Managers Don’t Fix, They Coach: Actionable Strategies for Your Leadership Toolkit

Anita Hossain Choudhry, co-founder and CEO of The Grand, a group coaching platform, learned the importance of coaching when she was managing several people who had just graduated from college. “I reflected on my first job after college, and I had this manager who was so unclear,” said Choudhry during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s May virtual conference. “She didn’t give me the right level of support to be successful. And I really vowed to do the opposite. I had this notion that I had to fix my direct reports’ problems.”One day, one of Choudhry’s direct reports came to her because she felt overwhelmed with everything on her plate and couldn’t figure out how to prioritize things. “I told her to take out a sheet of paper, draw a triangle on it, and break it up into thirds,” Choudhry said. “In the bottom section, I wrote down three to five things she had to complete for the week. In the middle section, I wrote down three things she had to complete in the next three days. And then at the top of the triangle, I wrote down one thing she needed to focus on before the end of the day.”Choudhry did this every day for several weeks with the employee, thinking she was solving the problem for her. However, over time “I really saw her creativity wane. She would spend long hours trying to do her best to get those critical tasks done,” she said. At around the same time, Choudhry took her first coaching course, “and I realized I wasn’t actually helping her fix her problem. I was actually hurting her because I didn’t empower her to trust herself.”Anita Hossain Choudhry, co-founder and CEO of The Grand, led the virtual thought leadership spotlightThat’s when Choudhry shifted her default approach from fixing to coaching. “Instead of being the hero that saves the day, I asked myself how I could enable my direct reports to do their best work and be their best selves,” she said.During her next one-on-one session, Choudhry asked the employee to take the lead in filling out the triangle. She also questioned her about the type of work that attracts her and where she saw opportunities for the firm to grow. “Over time, it helped her come up with some of the most creative ideas deployed at the firm,” Choudhry said. “She returned to that vibrant, innovative person that I hired in the first place.”When managers attempt to fix problems rather than coach an employee, they tend to do most of the talking, says Choudhry. “The conversation style is really directive and advice-oriented,” she said. On the other hand, coaching involves asking employees questions that get them talking so they can come up with a solution on their own.So how do you do it? You start by asking, “‘In this situation, what would you like?’ And then you repeat back what the other person said. And then you ask, ‘What will having that do for you?’ And then you repeat it, and ask, ‘What will having that do for you?’ And so you go through this process, over and over until you get the core of what someone wants.”The next step is exploration, which moves the employee from the problem that they’re spinning on and helps them brainstorm actions they could take to pursue what they want, says Choudhry. The manager does this through another simple set of questions, like ‘what options do you have to make progress toward that outcome?’These conversations can lead to some awkward pauses, but that’s expected because “this is a muscle to build,” Choudhry said. “When they’re staring blankly at you, it’s working because they’re thinking in a way that they haven’t in a long time.”Coaching is effective because “we help our direct reports by investing in their inner teacher,” she said. Rather than solving a one-time issue for them, coaching helps employees see patterns and behaviors so they can develop their own resources and best practices to navigate challenges, according to Choudhry.“We also empower them to trust themselves,” she said. “You’ll see your team members shift their ability to move more confidently and clearly in articulating next steps that they can take to really solve their problem and achieve their goal.”Choudhry says that fixing isn’t always the wrong approach, but it’s simply ineffective in certain situations. Coaching is better in many cases because “it leaves your teams feeling more empowered, understood, and valued.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, The Grand, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Mary Pieper is a freelance writer based in Mason City, Iowa.

Mary Pieper | June 20, 2024

Manager Effectiveness: Defining It, Measuring It, and Improving It

Companies frequently promote employees to management positions because of their technical skills but find they need help with leading people.When they were in their previous roles, these individuals thrived because they had the correct answers, says Gretchen Jacobi, SVP and head of enterprise at General Assembly. Jacobi spoke on a panel about “Manager Effectiveness: Defining It, Measuring It, and Improving It” at From Day One’s Chicago conference.Once you’re in a leadership role, “it’s about how you guide your team to find the right answer, as opposed to giving them the right answer,” she told moderator Alex Maragos, anchor and reporter at NBC 5 News. “I think we need to focus on helping managers define the outcome they want from the team rather than telling their team how to achieve the outcome.”Preparing employees to become leaders is the key to their success, says Nicole Poole-McGill, senior VP for talent development for Digitas North America.“I’ve been in positions where we had the opportunity to prepare managers, or we saw that potential and their interest, and then put them in positions to manage people before they became managers,” she said. “It’s so helpful for them to come in just having some of that skill and getting the training so they can apply it as soon as they become managers.”New managers need specialized training in giving feedback and communication styles, says Poole-McGill. She also said one-on-one coaching can help them build relationships with their team and manage their performance. How to Measure Management EffectivenessAn organization’s culture plays a key role in how it measures the effectiveness of its managers, says Steve Holder, VP of solution advisory at Visier. “Different management skills, different attributes and different measurements are going to be driven by what your organization thinks is important,” he said.Visier builds manager effectiveness scorecards and dashboards that allow people to not only measure their peers, but also understand what they’re doing, says Holder. “The big one that always comes up is retention,” he said. “That’s a really easy one to throw on your management effectiveness card.”Executive panelists discussed manager effectiveness at From Day One's Chicago conference Diversity is a frequently overlooked metric for measuring management effectiveness, says Holder. “We know that diverse teams have better outcomes, productivity and collaboration," he said.Jaison Williams, the senior VP of talent management capabilities and culture for Expedia, says it’s crucial to understand how performance and productivity go hand in hand.“We’ve taken a look at how much we are spending in meetings as an organization,” he said. “We’ve been able to identify that we spend a large amount of time in meetings overall. And then similarly, we have found that people are collaborating and engaging with way too many people.”As a manager, “you are probably role modeling some of that behavior,” Williams said. “But being able to make a concrete change in how and where your team is spending its time using some type of business and organizational data can lead to much stronger manager effectiveness and organizational effectiveness.”Improving Manager EffectivenessThe manager of a team is much like a basketball coach, says Kristy Callahan, who leads the learning and development team at GE Healthcare.“If you figure out how to tap into the strengths of each individual, how do you string that together to make that collective pool stronger?” she said. Every player on a winning basketball team might not be a star, “but together they are bringing out the best in each other.”When there’s one outstanding player on a team, "How do you bring others up?" she said. “What is it that we all bring? We all have our superpowers. How do we tap into that?"Only 31% of managers have experienced formal development for upskilling or reskilling, says Jacobi. “The people who are now reporting to them need to make time for synchronous or asynchronous training opportunities that are going to make them more productive.”Managers must be clear that they are on a learning journey themselves, says Jacobi. “They are role models for the people below them,” she said.Being an effective manager is challenging in a hybrid workplace, says Poole-McGill. When employees were in the office all the time, connections occurred naturally as they gathered around the water cooler and chatted about their lives outside of work.With so many employees working from home at least part of the time, it’s harder to build connections. It’s possible to revive that sense of connection in a hybrid workplace, “but you have to be very intentional about that, and even strategic.”Williams said he finds it easy to connect with his direct reports as a senior leader, but his extended team, which is spread worldwide, is a different matter. Connectivity in the hybrid remote world is all about creativity. His executive assistant developed the concept of ‘Cups and Conversations With Jaison.’ “Once a month, she just blocks out my whole day and asks people on the team to sign up. It’s just a casual conversation about whatever you want,” he said.Mary Pieper is a freelance writer based in Mason City, Iowa.

