99% of Businesses Get This Wrong | Felipe Cofino | HR Heroes S1 E6

[0:00]  are you going to be a dinosaur or are you going to be able to move and be futuristic and future focused if you are struggling don't let your pride get in the way make sure you do something to take care of yourself train your employees so well that they can leave and treat them so well that they don't talking about your mental health was not necessarily a common thing in our household gr and it was not a negative thing it wasn't like you know dismissed it just wasn't talked about put a lot of emphasis on the world human we are human beings we are all unique and different if we're going to talk about Dei B and be inclusive how can you not look at the whole human being I didn't know what was happening why am I thinking this way what's happening to me welcome to other people's worlds now you understand when people says they're struggling mentally they're not just having us a bad di they're hung over

[1:01]  all right guys welcome back to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast today we've got a brand new episode in our HR Heroes series and I'm really excited to bring my guest to the table today because Felipe I've been following along with your LinkedIn Journey for quite some time the work that you're doing in the overall workplace Wellness space the work that you're doing in talking about company culture and your just overall stance as an HR leader is incredibly interesting to me so I'm glad to have you on the show thanks so much for joining me man I really appreciate it well thanks for having me Ken you know I when I uh you and I met what I feel like a year a year and a half ago um I was just impressed with what you're doing and you know for me workplace Wellness workplace culture just the workplace in general is something I've been very passionate about because we spent so much time there and it makes sense to make sure

[1:49]  that the experience is positive for all and beneficial to the company that's exactly right so as I look at your history right you were a former vice president of human resources and organizational development at signal finan fincial feder Federal Credit Union and you're currently an executive Human Resources business partner and some of the stuff you're doing at Cricut media is incredible but all the other work that you're doing talking about the workplace Wellness Collective why are so many of these things important to you when it comes to workplace culture and just Wellness in general that's a great question K you know for me early on I got taught by high hotels how a good workplace culture can be built and sustainable as it grows and hi it's not a small company they're a huge company and to see a company that large really put that much value into

[2:36]  the employee experience in culture was really eye opening but it also taught me on how to do it right and how it's always evolving and so from that experience I was able to experience some really really challenging cultures and some amazing cultures and some that had cultures that was like the best kept secret no one knew about and what I started realizing was there's so many things that apply to all of us depend regardless of our industry of our jobs the workplace culture is very common in all areas and it might be unique to each company because of the people that are in it but the value of providing people the insights that I've learned over the years because people helped me people taught me high mentors great uh managers showed me how to do things the right way

[3:24]  and for me I just want to pass that knowledge on now I feel like I've been able to benefit from it gain from it why am I being selfish I want to pass that on to others so they don't have to struggle the way others have in the past and with workplace Wellness it applies not just in the workplace it benefits you in the whole and so for me focusing on everything that helps us achieve our goals help us be more productive at work and help us be healthier physically mentally and financially is ideally the goal you know I think um the workplace Wellness I would say wave that we've been seeing over the last couple years is really all about the common EXP experience of life in general and the last couple years have been incredibly tough for so many people I mean 2024 from a layoffs perspective was huge there were so many numbers of people who lost their jobs and really created an

[4:11]  uncertainty in their life and now something that I thought was really interesting is a question that kind of gets to the underlying framework or Foundation of how are you doing you posted something on LinkedIn and said over 200 million views and over 40,000 comments All Because of four simple words how is everybody doing Elmo hopped on X the other day and asked that simple question how is everybody doing and the results of people coming back and commenting and saying how they were doing were kind of substantial why don't you give us a little bit of kind of an understanding about that post that you saw and why that question of how is everybody doing was so important you know that post struck me because of how simple the question was and how often you think about how often we walk by somebody and whether we ask the question or they ask

[4:59]  ask the question hey how you doing and think about how often do you actually stop and wait for the response most of the time we keep on walking and someone's like oh yeah I'm fine oh how are you oh I'm good and that's it but when you ask that question with meaning I always tell people add the word really to that question how are you really doing it changes the tone dramatically and so for me when I saw the response to me it sent a few messages one that people are struggling hands down all of us at different levels different experiences we all have our struggles but two it was great to see how vulnerable people willing to be back I mean look I'm a proud latino man who was raised by Latino parents talking about your mental health was not necessarily a common thing in our household growing up and it was not a negative thing wasn't

[5:47]  like you know dismissed it just wasn't talked about but when you have somebody who actually cares enough and impacts that question it opens up your eyes thinking wow talking about it actually does help and so having people be more vulnerable sharing and normalizing the conversation around that I thought was so important and so for me it was just kind of opening people's eyes saying hey if you are struggling don't let your pride get in the way make sure you do something to take care of yourself because honestly those that look up to you whether their kids employees friends they're going to probably follow your lead if they look up to you and if you address it they're going to say oh that's how you address those things versus hiding it not talking about it and acting like it's not a problem so how are you doing really in 2024 how's

