Welcome to the How People Work podcast

Is “work” just a means to an end, or is it a calling?

In this episode, Jason and Jordan explore the cultural shifts redefining the workplace. From "quiet quitting" to the generational divide between native digital and native analog workers, they dive deep into what motivates each group. Why do older generations view work transactionally—"be thankful you have a job"—while younger ones prioritize purpose over pay? How can businesses balance self-expression and the bottom line?

They also tackle the nuanced pressures of producing results in a modern workforce, fostering empathy, and navigating productive friction. Join in as they debate what it means to create value and build a better future of work—while giving everyone the benefit of the doubt.

Now avail­able on: Apple Pod­casts | Spo­ti­fy | YouTube

Learn more about how you can meet the every­day needs of your employ­ees with Fringe

Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction & Recap

3:38 The Trend of Quiet Quitting

4:58 People in the Workplace

7:30 Is Work Just a Means to an End?

11:15 Meaning of Work Across Generational Lines

18:08 Employee Value & Merit

In this week’s episode, Jason and Jordan discuss all things data and how people teams must use data insights to speak the executive team’s language. They explore the pitfalls of many companies’ data systems and offer up a solution to help HR people sell their executives on people programs.

Word of the day

• Assuage - said 25:04 ✅

Timestamps

• 0:00 Intro
• ‍1:53 HR people need to be able to sell people programs
• ‍3:21 The gap between people who represent the needs of an org and executives having to make business decisions
• ‍8:24 Companies claim to be data-driven, but are they?
• ‍11:54 HR people treat humans less like resources than non-HR people
• ‍15:09 Data is useless if you don’t do anything with it
• ‍16:57 In many organizations, asking for budget is a zero sum game
• ‍19:45 The C-Suite at your company is not all-knowing
• ‍22:37 Why companies are drowning in so-called ‘data lakes’
• ‍26:15 The mistake so many companies make
• ‍29:40 People are more similar than they are different
• ‍30:55 Understanding people and communicating how they work is essential to presenting to executives

Transcript

Jordan (00:05):

How many hours and years of our lives do we spend on work? For nearly all of us, we spend 30 plus years and one third of our days in our vocation. More time perhaps, than we spend at rest or at play. But this isn't a problem. Why? Because work is good. Work needs to be integrated deeply into our lives and must be in line with our most important goals and values. And if it is, we have a far more complete and fulfilling life experience. Welcome to the How People Work podcast, where we explore the intersection of how humans think and act and how they apply themselves to their work. When you understand both of these things, you'll be equipped to be insightful, compassionate, and compelling leaders. Welcome back to How People Work. This is co-host Jordan Peace, sitting here with co-host Jason Murray. Hello. Hello.

Jason (00:57):

Hello. I want to say good morning.

Jordan (00:58):

Good morning. It's late in evening anything. Actually, it's not good morning. It's about, just so you guys know, it's about 10:00 PM I think we've said this on a previous episode at some point. But you and I, we work a full day. We go home, we have dinner with our families, families, we get the kids to bed. We come back. Actually today, we came back a little early, but typically we get started around eight 30 at night. And so it is very much the evening when we're recording this, we are digging back into some of the survey data that Jason and his team has aggregated. And we're going to talk about data today - using data to really kind of crystallize for executives the need to prioritize people and why that's important and some of those things. Because as we look at our survey and we see some of these responses and struggles for HR people, a lot of them come back to the same themes.

(01:53)

Creating - I'm having trouble creating a positive and satisfying employee experience. I'm having trouble communicating the value of people programs. I'm having trouble getting the tools and budget that I need to support employee wellbeing. I'm having trouble aligning people programs with business objectives. All of that comes down to a lack of selling. A lack of selling well, and that's the job of a lot of people that work kind of directly beneath the C-suite is you got to go sell the C-suite. Here's what I need, here's why I need it, and here's why this is going to get us to the goals that you have set for us. So Jason, talk to us about data and what you learned through your surveying that is a struggle for HR folks when it comes to working with that data.

Jason (02:41):

Sorry, I was almost giggling while you were ta - you said,

Jordan (02:47):

What'd I say?

Jason (02:48):

The data, our survey data about data.

Jordan (02:52):

I said data a lot.

Jason (02:54):

Well, it was just an inception moment. I was like, whoa. The data from the survey revealed stuff about data, and it just, that's a good point. Kind of tripped me up for a minute.

Jordan (03:04):

I saw that. I saw it in your face.

Jason (03:06):

I was like, whoa.

Jordan (03:08):

I completely forgot what the word of the day is. You should remind me before we jump in.

Jason (03:11):

Ooh, yes. The word of the day is assuage.

Jordan (03:14):

Assuage. Yeah. I would've just completely, completely blanked on that. Yeah. All right. So data.

Jason (03:21):

Yes. Well, yeah. I think what you said is on point, right? There's this gap that exists where it's obvious from conversations we've had with many, many, many HR professionals over the years. So not just in the context of this survey and the interviews that we did, but also just conversations over the years with advisors and many other people where it's apparent that there's a gap between people who, let's say, represent human needs in the organization, and executives that are having to make business decisions.

Jordan (03:57):

All of whom say they want to make data-driven decisions. That is the biggest buzzword of the past five, 10 years, is we are a data-driven organization. But does that really just translate to, we capture a bunch of data?

Jason (04:13):

I think it's true. I think executives do in fact desire to and often make their decisions based on data. But the problem that I think many HR teams face is do they actually have the necessary data? Can they surface the insights needed that are compelling from that data? And then can they communicate that in a way to executive teams where that insight is tied to the business needs of the organization? And so I think that's where there becomes a disconnect is right? And we got to think about this in terms of the size of the organizations that HR people are working in. And so it is actually really interesting because typically what you find is at many smaller companies, let's say companies under 250 employees, a lot of times the first HR professionals aren't HR trained, meaning that they were often in an administrative function previously, and they get moved into an HR specific type role at that juncture.

(05:23)

So I was actually talking with a potential partner that we're having conversations with right now, and they're literally about 300 employees. And we were talking about this very thing, and I was describing to them, Hey, here's how HR people like - here's how this tends to operate in their world, because they sell a product that's direct to consumer. They're starting to explore B2B selling into HR and businesses. And so I kind of brought up this example, and the CEO that we were speaking with of this 300 employee company was like, gosh, that's literally what we just did. We just took somebody who is basically an executive assistant and put her into an HR role.

Jordan (06:05):

Because we figure she can handle details and she won't let balls fall through the cracks and all that kind of stuff.

Jason (06:11):

Exactly. And so there's nothing wrong with that inherently, but what it means is what does that person probably not have experience with? Well, they may not have experience with really strategic operational business needs of the organization and familiarity with those kinds of things.

Jordan (06:26):

And pairing people objectives with those business objectives.

Jason (06:29):

And they likely don't have a ton of experience with just working with data, right. Period.

Jordan (06:36):

Yeah. You always hear from HR people that like, Hey, when we sit around the table and I'm talking to the C-suite, the sales leader always wins. The sales leader is like, Hey, I need budget, and here's why. And they have this great argument and presentation that's data driven, but also anecdotal and well conceived and communicated, and the HR person's like, crap, I can't compete with their pitch.

Jason (07:00):

So I mean, there's some stuff like that that I think is true about it. It's like, yeah, how compelling of a story can you formulate to make an argument and so forth? And there's really practical things. How comfortable am I working with numbers in a spreadsheet? And I think that's true. There's just a lot of people,

Jordan (07:18):

Very basic way to put it, but yeah, that’s true.

Jason (07:19):

• at companies that aren't comfortable with that. But how are you going to work with employee or people data if you're not comfortable working with spreadsheets? Right? There's just kind of an inherent problem there. Actually, a really good example, I've been talking to my brother recently who happens to work in HR at a company that's about 500 employees. And I was just kind of mentioning some of this stuff that I've been thinking about from the survey with people, data analytics, that kind of stuff. And he's like, yeah, it's really crazy because his company, 500 employees, one, they don't have anybody who's in charge of any analytics. They do have an HRIS system, so they do have data that's there, but how it works is he's become the defacto analytics person at their organization. And he's like, Hey, I don't know anything.

Jordan (08:15):

Tell us how we're doing.

Jason (08:16):

Yeah, yeah. He's like, he's just the most comfortable person pulling a CSV file out of their HRIS system.

Jordan (08:24):

This is why I was questioning this whole data-driven thing, because I'm like, okay, how many organizations are actually data-driven? Or how many say we want to make data-driven decisions, but they don't actually invest in the people to analyze the data in order to have the intelligence, the business intelligence, to make data-driven decisions.

Jason (08:44):

Yeah. I mean, I think that's spot on.

Jordan (08:47):

Yeah. I just like calling people out.

Jason (08:48):

Yeah. Well, and I think we've mentioned in previous episodes that the people that I think have been most successful in their organizations or people that came from the operational side of the business first, so some of the CPOs that I've talked to -

Jordan (09:01):

You mean the people people, like the HR people that have been most successful?

Jason (09:03):

There were two Chief People Officers that I spoke with in the course of doing some of these interviews that previously had been either COO okay. Or high level executive in literally the operations side of the business. Okay. Wow. And so they had a very, very intimate understanding of how does the business work? What are the core metrics of the business? What makes us successful? How do we make money?

Jordan (09:32):

What makes the machine actually run?

Jason (09:33):

And I think what's helpful is they understand that a business has to make money to be sustainable, and that the business also needs people to operate and be sustainable. And so those people that start on the operational side that have that really intimate knowledge of how the business operates, what it needs, the core metrics, how it makes money, et cetera, et cetera, and then they move over to the people side, they're more adept at communicating to sure the executives,

Jordan (10:04):

The speak the language.

Jason (10:05):

Who are primarily over on the operational side of the business, why it matters that these investments in people, things actually are made.