Dan Heilman | June 19, 2024

The New Age of HR: Meeting Higher Corporate Performance Demands

While its applications are still being puzzled over, artificial intelligence is already gaining a foothold in human resources decision-making. Neil Taylor, vice president of product marketing for workforce planning software maker Visier, maintains that AI is in a position to be leveraged to improve the performance of company managers – and by extension, their employees.In a thought leadership spotlight titled “The New Age of HR: Meeting Higher Corporate Performance Demands,” at From Day One’s Minneapolis conference, Taylor points to generative AI, which can create new content and ideas, as a potential conduit to attracting and keeping the best talent.“I’m the first to admit that I think about Gen AI taking my job all the time,” said Taylor. “But I would just challenge everyone to think about how Gen AI can impact work for the better.”Taylor points to a generative AI assistant that can be trained to offer insights about personnel that might not be accessible by more conventional means.Neil Taylor, Vice President Product Marketing at Visier led the session titled, "The New Age of HR: Meeting Higher Corporate Performance Demands"“There are huge advancements in bringing in data – specifically, data about anyone in the organization,” says Taylor. “You can ask a natural language question and get a natural language response in seconds, and it's tailored to your organization's data. It really allows people who need to make decisions about people to get insights in a matter of seconds.”Taylor pointed to a Deloitte study saying that only about 3% of executives say they have sufficient information about their employees to make good HR decisions. That’s where AI technology has the potential to fill the gaps that can be left by intuition alone.“People managers are getting squeezed,” he said. “They’re under an immense amount of pressure to do more with less.”As a work in progress, generative AI is being employed mostly by early adopters at the moment. But Taylor encouraged managers to at least give it a test drive. Industry analyst Josh Bersin has stated that only a small percentage of HR teams even have a strategy around generative AI. That potential needs to be tapped soon, says Taylor.“AI is going to unlock this huge wave of productivity increase,” he said. “It has all this horsepower, but that horsepower is essentially sitting in the stable.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Visier, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Dan Heilman is a writer and editor based in St. Paul, Minn.

Katie Chambers | June 19, 2024

What It Takes to Put the Employee at the Center of Remote Work

Be tenacious. Be authentic. Be inclusive. Be “un-boring.” These are just some of the stated cultural values of Yelp that first attracted Chief People Officer Carmen Amara to the organization. So was the opportunity to work fully remotely. Thanks to its vibrant corporate culture and agility in employee listening, Yelp has been able to establish a remote-work policy that puts employee well-being first.Studies suggest that remote workers tend to get less mentoring and fewer promotions than their in-office colleagues. But by investing in employee experience, companies committed to their remote workers can provide equitable opportunities for career advancement and professional growth. Amara offered an inside look at how Yelp does it during a fireside chat at From Day One’s May virtual conference.Recognizing Remote Work as a Viable StructureMany companies have begun instituting return-to-work policies, said moderator Jessi Hempel, senior editor-at-large at LinkedIn and host of the “Hello Monday” podcast. But Yelp “has really gone the other direction and held firm,” remaining fully remote. This aligns with Yelp’s value “to be ‘un-boring,’” Amara said.Amara herself was attracted to the organization because of this policy. “I was excited about the fact that this really opens the aperture for us to be able to attract great talent, regardless of where they are,” she said. “It also helps me as a professional to develop my own work and life fit, and live in the place that’s most conducive to my life.” She is able to use the time previously spent commuting to pursue her own personal interests and passions.Despite remote work’s popularity among employees, the prevailing belief among many corporations right now, Hempel says, is that “energy is lagging, people are not connected, learning is not happening, and innovation is not happening.” But Yelp has the data to prove that remote work really works. In February, Yelp released its Remote Work Report, which showed that 90% of Yelp employee respondents found effective ways to collaborate remotely, 86% said they found ways to connect as a team, and 91% felt they had pathways to career progress.Keep Listening, Stay Agile, and Cultivate Cultural ValuesThe key to developing a remote work plan that works is listening to employees and being prepared to respond to feedback quickly. “What led to this decision [to go fully remote] was really to understand from our employees what was working and what they were struggling with, very early on,” Amara said. Yelp conducted a series of carefully tailored surveys to dig deep into what employees felt they needed, then took immediate action. “Rather than wait until we had figured out how to develop this perfect program, things were moving quickly. So we had to reimagine the experience and work with our employees to co-create what the new reality was going to be,” she said. Yelp had to be “willing to get it wrong, and then iterate and change.”Even while building a new remote structure Yelp kept “leaning into the culture that we've already established” she said. When Yelp was first founded, its offbeat corporate identity was wrapped up in its San Francisco location. But now employees are beaming in from all over the world. “We try to frame the narrative about our company through the employee experience and the employee lens. So we let our employees tell their stories about what it’s like to work for Yelp, and it’s always grounded in those values,” Amara said.Carmen Amara of Yelp, left, was interviewed by Jessi Hempel of LinkedIn, rightYelp prioritizes making sure employees feel connected to one another. “We enable our managers to do what makes sense for their teams, because they know their employees best,” Amara said. “But we are very focused on deliberate and intentional connection.” Yelp accomplishes this through regular team meetings and quarterly town halls, both at the department and the company level. It also has employee resource groups to bring workers together, united by topics they are passionate about.And even being fully remote, it’s not all virtual, Amara says. “There still is a place for purposeful in-person connection. We also have a strategy that we call IRL, ‘in real life,’ where leaders get their teams together in-person once or twice a year, simply to have fun and form more of an emotional connection.” “Fun is so key to a cohesive culture,” Hempel agreed.Focusing on Professional DevelopmentYelp is still perfecting its remote professional development opportunities, Amara says, which are, as always, driven by employee listening data. Initial surveys had shown that employees were eager for coaching, mentorship, and skill-building opportunities, which led to the development of a program for exactly that. But participation has now tapered off. “We have a disconnect around when we say, ‘coaching’ and ‘mentorship.' We may be thinking differently about that than what some of our employees are actually looking for,” Amara said. But, unafraid to try and fail, Yelp is taking that information back to the drawing board to develop a stronger program for the future.Amara also cites AI as an potential opportunity for HR to explore in the coming years, particularly its ability to positively impact the employee experience. “It’s something that we all need to stay connected to. It’s not the domain of the engineers. Having the ‘people’ people at the table as we're making decisions around how we’re going to implement this technology is critical,” she said.Ultimately, Amara and her team are driven by a focus on positivity and leaning into success. “The biggest lesson that I’m trying to apply in my current role is that focusing on people’s strengths will get you a lot further than focusing on their weaknesses or opportunities,” she said.Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost and several printed essay collections, among others, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, and CBS New York.

