Workplace Stories by RedThread Research

This week we sat down with Gretchen Murphy, CHRO of data center services specialist Service Express, to hear how only ever adding people who fit your culture but then constantly supporting them through conscious Reconnecting techniques really delivers.

Based out of San Francisco, Airtable is a fast-growing software product company with a mission to democratize software creation. It says it’s doing that by enabling anyone to build the tools that meet their needs, but is that focus on openness and collaboration talk or walk? In this next debate on how to make reconnecting real, we find out from a great conversation with the company’s Global Talent Development Leader, Jessica Amortegui, who has a lot to say about walking the walk—from the way her company is really taking on the problem of connection at the individual, human level, but also how to better facilitate connecting with others on a one-on-one, team, and entire organizational level. Even more interestingly; that happens on both the virtual (90% of her fellow ‘Airtablets’ joined during the pandemic) but also on the physical level—and as you’ll also hear, gets instantiated with well-thought-out and battle-tested role tools and exercises, which we’re delighted to say some of which Jess has shared with listeners. She also has some very useful things to say about the demonstrable value of all this even the most results-focused managers and connection ‘skeptics’ find persuasive. Finally, we loved her persuading us about the importance of connection in the flow of one's day-to-day work—making connecting not some special thing that you do in parallel but can be structured to be part of any meeting if you want it to be. All in all, so many great soundbites—but if you want just one, how about, “The thing I would love to switch about our workplaces is how many of us end the day exhausted and feeling de-energized. Why does it have to be that way?” Abso-tootle!

For our second conversation about The Great Reconnection, we sat down with Matt Gosney, Vice President, Organizational Development at UCHealth, a major Denver-based healthcare provider that’s grown rapidly in the past few years. To make that growth work, the organization has been consciously doing as much as it can to enable connection and growth. We wanted to know more, so got Matt on to hear why connection and growth are now seen as critical to UC Health's employment value proposition, and also a significantly contributor to recruiting and retention. We also talk about how some of UC Health's previous talent processes, especially performance management, weren’t really helping on the connection part, and what Matt and his team did about it. A powerful new concept that’s proving really helpful is supporting managers to have what UCHealth calls ‘career conversations’ with every single employee has unleashed a tidal wave of connection, engagement, and contribution. An unintended but very welcome consequences of that work have been a dramatic improvement in talent pipeline diversity and a more organic (and thus, successful) approach to DEIB. We conclude with a story about lifetime-long transferrable skills that nearly wraps one of our most fun yet also thoughtful conversations for a while. The one key quote? “Connection is a baseline antecedent to progress and delivery of results.” Sounds bang on to us.

We start our new S6 of Workplace Stories with an overview of the theme of the Season, how it links to the previous five, then talk to Liz Wiseman, CEO of the Wiseman Group and author of New York Times bestseller about how leaders can build connections to and between people, and more broadly to the organization, 'Multipliers.' As we hear, Liz’s purpose is to make work better for everyone by creating organizations where great leaders multiply intelligence, rather than draining it from the organization. What inspires Liz is working with and watching senior leaders to learn what good leadership looks like, and how anyone can be a smart leader that doesn’t shut down smarts of others. We then hear her views on how at present, many organizations are in the process of trying to recover from a period of enormous disconnection. Now, in a world of Hybrid and Remote Working, what must leaders do to build and facilitate connection? This is essential in creating a sense of purpose and community, both in and out of the organization, and to help leaders need to provide context for people’s work. For Liz, this has to be about explaining what the impact of work is, and how it connects with wider purpose, as without this, people can’t feel a sense of fulfilment in their work. She also shares her view on how people don’t want to be managed in general, they want to be led. Rather than doing a job, leaders are people who see what needs to be done. This is important in the context of the Great Resignation – employees must feel connected and a sense of purpose even if removed from their workplace and work friends. Finally, she offers practical ways to start The Great Reconnection.

In this, our final episode for the Adventures in Hybrid Work Season, we end strong with a great sit-down with people analytics innovator and Head of Talent Analytics & Transformation at Panasonic USA, Lydia Wu. It’s the right last conversation for now on this important topic, we think, as Lydia gives us so much frontline reporting on the key issues we’ve identified in our conversations, like the importance of data and really listening to what your workforce actually wants in terms of return to office instead of what you think they want, which we’ve heard from others—but also topics we maybe didn’t get so much on, like the importance of the DEIB factor in Hybrid, and what we should be doing for managers in all this, not just the main employee base. The fact that Panasonic—which really isn’t just ‘the microwave people’—has such a wide spread of job roles, both desked and deskless, is also really important to think about. It all matters—and as Dani says in the episode, maybe it’s time to stop saying ‘Hybrid Work,’ because now it’s all now just… what Work is?

