Belonging at Work

Your Work Friends Podcast: Belonging at Work with Dr. Beth Kaplan

Fitting in fails…

Shrinking yourself to fit in is out. Standing in your truth is in. We spoke with belonging expert, and author of Braving the Workplace, Dr. Beth Kaplan to talk about why the old advice to “just fit in” is outdated—and honestly, damaging. We get into identity, inclusion, and how to stop molding yourself to a culture that was never built for you in the first place. Because real belonging doesn’t ask you to disappear—it asks you to show up.

Listen or watch the full episode here

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Speaker 1: 0:00

What does belonging mean to you personally in three words Don't sacrifice yourself.

Speaker 2: 0:07

Oh shit, that's good, that's good, it's good, it's good hey friend.

Speaker 3: 0:24

Hey, mel, how are you? I'm good, how are you doing? Hey, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Yeah, a couple of months ago Enzo figured out that when you whisper to Alexa, she whispers back. Well, this weekend we found out that if you ask Alexa to fart, she does and she has.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Yes, she has a whole canon of various farts, that she will fart on demand for you, which is incredible. And now I know what to teach my six-year-old nephew when I visit Florida in a few months.

Speaker 3: 0:55

You're welcome. I give you that gift. I give you that gift.

Speaker 2: 0:58

I appreciate it. Yeah, that was my Saturday. How was your weekend?

Speaker 3: 1:02

It was lovely. Thank you, it was so nice and sunny. Here I'm just enjoying spring, but I'm in the thick of wanting to throw everything out of my house. I just get in that mood of get a dumpster, let's throw it all out.

Speaker 2: 1:15

Yeah, that always feels good when you do that.

Speaker 3: 1:18

And then, four months later, you're like wait, where the hell is that? Where did that sweater go? Where did that sweater go? Well, friends, we're so excited because we're launching our episode with Dr Beth Kaplan, who is a global expert in belonging, and she is on a mission to improve belonging in the workplace in general in the world, and she joined us to talk about it. Francesca, what did you think about this episode?

Speaker 2: 1:44

Yeah, there were a lot of pieces of this episode that felt very personal, like I have felt what she had been talking about and I've also felt when I haven't.

Speaker 1: 1:55

I also felt just validated and really appreciated gaining some new insights and tools that I can take with me to help my own feeling of belonging but help other feelings of belonging as well.

Speaker 2: 2:08

Yeah, she was so good and gracious about offering small but really impactful things that everybody can do, whether you're an employee, a manager or, honestly, you're leading a company. Yeah so it doesn't have to be big, Doesn't it? Small things big difference Small things.

Speaker 1: 2:23

Yeah, it's Well everyone here's Dr Beth Kaplan.

Speaker 1: 2:46

Friends, we are super excited to have with us today Dr Beth Kaplan. Beth helps companies create a culture of belonging. She's also interested in how workplace trauma impacts our well-being and our future of work, and she's been recognized as a world-leading expert on belonging by the University of Pennsylvania and she's collaborating with them to develop a groundbreaking tool to measure belonging. She is currently the global head of leader development and enablement at Dassault Systems. Lastly, she is an author and her book Braving the Workplace will be coming out soon.

Speaker 1: 3:21

Beth, so lovely to have you here with us at your work. Friends, welcome. Thank you so much. It's great to be with you. Yeah, tell us what is belonging. How do you define belonging? So, belonging is the innate desire to be part of something larger than ourselves, without sacrificing who we are. So often I get the question of what's more important, the first part of that second sentence or the second, and they're both equally as important, right? So we've all had this overwhelming desire to be social, to be part of something, but if it comes at the cost of who we are, it's not real belonging. I felt that. I think I felt that before, francesca. Have you felt that before?

Speaker 2: 4:01

Yeah, I literally just got chills when you said that, even though I like I've heard you say that before, beth. But then when you said it again, I'm like, oh shit, that's so true. Yes, I felt it.

Speaker 1: 4:12

Yeah, the opposite of belonging is really fitting in trying to change who you are for other people. Yeah, and it never feels good when you try to force that. Ever, never. Why does this matter so much in life? It clearly matters, I think. What did they say? Community is actually more important than exercise in terms of life expectancy, right. Why does it matter so much in the workplace specifically? So it matters for so many reasons and the true reality of this one is that it extends beyond the workplace. We work so much more than any other generation.

Speaker 1: 4:45

You could debate that in history, when people used to have to hunt for their food maybe a little bit different, but at the same time, the reality in this one is that when you're happier, you're more productive. When you're able to connect with the world and feel like you can be yourself in any situation, you're going to feel that way. It gives you coping mechanisms. The serotonin alone is so healthy for us. When we don't have that, or where we feel isolated or excluded or any of the things, or like we're giving up a part of ourselves, it has very negative real-world consequences for us, for our mental, our physical, sociological well-being. Now, at the same time, it also takes a toll on everything in the workplace, from retention to all of the different measurements that you can come up with around satisfaction, but it's a real bottom line killer. When people feel like they don't belong, they either stay and they're unproductive which costs companies money, or they leave abruptly, which really kills your recruiting, and then, at the same time, when they're not productive, you lose business. You lose everything there. So the reality is that it hits all parts of the spectrum. You're obviously extremely passionate about this work.

Speaker 1: 5:56

What got you started? I think it's been with me all along. I think most of us would say that, right, a lot of people will come to me and say that everyone feels like a belonging researcher or everyone feels like a belonging storyteller because it's really rooted in our DNA. Right, it's part of everything we do. So I'm no different and for me, I had an experience in the workplace that really prompted me to evaluate how I look at myself. Was I being true to myself, and if I felt like I belonged or not? I'll keep it real.

Speaker 1: 6:26

The eventual realization was no. I didn't feel like I was being any of those things to myself, but instead of backing out and leaving, I doubled down. I made things so much harder for myself. So the second I figured that someone didn't like me who happened to be my boss at the time. It really hurt physically, right. So I think at the time it was way pre-pandemic and it was a stage where people weren't talking about things like this no loud quitting on LinkedIn, right. Or there was no quiet quitting where you could do what you had to do just to get the job done at the end of the day. So for me, I really wanted those gold stars from a boss who was never going to give them and I put myself in such harm's way that I was contemplating suicide.

Speaker 3: 7:11

That's true.

Speaker 1: 7:12

And when I told said manager, he ignored me. Wow yeah. So that was a trigger for me to get out. And not everyone's as lucky. You're not able just to pick up and leave when you want to, because there's this little thing called livelihood. Our jobs support us. So for me, I was able to make the decision that I need to leave, and it took me a good I would say eight months to a year to actually go. Yeah, I get it. What is that saying you can't win over people who are committed to misunderstanding you or not accepting you? And especially, I can only speak for myself as a perpetual people pleaser, a recovering people pleaser. It's natural, it's human nature to want to win people over when you feel like, oh, this person doesn't like me, why not, and what can I do about it?

Speaker 2: 7:57

And sometimes there's nothing you can do about it, but it does really impact you Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 8:02

And the sad part there's so many sad parts. The saddest part was I was trying desperately to win someone over who I didn't really respect. Yeah, I wouldn't take advice from him. Why was I taking criticism? Yeah, and it forced me to really look at myself. Look outside of the workplace. I was working 60 to 80 hours a week. I was losing friendships outside of work because people gave up trying to get together with me. I was doing things that were harmful, losing sleep. Hair was falling out. I was gaining weight and it was only until he ignored me, formally ignored my cries for help, that I knew I needed to leave.

Speaker 2: 8:39

I'm so sorry that happened to you. I just think it's really beautiful to see someone turning something that is so painful into something that is so powerful what you're doing to this work so thank you for that. I'm sure there are thousands of people that have felt very similar to you in terms of feeling like they didn't belong, that they were trying to assimilate into clipper culture, assimilate into the way a leader needed them to act to only not have that be reciprocated. You've been doing this work and studying this work, so you took that situation and then you went super deep in this. Yes, like a leading expert on belonging, I am wondering if we can talk about what are some of those common barriers or challenges people face in the workplace as it relates to belonging. What is that? What is that looking like for a lot of people?

Speaker 1: 9:28

I think it looks very different across the board. Right, there's a lot of diversity conversations that go around this, so when I comment, it's probably going to be a little more main sweeping. It'll hit everyone. I think one of the biggest barriers that we have is this internal talk track that we have. Right, there's this story we tell ourselves, and it's not always a realistic story. When we feel bad about ourselves, we beat ourselves up pretty badly. I think that's a really common barrier that I hear from people.

Speaker 1: 9:56

A lot of times the blame that you have is shifted onto you, from you, because you don't know where else to take it. Back in the day, I always say that back in the day it was HR, you'd go to HR. But the definition of HR has shifted, so when people have problems in the workplace they don't know where to go. You would logically think your manager, but that's not always a possibility, right? If we think about it, there are unequal playing fields. You and your managers are not equal. That's a reality. So speaking truth to power is really hard, and I think we're at a tipping point where people have been speaking truth to power and we haven't seen it go very well. So I think one of the biggest barriers are our leaders in the workplace and getting them acclimated to what it looks like. When we talk about trauma-informed workplace, so the trauma-informed workplace is really where you see things in the workplace that affect your mental and your physical health. We talk a lot about psychological safety, right? So when we don't feel safe in our environment and we're witnessing things that we need to either make just or justify on the company's behalf, that can become trauma-informed. For us is just one example, really. But who are about that? So a few things, not to disparage managers completely, but here's the reality. Have either of you ever had a manager that doubled as a psychologist? No, probably not. That's common, but from the pandemic and on, I believe that managers are being asked to take on way more, including the mental stability and health of their employees. Yeah, there's a lot of check-ins and things that managers are not able to control.

Speaker 1: 11:35

People come into the workplace with a lot of different backgrounds. Some come in and they are happy, healthy, raring and ready to go, and others unfortunately have to fake it till they get there. That's why concepts like family in the workplace are really hard. How many of you have heard anyone in the workplace ever say, oh, but we're like a family, oh, that's a red flag. It's a red flag because here's the reality. You can't fire your family. I would love to fire some of my family members. That's just not what happens. And most families are dysfunctional. Most are dysfunctional.

Speaker 1: 12:09

But when you equate family in the workplace to your personal life, who, which role do you think your boss plays in that? Right? A mom and dad? Yeah, very so. People really pay a lot of stock in that. Where some are like, no, I get it Clearly, that's not my familial ties. Others put a big point of this is me, this is who I am, and their identities start to get taken over by the workplace. So it's not I'm Beth, the mom of two. It is I'm Beth and I work at this company and this is my job.

Speaker 2: 12:41

It's been interesting watching as people are getting laid off. Yes, it's been interesting watching as people are getting laid off and they're getting laid off from companies that they have been with for five, 10, 15 plus years. And one of the things that when Mel and I talk to folks because we're on calls all the time with people when they get laid off, it is a grieving process A lot of times a deep grieving process because they did associate and identify so hard not only with the title that they had but with the company.

Speaker 2: 13:14

Because, I will argue that I think a lot of companies have positioned themselves as. You're part of this brand, you're part of this culture, you're lucky to be here, right, when you think about the safety net of your family. If your family were to disown you, you'd feel very similarly, and so I think there's this grief around, quite honestly, having that be ripped from you. And if you felt a deep sense of belonging and then all of a sudden you got laid off too, that does excuse my French. It feels like a huge mindfuck for a lot of people. Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 13:47

And for a long time that was very taboo to talk about.