Keren Dinkin | June 18, 2024

Embracing a New Paradigm of Women’s Leadership

In the landscape of leadership today, there are still far fewer women at the senior levels than men—and it's not necessarily getting better.At From Day One’s May virtual conference, LeeAnn Mallorie, founder and CEO of Guts and Grace Leadership, spoke about a new paradigm of women's leadership, coaching, and training. “Since the pandemic, things may have gotten worse in certain industries and certain organizations. We know that there’s a gap. Sometimes it’s called the leadership cliff, meaning when you get to a certain level, it starts to be harder to get promoted,” Mallorie said.The business world continues to rapidly change, many women left the workforce during the pandemic, and this disruptive period can put diverse leaders at risk. Fortunately, it is also an excellent time for opportunities and advancement for these leaders. If we think about the old paradigm of leadership, where things were only done a certain way, this current level of disruption can also open the door for a different type of thinking. Mallorie says that with a new paradigm, we can bring ourselves to lead in a more holistic and resilient way.Mallorie says that women in leadership roles have fueled transformation during a volatile time. Research has also shown that feminine leadership embodies qualities that have been incredibly useful in times of change. Emotional intelligence, active listening, collaboration, creativity, and imagination shine through when women are fully activated in leadership positions. So then the question becomes, what makes the difference?LeeAnn Mallorie led the thought leadership spotlightThere’s a new paradigm of success in which women can be fully activated in the workplace, according to Mallorie. Per her 20 years of experience, when people are fully activated, they're more centered. “They’re feeling cared for in their 30s. They're the ones driving the innovation. Perhaps they’re building culture and leading visionary teams.”Under pressure, we often find ourselves in a different mode. Mallorie calls this an “old paradigm success model” where the internal dialogue sounds like, ‘I have to perform, and when I get there, things will be a certain way.’ With this mindset, women begin to plateau amidst all the pressure. There can also be a lot of resentment or burnout. During times like these, it’s important to look deeper and process how one can find their way through this state, says Mallorie.Effective coaching and training should focus on various things in order for women to move from surviving to thriving. First is advancing technical skills, like learning how to negotiate or get better at a tactical part of one’s job. The second is remaining conscious of bias.Mallorie discusses a third ingredient to help change the game: leading with grace. “We refer to embodiment, focusing on the self, working toward wholeness, working at the identity level,” Mallorie said. It’s about understanding other people’s traumas and motivations as well.“During the early career survival strategies, what’s getting in the way might be the baggage [like internalized oppression] that one is carrying,” she said. “I will often talk about dismantling the patriarchy within. As women in leadership, there's often something we’re carrying or performing to, or that has just become part of our DNA and trying to get into these types of workplaces. And when that’s not addressed, we don’t fully solve the problem.”There are four domains that leaders can focus on when coaching others, says Mallorie. These include, embody, empower, activate, and inspire. As an embodied leader, you must use your body, energy, and time in ways that serve yourself and others well. An empowered leader has a positive mindset, and she navigates her emotions effectively under pressure. An activated leader acts with integrity and purpose and takes healthy risks to serve her organization. An inspired leader shares her vision and naturally inspires others to follow her lead.By embracing a new paradigm of leadership that harnesses feminine strength rather than going against it and suppressing natural qualities in favor of patriarchal standards, we may find a new brand of leadership and new ways of working that can bring more growth and success.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Guts and Grace Leadership, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Keren's love for words saw her transition from a corporate employee into a freelance writer during the pandemic. When she is not at her desk whipping up compelling narratives and sipping on endless cups of coffee, you can find her curled up with a book, playing with her dog, or pottering about in the garden.

Carrie Snider | June 17, 2024

Fostering Workplace Belonging: Overcoming Barriers and Cultivating Inclusive Culture