Jordan (10:15):

That makes perfect sense. But to your point earlier, a lot of HR folks are put into that position from a purely administrative position, like an EA for example, where she's like, Hey, you're detail oriented. You could probably handle this. So was that a theme of the survey for you? Were you seeing this, sort of, people that can really handle stuff, they can get a lot done, they're detail oriented, they got a high capacity for work, but they're really just struggling when it comes to, I don't really know how the bread gets made. I'm not really sure how to speak the operational language. I don't know how to pitch this thing.

Jason (11:02):

Yeah, it's multifaceted. I think some of 'em, 'em maybe don't care to know. So some HR people get into that work because they care about people, and so they have perhaps more empathetic personality,

Jordan (11:21):

Which is good, but you really can't get things across the finish line unless you kind of level yourself up, so to speak, the language and to convince those that control the budget to allow you to do the things to aid the people that you care about.

Jason (11:39):

Well, and I think sometimes that empathetic mindset lends you to be less calculating, perhaps less likely to try and quantify value around a human in the same kind of way.

Jordan (11:54):

Ironically, HR people treat humans less like resources than non-HR people.

Jason (11:59):

This is true.

(12:01)

And rightly so, I think. I mean, they are those advocates for culture and for the people and so forth. And so I think really, we kind of described this in our research as a competence gap. And I hesitate in some ways to say it in that way because it makes it sound like it's an inadequacy. But I think it really is just a, it's a skills gap for a lot of HR professionals where they simply don't have the experience. We all have skills gaps. Hey, how do I take this Excel file and build a story from it, right? That just takes some experience as a result, to do it well.

Jordan (12:38):

As a result, that's become, that was your job for a while at Fringe. I mean, you really wrote the book internally on how to consultatively sell, right? Meaning how do we come alongside HR people, not sell them, but actually come alongside them, understand their needs, and help them sell the powers that be to get the budget necessary to do the thing that this HR person already knows is intrinsically the right thing to do. Their gut already tells 'em this is the right thing.

Jason (13:12):

Yeah. So I think there's a dynamic that came out of this that was around those skill gaps. How do you bridge that? What are some of the needs for the profession on the whole? And so I think going back to something we said in the last episode was a lot of the people that we spend time around in the community that we operate in primarily tend to be fairly proficient in these areas where when you look at the average company, that's probably less true. But I think you also have this issue at hand, even with big companies, of what do we do with the data that we have? How do we even surface the right insight out of it to drive some kind of action? Yeah. That's meaningful for the business. I’m curious, actually, if you remember this, so this was very early on in Fringe, maybe within the first six months of Fringe.

Jordan (14:18):

Probably not going to remember.

Jason (14:19):

And we had an advisor, I think you might though. We had an advisor who was the head of Total Rewards at a large Fortune 100 company. And she had invited us to come in and talk with some people from her team who helped run people analytics. And I remember sitting in this room with some HR business partners and some people that were Head of People Analytics at this huge organization. I mean, they had teams upon teams upon teams.

Jordan (14:46):

We were in over our heads, to say the least.

Jason (14:47):

And this was at a point in time where we barely knew about HR. And I remember though being very surprised because they came in and kind of proudly described to us this predictive model that they had created.

Jordan (15:04):

Sure.

Jason (15:05):

And it was like they were very proud of that. They were like, oh,

Jordan (15:07):

Yeah, I do actually remember.

Jason (15:09):

We had this predictive model and we can identify employees in different teams and when we think they might be leaving and all this kind of stuff. It was like, wow, that's super cool. What are you doing about it?

Jordan (15:21):

Yeah. What are you doing with that model?

Jason (15:21):

And it was just like crickets. They had no idea. And it was like, oh my gosh, what is the point?

Jordan (15:30):

What’s the point?

Jason (15:31):

Of having this data? Yeah.

Jordan (15:33):

Well, I think you're onto something. I think, no, I'm all about gathering the data, all about analyzing the data, all about making decisions from the data. I think that's a fantastic thing. But I think if we're honest, a lot of people are gathering data, not because they're trying to help the organization, but because they're trying to cya. They're trying to make decisions that are backed by something or they're going to make a decision. They're going to have data in place. And if somebody questions their decision later, they have something to point at. And you know as well as I do, you can make data say whatever the heck you want it to say, right? So whenever there's somebody going, Hey, why did you make that decision that failed? Well, hey man, the data, the data, right? We surveyed, this is what the people, this is what they said, what do want me to do? So I think that comes from a place of I'm gathering and analyzing data from the wrong motivation. I'm just trying to protect myself or to protect my job as opposed from a perspective of I'm actually trying to find out the truth and make a decision that will aid the company and the people within the company in a significant way.

Jason (16:40):

When I think that's true, especially at larger companies. So something we've mentioned Cassandra a number of times, she's our Head of People here at Fringe, and we interviewed her as part of this process too. And she said something I thought that was really,

Jordan (16:53):

Well, she co-hosted with you not long ago. I keep forgetting to mention-

Jason (16:57):

And she said, it's important to understand, and many organizations that asking for things is a zero sum game. And so for you as the individual professional that's saying, Hey, maybe I have some data, I think it's compelling, I'm going to go ask for something. What is really going on in that scenario is, am I willing to put my neck out there on the chopping block potentially for something with some potential? And a lot of people just aren't because it has that zero sum game feel to it. It's like, if this doesn't pan out, guess I'm the one that's taking the fall for that. Yeah. Right.

Jordan (17:38):

Right. I mean, I think about our own values at Fringe, our stated values at Fringe. We're trying to cut through some of that by saying, Hey, fail boldly, be flawed, make mistakes. And I think you need to encourage employees so much. I even had a conversation today with an employee who I think has some really good ideas about some things that we need to do, but he's afraid to say that because he thinks it will be perceived as, Hey, I'm not doing all that well in my job. And I kind of think I want to do a different job and it'll be seen as an excuse. But what it really is, is just an insightful person that sees something that I don't see, that sees a way that we need to go as a company and a way that we need to market a way that we need to plan for this new economic environment that we're in.

(18:38)

And he just needs to say, he just needs to say it and stick his neck out there and go, you know what? We're going this way. That was a bad decision. We need to go this way. That's a terrifying thing to do. And data is helpful to back that up and make an argument and so forth. But I think if we can create a culture in which people, no matter what level the organization that they're in, they feel the freedom to speak out with the knowledge that they have, about where the company needs to go. That's going to be a healthy company.

Jason (19:08):

Well, and it's incumbent upon leaders, as you did in this scenario, it sounds like, to actually listen to people who have a point of view. Because I mean, there's a hubris and thinking that we can see all things, that we're omnipotent.

Jordan (19:22):

Total bs. If you're not at the top of your organization and you're listening to this and your CEO or somebody, your head of this, or your head of that is trying to convince you that they see everything.

Jason (19:33):

Oh my gosh, yes.

Jordan (19:34):

They are lying. Yeah, they do not see it. Yeah. They're concerned with the exact number of things that you are concerned with because they have about the same brain capacity that you do.

Jason (19:45):

I feel like a good analogy for this might be, which is I have a little bit different experience cause I'm not the CEO at Fringe, but I mean, I've been around a lot of things. I'm on the board, things like that. But I feel like a good example would be when you became a parent, especially as your kids started getting to toddler and then maybe five or six years old. And when you're a kid, you just think, oh my gosh, my parents, they know everything. They got this shit figured out. And then you get to having your kids and you're like, they didn't know a damn thing. They were making all this up as they went. And that's probably what a lot of CEOs are doing, right?

Jordan (20:27):

I still can't believe that at 37, you're 38. I still can't believe that we are the dads.

Jason (20:33):

Oh, right.

Jordan (20:34):

I'm like, our kids think we know what we're doing?

Jason (20:37):

Yeah. They're going to be really disappointed.

Jordan (20:39):

We're making it all up as we go along every day, my kids present me with a new challenge, some new question they've never asked before, or some new way that they're just being weird and doing strange things that I'm like, I don't, there's no playbook. I don't know what to do.

Jason (20:56):

They're like, what do we do? And you're like, we'll see.

Jordan (20:58):

Exactly. I say Dad stuff. We'll see. Yeah. And let me talk to your mom about it.

Jason (21:02):

Do you ever say that to anyone at Fringe? We'll see?

Jordan (21:06):

I don't think I do. I don't think, I really separate. Yeah. I'm not daddy here. I'm proud of you. That's pretty solid. But I have the same emotion. I have the same, they asked me, an employee will ask me a question and you're like, filtering. I don't have a clue what the answer is. I don't know. But you don't want to admit as a leader that you're clueless.

Jason (21:27):

Well, come up with something.

Jordan (21:29):

So you're just like, yeah, let me get back to you. Let me socialize. I would never say that. Cause that's horrible.

Jason (21:35):

I was like, when have you ever said that?

Jordan (21:36):

Lemme socialize. That is what people will say. Or circle the wagons, which is completely the wrong use of that phrase, but -

Jason (21:43):

Hunker down?

Jordan (21:43):

People say it to mean, let me socialize or ask others. But circling the wagons was actually a strategy of protecting the people

Jason (21:52):

Burying the hatchet.

Jordan (21:52):

In the middle of the wagons. Yes. Yeah. Anyway, but you're going to get me off -

Jason (21:56):

Mixing our metaphors.

Jordan (21:57):

On etymology and yeah, that's a dangerous thing. We'll talk way too long about that.

Jason (22:04):

Yeah. So there are a couple things that I thought were interesting, just even as we tried to articulate our own maybe point of view around data and what's important. So one of the key questions I think that came up for us for companies in general is just, do I have access to good people data, period? Just can I get to the data points that are necessary to actually assemble metrics that could tell me something about the business?

Jordan (22:32):

And what's the right data to even capture

Jason (22:35):

Right.

Jordan (22:35):

Or pay attention to?