[6:36]  the year starting off for you 2024 has been a unique year for me I'll be honest uh it's been one of those things where we uh 2023 brought lost struggles you know my wife went through a stroke um it was thank God she's okay she's been still recovering and healing but she uh was one of the fortunate ones that it didn't impede her permanently she has no long lasting effects per se um but that was a huge eye openening moment there you know because things happen in our life outside of work and and to say that they don't impact us is a lie they impact us how much they impact us that's the difference and sometimes you have employers that want to know how you doing but sometimes you have an employer that wants to know how you're doing but they might use it against you later on so people are fearful about sharing how

[7:23]  they're really doing with their especially their manager if they don't trust them um because maybe in the past you have trusted them they've thrown it back in your face so for me that was very eye opening because I saw a lot of people and understood how much the struggles do impact it and asking someone how they're doing it and providing resources to help them get through it is so important so for me um I I Le up friends and family that you really know who your friends are when you need them you really understand who cares about you as a human being who reaches out to you who comes by to check on you without even asking I just came by I just wanted to see you're doing and that's the thing you really realize who really cares um so for me having that support from family and friends was instrumental for my wife and I to get through this especially her because you know it was a long battle but um and

[8:11]  then you know there were some work challenges I left signal um and that was something that they're going through a lot of changes right now and it was an opportunity for me to explore new opportunities which is exciting um and I I be honest as exciting as it is to have an opportunity to explore new Ventures you know with Cricket has been so exciting they are in a state of growth they are have opportunities where they can enhance improve things and to be a part of like that is so exciting but I'm not going to lie you know Cricket is something that you know if it works out I'm all in but I have the opportunity now to look at jobs in other industries that I never considered take my time to really evaluate hey do there Mission and values line with mine and so being able to have that opportunity to really do that look at company

[8:59]  research some and find one that really resonates with me and allows me to do what I do best and be a part of something exciting and meaningful so to answer your question in a short version I'm doing well uh taking it day by day and sometimes there's largest strug than others you know because sometimes you have other family issues that I'm not going to get into right now that pop in healthwise that add more challenges and so you just you pray you stay strong and you lean on people when you need to do you feel like your personal experiences have given you a different perspective on kind of the amount of energy and the I would say percentage of you as a whole person that you put into work recognizing that there are other things that are so much more important out there absolutely 100% um you know I I

[9:49]  the title Human Resources I don't take lightly I put a lot of emphasis on the word human we are human beings we are all unique and different if we're going to talk about Dei and B and be inclusive how can you not look at the whole human being now are there time and places for things in the workplace absolutely but what that means is there is a time in place to talk about the human being that works there and how are they doing and and how can we support them and the word support let me just say this um a wise person told me one time what does support look like to you and you know I gave him my answer and they're like all right let me give you a visual of what support really looks like to me if somebody was drowning and they were asking for help what kind of support do you think they would appreciate more me saying come on swim you can do it you can do it come on come

[10:36]  on or hey here's a life ra grab it hold on to it I'm G to pull you in the Action level of support means something when you support somebody you're not just verbally regurgitating information you're actually taking action you're actually finding out what you could do sometimes people don't know what to do and they have to ask and that's fine but having that that support in the workplace is huge because look we are not going to understand what someone's going through unless we go through it ourselves and honestly I don't want to go through what everyone goes through because they're going through a lot of struggles I rather try to seek to understand than be understood and with that I want to make sure that people talk and feel safe psychologically because if they're not back to that manager that throw things back in your face you're not going to

[11:23]  share you're not going to be fully transparent and you're not going to bring your full complete self to workplace now I always say bring your authentic self to the workplace comes with the caveat you gota be appropriate you gotta be professional you got to respect the culture you know there are things that I will say in my house that I would never say at work and vice versa actually so you know you have to read the room and make sure you're appropriate for the place but bringing your your authentic self to the workplace I think is important because you tap into different strengths that employees have you tap into unique things that they can bring that most companies don't even want to know about but you're missing out an opportunity to make your company more successful ful by learning and adapting to what your employes are doing in day-to-day life do you think that the experience of the pandemic especially was something that triggered this new leadership style that

[12:13]  is so necessary for the sustainability of these businesses I think about like in a pre-pandemic world everybody was feeling I would say pushed down and almost kind of burnt out from work but they recognized that this was a part of a necessary evil if you will if I was going to provide for my family then the pandemic occurred and we saw so many changes in the work Union of our lives and how we show up every single day and now that we're on the other side the pandemic everybody's almost got a taste of what a true form of work life balance and prioritizing our family over work kind of really looked like and now that we're seeing a shift back into I would say the prepandemic workforce style if you will do you feel like that's creating like a a subconscious like rub with a lot of people absolutely you know it the the cat is out of the bag you you

[13:00]  can't put it back in there and at the end of the day you have to realize that having progress in the world every generation has brought a level of you know new intervention if you will into the workplace and or a new step in the evolution of the workplace hybrid work is the next logical step reality and there are a lot of companies that allowed individuals to work remotely sometimes or certain teams but what the pandemic did was it opened up our eyes to say two things one all those leaders that were hesitant because they didn't understand remote work guess what they had to do it and boy wow how understanding were they once they actually did it again why do we have to wait to actually do it to try to understand so that made them understand it they also understood what it's like