Speaker 1: 13:50

It's just the reality. Trauma is trauma. You don't need to be in the fields fighting to experience PTSD. There's a lot of different ways it occurs. Workplace PTSD is a very real thing, so a lot of the people I coach and I talk to are very anxious to talk to me about it because they believe that their trauma is not as important as other forms of trauma. Trauma can really be as small as a sadness you experience and as large as something physically happening to you in the workplace. That spectrum is just so huge.

Speaker 1: 14:24

I have one person that I talked to recently who had a real hard time identifying the first time that they experienced trauma, and what we were able to bring it back to was their five-year anniversary Came and went and no one recognized it. At the same time, everyone else on that team got recognized. No, that wasn't trauma. They experienced A lot of sadness that led them into this really unproductive zone where they unfortunately, they started to put up with more that came their way. You would think it might be the opposite, but they really just were trying again to get those gold stars from their manager who they thought didn't care about them.

Speaker 1: 15:03

And what could I have done wrong? In reality, that's something the manager probably forgot. It's sad, right. Maybe the workday alert didn't go off, who knows? And that's just one of the examples. And that was a spiral that kept going and going and then the trauma really occurred when they were out of sync with their manager. And then topics of resilience came up and instead of digging into the deep roots of what was going on in the workplace, resilience was dumped on the employee base. You need to put up with these things right.

Speaker 2: 15:35

but I find this interesting too, because when I think about belonging, it was like diversity and inclusion, then it was diversity, equity, inclusion, and then it was diversity, equity, inclusion and belongings. Yes, and a lot of the examples you've been giving are right around an employee and their manager, or an employee to employee. Yet sometimes in organizations it seems like we're putting belonging at this corporate level. Yes, there's a distance, there's a distance, and I'm curious about your thoughts on belonging in these big corporate initiatives versus belonging the way we do.

Speaker 1: 16:10

So I can break it into two things. One, yeah, belonging is not all or nothing. That's a really big common misconception. You can belong to part of something and not the whole. You may feel like you belong to the company and your team but not to your manager. Or you may feel like you belong to that manager and your team but not the company. You could swap it in and out, and that's why I think ERGs are especially fantastic and troublesome at the same time, because you feel fantastic usually in those groups and they are highly beneficial for you to really be able to identify and connect with people. However, that being said, when they don't connect back to the corporate initiative or the company doesn't do anything about the struggles of these ERGs, that's a problem, right, People have a harsher or a more thwarted sense of belonging, which means a lack of belonging. Another is that belonging is not DEI, and that's probably one of the biggest.

Speaker 1: 17:06

You asked me before I might change my answer. Dei is a barrier at times to belonging because when you ask people what belonging is in the corporate world, they now say D, E and I, and they're all very important topics. They're just very different. But I would challenge you to go to any corporate report out there that says report on DEIB, anything that has a belonging. And if you can find me one metric on belonging, I'd be very surprised. It's just not the same. They're sisters, not twins at times. How are they?

Speaker 2: 17:35

measuring it? What are the typical? Sorry, I should know this and I don't.

Speaker 1: 17:39

No, it's very hard to measure belonging, so that's why I'm working with the University of Pennsylvania to create a tool around that. But no, belonging is seen as something subjective and until we're able to make it more objective, it is very difficult, unlike diversity, which is typically done through representation, but I would challenge that. I love the topic of diversity, but I really am into diversity of thought and mind. I think it's incredibly important when we're talking about representation as well, so it's very different in that sense.

Speaker 2: 18:09

Yeah, there's a lot of work to be done there right. A lot of amazing work has been done and the journey continues, absolutely, I hope it doesn't stop you too, beth.

Speaker 1: 18:18

I'd it doesn't stop you too, beth. I'd love to hear more about the work that you're doing with the University of Pennsylvania, the tool that you are working on with them, sure. So a lot of the work I do is around how we construct our sense of belonging, understanding what the roots of that are, whether it's personality or it's how you make decisions. And when I was doing my dissertation, my goodness, a few years back, one of the things we determined is that people make decisions one of three ways for themselves, for the company or for a combination of both. So, as you can guess, the healthiest combination is when you have everything at once. So most people with a true sense of belonging have that combination. When we do it just for the company, it's typically what we call sacrificial belonging. Right, we have to give something up for it. We all know the sacrifices in the workplace the ones that miss their PTO to better the company, or the ones that are missing games to produce those reports. So the other thing is, if it's just for you, there's a few different ways you look at that, but it's not always the right way to do things. So what I've done with the University of Pennsylvania is we've developed a tool that looks to see how people make their decisions around belonging, and so what we're doing is really taking a look and working with different companies to see how the reports are coming out, if it's predicting people's propensity to leave companies or if it's predicting their propensity to thrive, based on the way they construct their sense of belonging. It's really interesting. What have you learned so far with the companies that you've worked with? Were there any ah-ha's that you were like, oh, that was unexpected, or anything that just reinforced what you thought? We've learned a couple of different things. A lot of the time it's not actually been what's through the tool, but it's really through the interview process about the societal norms of the company. So personality makes a very big difference. If you are a company that builds itself upon extroverts and you are an introvert in the company, it's going to be a lot harder for you to progress. Likewise, if you're in an introverted company with introverted leaders and you are an extrovert, it's also going to feel like you are just square round. It doesn't work that way. So I think what we've learned is that companies need to pay attention to what type of employees they have and making sure that everyone can survive and thrive.

Speaker 1: 20:57

Francesca, and I talk about this often that in the workplace, the responsibility of a lot of these things are on the individual, the team and the organization. So I'd love to cover all three from your perspective and the work that you've done. Yeah, from an organization standpoint, what are some steps that organizations can take to create that culture of belonging where people are thriving? There's a lot of ways I can answer this. I think one of the things they need to do is look at their policies. That's the first thing. They need to make it a more equitable playing field.

Speaker 1: 21:27

I think that most of us can agree that belonging is typically an authenticity measured against a very specific type of worker in the workplace. It's usually white male, that's the best way to describe it. The other thing I would say, on top of policies, is making sure that you do not have a culture of imposed belonging right so everyone belongs here. That's not the case and it makes people feel really bad.

Speaker 1: 21:51

There's this concept of duck syndrome. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but no, please tell us more. So think about a little duck floating along the river. You probably met like a brisk pace. In reality, that duck is working hard to paddle its legs to look that calm and easy. And a lot of the times the workplace imposing belonging or saying everyone should feel this way because we make everyone feel included or like they should have a sense of belonging makes people feel really uneasy about themselves and when that happens it produces the sense of belonging, uncertainty, right, I don't know if it's me or the company, and let's just say you are with people that are not being honest around you or worse, you've got the corporate cheerleaders. You're not necessarily going to be like hey, francesca, I know you go to every happy hour, but do you feel like you sometimes don't belong here? So I think that's one of the things that we do in the workplace as a corporation that needs to be reconsidered.

Speaker 2: 22:48

I tell you I've probably been listening to way too much Taylor Swift lately, but there is definitely this sense of betrayal sometimes, or even companies misrepresenting themselves and they're like, oh, everyone belongs here. We're such a fun culture when you look at literally the marketing of how some of these companies present themselves. Yes, and the expectation people have right, that dissonance when people don't experience it or they feel like they have the duck syndrome. It's got to be exhausting for people.

Speaker 1: 23:16

It is exhausting. And that's not to say that companies shouldn't promote a sense of belonging. But not everyone belongs here. Yeah, I think it's a culture we have. Yeah, it's like being more authentic, even in their own advertising to say we strive to foster that environment and consistently work towards achieving it, which acknowledges that it doesn't exist 100% of the time. It's a constant effort. I think that's more authentic than what some of the messaging is usually Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 23:47

And you had mentioned the fact that what should companies and the corporate level do, maybe versus teams? Yes, I'm a corporation that's looking to foster a stronger sense of belonging. I'm going to invest a belonging at the team level or the org level because, especially these bigger companies, that's where belonging is really taken out and brought into daylight, because the corporate vision and values they always get a little altered as you go down right. Different leaders live those values differently. Organizations reflect that. So taking a look at what my organization looks like and trying to create the best possible culture, the healthiest possible culture, that's what companies can do is really acknowledge and give that autonomy to their leaders at the org level, and then that also makes it a safer space for leaders at the team level to be able to do that as well. What can leaders do in terms of creating those moments, really checking in with their people around, how they're feeling in the workplace? What are some? Something someone can implement tomorrow, right, and just start doing if they're not doing anything today? So one of my favorite things to tell leaders is to really start to know their people. That doesn't mean you know where they live and what their backyard looks like, but it means knowing what's important to them. And one of the best, easiest things that any leaders out there listening can do is they can ask their employees what they liked about their last manager and what they didn't like, because that's really important I'm pretty sure we're talking about current managers, past manager and what they didn't like, because that's really important. I'm pretty sure we're talking about current managers.

Speaker 1: 25:22

The reality is we all take our past managers with us, typically up to three. So that means your favorite manager you take them with you. Your least favorite manager you take them with you and you are measuring that current leader that you're with against those great and not so great leaders. So if you're out there and you're a leader, you're going to want to say what did you like that they did. What didn't you like? And you're going to learn so much this year I asked my team those questions. I usually update it because not everyone feels the same after a year or remembers it the same. But I had said what do you like that your last leader did?

Speaker 1: 25:56

And someone had said they kept consistent meetings so they didn't move my one-on-ones, and that made me feel really good because it gave me anxiety every time I had to reschedule and I was guilty. I was one of those people that moved them around, so I stopped doing that. And another thing that someone said that they didn't like was being praised publicly. Accepting that kudos was hard for them in public, but they really did appreciate it in a one-on-one setting when you were giving very specific feedback of what they did. Well, those are just two tips that are really helpful. At least I find I love to hear it just checking in what are your needs specifically and really personalizing it versus kind of spreading it like peanut butter as if it works for everybody, just because you think that's the right thing to do.

Speaker 1: 26:42

Absolutely. It makes me think of that lawsuit that someone had when their birthday was recognized in the workplace but they didn't want their birthday recognized, and I think that's a perfect example. I know there was a lot of jokes that came with that lawsuit, but I was like that's so valid though. That's taking care of people and understanding what they do and don't want and paying attention to that Absolutely. What's interesting about that story with the employee that didn't want a public praise? He happens to be very publicly admired, so I just assumed that this is something he was comfortable with, and he was not, and ever since we changed the way we give him feedback and praise, the whole relationship has been so much more positive.

Speaker 2: 27:24

Yeah, I love the idea of the ghost, the blasted past that we all bring, because that's so freaking true. It's so true and that question of what did you love and what didn't you like is so informative because it's so personal and it's so emotional for people too.

Speaker 1: 27:44

So emotional. I actually talked to almost all of my past managers and so it's also just a good idea to keep in touch and sometimes keep it real. He likes to tell me when maybe sometimes I'm being a little more dramatic because she's got really great frame of reference for it. Sometimes I'm being a little more dramatic because she's got really great frame of reference for it. So you know, it's not a bad idea. It doesn't mean that you have to be best friends with your bosses. Obviously, your work friends' podcasts would tell you you're not going to be best friends with everyone, and nor should you. Yeah, yeah, I think getting to know your employees is super, super important. And knowing how they are as a unit if I haven't said that already, but understanding what your package deal looks like, that's really important. Knowing my boss, knowing why I stop work at 5.30 every day and then why I may go back on it 10, is important to me. I don't want to be seen as a workaholic, but at the same time, it's my comfort level and I also don't want to miss the time while my kids are awake. I dug out it should be completely acceptable and it is, but it's probably because we had that conversation and that transparency really goes both ways. I love that.