Jason (22:37):

It’s actually far more complicated than you might imagine. Yeah. Because you just think like, oh, you just get the data out of the system. Right. Well, the problem is most of the data that companies have on their people lives in multiple systems, even for small companies. Oh gosh. You look at Fringe, yeah. There's probably at least three or four different systems that all contain, what I would say would be vital people data that you need to make to arrive at the metrics that are important. So we're a small company, take that out to a couple hundred employees. It's even more so my brother described some of that. He's like, yeah, I got to pull data from different places and kind of put it together, these spreadsheets and then build pivot tables and so on and so forth. And then talking to the folks at this Fortune 100 company, they literally call it a data lake because they have massive databases, separate databases with all this different information about employees. And then in order to even access it in a way that they can put the data together to get metrics, they've got to dump it all into this data lake, they call it. And then from the data lake -

Jordan (23:43):

All I hear when you say Data lake is drowning, that's all I hear.

Jason (23:48):

Yes.

Jordan (23:49):

They’re drowning in a data lake.

Jason (23:50):

I mean, think that's actually an apt image and metaphor. Cause they dump it all in there, and then from that they've got extra. So the predictive model they built was from the data that they got into this data lake, and then they had it all connected enough that they could actually extrapolate from that this model that they built and so forth. But I think that leads to the second point, which is, so one is, do I have access to, I'd actually break this into two parts maybe. Do I have access to data? Do I have access to good data? So is it accurate? Can I work with it? And then the next piece of this is, can I glean the insights, insights I need from the data? And that's the part that takes a little bit more thinking. I have to know something about the business. I have to know maybe a little bit of what I'm looking for even, which requires putting some thought into strategy around people and what I'm aiming for, right? Because without an aim, how do you even know what to look for?

Jordan (24:51):

So I've got to access the data. I've got to question whether or not the data is good, then I've got to glean the proper insights from the data, and then I have to go sell executives and assuage all their fears of what if the data's not good? What if it doesn't work? Yeah, that was smooth. What hope does an HR person have? Jason, Mr. Surveyor, interviewer, what hope do they have of doing all of those steps and then convincing an executive that, Hey, we need to prioritize our people in this particular way and offer this benefit or offer this software.

Jason (25:34):

Yeah.

Jordan (25:35):

How do you do that?

Jason (25:36):

Well, I think it's hard, but I do have some hope and I have a vision even for what we're trying to do here at Fringe. And so I think there is a challenge with -

Jordan (25:47):

Talk about that actually. I don't mean to interrupt you, but talk about the vision at Fringe and what we hope to build over the course of years to do some of this. Consolidation is part of it and aggregation, but also helping the HR person know what they're looking at, know what's important, what decisions to make, where to put data, and then ultimately kind of delivering that to the powers that be to make the decision.

Jason (26:15):

I think the mistake that's often made is the thinking that every company is so different and so unique that you can't possibly have enough, there's no common denominator across any of it that's going to help you drive action from the insights that you might glean. And so every company is just kind of out there doing it on their own, independently, independently, basically taking their data, building these models, trying to gain insights from it. I see. That's a mistake. Well, it, it's very difficult, right? Because in order to do that well, you need people that are really great working with the data that have enough knowledge about people and the business to surface the proper insights. And then you have an executive team that believes and an HR team that can communicate to the executive team what those insights and actions are that they should be taking, and then they're going to act upon them.

(27:20)

And so there's a lot of things that had to go really, really well in that whole thing. That is just, I think, extremely difficult. And so what I've been putting forth when we were having some of these interviews is like, well, what is technology best served to do?It’is best served in the cases where there's enough of a commonality across the board that you can leverage the scalability of a tool of the sameness to drive action across a large number of users, let's say. Yeah. And so one of the things that I think actually is true and that we've talked about is every company is unique. It's true. Every company has unique culture. Yeah, that's true. But I describe the culture more as flavors of ice cream. It's all ice cream, but it's just different flavors. In other words, it's all people. And so what have we been talking about?

(28:20)

Yeah. Well, people are different, but we believe at Fringe anyways, and I think this is true, that people have fundamental intrinsic needs. And in the last episode or two episodes ago, we're talking about that are for the most part common. I mean, you could boil 'em down to really simple things like people want to belong, they want to have purpose, or people have a need for unmerited unconditional acceptance and also conditional merited reward, right? There's these kind of really fundamental principles about what it means to be a human and to live a holistic and fulfilling life. And those things are unchanged regardless of what organization you're a part of. And so I believe, and I have a vision for what we're trying to do here at Fringe that says we can surface those things and we can provide those insights along with actions delivered through technology that help optimize the employee experience. Yes. Because human beings are different, but they're similar enough in terms of what they need, that you can create the environment in such a way and surface these insights in such a way that it's going to be scalable across a large number of organizations.

Jordan (29:40):

I mean, I don't know if you remember, we had a meeting earlier with our co-founder, Isaiah and I just went off about this very thing that we have all of this insight. We have all of this data from years and years and years of working with Fringe users and what their behaviors are and what their sentiment is about using our platform. And yet we have a partner who wants to get into business with us in a deeper way, and they want to roll this thing out to all of their users. And what do they want to do first? They want to test the data. They want to get a small sub of their users, which are somehow fundamentally different than our users, and to see if they feel the same way about our platform that all of these other people do. And it's maddening because I'm like, we already have the data.

Jason (30:30):

You just want to grab people and be like -

Jordan (30:32):

People aren’t that different.

Jason (30:33):

Do you have human beings? Right, that work at your company?

Jordan (30:37):

I'm sorry? Were you working with somebody besides humans? Yeah. Because if it's humans, we have that data already. We could just surface that and tell you what's going to happen. Yeah.

Jason (30:47):

So I think then the question in my mind becomes like, Hey, I think there's sort of these universal needs that humans have -

Jordan (30:55):

Which is so important that HR people understand that. And I think that that's maybe the superpower that's untapped. It's like, Hey, maybe you're not the greatest data analyst that ever lived, but if you understand people and you can communicate how people work, sorry to use the title of our podcast and my argument here, it's perfect. But if you can communicate how people work to the executives that control the budget, and they can see at least, at least, what is the word I'm looking for? The obvious intuitive part, the gut side of it, right? Then maybe you don't have to make a perfect data presentation if you can get across that human side of just like, Hey, yeah, people like to be recognized for their achievement. Right? Right. Don't you? Right. No, no, of course not.

Jason (31:46):

Don’t be ridiculous.

Jordan (31:47):

Petition -

Jason (31:48):

Right? Yeah. Next time that raise comes up, just don't worry about it.

Jordan (31:50):

Yeah. Give it to somebody else. I think there's common ground even before the data gets presented of just like, Hey, and I think, again, usually HR people are people people and they have a good point of view of how people work and have insights, and so I think you can see -

Jason (32:11):

They have compassion, at least.

Jordan (32:12):

Compassion, empathy. They're paying attention. So I think there's something there to sort of set as a foundation to stack the data upon.

Jason (32:22):

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that's what I hope we're able to do. Yeah.

Jordan (32:26):

I love it. I love that you have a vision. We are well over our allotted time. We can talk as long as we want. We can go Joe Rogan and go three hours, but it's true. We also have families to get home to. So thank you, Jason, for your insights today. Thank you all for listening to How People Work. Before we go, Jason, tell us if you have one locked and loaded, the next episode's word of the day. You could just make one up. It's fine on the fly, just anything you like. He doesn't have one ready.

Jason (32:56):

I don't have one ready.

Jordan (32:57):

That's what this is right?

Jason (32:58):

Now. Oh, man. Yeah. You got me just totally unprepared. What are we going to go with? Pungent.

Jordan (33:06):

Pungent? Why? That's a nice prayer in nowhere. I don't know how that popped into my head. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yes. All right. Yeah, and one that I might have to Google again. Well, thank you again for listening to How People Work. Again, this is Jordan Peace with my co-host. I'm also a co-host, Jason Murray, and we will see you next time.

‍

In this episode, Jordan and Jason discuss another challenge people teams are facing today: being charged to do more with less resources. They explore areas where HR teams can improve efficiency and consolidate their people stack. Jordan ends with a charge for executives to have a clear vision for their employee experience.

Word of the day

• Sashay - said @ 2:10 ✅

Timestamps

• 0:00 Intro
• ‍3:49 HR teams are being charged to do more with less
• ‍5:11 In order to do more with the same, we must maximize efficiency
• ‍7:31 The rise of SaaS companies has led to innovation, but has also led to siloed solutions
• ‍8:52 Startups typically do one thing very well, but that leads to an overloaded tech stack
• ‍10:03 Consolidation is top of mind for people teams
• ‍12:06 Bridging the gap between solutions not only is good for the business, but provides a better employee experience
• ‍16:16 The proliferation and consolidation of streaming services
• ‍19:05 How do you justify a benefit that only 2% of the company is using?
• ‍22:31 There are too many tools, but still a need for more sufficient ones
• ‍25:26 The source of the decline of sentiment metrics
• ‍32:58 An encouragement to executives, from executives

Transcript

Jordan (00:05):

How many hours and years of our lives do we spend on work? For nearly all of us, we spend 30 plus years and one third of our days in our vocation, more time perhaps, than we spend at rest or at play. But this isn't a problem. Why? Because work is good. Work needs to be integrated deeply into our lives and must be in line with our most important goals and values. And if it is, we have a far more complete and fulfilling life experience. Welcome to the How People Work podcast, where we explore the intersection of how humans think and act and how they apply themselves to their work. When you understand both of these things, you'll be equipped to be insightful, compassionate, and compelling leaders. Welcome back to How People Work. This is your co-host. I said I would say it, Jordan Peace and your real host, Jason Murray. Ladies and gentlemen.

Jason (01:00):

Host/Co-host. Not real. Well, I am real.

Jordan (01:03):

But it's like it's founder. And do you remember we met, I don't remember who it was now. There was some small company we met that we were thinking about either bringing them on as a client or partnering with them in some way. And we met a guy who was the co-founder and he introduced us to the CEO who referred to himself as founder. Right. But he wouldn't let his co-founder call himself founder. It was founder and co-founder as if that were a lesser thing. Oh yeah. Which like, the math doesn't work there.

Jason (01:34):

No. At all.

Jordan (01:36):

It really doesn't. You either have a founder or you have co-founders. Just for the record.