[13:47]  to deal with mental health issues during the pandemic a lot of people had a new thing they didn't know what was happening why am I thinking this way what's happening to me welcome to other people's worlds now you understand when people says they're struggling mentally they're not just having a bad day because they're hung over they are seriously have a mental challenge that they're dealing with that they struggle with lucky for you but you don't have to until the p in a kit maybe so that to me what opened up to the strong leaders out there um that were not old school that were not setting their ways that were open to listening to new ways of doing things and trying them out are the ones that I think being successful and attractive because the reality is look fully remote can be great but you're missing a factor there and being fully on site can be great but you're missing

[14:34]  a factor there the hybrid allows that flexibility uh we had employees that wanted to work five days in the office we had some that wanted defer to work remotely majority of them like the mix they liked interacting with employees do they need to see everyone every single day no but having that consistent weekly interactions that added value so for a company to be successful right now I think they have to really open their eyes and realize are you going to be a dinosaur or are you going to be able to move and be futuristic and future focused and look at the benefits of what you might be offering because the reality is there are a lot of Frontline jobs out there that you can't do this with and we got to respect those Frontline workers that are doing this especially as the shift happens there's a benefit to be able to work hybrid or remote those that choose to be the front line they're going out there and during

[15:22]  the pandemic they put themselves at risk but now they are pay for more gas more time to commute you know struggles of getting ready earlier getting home later all those things play in effect so if we can do them why not I don't want to be employer it says we're just not doing it because no give me a valid reason so you I can understand and it almost seems like now is the perfect time for organizations to really start leaning into Employee Engagement to be able to learn about what are the preferences of my employee base because last week I was actually I created a or piece of content on LinkedIn about the work from home research group so um it is actually founded or Ran by A Harvard or a Stanford Economist named Nick Bloom so excuse me for being off the top of my head here but he was talking about they

[16:09]  did a survey of over 4,000 employees right and they found that the preferences of work from home or work in the office were really interesting because of the preference split they've said that a majority of workers said they want to work in the office because they like the engagement and the collaboration the second half of the workers said that they would like to be fully remote and so when it comes down to looking at those two demographics it really means in order to create a Workforce that is cohesive you have to learn listen to both sides and create a hybrid model and so something interesting that they found as well was out of those 4,000 employees that were surveyed they said 2.3 days of work from home was the right balance for their mental health and 2.5 days working in the office was the appropriate balance for their physical health which is

[16:56]  really interesting but it seems like a lot of employ lawyers are either taking the stance of we are in the office every single day or we are fully remote and maybe that's not right the best answer for kind of what the preferences of the modern day Workforce look like yeah I mean look my last employer they uh had some people on the board of directors that were very old school very uh you they they were called the dinosaurs because they were setting the ways and they didn't understand and when people don't understand when I understand I research like I understand will let let me understand it better um and unfortunately that resulted then trying to do what a lot of other employers have done is n react everyone's coming in 100% we prove to you the how successful we've been for two years what's the shift you know and the reality is that people that are in the commercial World

[17:44]  they don't want to see a crash come down on the commercial uh industry and and that's a realistic concern I get it but let's think differently what can we do with that space how can we maximize it how can we make extra Revenue using that space can we rent it out for events can we now that people are having events again there's so many opportunities can you sell it and rent it out top few floors think differently be creative if it fails fail fast don't sit on it and and and dwell on it but people have to realize that you know listen to your employees listen to what they're saying we always say we want Employee Engagement well if you ignore what they're saying why would you expect them to be more engaged listen to them you may not give them the answer they want sorry you can't have 5 days fully remote but guess what we're going to do hybrid you can do two or three days and you can choose just communicate it weekly you

[18:32]  know set expectations set guidelines like any policy that HR creates in in Workforce create structure around it create you know dos and don'ts help educate have uh meetings to answer any questions that might be uh in their heads this is all going to help and the reality is if you're as Employer not doing it your employees can find someone that does because there's plenty out there that are doing it you're a th% right I think you know there's an interesting dichotomy as you were talking there I was thinking about the balance between shareholder profits and employee satisfaction you know one of the things that I've seen in the most recent years is the explosion of some of these tech companies right to meet Demand only then later to have to cut huge portions of their staff in order to have those financial metrics that look

[19:19]  good at you know a quarterly report and so I've got some stats for you here I saw um a nice headline that I wanted to bring up layoffs F Yi a website that tracks job Cuts recently reported 32,000 tech jobs have been laid off in 2024 alone so that does not set a really awesome trend for us as we get into this year but it's also important to recognize that 2 Milli 62,939 companies during 2023 so that is a ton of jobs that were let go by these large Tech organizations why do you think the tech space in general is so expansive and then only has to come around next quarter and say guys we overdid it we have to cut back down now why do you