Speaker 1: 28:47

I love to talk about employees, because leaders are in there with their people. It gets into one-on-ones and then a team level, but they're not always in all of the stuff happening with the individual employees that kind of peer-to-peer interaction and what goes on there. And sometimes for folks, leaders are a huge impact to their experience and their day-to-day, but so are their colleagues right, and sometimes those peer-to-peer relationships can really make or break that sense of belonging as well. What can individuals do to foster belonging in the workplace? So I would say boundaries are a fantastic place to start, because boundaries are two things that we can control. We can't control other people how they react to our boundaries and we can't set boundaries for others. So I always like to say that communication is kindness in this regard, and allowing people to understand you a little bit better than they may by understanding what your boundaries are and why you hold firm to them, also gives them insight into your values and what's important to you. What can someone do when they're really struggling with feeling that sense of belonging, either on their team? What can they do if they're really struggling to find that?

Speaker 1: 30:06

My first piece of advice I give everyone is to understand if the situation is real or if it's a story they're telling themselves. Our internal narrative is extremely powerful. It is and unfortunately it's usually less positive that we want it to be. I really wish that we were having a conversation where we're talking about someone that had just so much faith in themselves and that they were talking about their narrative. Oh, my goodness, I just kicked butt on that demo, or that's typically not what happens, and there's a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. So I usually tell people, aside from looking at the story we're telling ourselves and making sure that it's realistic, it's also maybe doing a gut check, but against your own mantras in life. So for me, I can share the story that I will typically over-index on things. So I try to hold myself accountable to doing what someone's asked me to do and sometimes nothing more, which is really hard for me. And if I'm really not sure about that, I might go to a peer and say did you hear it? The same way, I heard this request.

Speaker 1: 31:09

Sometimes that makes a breeding ground to open up a little differently with people and it also cuts the drama down, because you don't want to just have that friend that you commiserate with at work and that's real easy to get into that trap. If you have another person, it's the drama triangle, so it just keeps going and going. We want to make sure that when we pick co-workers that become our friends in the office, that it's people we can trust and that you typically want to limit any of the difficult conversation within that person that you trust. Personally, I love to be friends with everyone, but when it comes to people that I really will bank on, I usually maybe pick one person that maybe knows a little bit more drama about me than others yeah, someone who can also help you check yourself if needed. Right and honest yeah, is that true? Just asking, is that really true? That's right. I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 1: 32:07

There's a huge push in workplaces around bringing your authentic self. How can folks balance that need for individuality with their desire to fit in so they can be authentically them and bring and maintain that individuality while also feeling that sense of belonging? So I think the first step in doing that is understanding your values and what's important to you. So when you make decisions, you're indexing against them. Let's just say you notice bad behavior in the room.

Speaker 1: 32:33

You have Black colleagues that are not being heard, and diversity is a huge value to you, equity is a big value to you, and amplification If that's something that is going to keep you up at night, you need to speak up. I mean, let me just say that to me that is a huge value, so to me that is inherently doing the right thing. But, that being said, if that's going to happen just because other people are not amplifying their voices, it is part of my value system that I would need to be the one that stands up and says Mel just said that I really, or I love how Mel just told us that we are going to use the vending machine on the fourth floor?

Speaker 1: 33:12

I don't know, I have no good examples. This often happens to women right In meetings, where you need to step in and say that was a great point made by so-and-so. Yeah, that's right. And so I think understanding what your values are and I don't like the negative metaphors but understanding what a hill we're dying on is for us and what's not Not everything has to be a battle, right, so there are a lot of us that have the sense of justice in us and understanding what battles we should be fighting, and not If it's going to keep you up at night and it's going to eat at your soul because you've just betrayed yourself.

Speaker 1: 33:46

It's worth speaking up. Yeah, If not, one of the tricks I do is I typically hold three coins in my pocket and when I'm in a meeting, I make sure not to spend all three at once and not to speak more than that, because it's going to be really hard for me to tailor back. And so giving yourself strategies when you know you may be in a tough situation really key in the workplace. Yeah, I like that, and the three coins in your pocket is a nice reminder for folks. That's a very simple tactic to use.

Speaker 1: 34:16

It's also sensory, if you think about it. Yeah, I like that. I am wondering about different ways of working. Obviously, covid really blew up how we work, which is fantastic in so many ways, and now you have returned to office and people who are in the office and you have these hybrid working environments, and some are still 100% remote. Would you approach ways to foster belonging differently, based on the modality of how people are working? So COVID was terrible, but one of the things we got out of it is this ability to see people beyond the screen, and I think that's really important. I've always been a remote employee, so I knew I was to people. I was just sitting in this box here and then, when COVID happened, everyone was put in that position and I think it made people reevaluate where people work from and the fact that it didn't really matter. I will tell you that there is this concept of place belongingness, and place belongingness really sits with the fact that if it feels like home, it can be linked to a place. I've never been in a corporate headquarters where it's felt like home. No one serves me coffee, so no baristas at my house. That would be lovely, like sometimes it happens in the workplace and that's a luxury.

Speaker 1: 35:34

I think that people have a misconception that you need to be in an office to feel a sense of belonging, and I don't believe that's accurate and the research tells us it's not true. What does the research say about that? Because you hear all of these big organizations. A huge part of their argument for return to office is it's going to foster belonging. We've lost belonging and it feels like that's such a false narrative. What does the research say? The research says that unless it feels like home, it doesn't necessarily need to be placed belongingness. That being said, do I love to get together with my colleagues? I do, I'm one of those people that does, but that is because I'm an ambivert that leads towards the extrovert side. So I get so much energy from other people. Yeah, doers, but they just they get their stimulus from other places and that's okay. So while I do believe that people build a great sense of community while they're in the office I do it doesn't necessarily have to be done that way. And I'll tell you, almost all of my team and my organization that I manage is remote. We get along fantastic. We don't always agree, we love disagreeing, we love the debate, but it doesn't break our sense of belonging to be remote. I do think there are certain jobs where that collaboration in person is important, right, but I just happen to be in a space where it's not as firm and we believe that working from the office could also mean you're at a client or other places where you are set up and need to have those interactions, but, no, it does not give you a stronger sense of longing to be in an office.

Speaker 1: 37:17

We have, I think, what? Four, now maybe five generations in the workplace, which impacts so many things. We talk about individualization in their needs and that personalization. How do generational differences and especially in the time we're in now, like? How does that impact belonging in the workplace? So we have a lot of generations at once, as you mentioned, right, you've got the boomers, who really will challenge less when it comes to management and authority, because your job and your boss are sacred in a sense, and you've got the Gen Xers, who are still a little more likely to please I'm a Gen Xer, but at the same time, we'll take far less to get it done and we're not necessarily the purpose-driven generation that is currently in the work, coming up in the workplace where they've been taught that they can bring their authentic selves to work and they should bold people to standards that are different than maybe the millennials that came before them, that a little bit more different change in the way that we work. So I think all of those generations together learn from one another.

Speaker 1: 38:27

I think in the beginning it felt a little problematic, but I think it's forcing people out of their comfort zone, which helps everyone grow just a lot differently than we have in the past.

Speaker 1: 38:37

I would go as far as to say that the next generation will be probably Generation T, which is all around transition and how we deal with the world and look at it differently. So I honestly think all of this is bringing phenomenal diversity of thought that didn't exist necessarily before. I couldn't agree more. It just seems like it's a really good conversation that seems to be happening among everybody about how to make work better together Absolutely, and these were things we weren't talking about. So it is very interesting. We're also getting into different things that we didn't before when it comes to these generations. Like, we have grandparents now in the workplace and if you think about it before, people would retire early than they do now. So you didn't have that frame of reference, you have people working longer than they ever have and these shifts in generation and family responsibility are really shaping a different way that we look at the workplace.

Speaker 2: 39:33

I'm personally completely for it. Outside of like humans being humans, there's no reason why we shouldn't have been striving for a very deep sense of belonging all along. It's exciting to see this evolve, especially over the last, I'd say, five years, where it's been a big part of this discussion. I do want to talk about where is this going, but before I ask you that and I really appreciate having your insights in this because you're so researched on it, You're a practitioner of this I feel like you're the best person to ask this question and I'm going to ask you to give a grade Grade scale A, B, C, D, F, right Corporate America how well do organizations in corporate America foster belonging?

Speaker 1: 40:16

In America B minus.

Speaker 2: 40:21

B minus. Rationale for the great. Rationale for the great.

Speaker 1: 40:25

Because a B is positive but depending on how you look at it, some people think it's really negative in this cultural perfectionism that we have and others are completely satisfied by it. I thought about dropping it down, but the C being average, I think I still think it's a bit above average because the awareness layer is there. I don't talk to people and have to talk about why belonging is important anymore If you're just accusing to people about what it is and how we got to where we are with it. So I'd say solid.

Speaker 2: 40:58

B minus.

Speaker 1: 40:59

I like that answer.

Speaker 2: 41:00

I like that answer. I feel like most employees would answer that too.

Speaker 1: 41:04

I'd agree. I usually think that people are going to answer lower and they don't. I think a lot of it also is because people are nervous to tell the truth. They are, yeah, nervously trying to get back to their employer.

Speaker 2: 41:16

I also am wondering, because there's such a morphing of our values towards work too, I wonder if people are taking the pressure off of organizations to be everything to them. Now I'm looking at this more transactually, or I'm looking at this as a Mel. I'm sorry, I'm going to use this analogy again. I'm not looking at you as someone I want to marry. I'm looking at you as someone I want to have a good time with tonight.

Speaker 1: 41:37

So it's like the pressure's off a little bit, my hope is because people realize they don't have to get their sense of belonging from work. Yeah, so we have this concept of dissimilated belonging, where you don't necessarily need to be a cultural ambassador. Some people just want to do their jobs and go home. Yeah, that has to be okay. We have to make that okay and I think this new generation does that, yeah, in a sense for us. So I want to say that's becoming a bit more mainstream, that people don't need to get their satisfaction and their purpose from work. Yeah, that's the generation I think that we'll see come in as well. It's so healthy, that's such a new healthy outlook. We'll see come in as well. It's so healthy, that's such a new healthy outlook.

Speaker 1: 42:13

Because we're all Gen X on this call, you know, like that was a transition I think we probably all made over time. But it's nice to see that people are not moving away from putting their whole identity into the work Absolutely. And then there's these companies that are shifting their values to be really about the work they're doing and not necessarily the destinations for belonging, which is huge. The company I work for, I have to say I'm proud because we really do look at powering smarter treatments for patients, and so, if you really break that down, that's a phenomenal aspiration and we really work very hard to it and we really work very hard to it. You would never say in our values that we have to feel a certain way or do a certain thing or act the way to get there, and for us that takes a lot of pressure off of things, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 43:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:02

I also think it's an accurate representation. Yeah, this is my thing. Can we get back to accurate representation? I'm not judging you on what you're saying you are. What I'm asking you to do is be honest about who you are so you give an accurate representation. That's my play. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. All right, so this is exciting. Mel and I were talking about this the other day, because I don't know about you, beth, but you feel the energy shifting, especially this year around work around speed. This year around work around speed, around change, around everything. And belonging has made wonderful progress in terms of educating people about value, what it is, and I'm curious about, when we look at the next five years, how do you see the concept of belonging evolve? How do you see the needs for employees and organizations evolve? What does the next five years of this work look like?