Jason (01:40):

Yeah. Do you remember back when we were like five employees? I do. And we were talking to an investor and they were like, where's your CEO?

Jordan (01:50):

Oh. And we were like, yeah, what - Jordan? Does somebody wanna -?

Jason (01:57):

Five of us?

Jordan (01:57):

Yeah. Right.

Jason (01:58):

So I mean -

Jordan (01:59):

It was kind of funny. We just forgot to elect a CEO in the beginning. Yeah. We were just like, yeah, we're just doing this thing.

Jason (02:04):

Didn't feel like you needed one at that point.

Jordan (02:05):

Yeah. It really didn't. It really didn't. Yeah. Anyway, we are sashaying our way into the next episode. I got it. Yeah. There's no way I was going to work it in later because it has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

Jason (02:17):

I mean, it's kind of perfect though.

Jordan (02:18):

And as we go, so we talked last time. We are digging in deep, deep into a survey that we have done. We talked about last time about creating a positive and satisfying employee experience and how that was the number one struggle when we ask over 500 participants in our survey of HR professionals, what is your greatest challenge in your job? And the number one most frequent response was creating a positive and satisfying employee experience. So Jason, where do you want to take us from here in our data and our analysis of that data today?

Jason (02:57):

Yeah, I think it'd be interesting to hit on the next one in there. And I mean, we'll unpack these things and hopefully the format of the podcast allows for our audience to maybe humor us to go a little bit deeper on some of these topics.

Jordan (03:13):

Well, it's not a radio show. They can't call in and stop us.

Jason (03:17):

It’s true. That would be kinda fun though.

Jordan (03:17):

Just kind of talk about what we want.

Jason (03:19):

If they called in real angry and they're dammit, stop talking about -

Jordan (03:21):

Like, they’ll listen or not listen. That's how they'll vote.

Jason (03:25):

Stop talking about human flourishing and all that crap. Just like get to the point.

Jordan (03:32):

Hey, Joe Rogan has three and four hour episodes. That's true. So I don't think we need to feel rushed to get to the point.

Jason (03:36):

I mean, that's really just my ideal job, honestly. Really. It's sit around and talk to interesting people.

Jordan (03:44):

Smoke cigars and talk to interesting people for half a day.

Jason (03:46):

That sounds pretty cool to me.

Jordan (03:47):

It does. We're just jealous.

Jason (03:49):

We are. Very much so. One of things that came out of the research was around tools and budget to support employee wellbeing. So what are some of the needs that HR professionals have? And just as a reminder to everyone, this was a convergence of both a survey that we did with these questions that we asked, as well as about two dozen different interviews that we conducted with Chief People Officers primarily, and a couple other folks that are HR consultants to kind of arrive at the insights that we gleaned from this. And one of the things that really stood out to me, especially in the market that we're in right now, that HR teams are being charged with is there's a saying that's doing more with less. And really I think the mantra that we've heard is the charge is doing more with the same -

Jordan (04:45):

In terms of resources?

Jason (04:46):

Resources and budget. So I think there is sort of a perpetual felt need that most HR teams feel, which is that was always one of the jokes that I told when I was in sales was like, I never came across an HR person that felt that they were under-resourced. And you always get a good joke.

Jordan (05:02):

Or over-resourced, yes. Right. Sorry. That's okay. You're rusty on the joke point.

Jason (05:07):

I am rusty on the joke.

Jordan (05:08):

You're Head of Innovation now you, it's okay.

Jason (05:11):

And so yeah, the charge now seemingly is that the same budget exists. Most companies don't seem to be cutting budgets significantly around people programs, but doing more with the same. One of the problems though is how do they maximize efficiency? And so one anecdote in particular, I think helps illustrate this. So there's a Chief People Officer that I spoke with who's the CPO of a major software company actually in the HR space. They have about 700 employees. And she was describing to me that when she stepped into that role, they had over 42 pieces of software that were in their people stack, as they call it.

Jordan (06:00):

I, I'll be honest, when I scanned this quote that you're looking at right now, I thought that was your hyperbole. No, I thought you were just saying like, ah, 42, something insane. She said that.

Jason (06:11):

She said that.

Jordan (06:12):

Over 42. Yes. Software solution. Yes. For 700 people.

Jason (06:18):

I mean, the reason I find it believable is think about the software stack even that we have right at Fringe and we're -

Jordan (06:25):

But this is just their people stack. This is just -

Jason (06:28):

Well, I think it's any piece of software that the HR team has to manage that touches something related to the employee experience. So it could be a whole bunch of different things. Yeah. Cause you got HRIS, payroll, rewards and recognition, benefits, ben admin, right? Et cetera, et cetera. Right. So yeah. I mean, sales tools -

Jordan (06:49):

Then all these point solutions for these ad hoc things.

Jason (06:53):

And so I'd say that that's probably on the high end of the spectrum. I don't think you're going to come across a ton of companies that are like, Hey, we had 42 pieces of software in there. They were themselves a software company. And so there's kind of a predisposition towards that.

Jordan (07:09):

And to some degree IT demo, it demonstrates probably something very positive. I'm not sure it had a positive impact to have that many pieces of software. It probably didn't because that's kind of chaos for the employee to navigate all of that. But it probably demonstrates a desire that, hey, we're trying to help. We're trying to solve problems. Yeah. We're really trying to push things forward in our employees.

Jason (07:31):

I think that's true. And I think they're one of those companies that we would say, they get it. They get it. They have that philosophy. They're trying to deliver on a really positive and good employee experience. And I think largely they are. And one of the things that I think is interesting that's happened that in some ways is maybe inevitable is let's look at the last 20 years. Well, one of the things that's happened in the last 20 years is the great proliferation of SaaS software, cloud-based software that rewind 20 years ago. Well, we're still talking dial up internet, right? So the world's changed a lot in the last 20 years in terms of the tools available to us. And so what happened was innovators and entrepreneurs out there started saying, Hey, well now this technology enables the creation of these tools that can make certain things easier. And so what you have is these siloed solutions that started popping up to meet these needs and the employee experience that were identified or needs that maybe existed from sort of archaic systems that existed previously. How did you sign up for your benefits before pen and paper? Guess how do you sign up for it now? It's all digital.

Jordan (08:46):

And now you got your Anthem insurance, and now I can build a piece of software that tell you where the nearest in-network doctor is.

Jason (08:52):

Exactly. And so all these entrepreneurs, all these great solutions that do one thing or maybe a couple things, but they probably do one thing really well. And then they started trying to expand into some of these other things. And so when you look at these charts of market maps, it's really crazy because you know, go from 10 years ago, hey, they were just a handful of HR technology platforms, mainly they did payroll, and then some were starting to do HRIS and things like that. And now you look at it and it's like there's literally thousands upon thousands of different HR technology solutions that do all sorts of things. And so what's happening is HR professionals are faced with this challenge of how the hell do we combine all of these things in any kind of way that's efficient? I can't even imagine managing 42 different solutions. What is the employee experience like? I mean, how do you even keep track of who's logging into what and how do they connect with one?

Jordan (09:56):

How do you have time to meet with all of the CSMs at all the different software companies once a quarter? How do you even do that and do the rest of your job?

Jason (10:03):

So I, I'll say that insight, which may not seem like much in insight because it seems obvious, but it was a sentiment that was consistently expressed across all the interviews in particular that we did, was we've got to consolidate these solutions to deliver on people programs. And so we can't have all these siloed, single point solutions that do only one thing. We really need something more comprehensive that's going to help deliver that employee experience more efficiently. And I think there's probably two sides to that that are interesting. I mean, one is the business need. So if you're spreading your dollars, paying for 42 different programs, there's probably a lot of waste there. And so in an environment where companies are looking to save dollars or at least go further, do more with the same dollars, you're going to say, Hey, what can we cut? Or where are we getting the most bang for our buck?

(10:59)

And similarly, you look at the employee experience side of that and say, how could 42 different solutions possibly deliver a consistent and optimal employee experience? So they probably can’t, it's too fragmented and disjointed and you got to log into a bunch of different things. And I probably forgot about 30 at least, of the different solutions that are there that I might be using. Totally. And so I think what's interesting now, and this is something that I felt maybe intuitively that was validated, especially in the interviews that we're doing, is what you maybe call the Pareto principle, which is that 80/20 rule. And so in this case, it's largely 20% of the features within a lot of these software solutions we're delivering 80% of the value. So then you think about maybe a performance management tool. There's a bunch of them out there, these performance management tools that developed ways for companies to do employee reviews and so forth.

(12:06)

But a lot of them have said, well, hey, we're going to start doing employee engagement and surveys and all these other things. But when you look at how HR teams are using them, a lot of times they're only using a minimal piece of the tool and that's delivering 80% of the value that they're getting out of it in terms of meeting some kind of business need. And so I think that presents us with an opportunity, and that's some of what we're talking about and thinking about at Fringe is how do we help maybe bridge some of those gaps? How do we help do some of that consolidation around all of these different software tools to help HR teams become more efficient, and not just for the sake of the business, but to deliver on this mission to support employees. And so I think that's where it actually ties back up into creating a positive employee experience. It's like, why does it matter that there's better tools that are consolidated together to do all these things more efficiently? Well, it's good for the business, saves some money, right? But it's also good for the employee because you can deliver a better, more comprehensive employee experience in that way.

Jordan (13:13):

I think it's difficult for employees, especially a new employee, just trying to get to know the people and get to know the manager and the culture and what's expected of me. And then there's a million pieces of software they need to learn just to engage in the employee experience. The very internal and insular part of their job is just participating in this culture here, which has very little to do with the actual, most likely their actual role of going out to sell or going out to support customers or going out to market or whatever the job is. So it's just a huge distraction and a huge kind of limiter of productivity if your employees are just looking around to find the right piece of software to do one tiny task, ask for time off or whatever the case may be.

Jason (14:09):

Yeah, an example just that's on a more personal level that I found interesting. So I'll ask you this. How many streaming services do you have currently?

Jordan (14:22):

Do you mean the ones that I pay for or the ones that I borrow from friends and family?