Sometimes it can take live theater to get vulnerable in the workplace. Partnering with Pillsbury House Theatre in the Twin Cities, Mortenson, a leader in the commercial construction, real estate development, and renewable energy industries, helps show employees what’s happening in the organization through different scenes.The theater’s initiative called Breaking Ice included the theater team interviewing members of the Mortenson team. “They learn your language, and they learn your initiatives, and then they actually act it out in front of you,” said Joffrey Wilson vice president of diversity, equity & inclusion at Mortenson. “It’s a way of showing to everyone what's really happening in your organization.The result? It’s been impactful. “It has been a different way to build a sense of what equity it is,” Wilson said. As one of five panelists during a session at From Day One’s conference in Minneapolis, Wilson spoke about creative ways they help break down barriers and develop an inclusive workplace. Brandt Williams of the Minnesota Public Radio moderated.Live theater is only one way Mortenson is actively creating an inclusive culture. They are also branching out and partnering with new sources for recruiting so they can reach a wider audience. They’re also partnering with organizations like the National Society of Black Engineers, the National Society of Hispanic Professionals, and more to bring in more diverse talent. Ultimately, Wilson added, DEI is never a one-and-done event or training. It’s a state of mind that businesses must adopt and be consistently looking for ways to make their company culture better. Where You Are, Where You’re GoingIn an organization’s quest to cultivate inclusion, the best place to start is taking stock of where you are so you can figure out where you need to go next. That has been the case for Marvin, the century-old manufacturer of premium window and door solutions.“When we say culture, what do we mean? What does that include?” asked panelist Renee Rice, senior director of communications and culture at Marvin. “We did some pretty extensive research to identify not only where our culture was strong, but also where those opportunities were with our culture.”From there, they looked at their five-year business strategy to answer some key questions: “What does our business need from our culture? What does our business need from our people in order to be successful?”From that research and from goal-setting, Marvin has layered the two to create a roadmap that centers on getting employees to think differently and work differently, all in support of that business strategy. This has helped them to define what culture at Marvin is and what they want it to become.The panelists spoke to the topic "Fostering Workplace Belonging: Overcoming Barriers and Cultivating Inclusive Culture" at From Day One's conference in MinneapolisBetter communication is one big one. “When you’re talking about establishing a DEI strategy,” Rice said “when you're talking about modeling certain behaviors, any one of these topics can have the tendency to fall flat unless there is strong communication with your employees about why we're doing this. Specifically, what behaviors do we want to see modeled?”Focusing on inclusion will help companies to retain employees, she added, as will offering coaching and mentoring to help employees develop skills. When they feel a company is investing in them, they feel included, she says. Making Space HumannessPanelist Bethany Kurbis, senior executive coach & consultant at The Bailey Group, shared her unique journey into HR. It began with her work in peaceful conflict resolution in Southern Sudan using the “Theater of the Oppressed.” This experience highlighted the importance of creating space for human messiness and complex, nuanced conversations. Later transitioning into HR, Kurbis found that the best leaders are those who make room for difficult conversations and deeply listen to their employees' motivations and needs. This approach, which she described as creating space for humaneness, has been foundational to her coaching methodology. “What we’re really talking about here is behavior change,” Kurbis said. “And behavior change is slow.” Creating the space for that change is key in helping your team feel included and get to the root of what’s going on at an organization. So, how to facilitate that behavior change?“As HR leaders, you understand how busy your schedules or calendars are,” she said. “Creating that space to have the difficult conversations to seek understanding so that we can build everything we've already heard about is a good starting point.” Employees must feel psychological safety in order to feel inclusion. “The ability to fail in front of people and have it be okay, you can still show up your job, you can still be a part of your team, you can still succeed, learn from that failure,” Kurbis said. Her advice is to help people pause, create space, take a deep breath, and allow humans to be human. Employee Resource GroupsThere are many dimensions of diversity, according to panelist Michelle Anderson, AVP, global learning, development and diversity at AmTrust Financial Services. Which is why employee resource groups help people to feel included.At AmTrust, ERG’s are completely employee led so they can take ownership and have control over where they go with them.“Anyone can come to us and say, ‘we’re interested in creating this group based on this demographic, this ability, this characteristic,’ and then they can work with us to build that,” she said. Being less formal helps employees feel more comfortable in those settings. But the groups also shed light on what her leader calls the “Diversity Wheel.” There is a lot of depth to diversity, and we tend to assume rather than seek to understand. “We bring the diversity wheel together to help people see that even if we might look the same, we’re not the same,” Anderson said. “There are different avenues of diversity. Everybody's experiences are different. So we introduce that and incorporate that in all of the things that we do from a DEI perspective as well.”As a company that has acquired companies to become what it is today, the first priority was to identify what being a leader meant to them. “We started with the middle manager layer and said, ‘as a leader, we want you to be intentional. And what does intentional mean? Intentional for us means you’re curious and aware, it means you are focused on learning more about the individual, helping them with their development, and having a clear vision, and then also being authentic and empathetic.’”Getting very clear on defining these roles has been key, Anderson says. From there they created a leadership development program so they could help new leaders, emerging executives, and everyone in between put their best foot forward for the company while also helping develop a solid company culture. Integrating Inclusive Leadership into Daily PracticesIt takes practice to get good at anything, and while training and extra meetings about inclusion can be helpful, panelist Siham Adous, senior director, strategic accounts & partnerships at Praxis Labs, emphasized the importance of working it into everyday work.“What we’ve seen to be the most effective strategies to really drive long term impact is understanding that managers are busy,” she said. “These training moments have to be integrated into their talent development moment so that we’re not talking about inclusive leadership as standalone. We’re talking about some of the fundamental foundational skills to just help you do your job better, and ultimately drive higher engaged and higher performing teams.”The challenge then becomes how to create resources for people leaders in the moments that they actually need them in their flow of work, Adous says. It’s all about awareness, but also continual practice. “In the same way that no one here would go to the gym one time and say, I am now fit, you have to go multiple times and really build the muscle of inclusive leadership.”At Praxis Labs, they look at immersive experiences as a way to do that in an effective way. But be sure to take a data-backed approach, and also ask for feedback from your team so you get a true sense of how people feel about their work culture.“We have biannual pulse surveys. We're only an organization of 35, but it's still so critical that we hear everyone's voice and ensure that some of the challenges are addressed in real time. Even taking that data backed approach to what we're doing internally has been huge.”Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.