[20:06]  think some of those metrics evolve in that space specifically yeah great question you know a lot of it was the Catalyst was the pandemic you know everyone had to work remotely everyone had to figure out how to work remotely we don't have the technology we need help we need an IT the tech industry blew up they needed people startups needed help you know companies needed you know a whole departments they needed outsourc their technology to be able to do it um they need to jump on and and adapt to teams they didn't have teams yet you know or Zoom regularly so there were so many jobs out there and there's such a high need for consultants and contractors and then people started going back to the office and they knew how to work remotely they knew how to work in the office so the team's needs started dwindling and the economy hit you know interest rates were going up

[20:53]  you know liquid issues in the banking industry um affected other Industries you know it definitely had an impact where people started laying off because they had to downsize based on the economy so between the economy the pandemic it was just a huge need and then when the need didn't happen it was just it impacted them the most because they grew it's kind of like when you have someone that is um opening a new hotel they might over staff when they first hire and then they'll dwindle down after it opens it's not not um it's a pretty similar concept so from I you know you mentioned the human element of Human Resources being incredibly important how would you kind of attack some of these challenges that these big tech companies have when they overexpanded then have to reduce how do

[21:41]  you feel like those cuts impact the culture of the organization but honestly more importantly the long-term trust that they have in the organization to be able to protect the most important important value and resource which is the human element of those businesses how do you think that's impacted uh it's impacted dramatically and it's something that you know one of the solutions is hire somebody like me that understands it and cares about it that does work force management planning and can think futuristically how is this going to look if we hire this many now how's that going to look a year three years five years from now how is it going to affect our reputation or is our reputation be at risk by doing these things a lot of people get excited they get new ideas they need to react and they don't think about the trend the consequences of the rle

[22:28]  effect when you have somebody that has the ability to have one of the most important skills in the leader emotional intelligence if the pandemic didn't prove anything it proved that we needed to have emotional intelligence because the people who were not emotional intelligent they did not look good some of those leaders that were doing layoffs over email and you saw all the stories out there it was it was horrible um that Mo intelligence is crucial because when you create trust you said it earlier trust is a key thing when that trust is there I've seen this happen many times the employees understand the business decisions when they need to happen because you've been transparent they understand the econom is happening look at this interest rates happening we're having issues we're struggling we're going to have to make some changes they'll respect that it's

[23:16]  when people keep it secret and hide it and don't share what's going on don't share the struggles don't they get blindsided you take them along for the journey treat like a human being like a partner because guess like you're asking them to invest their time 100% when they're there why aren't you investing them employees are let's talk about the financial size a little bit employes are the usually the greatest expense the company has now think about it technology is a pretty huge expense anyone who's ever you know invest in technology in a company knows that that's one of the major expenses too why is it that we do checkups we we we we make sure that we uh look at all our systems they're running properly we have someone dedicated to checking the systems when there's a an issue we address it immediately we don't question why is it doing this you know this a bad system get rid of it no we try to fix it

[24:04]  if we put that much attention into the human beings boy would this be a better workplace I mean come on let's think about it every time that you were not working you weren't functioning 100% if someone actually came over and said hey let me help you know you out let me tweak you let me support you let me let me take this off your plate so you can work more efficiently these are the things that add value and and it's amazing how we think Emotions Don't app belong in the workplace give me a CE CFO or CEO I'll talk to them because guess what if you got a product out there that you're selling in the market tell me you don't market and sell to emotional buying think about how many people Market to emotional buying when you're in the supermarket or commercials the tear jerkers to get you we use theem motion business every single day so don't say it doesn't belong in the workplace because you're using it as a skill and a tool to get more money I'm a little passionate about

[24:51]  that one no I know we want we want to use emotion as an acquisition tool but we want to act like it doesn't exist inside of the business which interesting dichotomy that we have to be able to deal with and I think that creating that blend or that hybrid model we'll go back to that of how we can integrate emotion and the human element back into our businesses is going to be incredibly important you know there's an article that I found that talks about five workplace Trends to prepare for in 2024 and I want to kind of walk you through these and get your opinion and your feedback on these Trend number one is redefining the employee experience so only 29% of those surveyed in this study in this article are satisfied with the steps that their company has taken to address their well-being and their mental health according to those surveys uh flexible working hours overall mental

[25:38]  health and Stress Management are among the top areas for professionals when it comes to staying in their company Long Term now 29% of people feel satisfied with the amount of effort that their employer putting into that why do you think such a low rate is satisfied with the work that their employers putting especially over the last couple years when we've seen that mental wellness and mental health are such key priorities for an organization why do you think that difference is one difference that I know is a huge impact or a factor is leadership they're not practicing it they're not engaging in it and they're not leading by example I'll tell you right now when I've seen leaders dive into it and and make it a priority for them boy do the employees follow boy do they follow and and it

[26:26]  makes an impact and when the leaders start doing that their teams follow so that's the number one reason I think that impacts it the number two reason that I know impacts it is people focus on you said the employee experience when you ask somebody about the employee experience I would venture to say that most of them are going to S and talk about oh onboarding and and and attracting new applicants and and and and training that's it the employee experience dies there no the employee experience is from when they start apping to when they on board so when they get trained work with their team grow learn and get promoted maybe and then leave retire maybe get fired I don't know but every step of that is part of the employee experience every person I've ever had to let go I did it