Jason (14:26):

Let's just go with the ones you pay for, because that in itself -

Jordan (14:29):

Should I admit that on a public podcast. I didn't admit Netflix, anything, just asked a question. Let's see, Netflix, I've got Disney+ of course, because I've got five kids. We've got Paramount Plus right now. Oh, you have that? Yeah. Yeah. Because there's some show we're trying to watch. Oh, I mean, that's what it always is. It's like the one show, right? It's how they get you. And that's how they get you. I don't have Hulu.

Jason (14:53):

Sound like our parents saying things like that too. That's how they get you.

Jordan (14:57):

Seriously. We talk about all these generations, I'm pretty sure, we’re just boomers in our late thirties. I don't like 5, 5, 6 as far as TV. And then of course there's Spotify and the music-related things, audio books.

Jason (15:17):

I wonder -

Jordan (15:19):

7? 8?

Jason (15:19):

Yeah. Yeah, I’d say probably about the same. Yeah, because Netflix was the first one just ever, right? Yeah. Cloud streaming, right? It was their vision. Yes. Then you had Hulu, and then you had all these other ones start popping up and it's like, good Lord, when is this going to end?

Jordan (15:34):

Yeah, Netflix got me recently. Yeah. They're like, they're onto me. They're like, you're not a part of the household that pays for -

Jason (15:41):

Oh that's a thing. They started cracking down on that.

Jordan (15:43):

Oh, they cracked. Yeah, they cracked. And I'm down. It's not good, man. Yeah. Ironically, my brother's password -

Jason (15:51):

They're trying to make money, man.

Jordan (15:52):

His password is get your own account. And ironically, now, I have to get my own.

Jason (15:58):

I mean some engineer at Netflix has got to be laughing their ass off -

Jordan (16:03):

Just like this guy. They're like his brother told his people. So anyway, so I'm down from seven to six now. Thanks Netflix.

Jason (16:13):

Yeah, that's perfect.

Jordan (16:14):

Yeah.

Jason (16:16):

So it makes me think about, I mean, that's kind of like a trend, I suppose, in technology to some degree. You kind of get this proliferation, but I bet you start to get this consolidation, right? So we're still in this expansion phase where it's going out now. Now. Cause everyone's trying to figure out how to monetize it, but it's not working for everyone. No. And they're not all going to make money long enough for it to be a sustainable platform.

Jordan (16:40):

And how many have you signed up for? Just watch one game. How many times have you signed up for Fubo? Like how many email addresses have you used SlingTV, for SlingTV to watch that one game and then canceled it immediately after the game ended? Eh a few there. Yeah. We were in desperate consolidation with streaming services.

Jason (17:03):

I’m going to say it now, prediction. It's going to happen.

Jordan (17:05):

It's going to happen. But more so on the topic that we're on, we need consolidation in the HR space for these poor HR people that do nothing but RFPs all day long to try to find a solution that does one single thing. And then they have to meet with CSM after CSM, quarter after quarter to talk about how the software is being used and the new features and blah, blah, blah. It's got to be exhausting.

Jason (17:30):

Yeah. I mean, the thing that's interesting though is, I mean, I think there's CFOs who are savvy and we like to rag on CFOs.

Jordan (17:39):

Oh, very much so. Yeah.

Jason (17:39):

A lot. Because they often aren't thinking about the human impact of many of their decisions.

Jordan (17:44):

They're cheap, I think is what you're trying to say.

Jason (17:46):

You said it. I said it. I'll say it.

Jordan (17:49):

That’s their job.

Jason (17:50):

Yeah. I mean,

Jordan (17:53):

To an extent,

Jason (17:54):

They're making decisions that -

Jordan (17:56):

Their job really is to make the best use of the dollars that are available. It's pragmatic. It's really a stewardship thing, but often it's right, you default to the lowest common denominator, which is let's just spend less.

Jason (18:08):

Yeah. But I think what's interesting with that is some of these costs don't appear on a P&L or a balance sheet. So when you think about what's the cost of managing all these different programs? Well, that's not something that shows up on a line item on the P&L, right? Yeah. It's just people's time. It's maybe less obvious to a finance team that these things are actually happening even. And so I think strategic HR professionals, and one of the things that was true with the interviews that we did is the folks that came from the operating side of the business prior to going to HR were by far the most astute when it came to understanding, Hey, we have to really look at these things from a pragmatic viewpoint. We're trying to deliver the optimal employee experience, the best employee experience we can, but we have to be really thoughtful about it because the further we can stretch those dollars, the better off we're going to be.

Jordan (19:05):

And for the most part, I'd say a lot of of our age people who work with people, they're people people. They actually care about people. I, well, I won't make that cynical comment that just came to mind, but they, they're people people, they start out that way and some stay that way for their career. And so they look at that 2% of people in the organization that use the student loan repayment benefit that you pay $6 per employee per month for. And they're like, we got to keep it. We got to keep it because that 2%, that it means the world to them. And that's some of why we've been successful with Fringe is coming in going, Hey, we have that and we have about 160 different other things.

Jason (19:46):

Well, the people are going to

Jordan (19:46):

But that thing that you're worried about taking away, you're not taking it away. It's okay. Yeah, they're going to get that too, along with all the other things that we offer. And that's really why we've been successful as a company because we've been able to consolidate, consolidate and aggregate these things into one place when it comes to the employee experience of Fringe Benefits.

Jason (20:07):

One, something that I heard a few times when I was working on the sales side of Fringe and having conversations with people who were considering buying it that I always found a little surprising was there'd sometimes be this sentiment of, we're going to cater to the needs of the most fringe employees. So the people who have the most unique needs that you might imagine, we're going to try and deliver something really great for them.

Jordan (20:37):

And you think the motivation there is coming from a place of true empathy? Or do you think that's coming from a place of I'm trying to get a win and have a good story to tell?

Jason (20:44):

Well, I can be really cynical. So yeah, I tend to think that it's maybe ignorance at times or virtue signaling.

Jordan (20:54):

Okay. Okay. Fair, fair. Yeah.

Jason (20:56):

Or just a lack of thinking through the just business implications or -

Jordan (21:06):

Maybe a squeaky, squeaky wheel mentality.

Jason (21:08):

Yeah. And it doesn't mean that those services are invaluable, but a good example would be companies bring up things like adoption assistance, and you and I, we have people close to us that have adopted children.

Jordan (21:23):

We’re big proponents of adoption. We're huge pro adoption people.

Jason (21:25):

Pro adoption people, definitely. But the number of people inside your company that are going to need an adoption assistance program 2% at most. Yeah. I mean, that's probably high. Yeah. I mean it's minimal. Yeah, minimal. But if you're a large organization that's costing literally tens of thousands of dollars per family.

Jordan (21:47):

Super expensive.

Jason (21:48):

And so one of the things that I think is challenging is you look at it and say, well, would those dollars be deployed more impactfully elsewhere? And that's a hard question to answer. Right.

Jordan (22:01):

Or just more efficiently too. Yeah. Could you not solve that problem outside of a software solution? Correct. Could you not just identify the people that are looking for help with that and just directly help them with that through some other means, some sort of application program or something like that where they could say, Hey, I really need assistance in this way and here's why versus well, let's pay a per employee per month fee for something that less than 2% of people are going to use.

Jason (22:31):

So something that I thought was interesting that came up in this is so despite the fact that many HR professionals feel that there are too many tools, so that was apparent in the research. Obviously, they also said in the survey that there's a need for more tools and budget to support employee wellbeing. So those two things kind of seem at odds. Right? Fascinating. And so I think what it implies is that -

Jordan (22:57):

So they must not feel like they're getting the wellbeing that they're seeking. Well, because there are a ton of pieces of software attempting to help wellbeing, right? So it's not like they don't exist, but clearly the felt need is still there.

Jason (23:14):

So I think that's exactly one of the insights that I would have here, is that the current tools available are insufficient to meet the needs of the job at hand. Interesting. So if they're trying to deliver on this employee experience, it seems apparent that those tools at their disposal aren't sufficient to meet the needs. And potentially the investment in those programs is also insufficient. So maybe there's an investment taking place, but is it a meaningful enough investment? And so when I think about the tools, one of the things that comes to mind would be maybe even rewards and recognition type programs. So rewards and recognition programs have been around for probably 15 years. You talk to most companies and say, Hey, do you think you should have a rewards and recognition program? Everyone's probably going to say, oh yeah, we should totally have one. Don't got to have it. But if you look at all of the trends around employee wellbeing, employee engagement, employee loyalty, literally every single one of those metrics has declined over the last 20 years. And so we'd have to ask ourselves, well, are the current solutions for rewards and recognition working as promised? And I think we'd have to say probably not. Right? So the tools as they were created are maybe turning out to be insufficient to actually meet the demands of what the HR role is today.

Jordan (24:43):

What do you think is behind that? I feel like that'd be a good way to talk through the last few minutes of our episode. What do you think is behind the fact that, as we talked about in the last episode, we do agree that there is a merit-based reward system that is useful for human beings to kind of self-actualize, to produce dignity in their lives, and a feeling of kind of self-worth and so forth. So we're not anti rewards and recognition, and yet you've got that in place. You've got a lot of things in place for the last 15 years, yet all of these sentiment metrics, as you mentioned, are just declining and declining. So what's broken?

Jason (25:26):

I think part of it is a lack of vision -

Jordan (25:31):

On the part of -

Jason (25:33):

The company. Companies mean when you think about company executives, so I mean, this isn't a knock on you or us necessarily, but just say it. We're not HR professionals. We're not like, that's true. We didn't come up in the profession in a sense that -

Jordan (25:53):

We’re more HR fan boys. I feel like that's kind of what we are.

Jason (25:56):

Yeah, I think that's fair. And so we have a point of view on the human experience and what we think the employee experience should be, but it's not rooted in years or decades of experience. It's just what we believe about things. And so I think you have a lot of executives that are responsible for making budget decisions and how these investments are made that simply don't have experience on the people side of the business. That's true. And they lack vision as a result. And then I think you have HR professionals that similarly maybe don't have that experience or don't have that vision. What they have is what they were told a company needs. So what's very common in the industry is benchmarking, we like to say, is just keeping up with the Joneses. And so there's not a lot of companies that I think are out there asking themselves, what is the best employee experience we can design for the people that work at this company?