In February last year, this week’s guest, Phil Rhodes, Head of Learning & Leadership Development at WM--which you may now better as Waste Management, and who are the very helpful people who handled your garbage all the way through Lockdown—was not long in post when his suggestion of a coaching program was met with the observation, ‘Phil, trash companies don’t do coaching.’ Well, maybe they should all start, as the first rollout got a 96% approval rating with either ‘life-changing’ or ‘valuable’ level ratings. And as you’ll discover on this episode, mentoring and coaching, at multiple levels, for both truck driver and regional manager, emerged as a transformational tool for the company. Was it just a way to get through the pandemic, or perhaps the key way Hybrid can be made to land for everyone? We’ll make you listen to the episode to get the answer—but you’ll not hate us for that, as along the way you’ll get so much great insight on everything from the history of Southern Africa to new ways of thinking about effective frontline worker support. Warning: no, they didn’t train new folks how to drive the big vehicles online. At least… tune in to find out more!

This week’s guest is Michael Arena, who brings the unique perspective of leading talent development and management for not just major New Economy global brands like Amazon Web Services, but also stalwart Old Economy blue chips like General Motors and Bank of America. Along the way, he’s also done serious research and training in network analysis and the power of social science to truly understand what’s happening with today’s corporations. That combination of frontline management and crisis response and a lens for viewing all our recent challenges in people practices, gives him, we’d argue, the right to be heard on what he thinks is really happening out there for both individuals (and especially a voice often left out of the Future of Work conversation, the leader) and teams as we progress through what he jokes is both, Dickens-wise, ‘the best and the worst’ times to be in work right now. If you’re still sceptical, a few minutes on his evidence of bridging and bonding social capital and its impact on the Hybrid Workspace we’re seeing evolve around us will change your mind: and we say that as Data ‘Til I Die! converts. Social capital is a tool, we predict, that you’ll soon be using as much as Michael is in his new role in Connected Commons.

If there’s one word that sums up this week’s episode, it’s conscious listening. Yes, that’s two. But it’s actually the on-ramp to the real word we mean, and which is fast emerging as the theme of this Season 5 of Workplace Stories as it evolves: intentionality. That’s because our guest--RJ Milnor, Global Head of People Analytics and Chief People Data Officer at Uber--says it was conscious listening and thinking by he and his team about the WHY of his company was asking people to work for them, as opposed to where, that helped him craft a working Hybrid Work policy that works. Which, of course, is also another way of describing being intentional about RTO. We love RJ’s deep-thinking approach to these big questions--his commitment to listening to the people he’s trying to help, his rigor around tools and data, his willingness to experiment and flex. And we think you will too--plus get some clues about how to start the road to unlocking the Hybrid Work puzzle box from today. Hint: get conscious listening… and then get intentional.

Today, we hear from an HR leader at the absolute heart of the Hybrid evolution, Dawn Klinghoffer, Vice President of the HR Business Insights team at Microsoft. Dawn’s really helping set the agenda of what gets called in the show the ‘Pandora’s Box’ of workplace change the pandemic is sparking--which she sees, not as a source of trouble and confusion, as in the Greek myth, but as a way to get energy, meaning and empowerment placed at the center of every employee’s experience. Pandora-like, though, the changes Dawn wants to see can spark fear and disruption--fears which she discusses frankly and openly, and which she also so brilliantly encapsulated in a recent landmark HBR piece. We also hear about her fresh thinking on people analytics, data, and the employee-manager relationship, as well as practical tips on making Hybrid start working in your environment. To us—and, we think, by the end of this 56-plus minutes—Dawn's work here is a great example of HR is really for: to help us all be the best humans we can be. Worth your time.

We've completed one sort of Odyssey (at least for now). Now, it's time for an Adventure. That's the message from our customary opening new Workplace Stories from RedThread Research Season scene-setter this week, where the guys reveal that our next set of engagements and learning from experts and practitioners in the world of HR and the future of work is the current supernova-hot topic of Hybrid Work. If you really are just out of your COVID bunker, we refer, of course, to the idea of how we might re-orient ourselves to a workplace where employee expectations about ‘presenteeism’ have changed a lot… whether they have that much really for employers, well—let's see. Also covered: how RedThread's working with its team and clients to make our own changes to support Hybrid. To set us up, a review of how powerful employees are right now on their side of their see-saw (for how long), some Intriguing guest names get dropped, starting with this week’s co-dropping Episode 1, well-known HR Scholar and author John Boudreau, how this Season links surprisingly quickly with previous Workplace Stories surveys, and expected recurrent themes like the role both human diversity tech will play in all this as it unfolds. There's even a gag or two (you're going to love the one about printers), all putting us in the perfect mindset for the John episode deep Hybrid Work conceptual dive. Warning: the episode contains shocking information about certification. Still not sure Chris has recovered.