Speaker 1: 43:55

What I hope it looks like, I should say, is that it is a place where people don't have to sacrifice who they are to be themselves. I think part of braving the workplace is being yourself every day in a world that tells you to be something else. So I'm hoping that the workplace in five years is more representative of your towns and the people on the streets. That's a really aspirational goal I have for the workplace, and I also hope that people can understand themselves a little better and don't feel as pressured to be all of the things all of the shoulds, the coulds and woods that the rest of the world would like us to be.

Speaker 2: 44:33

I love that I love that you talked about how leaders can create a sense of belonging. I'm curious about making teams more representative of our work environment. They're more representatives of the way that our towns look like. Is there anything that you would have that a manager could do, a leader could do, to say I really want to make sure that I can start to achieve that now.

Speaker 1: 44:53

I think it's looking at your team and the diversity on your team. Are people in your meetings nodding their heads or are they arguing comfortably with you? Are they debating? Do they speak up or are they just laughing at your corny jokes? I think that's the things I listen to at least. I think it's important to really be able to be in a team that communicates dissent.

Speaker 3: 45:17

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:17

I think it's also important to share experiences with one another. You're not going to share everything, and nor is it appropriate to share everything in the workplace, but there's certain life moments that we all have, and being able to comfortably speak to them at the appropriate level of detail is really important, and I think that's why people feel such a pull to go back to the office, because you do those things without thinking about them. We always talk around about the water cooler and talking about the latest episode of whatever you watch, but it goes deeper than that. It really does. It's a little harder to hide your emotions in an office yeah, absolutely, it's not very acceptable, and that's it really does. It's a little harder to hide your emotions in an office yeah, absolutely, very acceptable. And that's what people miss. I think they miss that sense of camaraderie, and we don't necessarily need to be a person for that. We just need to understand how to break down barriers that are preventing us from doing that.

Speaker 3: 46:04

Yeah, love it, love it.

Speaker 2: 46:31

Rapid round.

Speaker 1: 46:32

Yes, we're going to do rapid round. I promise this is painless, okay, and it's just possible. It's meant to be fun. Some of our best conversation happens here and the goal is to answer pretty quickly, like your very first thought that comes to mind. And if you want to expound upon it, absolutely you can, so we'll leave that up to you. And if you want to expound upon it, absolutely you can, so we'll leave that up to you. Sound good, perfect, okay. What is the best belonging initiative you've seen so far? The best belonging initiatives I've seen so far is through Brene Brown, who talks about braving the wilderness and the ability to be yourself and the comfort and bravery to be yourself. What does belonging mean to you personally in three words Don't sacrifice yourself.

Speaker 3: 47:23

Oh shit.

Speaker 2: 47:23

That's good, it's good, it's good. I see merch, beth. I see a lot of merch happening.

Speaker 1: 47:30

What are the top three factors that make a community and we see work as another kind of community feel inclusive? Inclusive is what other people allow for you to be, versus belonging is what you decide for yourself, okay. So if I'm talking about inclusive, I would say it's transparency, I would say it's care, and care is a really big spectrum, right? Care is thoughtfulness and it's also speaking your name in a room of opportunity. And care can also be boundaries, and maybe I would go with boundaries, now that we're talking about that as well. I think inclusive, having that level of boundaries, promotes all the things we just spoke about. And with that and that, because that was inclusiveness, now flip it with belonging. So what are the top three factors that make a community feel like others belong? Individuality, like others belong, individuality I'm going to go with care, because we know care is the number one influence that a manager can do to make their employees feel like they belong. And trust I like it. Okay, trusting ourselves and trusting others yeah, the trusting. Trusting yourself first, of course, so important, but it's also trusting others too, in that everyone starts with positive intent. That's right.

Speaker 1: 48:55

Yeah, if you could recommend one book, movie, article on this topic of belonging for someone, something that's deeply resonated with you and you're like I need you to see that, read that, listen to that. What would you recommend to someone today? It's a really tough one. Bell Hooks has a lot of phenomenal topics around belonging. Maya Angelou is probably my idol when it comes to this conversation, because she presented belonging in the best, truest way. Belonging to nothing and everything at the same time is just magical. When you can be that free to belong to nothing, you belong to everything. So I'm going to go with bell hooks and Maya Angelou. I love it. That's really powerful. When you belong to nothing, you belong to everything. That's right. If you could have every company do just one thing differently tomorrow, what would that be? Get to know their employees and what matters to them. How about?

Speaker 2: 50:02

leaders the same and individuals be.

Speaker 1: 50:11

If I could have one wand and I would wave it around, it would be for people to be kinder to themselves.

Speaker 1: 50:15

It really would be.

Speaker 1: 50:16

I think we put a lot of harsh, in harsh words, harsh feelings out there.

Speaker 1: 50:22

A lot of it just creates this crazy level of uncertainty and anxiety and then, a lot of the times, the exclusive nature of that is isolating and stressful, and that's a lot of the times we keep it to ourselves until it just boils over and you either explode or, unfortunately, all of the physical ramifications come into play, because we know that this becomes physically painful when we feel like we have a thwarted sense of belonging and it's unfortunate that belonging is an antecedent to suicide. When we feel like we have a thwarted sense of belonging and it's unfortunate that belonging is an antecedent to suicide. When we feel like the world is better off without us or we find that we don't believe we're making a difference for ourselves and others. So I would love to see people be kinder to themselves overall. I think that's such a really good message. I'll share my best friend if I'm like down on myself, which I think we're all guilty of it trying to get better at it, but it's the first.

Speaker 1: 51:17

Of course, you're your own worst critic. My best friend will say hey, don't talk about my friend like that. We just stop. So it's just little things like when you're talking about yourself, be like hey, don't talk about you like that. I think it's good. I think that Thank you so much for this and for your authenticity and for sharing all of this good research with us and tips with us on how to have better belonging at work, and we cannot wait to read your book when it comes out soon. Thank you, and thank you for the phenomenal work you're doing on this podcast. I bet you people tune in and they just love it because you both seem like you're friends with the podcast guests. I appreciate it.

Speaker 3: 52:07

Thanks so much for joining us today. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriends.com. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work friends.

Spotting Trustworthy Employers

Your Work Friends Podcast: Spotting Trustworthy Employers with Adam Horne

Job advertisements sell dreams…

But reality? That’s another story. Job descriptions, interviews, Glassdoor reviews—there’s truth in the subtext. Adam Horne, co-founder of Open Org is on a mission: to build a more trusted, transparent world of work. So, we wanted to get him on the pod to talk about how in the hell do you do that? Turns out, it's not only doable (let's start with employees having ZERO surprises around biggies like compensation, benefits, etc), but, when done authentically - can improve (like majorly improve) hiring, retention and overall health of an organization.  

Our conversation covers aligning internal and external transparency, the costs of cultural mismatches and the unintentional humor (or not) of hiring managers who promise more than they deliver.  Most importantly, this episode is loaded with practical advice for creating genuine, transparent work environments. If you want to avoid the smoke and mirrors and find a workplace that walks the talk, don’t miss this one.

Listen or watch the full episode here

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Speaker 1: 0:00

So we're of the view that there needs to be some sort of level of openness and transparency to call yourself transparent to a degree, and we provide that level of structure, but we don't necessarily prescribe where that transparency should be and necessarily how deep that should go. So the way that I try and talk about it with companies is work on defining it for yourself first. What does that look like? And that for me, starts of understanding, like why is this word important? If you're putting on your career site or your job ads or just putting it out there, there's got to be a reason why you're saying it, and if there's not, it's just an empty word.

Speaker 2: 0:48

Mel, good Monday to you. Good Monday to you, yes. Yes, I'm going to start saying that. It just feels like a thing, it feels like it could be a thing Feels like Shakespeare Good morrow is good morrow thing, I don't know.

Speaker 3: 0:59

I'm making that up.

Speaker 2: 1:01

Good morrow is a thing, that's a thing.

Speaker 3: 1:03

Good morrow Good morrow to you.

Speaker 2: 1:07

Well, I'm stoked to talk about Adam Horn. Adam Horn is the co-founder of OpenOrg, and what I love about the work OpenOrg is doing is they're on a pretty cool mission to rebuild trust by bringing clarity to the world of work, and they're doing that by making sure that people have zero surprises at work, like when you're interviewing for a job. They want you to have zero surprises around things like comp, culture, benefits and career development, and Mel and I were really taken with what they're doing and we had a chance to talk to him. And Mel, what did you think of that conversation?

Speaker 3: 1:40

I thought it was refreshing. It was really eye-opening to hear the perspective from Adam and his experiences working with organizations and truly the benefits of transparency, which feels like a no-duh situation, but not a lot of orgs are doing it, so I'm just really excited by this work.

Speaker 1: 2:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:02

The other thing I really liked, too, was his twist on this. This is not open Oregon Adam dictating what transparency needs to look like they're really working with organizations to say, hey, what is authentic, what works for them, what works for you? Yeah, it's a really cool way of thinking about the zero surprise game for employees and whether they're coming into a company or whether they're in a company as well.

Speaker 3: 2:25

And the bottom line for your business.

Speaker 2: 2:27

A thousand percent Packed within this discussion are things that organizations can do, what individuals can do and what can you do if you're leading a team and you want to be more transparent, even if your organization might not be. So here's our conversation with Adam Horne. Adam Horne, welcome to the pod. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for having me on. It's awesome.

Speaker 2: 3:00

Yeah, adam, you've had a really interesting career, right. You've started multiple organizations. Now you're pulling into OpenOrg. You're a new father as well too, so you've got like a lot going on, probably trying to get some sleep here and there. Just super curious as to how did you even get into this work? How did you get to where you are today?

Speaker 1: 3:20

Yeah, I gave up on sleep a long time ago.

Speaker 1: 3:23

It's like this way, my latest uh child is my third and I've got three under six now and I've navigated the, the three kids and businesses etc over the the period of having COVID and stuff going on as well. So yeah, it's been interesting the last sort of four or five years, to be honest. But yeah, my, my career as a whole over the last sort of 12, 13 years is is all centered around people and talent. So nine of those 12 years as a founder or co-founder myself as well. So I've navigated the complexities and challenges of being a founder and trying to build and run a business, always bootstrapped, always anywhere between sort of five employees up to 70, 80 employees so that size but challenging in its own way but also a lot of that time actively working with clients externally on their hiring and their people strategy. So over that time I've had a lot of exposure to working with startups or scale-ups all over the world hundreds of them over the years and have, from a hiring perspective in particular, I've seen a very clear difference in terms of how companies benefit from being transparent or not. I've worked with some really open, transparent companies and you just tell when you walk through the door and you settle in that this is a very open, transparent environment. I've got resources, information landing on my lap and your job becomes very easy, regardless of what you're doing, but particularly when you are in that role where you're dealing with bringing new people into the business, being able to offer clarity and depth to candidates and applicants before they join, you see the benefit of that when they walk through the door it's really clear and things like attrition, retention, all of those sort of key metrics that businesses look at to try and point them towards some level of organizational health, feel really clear, really nice.