Feature

Are You Asking Too Much of Your Job Candidates? How to Get ‘Test Projects’ Right

Current dispatches from the job market describe an exhausting scene. On one side are overloaded recruiters, shuffling thousands of applications for a single role with limited resources and little time. On the other side are weary applicants feeling defeated and devalued by impersonal, drawn-out interview cycles and unresponsive employers.One particular point of tension is the candidate test project. To evaluate applicants’ skills and narrow the talent pool, employers are now frequently asking job candidates to complete test projects or evaluations in the form of strategy proposals, presentations, blog posts, research projects, and video-editing tests, to name a few. But job seekers are getting burned out, sinking hours into unpaid projects with seemingly little relevance to the role, only to be ignored or rejected by an automated email.It's rough out there, especially for well-paid office workers seeking a new job. “Welcome to the white-collar recession,” declared Business Insider. Reports Wall Street Journal columnist Callum Borchers: “I hear from a lot of white-collar workers on the job hunt who say it’s much harder to get hired than the unemployment numbers make it sound.” Said Bloomberg: “Take-home assignments during the interview process are on the rise, irking candidates.”While employers may have the advantage at the moment, they should avoid overplaying their hand, since their reputations are at stake. Job seekers who spoke to From Day One describe growing cynical and suspicious of companies that request burdensome projects, and especially of those that don’t compensate candidates for their time. Yet it may be the delivery and design of these projects, not their intention, that is souring relations between candidates and companies.How Test Projects Go WrongBeth Miller (not her real name)* has built a 20-year career as a writing instructor and communications practitioner in higher education and nonprofits, and for the last year, following a layoff, she has been on the job hunt.After submitting an application for a job in a university’s development office, Miller received an automated email inviting her to complete a performance task: an asynchronous video interview that was expected to take 30 minutes. Uncomfortable on camera yet eager to do it well, Miller sunk four hours into the project.A week later, at about 9 p.m. on the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, Miller received an email with another request: a full grant proposal to be completed over the holiday, due Monday, she told From Day One. When Miller replied with questions, her emails quickly bounced back with out-of-office messages.“The most difficult thing is that the emails were not coming from a person,” she said. They were addressed to ‘dear applicant,’ and signed, ‘the hiring team,’” she said. Unable to get a new due date for the assignment, Miller gave up her weekend to the project.Miller’s story is like that of many job seekers right now. Unwieldy evaluations are popping up across industries and job types, and in a labor market where the competition is often among the applicants, rather than the employers, candidates are getting burnt out by the requests, sometimes completing several projects before they even speak to a recruiter.“These are, by no means, simple and easy,” said Liane Paonessa, who was applying for director-level roles in corporate PR earlier this year. “They’re complex, detailed, and basically provide the company with a free strategic plan and content from every candidate.”Further, they seem to be redundant. Some employers require a portfolio of prior work samples in addition to test projects. “In most cases, I [got] no feedback whatsoever on the projects, other than a ‘Thank you for your excellent work,’ before ghosting me and later sending me the standard form rejection email,” said Paonessa.Many job applicants who spoke to From Day One believe that employers use unpaid test projects to get free work from desperate applicants. Job seekers describe being asked to draft 12-month strategy plans, make hour-long presentations, pitch detailed article ideas, write website content, produce fresh code, and even provide names of other people who might be good additions to the company.As exhausted applicants churn through these often unacknowledged projects, it reinforces their cynical beliefs about employers’ attitudes towards job seekers. “It’s so dehumanizing to constantly be putting yourself at the feet of an organization and trying to tell them why you’re worth hiring,” Miller said.How Test Projects Go RightJob seekers don’t object to test projects in principle–workers know they have to demonstrate their skills to land a role, and many are glad to show off what they can do–but they do want a better experience: one with boundaries, respect, and communication.When recounting good experiences with test projects, job seekers describe assignments with clear, limited scopes that teach them something about the role responsibilities, an ability to get feedback on their work, and some kind of compensation.Last spring, Tori Zhou, a content-marketing professional in New York City, was in the running for a content-writing role at a tech company when she was asked to complete an assessment that changed the way she thinks of test projects. Not only were the instructions crystal-clear, the project came with a disclaimer, assuring applicants their work wouldn’t be used beyond the hiring process. “I thought it was so considerate that they said that,” Zhou explained. “I also believed it because of the structure of the test.”The assignment included copy-editing a few pieces of content and writing a new introductory paragraph for an existing blog post. But don’t worry, we’re not going to update it, the request read. And even though she didn’t get the job, the company offered constructive feedback on her work.“This is such a positive memory for me. I feel like it’s the best test I’ve ever done,” Zhou said. “I still look at their job careers page, even today, because I’m like, ‘Wow, that just left such a positive impression on me. I would just happily apply with them again.’”Candidates also want to learn something from the evaluation process. Olivia Ramirez, a job seeker who interviewed for a role at a financial services company, said test assignments have helped her decide whether she wants to pursue the role. When the hiring manager assigned a lengthy and technical writing project, “it definitely made me question whether I was the right fit for the company,” she said. “I wasn’t having the most enjoyable time writing about this topic. It’s a good way to understand what the actual day-to-day grittiness of the work is like.” And even though the assignment was a tough one, Ramirez said she liked having the chance to show the work she’s capable of doing.Zhou once completed a test project that was much more technical than she imagined the job to be. “That helped me think about, ‘OK, is this job really right for me?’” she said.How to Improve Interview Test ProjectsFrank Hauben is the global VP of product management at technical-interview platform CoderPad. He believes that sound candidate assessments have three characteristics.First, evaluations should be time-bound. “By time-bound, I don’t mean 40 hours,” he said. “On the order of 30 minutes to two hours is what we find to be a reasonable sweet spot.” Not only do boundaries limit the scope and complexity of the assignment, it helps make the interview process more equitable. As a parent of two young girls, Hauben said there’s no way he has 40 hours to spend on a project, and couldn’t compete with someone who does.Time boundaries are different from time estimates, and both matter. Employers should assume that applicants will exceed the time estimates attached to these assignments. When applicants need the job, they’ll sink their teeth in. One company told Tori Zhou not to spend more than two hours on the project. A self-described perfectionist, Zhou invested four, and estimates she has spent seven hours on another assessment. Ramirez describes spending upwards of 12 hours on a single take-home project.Next, instructions should be clear, said Hauben, and applicants should be given the opportunity to ask questions and receive responses about the evaluation.And finally, evaluations should give candidates the clearest possible picture of what the job is, said Hauben. But they don’t need to represent the entirety of the job. “What would you be walking somebody through on their first day or week? You want to give somebody something that is obviously realistic and relevant, not something out of a textbook or the most complex problem.”Consider, for example, asking candidates to come up with a solution to a problem you’ve already solved. “You know what the answer is, or what one answer could be,” Hauben said. And when you acknowledge that the problem has already been resolved, applicants don’t have to wonder if their work will be used after they’re ejected from the interview process.Compensating Applicants for Their TimeEvery job seeker who spoke to From Day One said that they want to be compensated for the time they spend on test projects. When they’re sinking multiple hours or days on an assignment, one that could ostensibly be exploited by the employer, they said, payment only feels fair. Many employers don't agree, which has created its own social-media debate. Applicants seldom have the luxury of turning down a test project when they really need the job, Miller said. “When you’re seeking employment, you’re really not at liberty to pass anything off. I know that companies take your work and use it. I know that they do that. To not be compensated for it is just validation that your concerns were right.”Miller, who’s still in the running for the job in college development, said that the hiring team asked about her experience with the test project, but as long as she’s a candidate, she feels that she can’t be completely candid.Ramirez, who was once compensated for a tough test assignment, said she thinks twice about companies that require unpaid test projects as part of the interview process because, ultimately, the candidate experience reflects the employee experience.“It would make me think about what their culture is like and what they’ve been implementing to be at the forefront of companies today, in terms of equity in the organization and advocating for their employees and potential employees,” she said. “If it’s paid, then I think that’s a great signal that the company is considering best practices and trying to stand up with the best of the best in the space.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.(Featured photo by Amenic181/iStock by Getty Images)*Editor’s note: Because she is still interviewing with the organization described here, Beth Miller asked that she not be identified by her real name.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | June 17, 2024