[27:15]  with dignity and respect they are already feeling bad why are you going to sit there and make it worse you want people that when they leave your company if I was running a company I would make sure that every person I interacted with walked away with the best experience possible even if it was a negative situation because they're possibly an ambassador for you they're going to talk about your company do you want to say they're irrational emotional and make bad decisions or you want to say you know what they're a good business person they had make tough decisions but they're respectful you know it it's it's so simple yet people forget and so they again going back to how much are you investing in your employees are you just checking off the box to say you did it or are actually looking at the whole journey and evaluating it because when those Superstars that you've had with company for 10 years stop getting feeling valued

[28:03]  guess what they're going to look somewhere else so it's making sure that even though you think people are happy still checking in on them as a human being to make sure because again some people are private they're not going to volunteer information yeah 100% right and part of that you know that trend of only 29% of those survey feel satisfied with the amount of effort when it comes to a mental health support perspective is really interesting to me because I feel like because Mental Health and mental Wellness have been such buzzwords in the space a lot of organizations have treated those as policies and procedures right we're going to create a policy that talks about work from home days or mental health days or you have access to resources but they're not really a part of the ingrained culture of the organization so it's like go ahead and take advantage of those resources but like what resources do we really have and are they actually a feasible part of

[28:50]  my day-to-day operation from a mental Wellness perspective I feel like a lot of organizations are missing that absolutely and and I'll say you know one thing I failed to mention with the leadership Le by example was um before the pandemic when I was really trying to get people to understand the value of the mental physical and financial Wellness in the workplace um my niece she was I think 16 at a time she said why don't you share your story like what do you mean like your story about your car accident and how you and having anxiety and dealing with that like oh I don't know like why would people listen to you if you're not willing to share that it worked for you and I'm like damn it you're right um so thank God for the wisdom of the youth because I I I went up there and we had a staff meeting and I talked about mental wellness and I was sharing pictures of

[29:37]  people that people knew had mental Wellness Robin Williams Kate Spade but then I started sharing people like Christen Bell Ryan Reynolds um people who have come out and there's other people I'm not thinking right now but people who have come out and shared their struggles and show that they're still successful it didn't stop them and that so when I thought about that I said let me share my story and so I shared my story other employees shared their stories I can tell you how valuable that was and how meaningful and what people came up and said but what I saw was really powerful and meaningful was when the pandemic hit we had employees reaching out all us that shared they're reaching out to us saying oh my god I think I'm dealing with what you're dealing with how do I handle it I don't know how' you get over it and you know a lot of the conversations was okay well you don't

[30:23]  get over it you learn how to manage it you learn how to you know you do certain tools exercises to help you manage it and also you start recognizing the signs before it hits you you know head on so you can avoid it sometimes so many Rich conversations came out that and that just grew the participation the involvement and understanding of the value of a Wess program and like I said if you're looking at as an employer at a less program as oh we had 80% participation we're great that is great don't get me wrong that's phenomenal but that's not the result the results are what happened to them I year two we had three people uh lose over 100 pounds six people quit smoking we had two people are no longer diabetic and one person is no longer taking the

[31:10]  high blood PR pressure medication and we avoided five surgeries just after a year or two that grew after more that was success because I knew people were actually practicing it they were using it and they were saying thank you and they were grateful and they were encouraging others so all what happened was the one program didn't become a program it became part of the culture people were going get their inop physicals and they were excited about it not nervous like oh I'm going physical again it came out good or oh I have to work on this you know a little thing and we would support each other people were like they knew that this person shouldn't be eating you know uh you know carbs right now or they needed come back on their red meats and when they're eating we like hey don't forget like you're right and we would encourage each other it wasn't a negative thing it was a positive thing and so that's the

[31:57]  importance of having that in there because you have to make sure that you are living it practicing it and being vulnerable it's hard for a leader to share that because it's just think oh sign of weakness I'm sorry what I've dealt with I'm stronger because of it today and I am confident that I've been able to help others because of what I went through and I'm a better HR person for it I saw Gary vaynerchuk talking about um in one of his pieces of contact uh content recently on Instagram or somewhere like that he said the best managers are actually mentors and that really sto with me because it's like a manager has so much experience that they can lead somebody through the Journey that they've been through and give them insights and guidance and now that's a perfect transition into our Trend number two which is Bridging the Divide between leaders and employees now this is really important because we touched on this a

[32:43]  little bit in kind of our answer to number one but being able to be vulnerable and start conversations around commonality I think is incredibly important and that's one of the favorite things that you know the work that we do here at Francis we had a recent story HR director from a hospital system right reached out to us and said you know we've enjoyed receiving our daily text messages from Francis because they're conversation starters when I go and sit down with my team at lunch people start sharing their text and they say this is what it meant to me and it creates a conversation around the table around commonalities of experience and I think that's incredibly important because there's always been a divide between leadership there's been a glass ceiling if you will between managers and employees below them but blurring that divide is incredibly important because working in itself is our other Human Experience we spend so much time of our