Speaker 1: 5:09

I've also had the benefit on the flip side, of working with companies that are incredibly secretive, some by design but some just through pure chaos and uncertainty and lack of communication. But as an example, I've been parachuted into businesses before where I've been told I'm not allowed to know what funding round we've just done because it's a bit secretive. So if candidates ask an interview, just tell them. You can't let them know. And I've been given about 10 different values from different employees who don't really know what values the business has.

Speaker 1: 5:39

So that end of the spectrum effectively in terms of the way businesses operate and you can still hire, you can still get people through the door, but I've seen what happens after people join and then, generally speaking, you've got that sort of revolving door type situation in those types of business and you see the struggles and the cost and the time it's been trying to just maintain headcount, let alone grow. So over that time I've had a really clear view on what transparent culture looks like and what that benefit is from being more transparent, and I've been lucky enough, whilst running my own businesses alongside that, to be able to pull that experience into how I build my own companies as well, and I've always defaulted to my own level of transparent, my own level of open, and it's worked incredibly well for me. So that, as a bit bit of a backstory, is where I come to today as regards to launching OpenOrg.

Speaker 2: 6:28

We want to talk about OpenOrg because we've seen this conversation about how transparent organizations are evolved, especially, I feel like, over the last and I could be wrong on the numbers, but it feels like especially over the last four years. Five years. Is you need to put this information out there or this is now the expectation? So I'm loving these conversations around now. Transparency is the expectation from a marketplace perspective. So, Adam, what does OpenOrg do?

Speaker 1: 6:51

The way we come in to it really is. I co-founded OpenOrg with an old friend of mine and we've known each other for 12 years, so we've had this talk track for 12 years, even about the world of work and culture and how it's broken and one day we'll fix it. And we've talked I don't want to name names, but talked about the damage that toxic review sites do to employers and to applicants and so on and so forth and how one day we'll find a new way to rebuild trust in terms of that intersection between you know, applying to a role and starting in the right type of business for you. So that's where a lot of the conversation about open org has come up and that's exactly where we sit. We want to get to the point with open org where we can help companies not just become internally transparent with their employees.

Speaker 1: 7:34

That's a really good, healthy place to be, but it only does so much for us. You've got to mirror as much of that as possible externally. There's some things you maybe aren't comfortable doing and that's fine as a limit, but there's no benefit just to being internally transparent For us. There's huge benefits to opening that door a little bit more and showing people under the bonnet, showing people exactly what they're going to be getting when they come in, because without that, people are coming into your business with the wrong expectations. Without that, people are coming into your business with the wrong expectations. So Open Org operates exactly that intersection of employer brand hiring and both internal and external transparency and trying to help employers get more aligned across that spectrum to build healthier alignment across that entire employee journey.

Speaker 2: 8:21

It's interesting when you look at why you should really think about transparency as an organization. I'd like to take it from the employee side a little bit more and also from the organization side, because one of the things you talk about is really to have employees have zero, zero surprises. When you start a new job and I personally felt that I think we all have right where you thought you were getting into a gig, you thought it was one thing, and then into it you're like, oh hell, this is this is not this at all. You talked about this a little bit earlier, but I'm wondering if you can walk us through what the benefits are to have zero surprises as an employee so much across that entire life cycle.

Speaker 1: 8:57

If you look at some of the sort of stats and the research out there around people leaving new hires leaving roles within the first 90 days or so, I think there's a stat out there and I take them with a pinch of salt because you hear different things and different things, but there's so much research on this ultimately around how many people leave roles. I think it's something like 30% of new hires leave roles within 90 days. Such a waste of time for everyone. Such a waste of time for everyone the money you spend interviewing, hiring, the time you spend in the salaries for paying all of that stuff to get into that. It's such a waste of time for everyone involved. And then you have to start again to rehire all because and most of those people leaving site misalignment on cultural role as one of the big reasons for them leaving. And then there's other studies out there that link to that.

Speaker 1: 9:43

Four in ten hiring managers have admitted to lying to candidates about a role or a culture or how business operates. So lying yeah, they actually these are the hiring managers actually admit to lying about this and this is like a resume builder survey study that you can go out there and find online. That's just the people who admit to it. It there's probably more over and above that who haven't admitted to it, but again, just at that interview stage, in terms of attracting talent, attracting candidates, there's a whole lot of problems going on there. So there's a time factor that is being wasted here. There's cost, there's money. There's also well-being and mental health involved here, particularly for the candidates and the employees, but also for the hiring managers, and my co-founder, john, has had this himself as a hiring manager in a larger corporate business, hiring people knowing that he's selling the wrong version of what people are going to get. But he's in this corporate environment where he's just feeling like he has to hire and grow and his own well-being and mental health took real damage because of that, which led to him leaving because of that situation too.

Speaker 1: 10:49

So there's a lot of reasons why transparency really is important in building trust at that early stage. But then, when you look inside the business internally, day to day, there's so many things that point to the benefits of of being transparent and opening, communicative with individuals when it comes. But once they're in, the benefit of being transparent and communicative with your employees is really important as well when you're thinking about to use layman terms like getting everyone aligned and on the same page. That's a lot of what ceos talk about wanting to get and wanting to see. That's all about communication and getting people aligned and understanding where are we going, what are we doing, and that can boil down to so many different things internally in terms of what transparency does look like, and that will differ for different people, but the benefits are there when it comes to productivity, performance, profitability. The research is out there.

Speaker 2: 11:41

What do you think really drives organizations to not be transparent, because we see this so much, especially as you get in these big behemoth organizations. There are some that do this, okay, but I would argue that most of for us, the fortune 500, I don't know if they do this really well. What is holding organizations back from being transparent?

Speaker 1: 12:04

Lots of different factors that could be founder mentality. Obviously that's probably more prevalent in smaller businesses. But if you have a more traditional CEO founder who doesn't believe in seeing employees is that they're equal ultimately and understanding the power of employee could bring when you think about things like co-creation and just communication, they see them as workers rather than, again, equals. That creates silos immediately in how companies are structured and how hierarchies work and those silos immediately cause problems with communication and what's shared and what's not shared. So there's a founder ce leadership mentality, mindset thing that is really common and we see that so much with the people leaders we speak to.

Speaker 1: 12:48

There are some instances where companies in fairness are operating in certain industries or environments where they can't share certain information and that's completely fair. But I think what I see happen there is, if they're operating in this sort of environment or industry where it's a little bit more secretive or confidential, that stops them being transparent in ways that they still could be. They suddenly put the shutters down and they use it almost as an excuse to say we can't share this, so it means we can't share anything else. We try and find ways of showing them actually there's still some really relevant information you can still share.

Speaker 1: 13:21

That's safe and okay, but the default to being closed and secretive because of that and I guess the other one probably is some companies that have just grown either very quickly or very slowly over time, with a certain mindset, with a certain culture, and it's almost too much for them to unravel now, particularly in a larger corporate sort of environment. You've got problems with pay equality and equity across the entire business. Where do you start? How do we unravel that? What do we do? It's almost easier just to keep pushing on in the direction we're going and hope that it never causes us too many problems or assume that if it does cause us problems, it's going to be cheaper for us than having to rework all of this and rebalance salaries and so that there's some companies that may be too far down the road to care about it.

Speaker 2: 14:08

It's just like that big nod of Christmas lights or something that you're like we're just not even going to handle.

Speaker 3: 14:14

Just walk away slowly. Oh gosh, adam. It's so shocking, as someone who worked in talent acquisition, to hear that hiring managers would lie in an interview. And I would say why? Just why, because people are going to find out as soon as they start the job. So it's just an interesting choice to me.

Speaker 1: 14:37

Yeah, I think there's pressure from above. Particularly when you work in a larger corporate type environment, I think you probably are more likely to just feel this pressure from above to hit targets when it comes to hiring for your team. You just do what you need to do to get people through the door and you probably have more resources around you as well, so you don't think about the cost. And when it comes to time that's invested in hiring, you've got a TA team that will. Yeah, they do. They just do their magic stuff in the background and you don't really appreciate how much work goes into that as a hiring manager sometimes. So there's lots of again reasons why people might do it. But yeah, I was shocked to see that as well.

Speaker 2: 15:14

I think I've lied. I think I've lied. Have you? Yeah, I think I have not. Let me ask you all this Is this a lie? Like when you feel like you're probably out the door anyway, but you're hiring people and you're like, yeah, the culture is great.

Speaker 3: 15:29

I actually won't say that. If someone asks me interesting, I will just what's the culture like and I've been honest.

Speaker 1: 15:36

I'll give you the good, the bad and the ugly, because I think you deserve to know it so I had this conversation with someone recently who's a I won't again name names because it's a bit of a delicate one, but it was a people leader. I think there was an m&a event. Their business has been acquired, everything would change. They were basically checked out and said I'm committed to moving on. Now everything's changed. That's not what we've built anyway, because they're in a people lead a role. They were heavily involved in hiring and interviewing.

Speaker 1: 16:04

So we that touched on that discussion of what should I be doing, and I guess my advice was similar to the. What Melza said there is that the most positive thing you can do now is try and make sure that anyone else that walks through that door and joins that business is aligned, because even though you don't think it's a great place to work anymore for you, it doesn't mean it's terrible for everyone, and there are still people out there who really will align with that culture. Even if you think it's crazy, it doesn't make any sense, there are people who might like it. So do what you can to present facts and, rather than being opinionated, try and talk explicitly about what culture looks like here, which I think actually is what so many companies don't actually understand at the starting point is like what is culture here? How do we describe it and understand it, rather than giving an opinion on how fun it is here?

Speaker 3: 16:57

Either happy hours yeah, yeah understood, yeah we have a foosball table. No, I'm just kidding that pods. No, and it's interesting because the cost I thought I read this week that what they previously thought the cost of making the wrong hire was significantly low to compare, comparing to what the actual true cost of that is. And, adam, I'm sure you must have some number that you know about. What is the cost of that at times? What could it be up to?

Speaker 1: 17:25

Yeah, I again chatted about this yesterday. I can't really give you a figure because I just keep seeing all these different figures out there, in different, yeah, but it's high. The one that seems to stick in my mind is up to two thirds of someone's salary to replace. So if someone's on $90,000 a year, it could cost you 60k to just replace them. And again circling back to the benefits of being open and transparent, the more you can share up front, it's not just about getting people aligned to the right culture. It's not just about getting people aligned and to the right culture. But there's so many benefits around onboarding and ramp up time and getting people to a point where they are more productive in the early days within your business. So companies are always looking at like how can we shorten that ramp up time so that people are effectively making us money sooner, which is completely fair? How do we do that? The more share, the more you provide up front, the quicker that happens.

Speaker 3: 18:37

What does a good open culture look like from your perspective?

Speaker 1: 18:43

that's a really interesting question. It's really hard to answer as well, because people ask us quite a lot like how do you define transparency? And this is the whole world that we're in. So we, we don't define it. We were very keen from the outset to make sure that we aren't the ones trying to define what transparent looks like.