Dan Heilman | June 17, 2024

Applying Machine Learning and AI in HR: Proven Playbooks and Approaches

Jason Radisson, founder and CEO of Movo has a simple request of human resources executives: Don’t be afraid of the future.Movo is an AI-powered human capital management tool for the frontline. In a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Minneapolis event, Radisson led a presentation titled “Applying Machine Learning and AI in HR: Proven Playbooks and Approaches,” where he went over some potential applications of innovative technology.“It doesn’t have to be scary, and it doesn’t have to be vague,” said Radisson, who previously was a general manager for Uber. “When I started Movo, I wanted to try to figure out how to bring a modern, flexible experience to everybody else’s workforce.”This early in its adoption process, Radisson says that AI is mostly reserved for the recruitment and retention of white-collar talent. But that could be changing.Jason Radisson of Movo led the thought leadership spotlight in Minneapolis“Now, what we’re talking about is a little bit more like outsourcing,” he says. “If you look at a lot of the different operations that we run in H.R., those are the classic things that already can be automated.“We’re starting to see globally that there just aren’t enough people to take these jobs. How long have we not had traders on the stock floor at most of the major markets in the world? How long has it been since an airline ticket was manually priced? There are all kinds of areas where AI and advanced systems already can generate a lot of value.”Another use case for AI and machine learning in the HR realm could be the ability to treat remote locations and distributed work locations just like you would an office building, says Radisson.“We’re in a flex, multiple-location kind of a world,” he says. “With today’s AI, a person at the head office with a smart system can distribute tasks and follow up on those tasks, wherever the’'re happening in the world.”Radisson left the audience with a piece of advice to continue to progress and stay ahead of innovative technological transformations: “I think all of us right now should have some kind of AI counsel,” he said.Referring to “somebody in the company that’s really looking forward to six months or 12 months trying to see what’s coming: Where would it make sense to pilot this? Do we have the developers we need? Do we need to borrow somebody else's developer platform? What’s the cost benefit? Just experimenting, seeing if a piece of automation adds value to the company.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Movo, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Dan Heilman is a writer and editor based in St. Paul, Minn.

Mary Pieper | June 14, 2024

Trust and Transformation: The Role of Coaching in Employee Development

Sarah Sheehan, founder and CEO of Bravely, says her most memorable coaching story involves a young woman of color who was having difficulty finding the confidence to ask her manager about getting a promotion or a raise.“She had put in the work over time and had done multiple jobs,” Sheehan said during an executive panel discussion at From Day One’s May virtual conference. “This is a case where we were pretty sure on the coaching side that if she were to move forward and talk to her manager, that would propel her to a better place.”The end result was “that she did, in fact, get a promotion, much to her surprise,” Sheehan told moderator Lydia Dishman of Fast Company. “This is a great example of the huge gap where we often give coaching to the people in more senior roles, when really everyone deserves coaching, from your first job to the C-level.”Coaching is the most powerful resource a company can provide its employees because of its individualized nature, says Sheehan. Having a coach is somewhat like having “a work therapist, because what is impacting us in our personal life translates to our professional life and impacts how we show up at work.”Building a Relationship Based on TrustAny coaching relationship must be based on trust. The employee “has to believe you’re there for them and working with them, and really understanding what will be shared or not shared,” said William Agostini, senior advisor, strategic HR at SABIC.The employee also has to have faith that the coach “understands the realities of where they are,” Agostini said. Additionally, “coaches should not be projecting their own culture onto someone else. There are realities of different cultures and situations.”However, coaches also need to see and hear employees as individuals, versus whatever gender, age, or cultural label you might want to put on them, says Agostini. In addition, he recommends giving employees “the opportunity to give you feedback about your assumptions.”Building an atmosphere of trust pays dividends in terms of employee retention, says Isobel Lincoln, SVP of HR for Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield. Over the past two and a half years, every team member who received executive coaching is still there.“They come into it feeling like, ‘Wow, this is something really for me. I can transform personally and professionally,’” Lincoln said.The panelists spoke during a session titled, "Conscious Coaching: Guiding and Recognizing Talent with a Holistic Approach"Support from key stakeholders, including management, ensures that the employee receiving the coaching is getting feedback “which means that they're also helping to rewrite the script in whatever way they need to, whether it's just elevating and building confidence as a leader or changing some of those behaviors,” Lincoln said.Determining Who to CoachSean Allen, a SVP of strategy & talent solutions, at MDA Leadership Consulting, says he’s been asked to coach employees whose performance issues are so severe that they triggered an HR investigation. “That’s not what I would consider a good application of coaching,” he said.Coaching works best when it is designed to be more aspirational, says Allen. The goal should be to “create role models in change, and change champions,” he said. “But beyond that, from a macro perspective, one thing I know we really rely on is broad and objective assessment based on formalized high potential models. That’s important because objectivity talks to fairness in a way that washes out bias as much as you can, and gives everybody a fair chance.”This approach ensures companies invest in a diverse group of employees, says Allen. He said it also helps determine “who has what kind of ceiling and what kind of potential.”The Role of Mentors and SponsorsMentors and sponsors also have a crucial part to play in helping employees advance in their careers.Sarah Waltman, VP of global talent management and organizational development at Dentsply Sirona says that while coaches assist individuals along their journey, mentoring involves sharing your experiences with mentees. Sponsoring “is really about opening up some doors or finding some access to experiences that they wouldn’t otherwise have,” she said.Coaching, mentoring, and sponsorship can all take place simultaneously. However, an employee might switch lanes, such as going from coaching into mentoring for a little bit, and then returning for more coaching or entering into a sponsorship, says Waltman.Allen says that coaching, mentoring and sponsoring “can and should coexist in a complementary fashion to form a powerful ecosystem of development support.”“For example, as a standard practice we leverage something called the growth network inside of a coaching engagement,” he said. “That brings into play sponsors, mentors, people who are in real business situations with the leader and can give them feedback. So it’s not coaching in a vacuum.”Coaching Remote EmployeesEven though pandemic restrictions have ended, working from home has not for some coaches and the employees they work with.“For me, it’s actually been amazing to have the coaching contacts because even though I'm not in person with a lot of my peers and hires, having some of those coaching engagements has allowed me to get to know them,” Waltman said.But remote work also presents certain challenges for employees when they try to show how they have grown as a result of coaching, says Lincoln.“How can you support them to think through proactive ways for them to demonstrate this new mindset, this new leadership capability, and strategic thinking?” she said. “I think strong ownership and promotional campaigning in an authentic, positive way is something to be extra mindful of, because it’s going to take them extra time and effort to be able to showcase that change they’ve undergone.”Mary Pieper is a freelance writer based in Mason City, Iowa.