[33:31]  day and our lives working why would it not be a family experience at the same time and I love being able to kind of create the vulnerability opportunities and create those conversations to create that commonality and eliminate that divide between different levels of leadership no absolutely I think you know when you do that it shows allows people to see who you are as a person and a human being um when I first uh one of my CEOs started working with him um and you know he's you know a little you know every CEO can be intimidating just for the title um so I'm you know trying to get to know him and everything we're talking about business and then something happened on the radio we in the car and they mentioned something about Star Trek I saw his eyes like oh and he said oh I'm like do you like Star Trek he's like oh yeah yeah it's a

[34:18]  little bit I go no I I love Star Trek he's like oh really and boy his demeanor changed he opened up he he started sharing and he saw the excitement that connection opened up doors to us having other conversations now imagine if you did that with your employee how valuable that is when they're sharing something especially you you talk about commonality and I always caution people don't always take over someone's Story by sharing your story add to their story and when I say that is you know someone's thr with that saying you know what I've experien something similar I get that how how are you doing you know have you followed up with the doctor whatever the case may be um those commonalities build trust they build a strong relationship of someone who understands them when someone

[35:06]  understands you that's powerful you feel like you can go to them and and be more vulnerable and When leaders do that again it takes away the stigma of your title look I'd beiss IFI did not say the H the title VP of HR or anyr title is going to make someone nervous if I say do you have ad minut to me I don't care who you are you say those words to somebody they're like is everything okay am I in trouble I have to be conscious of that I'm not going to abuse that and use that as an intimidation factor to add fear into the workplace no I'm going to use that as an ability to know that the CLE is respected and with that respect and that title comes a lot of responsibility and part of that responsibility is having your employees feel comfortable approaching you that is not their job it's your job to do that and I think

[35:53]  when one of the ways you do that is by opening up and being vulnerable and again is there such a thing as sharing too much absolutely please you're a leader know your place I don't want to know everything that you tried in college no no don't that's too much you know there's a fine line between sharing appropriately and sharing you know inappropriately um so I think having those barriers knocked down can provide such value and trust and I got to tell you any leader out there says oh I have key earning trust like that I'd say no it's a little bit hard you know one of the the next topics that I want to talk about is the use of performance reviews so performance reviews across the landscape of business has always been looked at as kind of a scary thing right but one of the things that I found interesting about this

[36:40]  article the third Trend was turning performance of reviews on its head and it said only onethird of professional survey say that they value actively participate in and use performance reviews for improvement so that's an interesting statistics onethird of people participate in the in these Improvement reviews and use them as a way to review and improve their overall work why do you think that number is so low do you think it's a cultural element of what performance reviews have been looked at as or why do you think that that number is so low It's a combination of the frequency and the fact that there's a lack of conversation and engagement around it um so for example you know growing up in you know my career I can't tell you how many reviews that I got that were here's a review

[37:28]  look it over and sign it let me know if you have any questions okay looks good sign done and that's one of the years I did get reviews some years I as as the HR person in charge of doing the reviews for the entire company ironically the person that sometimes got left out was me you know go to the CE like Hello My Views like oh yeah yeah I'll get to it I'll get to it I'll get to it you're doing fine you're doing fine no no I need feedback I welcome the feedback but here's the thing if you do a review annually I'm going to call you a dinosaur I am I'm sorry because it's not effective and and honestly think about this how many times have you had the experience where it's you're in your review and you get your review and they're like ah well you didn't get this accomplished and that accomplished and this accomplished so that's why I had to write you lower on those areas I thought I was on target for these what what happened when you

[38:17]  don't have that communication you're setting them up for failure okay now what I've done and it's been successful in the past is the frequency so formally at least quarterly you're going to meet with your employees to talk about their progress and their goals the goals is the key you're going to put their goals into a project management system or tracking system in Excel if you need to whatever works for you so that when you meet you can talk about the progress the employee is going to update monthly just an update notes hey this is what I've accomplished this month this what I some need to do nothing too strenuous but doing that then you have meetings now say you have oneon-one bi-weekly monthly weekly great opportunities to bring it up there on a consistent basis say you bring it up every month when you sit there with employee talk about what's going well

[39:06]  and what what you know areas to focus on but spend the majority of time about okay how are you doing on the goals for this year that you're actually working on where are you having challenges I see this going well what's to hold up on this one let's talk about that and and learn and when they share their strategy their struggles their concerns and you can provide them real time advice and feedback that's where you're going to see performance success that's where I've seen the goals achieve not on time early like majority of the people have achieved their goals early now and they' picked up new goals but not only that they were more confident they were able to participate more and the overall ratings were going up and the people that were not it was a very clear evident opportunity to say hey you're

[39:55]  not catching this let's do some retraining let's let's set some action plans to help you get back on track not oh we're going to ding you and ding you no use the annual review to give the overall year performance that's great but use these quarterly monthly check-ins to help them on their progress find out oh wow this e economical change that's happening in recently is going to impact your goal we need to revise that but guess what if you didn't have that conversation at the end of the year oh sorry you didn't me to go so that's the important thing is is having up frequency having having the clarity and having it documented so that employees know this is a priority and you are obligated to update us on how you're doing so that we know and when we talk we can address it I mean the means of communication are so important because there's a direct correlation between