Speaker 1: 19:01

That's part of the problem for me, like some of these awards and accolades out there that you can win about we've got great culture or a great place to work. The problem is you're prescribing to someone else's view of what good looks like You're jumping through hoops and like ticking boxes view of what good looks like you're jumping through hoops and like ticking boxes. So we're of the view that there needs to be some sort of level of openness and transparency to call yourself transparent to a degree, and we provide that level of structure, which I won't dive too deeply into, but we've got an assessment and a framework companies can follow. So we do have some level of it, but we don't necessarily prescribe where that transparency should be and necessarily how deep that should go. So the way that I try and talk about it with companies is work on defining it for yourself first. What does that look like? And there's a very high level journey that, for me, starts with understanding like why is this word important? If you're putting on your career site or your job ads or just putting it out there, there's got to be a reason why you're saying it, and if there's not, it's just an empty word. So where I tend to see it, there's two paths.

Speaker 1: 20:00

Typically, when it does work well is it's either heavily linked to your product, your value prop idea you're doing something that's bringing transparency to your customers or whatever that might be, via a platform or a product, and you can lean into transparency as a business yourself, which works really well or it ties heavily into your values and when you dig a little bit deeper and understand what those values are and why, that's when you can start to work with companies to help them understand what they should be leaning into and what they should be sharing more of.

Speaker 1: 20:28

I'll give you an example. Company I worked with recently talked a lot about they believe their strength is in having a diverse team, but they offered nothing around diversity, no transparency externally around what diversity looked like for them. I talked to them about the fact that they talk about strength and diversity and this is a really core value for them. That's an opportunity to be transparent and double down in that particular area. So, long story short, transparency is going to mean different things to different people, but I ask companies to look at their culture, their values, intrinsically to that, and look at where they can double down. You don't have to share everything across the entire spectrum, but think about what it means to your business, find ways you can double down and over index in certain ways, and that starts building a little bit of meaning behind the word for you as well.

Speaker 3: 21:13

So it's more personalized, depending on your business. I know at OpenOrg you're going in. You're taking a look at this with them, so it might not necessarily be like this is what good looks like. But in terms of leading practices, for example, what would something like open compensation what's a leading practice you might recommend, regardless of that company's personal mission? What advice would you offer?

Speaker 1: 21:41

We've still got some like minimum standards that we would say people should try and attain and get to, and then the optional. This is how you elevate it if you want to go crazy and go for it basically buffer style but for us, the minimum expectation, ideally, is to get to the point where you can comfortably put a salary or a salary band on a job advert when you're hiring. Now that, for us, is really important because you're then providing some external transparency, building trust with talent, reverse engineering that. How do we get to that stage? There's a lot of work that goes into that before you can get to that stage. So you've got to work on your compensation philosophy, your bands and your levels.

Speaker 1: 22:19

How do we benchmark our salaries? Where do we get that data from? We encourage companies to share that internally as well, as much as you possibly can, and if you can't, that's okay, but as an absolute minimum, what people really want to see is how is this decision being made? Whatever I I'm being paid, that's fine.

Speaker 1: 22:38

How have you come up with that decision? What data have you used and where have you got it from and how has that been assessed? So it's the why and the how behind the decision is actually really key for me as a minimum requirement. People don't care about what their colleagues being paid, necessarily, as long as they can see what they're being paid is fair and they feel that that lines up with what they should be getting paid. That's really key. So again, minimum expectation provide the how and the why behind the decisions with the things like pay and hopefully get to the point where you can comfortably put a salary on an advert and not have chaos ensue internally where people are reapplying for their own jobs because they see that you're paying someone else 30k more.

Speaker 3: 23:18

I never really understood why that isn't public information, because people are going to find out anyway, because they talk about it. So it's interesting to me that they don't share the process, because it is an in-depth process to go through salary band review each year and it's good for folks when they're talking about their year end and bonus and seeing where they're at and if they have room to grow. It's a good discussion to have with your people.

Speaker 1: 23:43

It's hard work and it takes a long time and that puts a lot of companies off and it won't suddenly mean that everything goes perfectly. You're still going to have some really tough, awkward, tricky conversations with employees who are unhappy about what they're paid, why they're paid it. It's not going to make everything go away, but it builds so much trust as a starting point so that when you have that conversation, people feel like they trust you. They can see it, it's open and it's a starting point for a conversation effectively. And you've got that backup. Most businesses have done their working out. They've got some data source behind them. That should build some confidence in you to have that conversation and say, look, we haven't just plucked this from thin air, this is what we've used, so share it.

Speaker 3: 24:24

It's honest and it helps others really understand the process, because I think if you're not in comp, it does feel like a mystery. Did you just throw a dart at the dartboard and pick this number? So it's good to include that. What about some leading practices in terms of company culture?

Speaker 1: 24:40

yeah, so we culture is one of the pillars under our framework and it's probably like one of the broader ones. What we try and get companies to do is really think about what does culture mean here? What does it look like? Because I think the default for a lot of companies when you look at career pages is like we've got great culture and then there's like a picture of a team playing like crazy golf or whatever they're doing on a team social and that like sums up culture on the face of it. And we're trying to get companies to start moving away from that.

Speaker 1: 25:07

Don't start sharing like all the positive employee stories of it's fun to work here, it's great. Start sharing some facts and reality around, like how do we succeed as a team? What is the sort of unique DNA or blend of how we work, our ways of work that enable us to work well together and succeed? And how do we learn? How do we fail? How do we thrive? How do we like communicate?

Speaker 1: 25:28

There's so much you can gain from understanding how a team communicates day to day. Is it synchronous? Asynchronous Boundaries have reset to communicate. Communicates day to day. Is it synchronous? Asynchronous boundaries have reset to communicate. It might seem like a lot of information, but you can get that across to people really nicely on on wiki or careers page or a job advert.

Speaker 1: 25:46

The companies that do this well do really well and they hire people who succeed really well in their business. So for us, that's culture. It's thinking more about operational excellence rather than that word culture. And when you start breaking it down like that and thinking in that way, you can actually look at some of those areas around communication and documentation and meetings. That's one of the areas under our culture pillar is encouraging companies to talk more about their approach to meetings. Engineers in particular, and others as well. Now, to be honest with you, really benefit and enjoy having blocks of time for like, deep work and focus. They don't want to be sucked into six hours of meetings a day. So start talking to people more about your approach to meetings as a business and people have the opportunity to opt in or out. That's like what we refer to as culture, rather than the coffee, the beanbags, all the other stuff.

Speaker 3: 26:38

Yeah, that's how we work around here. Right, that's all good stuff to highlight. What about benefits? How do you feel about leading practices there?

Speaker 1: 26:46

Yeah, another bugbear, and this is hard right. Like you can only get so much information on some careers page, for example, or a job advert, but they have defaulted over time to just being a little bit vague and shiny and like you can't really see much. So you see, like competitive salary mentioned, like just go a little bit deeper, even if it's an extra line to say we benchmark and pay on the 75th percentile. You can't just say it's competitive and that's going to suddenly mean it's competitive to everyone. Someone could be working for the you know business that pays 90th. Someone could be working for somewhere that's 30th.

Speaker 1: 27:20

You can't just say that and have it apply to everyone. So just add some meaning. So, generally speaking, best practice on benefits when we work with companies and look at this is just really I don't want to say tearing apart, that sounds a bit aggressive but like line by line, going through each benefit that they've listed and actually looking at how can you elevate that and add a little bit more clarity to what that is. And I think maternity leave, paternity leave, is a big one. So many companies write enhanced parental leave.

Speaker 3: 27:48

What does that even mean?

Speaker 1: 27:50

A week and if so, how much? Buy or would you offer 12 months full pay? Just tell people what it is. Actually, it's not a deal breaker for most people. It just helps them understand and plan ahead and think what does that mean for me financially if I do join here and I do decide to have a child? And it's not a deal breaker, but it helps set expectations and it's one of those things, famously, that's always been really hard to find out before you join a business.

Speaker 3: 28:14

Yeah, it's so interesting to me because my experience in organizations one that I was interviewing with or to have worked with although there's information provided, it's so high level and so vague and usually it's not until you get to the offer stage where someone will finally meet with you to get into the details. And I always think that's a disservice, Because if you're just exploring an organization, you want to be able to say what does this exactly look like, so everyone's happy in the end, You're not waiting all the way through.

Speaker 1: 28:44

Six interviews have happened, You've wasted five hours of everyone's time, You're at the offer stage and you lose that candidate because they didn't like the benefit package that they're getting Another example and one company that does this really well and you some might argue it's a bit overkill, but health insurance might work differently in the uk to the us. I don't know whether it's a little bit more comprehensive and everything's covered regardless, but absolutely not over here, like even if you have insurance.

Speaker 2: 29:11

It's absolutely like it's garbage. It's garbage.

Speaker 1: 29:14

I don't want to say I made the assumption. But it's the same here as well. There are some companies that say we offer health cover. Great, on the face of it, brilliant, I'm excited. But then you join and you realize, okay, it's just for me, it's not for my family. I didn't realize that. Or you realize, okay, I've got a very specific, rare condition that's not covered by this particular policy, so that's not a benefit to me. Now, and there's a company called Juro and others do this as well, but I know about Juro. You can, on their notion, you can dig deep on their benefits, click into their health cover and actually look at the exact policy document that they've got for their business. And it's long, it's in depth, but you can actually go and find out.

Speaker 1: 29:51

Is my specific condition covered, which is great.

Speaker 3: 29:54

Yeah, that's fantastic because that's the stuff people need to know when they're moving, especially when it impacts your family, as you mentioned, if you find out after the fact. Oh wait, that actually happened to a friend of mine where she found out with her new job, it only extends to her, it doesn't extend to her family.

Speaker 2: 30:10

So, yeah, I think a lot of organizations are doing really cool things too. I worked for an organization where, after I had my son, they flew my breast milk like overnight yeah Back to my house, which was like $800 a pop, and they did that for every single mother. And that, to me, is I don't know why you guys aren't screaming this from the effing rooftops. Yeah, there's also stuff that the organization could be screaming from the rooftops and they're not. Yeah, there's also stuff that the organization could be screaming from the rooftops and they're not.

Speaker 1: 30:39

Yeah, and this is again it's personal choice in terms of how much effort you want to put into it, but there are companies that will have. You know that we call them handbooks in the UK and try not to refer to it too heavily as handbook in the US, because it's a slightly different, slightly more legal document in the US, but like a wiki or a resource hub for employees effectively to be able to go and dig deep and look at this stuff. And you can keep it high level and say we offer enhanced parental leave. Or you can really provide a heap of depth on parental leave and not just like what do we give parents, but what does returning from maternity leave look like? How do we help you and support you and all that entire journey? There are some companies that do incredibly well, so it's not like to disparage everyone, but the majority don't scratch the surface.

Speaker 3: 31:27

What about with professional development is typically it's not something people think of as falling under benefits, but it's also something that you hope, as an employee, you continue to get, because then you feel that organization is invested in you, they're invested your growth. They want you to succeed. What does a good leading practice look like in terms of transparency around how much an organization is investing in your career development?

Speaker 1: 31:51

yeah, this is again. This you've just said those words as well. I think is like there's such a standard phrase on career sites of like we invest in people and we've got world-class career. If you're going to say that you've got world-class like career investment, whatever that might look like, show it like don't just dangle a carrot and then don't offer anything over and above that.