Mary Jones | June 13, 2024

Belonging for Everyone: Reimagine the Future of DEI

Without taking diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) training seriously, workplace inclusion will not improve. Cultural bias could corrupt the company, making it unsafe and undesirable for minorities in certain roles within a company. Companies deciding that DEIB is unimportant could see higher turnover rates than their competitors who utilize this training to support and accept their employees without judgment. At From Day One’s Dallas conference, Renu Sachdeva, head of client solutions at Talking Talent, North America, spoke to the importance of DEIB training in the workplace, especially in the midst of pushback. For Sachdeva, pushing work around DEIB forward is a driving point each and every day. She shared the story of Botham Jean, who was murdered by an off-duty police officer in 2018. Botham, who went by Bo, was a colleague of Sachdeva. Bo’s murder drew attention to racial biases, being that he was an unarmed Black man, killed in his own home. “Bo is a huge part of why this work continues to be so important to me today,” said Sachdeva. Despite the recent positive steps forward in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, there are still many hurdles to jump over to reach the end goal, says Sachdeva. Many business leaders are already seeing budget cuts and reluctance to these initiatives. But this training is vital to understand the significance of inclusion for the long-term success of companies. Additionally, more workers consider it table stakes when considering a place to work.Renu Sachdeva, head of client solutions at Talking Talent, North America, led the thought leadership spotlight “94% of people in a survey said that it is very or somewhat important to them to feel a sense of belonging in the workplace. And yet 75% have said that they felt excluded in some way,” said Sachdeva. With a percentage so high, why would a company not want DEIB training within their organization? Satisfied employees means more productivity and higher retention rates. Talking Talent’s approach to DEIB is rooted in two beliefs. First, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is for everyone. Second, you have to fix the culture. Saying DEIB is for everyone means that no particular ethnic group or cultural background is excluded from the conversation. It should be at the forefront of the employee lifecycle, and practice in recruiting efforts, onboarding, and performance reviews. Rather than offering training as a one-time solution, it should be an integral aspect of the overall employee experience. Inclusive leadership and allyship training for current and future leaders ensures that each leader has the necessary skills to invite diversity and inclusion into the company. Sachdeva says that employees who get promoted may have exceptional technical skills, which is why they get promoted in the first place. Yet, they have not gained the managerial skills to foster inclusion and guide people underneath them as a strong leader. Each organization has its unique risks if effective inclusion is not a priority. Pushing the work around DEIB forward is a necessity, and can propel engagement and success, says Sachdeva.Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Talking Talent, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Mary Jones is a freelance writer out of Ohio. Her work is featured in several publications including The Dallas Express, NDash, and The Daily Advocate.

Webinar Recap

How to Improve the Recruiting Process for Technical Talent

“There’s a record number of candidates applying for roles. I think it takes a good, solid recruiting strategy to ensure inclusivity practices are followed,” said Cody Ledbetter, senior technical recruiter at O’Reilly Auto Parts, during a From Day One panel discussion on how to build an exceptional recruitment process.According to Amanda Richardson, CEO at technical interview platform CoderPad, this increase in application volume is forcing recruiters to make changes. She observes companies abandoning loosely planned, informal interviews for more conscientious decision-making. “It’s nice to see companies being a little more organized, disciplined, and clear in their hiring processes,” she said.Richardson is encouraged by candidate assessments designed to evaluate the skills most relevant to the job–rather than arbitrary pop quizzes, for instance–and happy with the return of the live interview checking both hard and soft skills.It is the confluence of mutually beneficial tech tools and human understanding, said panelists, that is changing the way employers are able to recruit and vet incoming tech talent.Using the Latest in HR Tech to Improve the Hiring ProcessArtificial intelligence has talent acquisition professionals excited for its possibilities and likewise trepidation about its power. And whether they’re prepared or not, AI has arrived in HR technology. So, what are the implications for the hiring process?The panelists spoke to the topic "Hiring Tech Developers: Building a Nearly Perfect Recruitment Process" (photo by From Day One)“I do think that [AI] will make the recruitment process significantly more efficient, in terms of elimination of manual tasks,” said Phil Yob, senior director of talent acquisition at insurance tech company Applied Systems. “I don’t think that at this point it’s solving for the personal interaction you get from working with TA or HR in the interview process. Despite all the good work they can do from automated messaging, face-to-face interaction and the human touch element are big pieces.”Further, panelists urged recruiting teams to be vigilant about the quality of the AI tools they’re using. Ultimately, the TA teams and hiring managers who use them will be responsible for whatever decisions are made. “It’s our job to understand what it’s doing and what it’s weeding out,” said Julia Stone, head of recruiting for eCommerce infrastructure services at Amazon.Assessing Great CandidatesFaced with mountains of applications, recruiters are figuring out the most efficient, effective, and scalable ways of evaluating the qualifications of those candidates. Ledbetter’s rule of thumb is that “the recruitment process should be commensurate with the level of technicality for the role.” Don’t exhaust candidates with overly complex or back-to-back assessments. By avoiding burdensome technical assessments–and limiting questions only to those most relevant to the role–employers can build trusting relationships with top developers.Given the tech industry’s reputation for being less than diverse, Richardson said she’s encouraged by new skills-based hiring practices. “I can assure you that [tech] is still lacking in diversity, but I credit people teams with doing everything they can to really fight against it. I do think the opportunities are around finding a way to assess candidates that’s different from just looking for logos or keywords.”Regarding the legitimacy and consistency of recommendations made by interviewers themselves, the panelists encouraged rigorous preparation. “It’s very important to establish what each person is assessing for,” Amazon’s Stone explained. “By putting more rigor in that structure before you’re going in, you can avoid some of that groupthink.”There may be room for more equity in the hiring process when it comes to hiring candidates from within or without the organization. Yob noted that Applied Systems makes a point of operating consistently, whether the candidate is internal or external. “We’ll give a little credence to their having been a part of the culture, but I think the best thing we can do is to motivate internally by treating them the same and continue to move them through that process to make sure we’re getting the best possible person.”Skills matter, but so does the mode of working. Employers that have called their workers back to the office are returning to the in-person interviews, the panelists said, but that won’t be necessary for everyone. The best way to evaluate a candidate is the context in which they’ll be working. “Some companies give a Slack interview–or on Teams, whatever your product is,” said Richardson. “If you can’t communicate effectively on that channel, you probably aren’t going to be successful in a remote world.” The interview format matters, she said. “Are they going to be proficient not only in the skills but in the environment, too?”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, CoderPad, for sponsoring this webinar.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | June 13, 2024