(26:58)

They're just looking around saying, Hey, are our benefits better than that company over there or that company over there? And what happens then is because they're not aiming for some kind of particular vision, they're saying, oh, everyone seems to have this rewards and recognition platform. I guess we ought to have it too. And so they're just kind of throwing stuff against the wall, see what sticks, and sometimes it sticks, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes they don't get the results they want and they don't really know why. And I think it's really because they don't know what they're aiming for when it comes to that optimal employee experience.

Jordan (27:35):

Think that's really well put. I think it is vision. I think it's thinking for oneself. I think it's some of the things we talk about with anthropology and understanding the meta-narrative of the human race and where we came from and where we're going and what people need and human flourishing and some of these things, they're just totally pushed aside for the sake of keeping up with the Joneses for the sake of is really the best argument that we can make as HR professionals to our executive leadership. Well, they're doing it. That's a child's argument. Well, my buddy got ice cream. Can I have ice cream?

Jason (28:11):

Well, and they knock on executives though, is they believe that story of like, oh, well, if we're going to compete with this company over here, we got to do what they're doing. We just got to do what they're doing a little bit better, right?

Jordan (28:20):

Well, yeah. Sometimes it's literally just parity. The goal is parity, and that's frustrating. Are we not trying to improve? I mean, we're sitting here as entrepreneurs that are obsessed with improving things and making things better and innovating it. I get that there's a kind of personality difference there, but it is maddening to think that we're just going to continue to do the same thing and expect a different result for how many decades are we planning to do this?

Jason (28:49):

Yeah. I think what's interesting though, and this is something that I think you and I have talked about a bunch on this podcast, the idea of human flourishing. And I think at the root of the notion of human flourishing is that there are core human needs that are, let's just say universal, right? Everyone needs these things to live a satisfying and fulfilling and whole life that feels purposeful. And so when I was interviewing these HR professionals and people leaders, really, yeah, I think it's probably selling 'em short to call 'em HR professionals. I mean, they're people running the people strategy at their organizations. I mean, these are great people.

Jordan (29:30):

That's a good point. Yeah. I think you're right though to call out that these aren't just HR professionals. These are the people that are the people people. They're thinking about the employee experience. They're thinking about what it's like to work at this company and what culture they're going to maintain. And I think we've beat this dead horse a few times, but it's frustrating to think that they're not, that they are under resourced and they're not getting what they need to produce the type of experience that people need. One last one thing, if you will, from insight from the data and from your interviews, what is, just to set up the next episode and so forth, what is one thing that you want to talk about in terms of just one of the interviews that you had that you were taken with that really you felt empathy for this person that really just felt like, man, they are, they're the classic HR person struggling, underresourced, not able to break through the mold and give their people what they want. Was there one interview that jumped out at you that you learned a lot from, even though you came in with a pretty well formed perspective?

Jason (30:42):

I think it was maybe more one or two that I was surprised at. Maybe how far behind the mean company, the average company, is. Huh. So I think we live in a space where we're probably in the top quartile.

Jordan (31:06):

Yeah, we're living on the margins.

Jason (31:07):

The way we're thinking about employee experience. And that's not to pat ourselves on the back.

Jordan (31:11):

It's true, most likely as well. And so still on the margins, still waiting for the mainstream to catch up.

Jason (31:17):

That was kind of the other thing too, is a lot of the people leaders I'm used to interacting with, the communities that we're a part of as we've been building Fringe, are largely companies that are in that environment of, they have some vision for the people experience. And so you start to just see the world through that lens. And as I stepped out of it, we really intentionally went and talked to leaders at different kinds of organizations. Some from those progressive ones, but also some from more traditional organizations. And I think what part of the reason we arrived at this inside of companies get it or they don't, is there's great people leaders working at some of these average companies. And the average company is not a place that has vision yet for what that positive employee experience looks like. And so I think the challenge is they lack that vision. It's a hard place for an HR person to work. The opportunity is that's the job, right? Yeah. That's the opportunity, is to be the person that cast that vision, maybe plant that seed, obviously, you know, have a career to consider. You don't want to beat your head against the wall for too long, but maybe a little bit

(32:32)

In order to help. Somebody said it and it stuck with me as the HR person is the culture vigilante. And I was like, yeah, that's good. But kind of their point was they're the sort of only line of defense between the executives making bad decisions and what the people actually need.

Jordan (32:58):

That's so sad that there needs to be a line of defense. There shouldn't need to be a line of defense. Parting shot here. And I don't mean it as a shot, as an encouragement and inspiration. Hopefully to executives that are listening, you might only get one chance at this. You might only get one chance to lead an organization. Do you really think that the bottom line and selling this company for the most money you possibly could get for it? That's the meaning. That's the purpose of your life. Do you really believe that? You've got an opportunity to lead? I don't know. I get to lead about what, 55 people right now? Some people get to lead 55,000 and up from there and all sorts of in between. It's an opportunity to impact people in a way, an outsized impact that most people never get an opportunity. Never get an opportunity to create an environment, to create a culture, to create a place where people can thrive. That people will remember that their tell children and their grandchildren about how great it was to work at this organization because we believe in this. And our mission was that. And our values were these, right?

(34:04)

You're shaping families. Yeah. You're shaping the future. You're shaping the country, maybe multiple countries depending on what organization you lead. Get your head out of your butt and understand that this whole thing is about people. And yeah, it's about money too. We need to make money. Of course. We need to make money so we can pay these people. We need to make money because that's our job. And we got investors to report to. I got investors to report to too. But I just wanted to take a second to just speak to those executives and say, this might be your one shot of doing something great in life. And if the only thing you can say at the end of your life is that, well, the investors were expecting a hundred million out dollar outcome and I got them 150. Yeah, nobody's going to celebrate that at your funeral.

Jason (34:49):

Right.

Jordan (34:49):

Not a single person is going to give a damn about that extra 50 million. Yeah. This thing's about people.

Jason (34:56):

Wake up. Maybe the one thing I'd add onto that is to people who are people leaders and managers not within HR, that can be advocates with HR team. Because I think if you have a team and you have people that you supervise, you have a voice in this as well. And you can advocate alongside of the HR team for the importance of what they're doing and kind of be a voice. And oftentimes, executive teams listen to the business people more than they listen to the HR people, unfortunately. But it's a place that I think

Jordan (35:29):

True, true.

Jason (35:29):

People who are listening that have that kind of responsibility in their organization can help carry that mantle alongside of HR professionals.

Jordan (35:36):

Of HR professionals. All right. Well, we've all right. We did it. We got our message out there today vehemently. Thank you all so much for listening. Jason, give us the word of the day and then we're out. Word of the day. Assuage. Assuage. Great. I'm all over that one. Thank you so much for listening to How People Work. Thank you for allowing us to emote today with you and for you. And again, if you're listening and there's something you would love us to cover, reach out to us on. Probably LinkedIn is probably the best way to do that. And let us know just what you'd love to hear about, or if there's a special guest you'd love for us to bring on the episode. We do plan to do that in the near future. Have a good one.

‍

In this episode of How People Work, Jordan and Jason define a holistic view of the employee experience. They discuss what the ideal employee experience looks like and how it has evolved over time with market changes and new generations entering the workforce.

Jason and Jordan also examine what means to intrinsically belong somewhere, especially in the context of work which is traditionally a merit-based belonging.

Key ideas and highlights

• Employee experience is holistic and revolves around this idea of belonging.
• People seek belonging at work more than they ever have before.
• Employers need to have both entitlement-oriented and merit-based belonging in order to promote belonging and self-actualization.
• The employee experience has evolved over time, and it’s up to both employers and employees to have the ideal employee experience.

Word of the day

• Obstinate - said @ 6:29 ✅

Timestamps

• 0:00 Intro
• ‍2:04 Here are the greatest challenges HR professionals face today
• ‍3:24 What do we mean when we talk about the employee experience?
• 5:39 Does employee experience only matter in an employees’ market?
• ‍8:42 Why our product flopped with some of our customers
• ‍10:18 What human beings need universally in order to have a positive employee experience
• ‍12:08 What it means to belong somewhere
• ‍13:48 Entitlement-oriented vs. merit-based belonging - which is better in the workplace
• ‍19:20 Can we really do anything we put our minds to?
• ‍20:06 People seek belonging at work more than they ever have before
• ‍25:11 It’s not just on the employer to create a satisfying employee experience
• ‍25:40 Our advice to HR leaders

Transcript

Jordan (00:05):

How many hours and years of our lives do we spend on work? For nearly all of us, we spend 30 plus years and one third of our days in our vocation, more time perhaps, than we spend at rest or at play. But this isn't a problem. Why? Because work is good. Work needs to be integrated deeply into our lives and must be in line with our most important goals and values. And if it is, we have a far more complete and fulfilling life experience. Welcome to the How People Work podcast, where we explore the intersection of how humans think and act and how they apply themselves to their work. When you understand both of these things, you'll be equipped to be insightful, compassionate, and compelling leaders. Welcome back to How People Work. This is your host, Jordan Pease, here with my co-host Jason Murray. I promise next time I'll call you the host and I'll call me the co-host so that you feel better.

Jason (01:00):

It’s cool.

Jordan (01:00):

Yeah, you don't care.

Jason (01:01):

I don't care.

Jordan (01:03):

We set up in our last episode the fact that we were going to get into our survey, our data, and I say our, even though you, we did, and the aforementioned Kip Hart did all of the work, but I own part of the company, so I get to claim it. We're going to get into how that works. Some of this data works. We talked about how it's easy for us as you get into this industry to form an opinion to, I don't know, you can be a little stubborn. You can kind of go like, you know what? This is the way that things are, the way things should be, and we operate and we make business decisions out of our own opinion. But you decided, Hey, let's go survey over 500 HR professionals and let's find out what they're saying, what they're feeling about their own profession and how it's evolving over the course of time. And so we're going to jump right back into the survey and find out what people are saying out there.