Speaker 1: 32:12

Really show what you offer people and give some clarity as to what that looked like on a a couple of levels. There's a few things on that. If you're going to list it as a benefit, again, something that we see a lot of companies do is dangle a carrot to say L&D budget, but again just a few more words to say what that budget is. It takes no effort and really helps people understand what they're going to be getting here. So there's tiny little tangible changes companies can go and make that really make a big difference to people. I think the deeper work and the work behind the scenes to really elevate that is looking in depth at how you progress and promote and keep people growing within your business. So career development frameworks is something that seems to be missing in the loss of companies, I think, probably for a reason. It's often it's hard to build. Sometimes if you're a bigger company and get everything in place and something that works and it ties heavily into performance, calibration and compensation and again you've got that big ball of christmas lights whatever we're talking about earlier that you can't unpick.

Speaker 1: 33:14

So career, when we look at the data of all the companies that take our assessment to understand, almost like a heat map of what companies do and don't share.

Speaker 1: 33:24

Career development uh, frameworks are always in the red, but for the large majority of companies they don't even share anything internally.

Speaker 1: 33:30

So there's a lot of companies out there saying we invest in people, but then you walk through the door and you don't have visibility of what's my next step look like or how can I move internally. So, again on our framework, one of our 35 areas that we zone in on and talk with companies about is sharing more information around internal mobility. So can you even share some basic data with people to say that this x percent of people moved internally last year, whether it's latently or vertically for promotion? That gives you a real indication as to like how people move within your business and how people can grow. So anyway, there's a lot of deeper work in depth you can go into there, but I think getting that internal clarity is helpful to people. And then, once you've got it, why wouldn't you share it? There's a few reasons here and there, but you should. And again, there's a couple of companies out there that do really well at just flipping their their internal documentation external.

Speaker 1: 34:26

And then, and it's amazing, who's doing this really well there's a company called cleo in the uk who I don't know. If you've come across a platform called progression fyi really cool, check out progressionfyi. They have their whole platform is about helping companies to build career development frameworks and using their platform. But progression fyi is also like a collective open source career development frameworks that companies share publicly. So clio have got theirs on there. They've shared it publicly and you can go on and look at all their engineering pathways, the salary bands attached to every single role, criteria for progressing.

Speaker 1: 35:04

They've got such a great name, particularly in the UK, for this stuff. And another one is Learnably, who again might not be well known outside of the UK because they're relatively small tech startup scale up, but Learnably are like an LMSms platform, so they major on development and growth for employees and they really drink their own champagne because of that. Going back to what we were talking about earlier with defining what transparency means to you, that a huge part of their value prop is about lnd and growth. So they've decided to major on being transparent about career development at learnably. If you're going to join us, we're going to make sure you know what you're going to get and how you're going to grow, and everything they've done has been crafted around that whole idea of lnd, because that's fed into their, their entire value prop as well where do you see this going in the next five years?

Speaker 1: 36:15

yeah, I am in a bubble. I have to admit that we operate a lot more at the startup scale up end of the spectrum. So companies anywhere from 20, 30 employees up to a couple of thousand starting to get larger. But we don't work with many 30, 40, 50,000 employee businesses and I get they're probably not going to be making the drastic changes anytime soon to how they operate and how they communicate. That's a lot harder. But certainly there's so many earlier stage businesses coming through. It precede stage.

Speaker 1: 36:45

I know a lot of founding teams who support what we're doing. They're a bit early stage to fully embrace and have a lot of this work verified because they haven't started hiring yet. But you see the mindset and the passion and the belief there and I'm not saying every founder coming through is like Gen Z. A lot of them are. A lot of them are coming into this world of work setting up their own companies now and then we will talk about the fact that Gen Z have. Everyone cares about transparency and trust, but Gen Z are more demanding. They care more deeply about it. It's a really important part of how they work, deeply about it. It's a really important part of how they work and they're building their own businesses now with this as a core value. So five years time I'd expect to see, particularly in the startup scale up world, businesses that do default more to transparency, whatever that means to them. They're at least able to say we're transparent and we've defined what that means, and if that's okay, because if it doesn't align with you, then fine, but it will align with certain people and and we're healthy and etc. Etc.

Speaker 1: 37:41

I'd like to see, hopefully, some good progression around pay transparency in particular. There's obviously a lot of movement in the US legally, so that's going to make some sort of change, I'm sure, and then there's some incoming changes across the EU as well. So what's sad is that either side of the UK right now we've got some legal waves happening, which is really enforcing some change, which is great, but nothing in the UK at the moment. So we'll see if we follow suit. But certainly on the pay front, that will change and I think as a knock-on effect to that, going back to what we talked about earlier, I'd heavily to. Pay is performance in career development. You can't suddenly become transparent about pay without giving people some context around how that ties into career development and levels and and how, then, they're going to be assessed to get to that next level, so that, as a trio is going to have to advance together? For me, um, as best as possible anyway yeah, that makes total sense.

Speaker 3: 38:38

I know you're as you say, you're in this the bubble, but with the, the gen z, really coming in and leading the wave of this bubble, those startups could become either clients or partners to these larger organizations. Do you think their approach to transparency may have an influence on some of these large organizations in the future?

Speaker 1: 39:01

I hope so. I hope so. As much as I don't operate so heavily in the large corporate world. As much as I don't operate so heavily in the large corporate world, I have to say some of the larger organizations out there are the ones actually doing better when it comes to things like pay transparency and visibility on career development, probably because they've got the resources there as well to do it from like a people team perspective. But particularly in the UK, the public organizations you like the NHS and you can apply to jobs and you know exactly what grade you're going to be at, what salary you're going to be at. Everyone's on the same, salary gets paid the same. There is visibility in a lot of the public organizations here which I imagine is maybe similar in the US.

Speaker 3: 39:40

It's similar. Yeah, the US government actually does transparency well.

Speaker 1: 39:44

Exactly, yeah, and there are things that you can give a little bit of a hat tip, so you just actually you know what, that there is the structure in place and similarly big consulting firms in the uk and imagine it maybe again similar in the us, like your pwc's, your ey's, etc. They've been around so long, they've got their structure so firmly set that, whilst they may not have the perfect culture for everyone, that's okay. People know what they're getting when they join. They know what they're not going to get and also the grading and the pace is like how you progress in those types of businesses is fairly clear to people and well known because they've been around for so long. So I'm I'm always wary of disparaging like large companies too much, because actually there's some things that they do really well that actually startups and scale-ups could learn from as well. Where they tend to get things wrong maybe is things like communication and day-to-day internal culture starts to get go wrong there because they become this sort of size where things start falling apart.

Speaker 2: 40:38

From that point of view, so funny with this conversation around transparency and even just like your relationship with work. I can't help but think about it like a really any relationship you have with a person, Meaning and I know we've talked about this. But when I think about dating or getting into a relationship with someone, if you're not honest or if you misrepresent yourself from the jump, you're going to have a problem. And when we think about any kind of dating scenario, if you would be like, yeah, they said that they really wanted to have X, Y and Z, but then they didn't, and we talked about how how can people start to get more transparent up above right, Especially at the org level? But I'm thinking here about where this really comes down to is individuals, how individuals are feeling as they're moving through these organizations. I'm thinking here about where this really comes down to is individuals, how individuals are feeling as they're moving through these organizations.

Speaker 2: 41:31

And I'm wondering if we can really double down on if you're a manager or if you're an employee and you're sitting in an organization that may have some opportunity. Everybody has some opportunity Individually. I have some opportunity, have some opportunity for transparency, but you really want to be this person that shows up well for your team or shows up in a way that you feel you need to as a manager. What can a manager do, agnostic of the organization, to drive transparency and drive that kind of honesty on their team?

Speaker 1: 42:06

Yeah, it's very tough. I think in some respects in smaller organizations it's more down to mindset of founder CEO. They're probably still close enough to the individual employees day to day for them to be the driving factor here. I think maybe when you get into larger organizations and most people have never ever met the ceo or know really what they look like or who they are, there is more of an opportunity possibly for managers, middle level managers, more senior managers, to try and direct and formulate some level of team level transparency. Everyone knows that as companies get larger, culture and values becomes lost on a broader level because you end up with your microcultures and across the entire business. You do have this opportunity to form your own microculture, microverse within your team. So if managers do care deeply enough about it and not to say that they're going to suddenly change the entire business and how the business operates, but there are steps that they can take to start understanding how they can build more trust with their team.

Speaker 1: 43:04

And again, this is a whole nother podcast episode, I'm sure, but managers are highly underdeveloped, under supported, under trained.

Speaker 1: 43:12

I think the latest stat that's flowing around now is like 82 percent of managers are accidental managers, like it's completely broken in terms of how management even works itself, and so most managers don't know where to start when it comes to how to manage a team and how to communicate with them, and et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 43:30

So, in terms of like steps you can take, we're building an open manager handbook with our community now building it together like a building public community exercise, which is really cool, but that's going to be filled with a heap of like resources, guidance on like how to build trust with the team, how to communicate with the team, how to run effective one on ones, but all with a lens of how to build trust with the team, how to communicate with the team, how to run effective one-on-ones, but all with a lens of how to do it in an open, transparent way.

Speaker 1: 43:54

It's tricky because some of it will go against the grain a little bit, potentially with what you're being told you are allowed to share and aren't allowed to share. But if you're not able to be transparent ie share the reality you can at least be clear with what you are and aren't allowed to share. So there's a bit of a difference between clarity and transparency. So even if you don't have the information to share with them, you can tell them what you can share and what you do and don't know, and that in itself is at least building some trust with your team.

Speaker 2: 44:21

I've been in. I think most of us have situations where you're leading a team and you're going through something really tumultuous layoffs, budget cuts, the business isn't doing well, et cetera and I've worked with people, colleagues and peers that have been like all you need to say is that you absolutely trust the direction of the company. You're behind this 100% and we're going to move on, and I have found that when I've tried that tactic earlier on in my career, it goes over like a fart in church because people, what they want to know to your very good point is I don't need you to tell me everything, but I need to trust that you're going to tell me what you can and you're going to keep me updated and we're going to go through this together. Yeah, people don't expect you to tell them everything. They don't even expect you necessarily to tell how you're feeling about it, but they need to be able to trust that you've got their best interests and that you're going to keep them updated as they go along.

Speaker 1: 45:17

Yeah, and you've got two examples of companies that do a relatively good job on this. Again, in terms of again, this probably has to be something that is ideally fed from higher up, but maybe it could be implemented in a larger organization by a middle manager. There's a company I mentioned earlier called euro. They're really intentional as a leadership team as how they will approach crisis types scenarios, whatever that might be. Layoffs interestingly, an interesting one, because you can see a layoff coming so you can plan for it. You could think about our comms plan how we're going to approach it. Weirdly, there's no argument real argument for companies doing a really bad job on this because they they always see it coming, they always have time to plan for it and they have the opportunity to communicate it if they want to. But there are things that happen that you can't control and euro was one example. They were backed by, if you remember, the silicon valley bank issue that happened a while ago.

Speaker 1: 46:06

Yeah, everyone sort of just forgot about that a little bit. So sorry if I've given anyone ptsd, but that happened and that affected juro and within minutes of that news being announced, juro's ceo was on slack. The entire business couldn't give them an answer as to what's coming, but there was at least communication there immediately to say this has happened. We could be affected. We will keep you posted and I can't remember exactly how many updates they were given, but there was continual updates very regularly throughout the entire weekend. No expectation for employees to read this, but it all happened over a weekend, didn't it? I think from memory and yeah, that's do committed to slacking the entire business all weekend about what was going on that that sort of level of intentional communication calms nerves, makes people feel involved, looked after as safe as they possibly can be and informed, and they're an incredible business. You have to work hard at that, but that's really great.