Dan Heilman | June 13, 2024

Hiring 10,000 Employees a Year With an Eye on the Horizon

If your company struggles with finding a few new employees every year, how would you like to try for thousands? That daunting number isn’t too much for Jason Grosz, Head of Global Talent Acquisition for St. Paul-based clean-water giant Ecolab. During a fireside chat titled “Hiring 10,000 Employees a Year With an Eye on the Horizon,” Grosz talked about how his company recruits workers for its businesses around the world while at the same time investing in its future workforce. Grosz was interviewed by Patrick Kennedy, business reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune at From Day One’s Minneapolis conference.“I once heard the expression ‘glocal’ when it comes to talent acquisition – global with a local twist,” says Grosz, a 19-year Ecolab veteran. “What we’ve tried to do is create a standard structure for hiring, and allow a local version of that to be executed.”Jason Grosz, Head of Global Talent Acquisition at Ecolab spoke at From Day One's Minneapolis conference. He was interviewed by Patrick Kennedy, right, Business Reporter at the Star Tribune,Part of finding good employees is presenting your company as a good place to work. But Grosz points out that just saying so doesn’t make it so, and prospective talent can often see through the hype.“We talk about our employee value proposition very intentionally,” he says. “But if you don't deliver on the promise, then it doesn't really mean anything. People figure that out. And that gets out.”Selling the company culture to employment prospects is one thing, but continuing to provide value to workers once they’re on board can be another. To that end, Ecolab tends to match its number of annual hires with a roughly equivalent number of promotions, says Grosz.“We’re actually moving people more than we’re hiring people,” he says. “We use Career Hub and Workday. We’re trying to build a visible internal capability and opportunity marketplace for our people. Our CEO will sift through different talent reviews and hear from our businesses: What’s the landscape of talent? What are the needs? Where are the gaps?”As a measure of how effective such extra effort is, Ecolab’s retention numbers tend to hover around 85 percent, Grosz says. Part of the reason lies with an aggressive approach toward acquisition and adoption of new technologies.“We’re looking for more people in that analytics world, and we’re looking for more people who are comfortable in the A.I. technology space,” says Grosz. “You want people who understand biopharma and bioscience. So we've always had this need to find these distinct, unique types of talent.”Dan Heilman is a writer and editor based in St. Paul, Minn.

Carrie Snider | June 12, 2024

How to Take a Multi-Faceted Approach to Developing Leaders

As many organizations are finding, the traditional approach to performance management doesn’t work anymore. That’s especially true in the music industry, says Jennifer Rice, SVP of learning and organizational development at Universal Music Group.“UMG has over 50 different labels, and a lot of these different labels have their own culture, their own ownership, it's incredibly decentralized, which I think is by design,” Rice said. At From Day One’s May virtual conference, Rice discussed how UMG approaches its leadership development. Bryan Walsh, editorial director at Vox, moderated the fireside chat. Rather than a once-a-year goal setting with a mid-year check in that’s tied to a bonus, they have adopted a methodology of workflow. It’s important to be flexible when you have 60 territories around the globe, Rice says. There are still clear objectives, but with a twist. “It’s a continuous conversation,” she added. Creating a Learning CultureThe business world moves fast, so it’s important to create a culture of learning to keep up. Not only is it good for business, but it’s what employees, especially the younger generation, crave from their employers.“A lot of younger employees are thinking about this,” she said. If they can learn important skills in the workplace, it can help them now and in the future, no matter where they end up. “They can remain relevant and resilient, knowing that what they’re doing now and how it's being done is almost certainly not going to be the way it’s been done in a decade’s time.”The pandemic certainly fast-tracked this way of thought, especially when it comes to middle managers. “One of the things we have to teach individuals is to be resilient, and to stay curious, because the world is changing so quickly,” Rice said. “We need to ensure that we’re equipping people, particularly that middle management and our leadership team to remain curious, to have a growth mindset, to really lean into building trust with their team and having psychological safety.” Jennifer Rice of Universal Music Group was interviewed by Bryan Walsh of Vox MediaThe question is, how do you coach people to learn resilience? Companies can’t begin to teach that until there is psychological safety and trust and a culture of learning. “Asking questions, being curious and innovating is huge.” At UMG, they have innovation labs and hackathons to help people build creativity. Mentors and coaches are another way to foster learning and growth. “Giving people that one-on-one attention via a coach is going to really be a game changer.”UMG offers a program specifically for women’s development—they all get a coach. Retention and promotion rates are better than any program they have. “Coaching fosters engagement, retention, skill building, a great employee experience and a great culture,” Rice said.The 6 Strings of Management UMG offers a 6 Strings of Management program, a cohort of managers who can develop skills for being better leaders. “I think we all realize that learning new skills is hard. To learn any new skill requires a sustained effort.” Then leaders need opportunities to apply those skills, then to reflect on how those skills are being leveraged, and finally assessments to validate. “Something that makes it really great is, it’s not just content that we’re teaching individuals,” she said. “People learn by doing, they don’t learn by just listening, watching or learning, in the flow of work. So as L&D professionals, our role is to make that content so captivating, but to also keep the learner engaged so that they’re not just clicking out of the tab and doing something else.” The 6 Strings focuses on leading through transformation, impact, how to deal with change, communication, emotional intelligence, trust, and psychological safety. Those are important skills in any industry, but psychological safety is especially crucial in the creative industry, Rice says.“If you’re not always innovating, then you get left behind. So it’s incredibly important to create that safe space for people to take risks, for people to try on new things, for people to be creative. We really lean into what behaviors affect trust within the organization.” The program has a 98% recommendation rate, and they’ve seen a 92% adoption rate of the skills being learned. This program is especially important for middle managers, who are the ones with influence and relationships with many employees. Measuring Performance in a Creative IndustryNumbers have their place, and certainly sales can be an indicator of performance. When it comes to the creative industry, however, it’s important to focus on more than just output. So how to measure performance in the creative industry? At UMG, they can’t rely on just one source of information. There is a lot to take into consideration.“We really need to take a more holistic approach and gather feedback from a variety of sources, because work is done through collaboration, creativity, and teamwork,” Rice said. “We’re constantly reassessing and talking, conducting weekly one-on-ones with our teams, gathering feedback from a variety of sources.”Rather than a traditional approach, they try to be more modernized, more fluid, more flexible, more in the moment—a multi-faceted approach.Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.