Jason (01:56):

I mean, we'll kind of end up in a bunch of different places with this. I think as we typically do, we sort of go down a bunch of different rabbit trails.

Jordan (02:03):

We like to meander.

Jason (02:04):

But that's part of what I think is fun about this. So one of the things that we touched on though, and I think is a good starting place for the conversation today is what are the greatest challenges you face in your role? And so I think I covered these just really briefly in passing, but we really didn't take any time to unpack it in any great detail. And so one of the questions we asked, the respondents that we surveyed were, what are the greatest challenges you face in your role? We gave them 10 options to rank order, and then we looked at which things appeared most frequently in the top five. And so the top three that ranked were one, creating a positive and satisfying employee experience. Two, communicating the value of people programs, and then three tools and budget to support employee wellbeing. And so I think we'll actually talk about all those different things, but I think one thing that's probably worth pausing on is the first one, because I think for you and I being millennials coming into this space, from the outside, we see something like creating a positive and satisfying employee experience and say, duh, what else would there be?

(03:24)

But as we talked about in some previous episodes, that's not been traditionally the function of HR. It's been more compliance-oriented, protecting the company. It's not necessarily been as employee-centric as it’s been trending towards. And we're in a time where there's still significant tension between those roles. So I wouldn't say that we've arrived at this new destination of here's what the HR profession is now, but no, it's definitely going that way. Yeah, I think for the positive, there's the probably best companies out there are the ones that are adopting a different mindset that's prioritizing that. But for me, it brings up this question that's a really central one. And so I'll pose that to you is what do we mean when we talk about the employee experience? Cause I think if we're saying, Hey, the job is creating a positive and satisfying employee experience, what are we aiming for? What is the ideal employee experience? What does that look like?

Jordan (04:25):

Yeah, I think it's similar to if you had to, I don't know, maybe this is accurate, but with first thing that came to mind is if you had to break it down to a single question, it'd be kind of a net promoter score. Would you recommend this product, this service, this whatever, to your friends and family? I feel like the outcome of the employee experience is the employee net promoter score. It's the feeling. It is what it feels like to work at a place from the standpoint of what it was like to be recruited in, what it was like to be onboarded, what it was like to get clarity or lack thereof around your job, and then what it felt like to do that job, but to be managed by the people you're managed by. And then even into leaving a company either voluntarily or involuntarily. Yes. What is the message that's going to be said at the end of all about that experience? So I think it's actually, it's a very kind of holistic question of employee experience. It's not, did you have fun parties? You should have fun parties.

Jason (05:39):

Like a pizza party.

Jordan (05:39):

Pizza parties should not be fun. That's a really lame, it's better to not have a party than a not fun party. True. So I'm not saying that's not important. And it's not only how your manager treated you, or it's not only the clarity with which you were given your role or job description. It's the whole thing. It's the feeling. I think one thing that's really disappointing to me in this period where the market is down and the economy is down, and we're kind of at a low point is that you see these, I don't want to call anybody out, but what are we calling them? Digital analog, maybe a little bit more Gen X, Boomer leaders, these obstinate folks that are like, Hey, this whole employee experience thing, I don't have to do it anymore.

Jason (06:29):

Doesn't matter anymore.

Jordan (06:31):

I don’t have to do it anymore. Yay. I have all the power again. You need me more than I need you. Right? And you see it kind of going in the other direction, because they didn't learn when there was this period where there was social pressure to drive the employee experience, and they didn't see what happened in this Great Resignation and all of this social change that's taken place over the past few years. They didn't notice that they lost bigger than other people lost when the chips were down and all of their best people left. And that's really annoying and frustrating to me. And so when I hear from these HR leaders that creating a positive and satisfying employee experience is number one, most mentioned struggle that they have, that just got harder with the economy the way it is.

Jason (07:17):

Yeah.

Jordan (07:18):

And that - that's annoying.

Jason (07:19):

Or harder to get executive buy-in, which is one of the things that was kind of a constant right trend in the research that we did.

Jordan (07:26):

Because you need money and authority to do this. You know, you don't need a ton of money all the time to do it, but you definitely need authority to make decisions, to do things that aren't directly about the bottom line or aren't directly about productivity, but that are, if you have the vision for it, indirectly oriented towards those things, but more directly oriented towards people and the benefit of people.

Jason (07:52):

Right. Yeah, totally. And we touched on this in the previous episode or two episodes ago, where there's companies that just get it or don’t. I mean, that was something else that came out of the research that we did, is there's just sort of a get it factor that's like, yes, hey, you either believe a certain way about people or you don't. And there's kind of a really clear dividing line. And that influences the autonomy that an HR team has even to focus on something like employee experience. And do executives believe that it's just a zero sum game? Or do they believe that while making investments in people and focusing on human flourishing as we talk about a lot, is something that actually expands the pie? Makes it something that's more exponentially -

Jordan (08:42):

I realized that one of the things that we said in the last episode, or actually two episodes ago now, was probably discouraging to HR leaders, which was that when we were able to, as Fringe, as a company, we were able to get those that don't get it to buy our product and temporarily adopt our philosophy. It flopped. Our experience with them, their experience with us flopped because they didn't actually get it. They didn't actually invest in the ways that we recommended that they invest. They just sort of checked a box to roll out a product to get that quick win or appease people, or, Hey, look, maybe we'll get on the best places to work list now because we did this thing. But it wasn't really genuine. They weren't really bought in. And the reason why I say they could be discouraging is because if you're working in HR and you're working for leaders that don't get it, it's probably going to be the same outcome. You're probably going to hustle and try and strive, and it's probably going to flop. And I don't want to be discouraging, but the truth is, you got to choose your employer very carefully. I said this before, you shouldn't always choose the highest salary. You know, you should choose a place where your values align with the values of the organization.

Jason (10:01):

So I think what you're starting to get to is something that I'd like to talk about, which is, and this ties into something that you said a few minutes ago that I want to push on a little bit. Cause I think -

Jordan (10:12):

I said obstinate a few minutes ago, did you catch that?

Jason (10:14):

I didn't catch that.

Jordan (10:15):

Yeah, just checking.

Jason (10:18):

So you phrased the way that you talked about employee experience could maybe lead some people to feel like, well, the way in which you assess good employee experiences on the basis of employee sentiment. How do they feel about your company, NPS scores, so on and so forth. But what you also just said is, when you're assessing a company, you're looking for things that are maybe more fundamental like values, values alignment, and what does this company stand for and represent? And so I think the question that I want to dig into a little bit more with you is, are there things that are just sort of fundamental or maybe universally true about human beings that we could say, Hey, all human beings need this in order to have a positive employee experience?

Jordan (11:09):

Yeah, there definitely are things. One of the words that we talked about, Cassandra, before, she's hosted this podcast back when it was by a different name a few times, and she really introduced me to the concept of belonging in a really deep and meaningful way. I interviewed her initially, and I was talking to her about DEI and she said, Hey, actually there's one more letter I'd like to add, and it's B, it's belonging. And it was kind of a light bulb moment for me, and I really kind of attached myself to that word because that felt like something that was very, very universal. And of course, you have to unpack what we mean by that. What does it mean? I think, what I mean, at least when I think about belonging, is that I can bring who I actually am, kind of warts and all, if you will, to a community, to a job, to a family, to a what?

(12:08)

An employer in this case, and I'm accepted, right? There's a baseline of acceptance of just like you're in. You're in the group, we're with you, you're with us, and here are the things that are true about belonging here. You're going to be paid well, you're going to be respected, I mean, if you're at Fringe, you're going to be respected. You're going to be given over trust even before you earn it. We're going to assume that you're trustworthy until you show that you're not trustworthy. Whatever the things are. Those are just, I've heard people call 'em entitlements, which is a very negative connotation, but there are certain things that I think are good entitlements, right? In the beginning of American history. Yeah, it was, right. You think,

Jason (12:55):

Your status, your status bestows upon you these things.

Jordan (13:01):

Exactly. It's like the whole life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, those sorts of things. It's it, it's, it's a status thing. And it's just like you just walk in the door. Here it is. But I think one of the things that we've realized over the course of time is that we as leaders in this company, and I have to go and check and see if I'm doing the same thing in my household, is that I'm actually leaning too hard in the direction of, Hey, because you're here and you exist and you have a pulse, here's everything and the entitlements are too much. And actually, I think strips away a certain amount of, what's the word I'm looking for?

Jason (13:42):

It's like your autonomy. Your self-actualization.

Jordan (13:48):

Yeah. I think it actually robs people from the other side of the coin, which is a merit-based situation where they actually earn things. Hey, you got a promotion, not because you're breathing, but because you did a wonderful job with the task that you were given or with the team that you were given the lead or whatever. You earned this. And that's important too. And so it is just funny, I think in a couple of generations, we went from the workplace being all merit-oriented to all entitlement-oriented. And of course, duh. That's what society does. The pendulum swings and it swings back and it doesn’t stay in the middle very long. It's like a nanosecond.

Jason (14:31):

Yeah. Well, yeah, I feel like we're always kind of throwing shade on the native analogs and Gen X and boomers and so forth. But I will say that if there's a criticism of the younger generation, millennials and Gen Z, maybe we can blame it on our parents who are the Gen X and Boomers.

Jordan (14:51):

No, I think we should own this one just for the sake of balance.

Jason (14:53):

But there is that sense. But where does it come from? And there's actually a bunch of research. I mean, I'm not an expert in this stuff. I've listened to some audio books, but they talk about what did parents do? What did Gen X and Boomer parents do in the ways that they raise their kids? Right? Well, what's the term that you hear that now has a very negative connotation? You're a helicopter parent, right? But what does it mean to be a helicopter parent? It means you did everything for your child. Yes. They lived in a bubble where they didn't self-actualize, so what did those kids learn? Those kids learn nothing. That the world is made safe by other people.