Speaker 1: 47:01

Another example, slightly different, is someone like gitlab, who a lot of people know and accept as the most transparent company in the world. If you go on their handbook, when they talk about transparency as one of their values, they're very clear about why it's a value. They're very clear about what they do share and they give you examples of the things they share. But interestingly, there's a line in there that says there are some things we don't share and when we don't share them, we publicly document what that is and why. So you can click a link and they'll tell you exactly what they don't share with people and the reasons for not sharing that information as well. And that is like perfect scenario, like defining transparency but building expectations with employees to understand and get some context for why certain things aren't being shared.

Speaker 2: 47:48

I think that education is equally important. Right, there are some things that it is in everybody's best interest not to share at a certain point in time. Right, there just is in business. But I think the ability to say this is it and to be very upfront about it again, it's so. People know what to expect, they know what they're getting into. Yeah, it's really that. Know what to expect, they know what they're getting into. Yeah, it's really that clear yeah.

Speaker 3: 48:10

It's also just acknowledging going back to the example about the Silicon Valley Bay, it's acknowledging something is happening. We know what's happening. We don't have all the facts, but we're going to communicate to you. So people aren't like trying to fill in the blank. That's what always happens, right? They fill in their own blanks. Conspiracy theories spread throughout an organization, and then it just now you're fighting that and the real information, and then no one believes the real information when you finally give it. So I love these examples.

Speaker 1: 48:38

The comfort it must build of thinking okay, my CEO is on it, like you don't communicate anything. If an employee sees it, that news, and they haven't heard from their CEO on the weekend, they might sit there and think should I tell them about this? Do you think they've seen the news yet? Or, knowing that your CEO is slacking you on the weekends about something like this, I think yeah, the trust in that leader must just be through the roof.

Speaker 2: 48:59

Yeah absolutely, absolutely. One of the things that I think is really important is being able to control what you can control. Is being able to control what you can control and, as an employee, you're either interviewing for a job. Maybe you're sitting internally at an organization and you're wondering what could I be looking at in terms of this organization? And I'm wondering what would you tell people You're best friends interviewing for a job? What would you tell them in terms of figuring out what that company really is?

Speaker 1: 49:26

Yeah, I haven't ever had to answer that. To be honest, we do a few things to try and help folks a little bit as much, as our advice usually is trained more on helping the companies rather than because we think if we can help the companies do better, that will automatically help employees and candidates. But I spend a lot of time personally looking at career sites and job adverts and I think I've gotten very good at just cutting through the rubbish. Basically, that's there, the buzzwords, the vagueness that actually a lot of people maybe read and take for granted and take as accepted. So encouraging people to not just see the words transparent on a career page but actually, if you see that, take that as a signal that you should be looking for some level of openness or something further that gives you an idea. Or, if someone's got a core value of diversity, start understanding whether they share anything about diversity or the commitments, failings, whatever that might be. So just try and think a bit deeper and go a bit deeper on that. That's like the high level stuff. There's basic things on the job adverts that people should be looking for some clarity on and most people do, frankly, is like thinking about like compensation and flexible working, like when will I be working? Where will I be working and can you think deeper around like policy on?

Speaker 1: 50:36

Someone just says hybrid three days a week. What does that actually mean? Their questions you won't have answered pre-application, but taking that into an interview to actually like really dig deeper on that and understand is it just three days a week or is it a monday, tuesday, friday, like whatever that might be? We built and shared what we call like our interview question index and which is like an open resource on our website and it's I think it's 60 or 70 questions. We just we did it for fun, to be honest, but like opportunity for people to understand that the tougher questions they could ask employers and interview to dig deeper on things like culture, like understanding, like, and what one of the questions on there is like why did the last three people leave this team?

Speaker 1: 51:14

Or what was the last mistake your ceo admitted to which I got some flack for and people said you should be a bit softer with that like and maybe like. So maybe someone could ask what was the last thing your ceo shared you that they learned, which for me became a bit fluffy. It could be like I've read a book and learned this, so I want to understand how open are CEOs and leaders about their own mistakes, their own vulnerabilities? It gives you a real indication of psychological safety and how people communicate and share information, and if an interviewer can't give you certain information, it's not necessarily that you should run for the hills, but it might give you a bit of an indication as to how communication and information is shared in that business. If they haven't even genuinely been given the information themselves. As a recruiter of 12, 13 years, that would signal some alarm bells in my head alarm bells in my head.

Speaker 3: 52:08

Yeah, I always tell people to ask the question what brought you here and what keeps you here? Because it's the what keeps you here, where the honesty starts to come out for folks, or if you see them. Oh, I don't know yeah, yeah, that pause tell is telling yeah, there's.

Speaker 1: 52:20

Sometimes I have to, like really work hard to find out why I'm still, why I'm still in this business is, but then and even the danger with that is there's almost very opinionated. So what, what's keeping someone else in the business might not be the thing that keeps you there as well, but understanding it's hard, because so many of these things could be linked to opinion. But again, understanding, like, who is the last person that failed to thrive here and why? Like what are the factors that leads to failure in this company, rather than always saying, like, why am I going to love it here? What do do you do for fun? Like always trying to find all the fun stuff. Understand who doesn't thrive and help you understand whether that might, you know, connect the dots for you as well.

Speaker 2: 52:59

I think it's really important to dive way deeper than most people do in their interviews and to not be afraid to ask those questions. I've had many conversations with people that they really want to know X, y and Z, but they're afraid to ask or they feel like if they ask then they're going to get penalized somehow in the interview process. And I feel like these are questions that you should be asking to really get a sense of what is the organization like, but also if you're getting any kind of pushback about those questions or even asking those questions, that's also information as well.

Speaker 3: 53:33

That's when a rejection is protection. Yes, ultimately.

Speaker 1: 53:39

The hard thing right now, at this moment in time, is it's such a hard thing to advise on because they're ultimately braver questions for people to ask, slightly scarier ones, and the mindset that so many people are in right now is I've just got to find a job.

Speaker 1: 53:53

So, like at the moment, people are just trying to find, prioritize finding jobs, even if they're not perfect, and it was a similar back in 2020 with, with covid, people were joining companies as a stepping stone, knowing I just need security for now and when the market improves then I'll move. So right now, this stuff isn't always a priority for people, but I've known a good few people in the last number of months who have jumped to jobs just for a job's sake and they've left them in weeks. There's no point in joining a business and going through onboarding and ramp up and hope if your gut is telling you that this is not the right place, because nine times out of ten it won't happen and you're better off still investing your energy and your time into trying to find the right place. But it is hard.

Speaker 2: 54:35

It's a really tricky time to be doing that and I hate to put it on an employee to say you've got to go through this journey, but I think it's really great, though, that people have these tools and these questions to ask to see what situation are they getting into, what's?

Speaker 1: 54:47

really sad is it's often the TA teams and the recruiters who get the flack for this. They're useless at giving me the information I need. They're really vague and the poor recruiter that's nine times out of 10, they just haven't been given the information. I've had this myself, like not being told what funding round we just done. How am I going to do my job properly if the leadership team won't give me the basic information I need to interview? So it's not usually the TA team's fault. Honestly. They don't sit there openly trying to hide things. It's just we're working with what we've got. But again, it's a huge indication really of like how does communication happen in this business?

Speaker 2: 55:20

A thousand percent, yeah, and quite honestly, most TA teams are armed with the sexy ass information and all the information they can have so they can get those folks through the door. So if they don't have it, again I think that's a really great call out that it might not be as clear in the organization. The other thing is, if the hiring manager we talk about this sometimes there's a difference between talent acquisition, like your recruiter, and then the person that's actually going to be quote, unquote, your boss, and if either of those people don't have that information, or I think it'd be very interesting if they give you different information as well, again, I think it's just, it's a big archaeological dig.

Speaker 3: 55:56

Put on your curiosity and critical thinking hat during the interview process the rapid round, here we go adam, no pressure, by the way, try to make this as fun as possible and not terrifying. So terrible, at least yeah, all right, I going to dive right in. Some of these could be yes or no, or true or false, and some might have broader explanation, and that's totally okay. I wanted to ask of the open org companies that you are working with, are there similar characteristics that you see in their leadership teams?

Speaker 1: 56:44

yes, I can divulge a little bit more if you want yeah of course. Relatively progressive, a younger generation less precious about titles and flatter hierarchies and structures in their business.

Speaker 3: 56:58

Okay, what is the next lever being added to the list above? We talked about comp benefits, career development, culture. What else might get added?

Speaker 1: 57:10

Flexibility is another thing that I think is just such a big topic at the moment the lack of clarity on are we working from home? Is it return to office? How does that look? Is it different things to different employees? There's a lot of problems around that at the moment. So, like clarity on that should be really simple, but it's terrible at the moment, so that should be a big one.

Speaker 3: 57:34

Okay, okay. We see a lot of large organizations today talking about social impact, environmental impact. Do you think, given the age of climate change, that companies should be transparent about their environmental impact, even if it's not flattering?

Speaker 1: 57:45

Yeah, I do so. The gen z, gen z, sorry big topic for them around, like esg and environment and climate. So it's a big thing that a lot of them are looking for, apparently, from employers when they join companies. So it will signal to me that the longer that it goes on and the worst things get out there, the more important this is for companies to talk about. The downsides is the pressure of greenwashing, etc. And everyone's talking about just doing something or trying to make it look as good as possible, and that's happened with diversity over the last few years. Definitely is like huge calls to do more on diversity, but it's become very performative. So yes, definitely, but but be careful okay, okay.

Speaker 3: 58:25

Do you think social media is going to make companies be more transparent or just more cautious?

Speaker 1: 58:31

hopefully both, hopefully both. So a trait I see from the really transparent companies that I follow and watch is very vocal ceos. On linkedin, for example, they post regularly. They post about whatever they want and they're not afraid to to either be vulnerable and share failings but also like really celebrate stuff. And it's interesting the the slightly larger or secretive companies. You never hear from a ceo and the fact that they don't post about anything starts making you think are they waiting for someone to comment on a post and call them out? And this happened with bupa very recently. The ce CEO posted about an award they won for women in their leadership team and there was a comment made that went viral and it all blew up. So more cautious if you're not able to be fully transparent, but hopefully that transparency will remove the need to be cautious.

Speaker 3: 59:22

Okay, true or false? Every company should have a public fact sheet about how they operate, true, okay? And is there such a thing as too much transparency?

Speaker 1: 59:37

There could be. Arguably no, but in certain instances there could be. And again it's a bit like the greenwashing example just now. Don't make it become like a performative exercise just for pr. Make it like embeddable. Don't overreach.

Speaker 3: 59:51

As soon as you can't model certain behaviors, it will start to fall apart what's one organization either one that you're working with or one publicly that you've seen do this really well, like you think they're a pillar example of good transparency.

Speaker 1: 1:00:14

A company called PostHog. Posthog is a small-ish tech business in the UK. I won't drone on because I'll talk about it for hours, but check out PostHog. They've got a public handbook. They share their roadmap. Their CEO is posting on LinkedIn all the time. That's so open, so transparent. They're amazing.

Speaker 2: 1:00:26

Adam. I love the work you all are doing. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Thanks so much for joining us today. Subscribe. Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriends.com. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work friends.