[40:42]  communication and overall performance in not only your role but the performance of the organization as a whole and that's kind of where our number four Trend popped in it said catalyzing communication to improve collaboration just 19% of those Serv surve in the study rated that the communication from their organization was excellent improving communication and collaboration should be a top priority for employers focused on growth since there's a notable correlation between revenue increases last year and the ratings of communication and collaboration and you talked about that perfectly because I think a lot of organizations especially leaders today think that maybe overcommunication is a form of micromanagement and where do you think that dichotomy or that Line in the Sand gets kind of drawn for somebody who's like I don't want to be

[41:28]  communicating with them too much because I want to show trust in their work but if they're not performing that creates opportunities of needed communication so where does that dichotomy come from so communication has got to exist regardless and the people that think oh I shouldn't be communicating because it could cost micromanaging micromanaging is telling them what to do communicating is sharing information two different forms of communication don't intermingle them um because I always tell people I'm not a micromanager but guess what if you're not doing your job you're performing badly I'm going to micromanage you and neither of us could be happy about it none of us like that so let's avoid that if we can um but the reality is that we have so many people that are trying to share their knowledge and communicate but we all have different communication Styles I just did a a room last week and

[42:18]  I just did a post yesterday about this you there are four predominant communication styles that we all have you know and there's different words where you a disc assessment or other assessments but for the most part the categories are you you have influencer communication you have a doer you have a thinker and you have a connector and what that those means that you know that doer is that getting down business you you you see something you get an idea you jump on it a thinker you're processing the idea you're evaluating it you're getting your thoughts laid out and and presenting them in a well thought out fashion connector is about communicating in a way that se you as a human being don't rush into me and say hey I need you to do this this and this no good morning how was your weekend how are you doing today okay now let's get into business um and then you have the influencer that is just that positivity

[43:05]  that comes in that gets excited about people ideas and gets people excited about ideas um and shares that knowledge all four of those personalities are in us we have preferences um I have duer influencers my preferences I have my CFO who is a thinker and connector I'm sorry thinker doer if I go to him and oh he's a doer I can go to him and just R off ideas no I can't always he's a thinker I need to put my ideas down on writing I like to re sh my ideas and then share them in writing he likes to see the ideas in writing and then talk about them verbally if I understand that communication style I know how to approach him it doesn't mean I'm going to change my style permanently no but I'm going to tailor it because I have that thinker in me I seem to flex the muscle a little bit and and exercise a little bit and use it today because we don't I I always said when we

[43:55]  did this exercise in in the workplace do not go around labeling people oh you're a thinker you always no we all have them in us when I was developing training for this and I did the exercise I came out as a doer stronger influencer second when I did it again during the training class with the in tedes my influencer was higher I shared that with the team because I said look when I was working and developing this training with the team we were in doer mode that was our strongest muscle that were reflexing so when I took the assessment I was in doer mode I'm now here training you all I'm trying to influence you all in understanding this training my influencer mode is taking in so it does deviate leaders need to understand that they understand that their approach is not always the best approach that there are different ways of approaching things and addressing things and when you

[44:42]  communicate regularly people aren't left to guessing I always say when you don't communicate you're basically going to create an atmosphere where people are being paid to worry because when they don't know they start guessing oh this must be be happening this must be happening and instead of focusing on their job they're thinking about what could be happening when the reality is Nei of those ideas are really happening but you left them guessing so be transparent don't be afraid and your employees are going to be much more empowered to support the company's success financials for example I'll know and know this the CEO who holds the financials and doesn't share them are the ones that tend to have struggles of employees not helping them financially because they're spending when they're not they're saving when they don't need to when you explain the financials in a simple way and help people every month

[45:30]  know where we're at they're going to keep that in their head so when they're making decisions about purchasing something or ordering something they're going to make a financially responsible decision because they're more empowered and uh knowledgeable about what's happening in the companies I mean they have the power to make good decisions on the business's behalf when they are knowledgeable about what the road map looks like and how they can help the team get there at the end of the day I think that's important you know like giving someone Direct say hey meet me at this restaurant but don't give them directions or the address yeah exactly they might get there eventually but they might be late yeah makes perfect sense you know you talked about in our last as we were kind of going back and forth there you were talking about your history as a trainer and that kind of leads us into our fifth Trend which is prioritizing training and development to boost performance so a lot of

[46:17]  organizations kind of have the idea from my personal perspective that employees are supposed to handle a role do their job tasks on a daily basis and that is all that they're going to be doing in the organization the best leaders have a stance in trying to help people grow within the organization so they can train and develop them to be better and to take on more responsibility why do you think that training and that personal development and professional development is so important for an organization well because it adds so much value on so many different levels it helps you stay relevant it helps you stay have more professional experience uh train people on staff and it helps you retain your staff you know I and forgive me I don't remember who said the quote but it was train your employees so well that they can leave and treat them so well that they don't and and when you