Jordan (15:31):

By others. Yes. And I have no responsibility essentially at all my own.

Jason (15:36):

So everything's an entitlement.

Jordan (15:38):

Or my own happiness, or everything's somebody else's responsibility to provide for me.

Jason (15:43):

Exactly. Exactly. And so we were talking about this a little bit earlier today, but I would call it unconditional unmerited acceptance, which is a good thing, right?

Jordan (15:55):

To an extent, right?

Jason (15:56):

So I mean, coming back to our family example is like, I will love my kids no matter what. Right? They're valuable to me beyond measure, no matter what actions they take. But there are still conditions in the relationship because I won't continue to provide support perhaps in the same way that I do today when they're at a stage in their life when they ought to be responsible and able to demonstrate their merit in ways of operating in the world according to their ability. And I think that's the thing with merit is like we've talked about this on previous episodes, the danger with having an ideal is it judges you. Yes. Right. So as soon as you say, Hey, something is good, it means that there is a not good way to evaluate the world. And so if we're striving for something that's good, it also means that we're going to fall short at times. And so as a result, we kind of recoil in our culture today against the idea of merit. Because merit means there's something better than what I do currently. It also means other people -

Jordan (17:04):

It means I'm flawed.

Jason (17:06):

It means I'm flawed. It also means other people may be better than me at something.

Jordan (17:09):

Or at least in particular ways or traits.

Jason (17:13):

And I think that's the tension that we haven't done well in our culture, is how do we hold those two things together? That you can be intrinsically valued, you can have unconditional unmerited acceptance, but it's also just as important to have this conditional merited reward. And I think for those of us in sport that have maybe played sports or have kids in sports, it's kind of obvious that some kids are better than other kids. We're not all equal when it comes to these things.

Jordan (17:45):

My kid was roughly the fourth or fifth best baseball player on his team. He was the worst basketball player at this point to, and I know he is going to listen to this someday and be upset about that, but he was, it's true, notably the worst kid. But he had a great time, and I praised all the things he did well, but I also coached him on some stuff and helped him improve. But you can't just live in a dream world where everything you do ought to be praised or that you are somehow automatically as good as somebody else because you just showed up. We were watching, speaking of baseball, we were watching the Braves the other day, Acuña hits. I know I'm bringing up the Braves on the podcast again. Hits somewhere, 465 foot home run. My son Jackson. He's like, I could have done that.

(18:30)

He's seven. I'm like, alright. Right. I had to pull him aside and be like, son, you could not have done that. There is a slim chance that if you devote everything that you are to this game, that you might approach his level someday in your twenties, but you cannot right now. Because you don't want your kids to think, yeah, if you believe it, you can do it. It's like, no, if you believe it and you work really hard and a lot of people help you and you're capable and you hustle and you're lucky, then you can do it. And I don't know, I think it sets everybody up for such disappointment in life when you don't have any notion of I need to earn stuff.

Jason (19:20):

Right. Yeah. Which is funny. I think about my own childhood, and I recall my mom very distinctly saying, if you put your mind to it, you can do anything that you want. And sorry, mom, I don't think that’s actu-

Jordan (19:35):

Well, it depends on what she meant by mind. That's true. Mind, body, spirit, effort, years, struggle.

Jason (19:42):

And I think I mean, the sentiment behind it was like, yeah, work hard.

Jordan (19:46):

Hard. Don't limit yourself.

Jason (19:49):

Don't limit yourself. Which is good, which is great, but it's also not true that I'm capable of doing of anything that I would want to do. There's just limitations to my ability.

Jordan (19:59):

I’m not going to beat Michael Phelps in a race, in a pool. Not happening. No matter what I do.

Jason (20:06):

Probably not going to be a rocket scientist that ship sailed. I'm not going back to school. All of that stuff. Right. But I think what's interesting then kind of tying it back into employee experience, I think at the bottom of employee experience is a human being and a human being with fundamental needs. And some of what's happened in our culture, and you've talked about this too, is the dissolution of community that ties for individuals that have become fragmented. So when we talk about belonging, I think people seek belonging more at work than they ever have before, more than ever before because community organizations and things that people might have been a part of in the past, family units and things like that, it just looks a lot different than it did 40 and 50 years ago. And so as a result, I think there's just different felt needs that are actually core human needs that are coming into the workplace.

(21:06)

And as a result, I think companies previously could lean on conditional merited reward because the other needs were being fulfilled elsewhere. But nowadays that may not be true. Your core relationships, the people that you spend the most time with, maybe even people that become your best friend, may be people that you work with. Totally. I mean, you and I even, we met at work over 10 years ago, and that was like what began the relationship because of the time that we spent together in the workplace. And so now all of a sudden, I think you have these two human needs that are kind of in conflict, but need to be held in tandem. That's this unconditional unmerited acceptance. I just want to know, I'm accepted here. And also the conditional merited reward, but it's hard to hold those two things together.

Jordan (21:57):

So stereotypically speaking, then, if you're working for me, Millennial CEO, 37 years old, I'll say that while I still can, I'm almost 38, you're probably going to experience that unmerited unconditional favor if you will, far more than you're going to experience some sort of merit-based reward. Or worse yet, you're only going to experience one and not the other. And I think we were talking about it earlier today, sitting in a Starbucks, I think what we arrived at is if you have number one, that unmerited favor without number two, that sort of merit-based reward, and you end up entitled, right, which well covered, but I think if you flip it, what do you end up with? I think that's an important thing to cover too, is if, whether it's your childhood or whether it's your work experience or whatever, what if all you get is try harder, do better, right? Here's a carrot, here's a carrot, right? Here's a carrot or a stick or both. What do you get then?

Jason (23:05):

Anxiety, fear, stress. I mean, not that I experienced this totally because I think I had a good childhood, but we all have things and I'm unpacking things as I go through therapy and so forth, myself and my dad having been a marine. There's definitely that shape-up merit. Prove yourself kind of mentality.

Jordan (23:35):

You're not getting medals in the military for showing up.

Jason (23:38):

Exactly.

Jordan (23:39):

You earn them.

Jason (23:40):

Yeah. I mean, the military is the epitome of a merit based organization, as it should be. And so there's a lot of that kind of instilled in me from saying, you don't get anything unless you earn it. Right. That I've kind of carried with me. Yes. But I've also seen, as I've gotten older, the stress and anxiety I can put upon myself even. Even if it's not someone externally or a boss that's put imposing that upon me, I can do it to myself. Even where that desire to prove myself from a merit-based standpoint without the unconditional acceptance is not healthy.

Jordan (24:19):

Yeah. Well, thank goodness you had two parents, because it sounds like you had one that everything you did was wonderful and you had another one that was like, Hey, go earn it. And I think I had a similar experience, but I think it, to bring it back to the survey that we've mostly ignored for this episode, which is just classic us. I'm just realiz, we covered one box on a matrix, and you guys can't see it. Our listeners, we covered one box on a matrix of an 11 page document, but creating a positive and satisfying employee experience. So there's so many layers to this. One, you may or may not have executive and even creating a good employee experience to begin with. And if you do, you've got to consider two basic human needs, one to be accepted and to have a sense of belonging because you exist and you're here, right?

(25:11)

And you're on the team. And then two, to have a merit-based reward system where people feel like they're, to use your words and improving and earning things and getting that, the sense of dignity from doing that. But then you also have to, and we talked about this in the last episode, I think, is that employees have to create a satisfying employee experience as well. You, you've got to show up and want it to be a great experience. You got to show up and own it and say, I'm going to make this a great place to work. I'm going to be the one, the bastion of the culture and the values, and I'm going to exhibit those things. I'm going to bring other people into those things. And so employees have to take responsibility as well. And so I think that if I were to give any advice from HR folks, if you don't have a leader that gets it, you should quit.

(26:04)

And number two, don't do it alone. You're not, you are maybe the one that sees most clearly what the workplace needs to be and what the employee experience needs to be. But you're not the only person that has a horse in the race. Every employee at the organization wants what you want, but you've got to unlock them and have them help you and become champions of this thing and do that together. And I think sadly, most leaders, most HR leaders are going to find more support in the employee base than they're likely to find at the executive level. But there are some great companies out there that are not that way.

Jason (26:44):

Well, and we talk about often is I think whether it's fast or a little slow, the market's going to force those changes, I think, because human needs are what they are. And so I think you'll end up with companies dying simply because people aren't going to work there because it's a terrible experience and it sucks their soul out, and they'd rather go take less pay somewhere else than slowly die on the inside working for a company that is really unsatisfying.

Jordan (27:15):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you’re definitely seeing that, you're seeing people have second and third careers, and the progression of those careers is they're getting further from corporate culture as they go. They go from, I'm going to work at this big Fortune 500, and then I'm going to go find a small business that's a little bit more personal and we know each other. Yeah. It's good experience. And then I'm going to go even further and just kind of go do my own consulting thing, and that's like my third act so that I don't have to deal with any of that corporate BS at all.

Jason (27:46):

Right. It's funny to even think about that. What is corporate culture? Is corporate culture, just the residual effect of this singularly merit-based society where people are just kind of climbing up on top of each other, over each other to go up the corporate ladder, so to speak. And I don't know, I just wonder if that's like, it's interesting that we describe something as corporate culture, and it makes me wonder what do we mean by it? What is it? Yeah. What is corporate culture?

Jordan (28:19):

Yeah. I'd hate to try to summarize that in a few seconds before we end the episode. But we're coming up on time. I hope you guys have enjoyed this episode where we just dove deep into the survey that we told you we were going to dive deep into. But no, great discussion, Jason. I appreciate you bringing that to bear. Give us the word of the day for next week and I'll close the episode here.

Jason (28:46):

Right. Word of the day for next week is sashay.

Jordan (28:49):

Sashay. Yeah. Is that a dance?

Jason (28:53):

Well, I can't tell you.

Jordan (28:54):

Alright. I'm going to have to Google that. Well, I'm going to have to, so I got to look up pronunciation and the meaning. All right. Great. Well, thank you for listening to How People Work. We'll see you next time.

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