[47:05]  have training you know it's not again it's not don't take off the Box you know I always say when you're building training if you have the luxury of building training in house or if you're having it built and from outside company make sure you're involved because and have meetings with your teams that are going to attend it ask them what they would like to get from the training how what they best have how they've best received training in the past so you can tailor it a little bit but at the end of the day what regard whatever train you do it's after you're done that really matters because how do you know if they retained it how do you know if they're practicing it how do you know if they are supporting it um and one of the things I always say is you know Technology Innovation stay on top of Trends out there especially in HR we have got to make sure that we are that

[47:51]  business partner to help the operation and the company be successful but if we're not St top of Trends we're going to miss the boats um one of the trends that happened the past like 10 years is gamification of training bringing that think about this okay I consider myself a gamer today the number of Gamers out there are insane so why wouldn't we tap into that skill set or that interest but here's the beauty of it so I introduced it in the workplace the CEO is like no that's stupid then he went to a meeting they called him a dinosaur for not even thinking about it so he came back he's like all right I got called a dinosaur let's go ahead and try it we tried it and it was awesome now we tried with a company that was kind of startup they were just starting up there been very successful they're doing with ESPN today and everything but we wanted to give them a chance and thank God we did

[48:38]  because it was a simplistic gamification app where it had you know was almost like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune you know meat I don't know something else um and basically what you did was you sent the training to the company and they would formulate questions from the training into their game and they had high upbeat music to get you excited they made it seem like it was like you know an ESPN you know quiz show um and you would time each question so you had to do it fast at the end you got a score what the beauty of the analytic analytics was the score allowed you to see if they were retaining the information and as they played it more and more if the score went up said hey they're learning more so after the training they're playing the game and

[49:25]  they're gain more knowledge as they go however you see the employee who the score hasn't grown it's got May gotten worse or stay the same every time he's played it he's played like 15 times I think we need to do a refresher course for this person we need to go back and do some retraining because they didn't grasp it as well as the others that's the beauty of it because again we train everybody like all right we're done they're all trained yeah are they have you seen them practice it have you seen it in real life are they still using it so having some way to inspect what you expect and gamification is a great way because I love analytics it allows you to really see what's working what's not working not the only tool but very helpful tool so with employers any employer that has seen the value of training they will never leave it the ones that have not seen the value of training their business is going to

[50:12]  suffer and their clients and customers are going to suffer and the employees are going to suffer because you not investing in the employees to grow and learn if they're not GR in learning how's your company supposed to grow and learn I mean think about that you're you oh our company is going to grow how is it going to grow if your employees are not growing with this yeah I mean that's a it's a really interesting dichotomy because it's almost like we're afraid to invest into the most valuable resource in our business but we expect the growth to happen at the same time and it's kind of a scary place to be in you know Felipe this has been an absolute pleasure I want to give you the last couple seconds here if you were speaking to other HR leaders as they start te uh kind of navigating and planning for the road map of 2024 what what are some of the priorities that you think that they should be thinking about and what

[50:58]  message do you have for them so 2024 you know I'm I'm optimistic 2024 to be better than 2023 um however with that I think it brings a lot of opportunities and for all the HR leaders out there you know some things I want you to take away from this is one be that voice for your leaders to make sure that they're hearing both what's important to the business and important to the employees you are their advocate you're the voice at the table if you don't speak up they may not hear the employees voice always but two be that business partner understand what those other business partners are doing in the in different departments and divisions and figure out how what you do supports them so you can lean into that because when you need the support you want theirs back and then lastly embrace

[51:47]  the whole employee experience make sure that every level of employee experience is valued and there's a strategy behind it because what whether you're attracting and doing employment brandings to attract new applicant or you're making sure that the a Morning Experience is topnotch so they can hit the ground running and be successful to where they can work with others and learn and grow and get promoted and then leave with dignity and respect how they choose leave that's my message I think that's an incredibly important message for us to be able to chew on as we start navigating 2024 and the challenges that are surely going to be coming down the pipe and so Felipe it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the HR hero series and I I think you've done an amazing job at articulating why culture why investing into your employees but more importantly why the whole person health of that individual is so

[52:35]  important for the success of 2024 and a lot of businesses that we're leading out here today so I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show I really appreciate it well thank you Ken it's been a delight and uh I hope to have you back on the workplace well this uh hour with s Jetty and have you join us there again it's been a while so but I love this it's been a great thing and I love all the work that you're doing out there so keep it up and keep it up well thanks man I really appreciate it guys thanks for tuning in again once again hats off to Felipe thank you so much uh Felipe where can people find you if they want to learn more information about what you're doing out there sure um the best way to find me is LinkedIn that's where that's my primary home as far as being out there um and you can find me there I'm doing video uh videos post audio post I do audio rooms every week uh some with Shan Jetty some with Melissa Houston uh someone with my social charity chat and then another one

[53:22]  with tomomo so great opportunity to engage and learn and for me to get back and share what I know and others to ask questions and learn from it hopefully absolutely well guys that's been another episode thanks so much for tuning in really appreciate it that's a WP