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Building Culture That Lasts (Part 2): Monique Jackson on Leadership, Hiring & the Future of Work
8 Plays1 month ago
In this second round of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build with Monique Jackson, Senior Director of People at Gusto, Curtis and Monique dig deeper into leadership, team building, and the human side of business. Monique shares how leaders can avoid common pitfalls around culture, inclusivity, and hiring, why curiosity and psychological safety fuel better ideas, and how to successfully manage and connect distributed teams. She also explores the power of actionable data, the importance of understanding every team member’s “why,” and why emotional intelligence and change management will be critical leadership skills in the AI era.
About Monique:
Monique Jackson is a senior people strategist with over a decade of experience leading inclusive, cross-functional programs at scale. As a Senior Director of People at Gusto, she oversees DEI, benefits, and engagement strategy for 3,000+ employees, aligning culture with business impact. Her work includes launching Gusto’s Total Rewards survey, Community Building framework, and the Affinity Group Summit to improve retention and engagement. Previously, she led global ERG strategy and workplace experience at WeWork, supporting culture transformation across the Tri-State region. Monique holds an MBA from the University of Florida, a B.S. in Accounting from Rutgers, and multiple certifications in DEI and intercultural development.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:07
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Welcome again to Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. In these fireside chats, we speak with the people building, backing, and running better workplaces. I'm your host, Curtis Forbes.
00:00:18
Speaker
My guest today is Monique Jackson. Again, Monique is a senior people strategist with over a decade of experience leading inclusive cross-functional programs at scale.
00:00:29
Speaker
As a senior director of People at Gusto, she oversees DEI benefits and engagement strategy for 3,000 plus employees, aligning culture with business impact.
00:00:40
Speaker
Her work includes launching Gusto's Total Rewards Survey, Community Building Framework, and the Affinity Group Summit. to improve retention and engagement. ah Previously, she led global ERG strategy and workplace ah experience at WeWork, supporting culture transformation across the tri-state region.
00:00:59
Speaker
Monique holds an MBA from the University of Florida and and a BS in accounting from Rutgers. and multiple certifications in DEI and intercultural development. We've spoken once before. This is round two.
Leadership and Organizational Culture
00:01:13
Speaker
Welcome to Behind the Build, Monique. Really ah glad to have you here again. Yeah, no, I'm happy to be back. Our conversation ah was amazing, but there's so much more to be said and to discuss. So definitely looking forward to this round two.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yeah, so much to talk about. and we we left off talking a lot about you and your story, your path, your journey, a lot about what you do at Gusto.
00:01:40
Speaker
And I'm really interested to kind of dive into, you know, leadership. I kind of want to take a turn into some of the challenges you see, maybe not necessarily at Gusto, but in your past roles or from the business world at large, um you know, and and and what you see from the organizations that work with Gusto. So how frequently Do challenges related to community, culture, inclusivity, and equity create you know roadblocks for for certain initiatives or overall organizational goals? you know And how does this sort of friction manifest itself for these businesses?
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, I think...
00:02:19
Speaker
There's so many directions I can go with answering this question. um I think that there's there's so many buzzwords out there. There's so many phrases about the importance of community and culture for not only being able to lead a team, but also having that connected back to ah business being successful.
00:02:38
Speaker
um Where I see it getting people stuck most times is separating it, separating culture, community, the experience that they're building from the business.
00:02:49
Speaker
They treat them like they're these two separate entities um that in order to drive great results, you can't, quote unquote, have fun. And if you have fun, you're not driving results ah versus really thinking about what is the end goal and that connection
Diversity and Inclusion Strategies
00:03:05
Speaker
point. I know we talked a little bit about before, but an example that I would definitely say is You know, working at WeWork, one of the great great things is you're building for someone else, right? We're building for small businesses, no matter the size, to kind of come in.
00:03:20
Speaker
But if we don't have a good culture and sense of community on our team, we're really just building a building, right? What makes us different? And I think that that was, right, like from a product perspective, that was a differentiator during my time at WeWork when we think about other places that people were just going into work.
00:03:38
Speaker
you're building an experience, but that experience has to be organic. It can't be um built in a box almost. It has to be a thoughtful part of how you're driving, which then turns into sales. It turns into retention. It turns into great experience.
00:03:55
Speaker
ah So I think that one of the biggest things I see is people separating those things, um thinking that they cannot interact. I think The other other thing in my team, we sit in the HR space. um Previously, most of my roles, right like we I sat on the business side.
00:04:13
Speaker
I sat really in the revenue generating side. And what I heard often come up is that the people problems or the are the HR problems. So people issues have nothing to do with my job as a leader. um And again, it's there's a separation, but the separation happens in a different place, right? It's allowing that lack of connection and thinking about the people to not be your problem.
00:04:42
Speaker
And to be a great leader, no matter how big or small your team or organization is, people need to be at the center of that. They are the driver of your vision. Even if you're a solopreneur, the contractor you hire wants or the person that buys your product, they're actually part of, you know, that culture and community that you are building. So I think that those are the two ways I've seen it. Both really do boil down to people seeing these things as separate.
00:05:07
Speaker
um But that's kind of where my mind went, like kind of starting the conversation. That's, so I think that that's a, it's a really sort of astute observation. And I think it does happen. Do you, I mean, do you think that this is a major blind spot for, for leaders? You feel that like,
00:05:24
Speaker
Small business leaders are tapped into the need for things like community and in inclusivity or tapped in enough? So I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a founder and what we what we kind of got to the root of, I think for a lot of small business owners, their sense of community is built in what community they need.
00:05:47
Speaker
not the sense of community that they may be building in internally, right? And both need to exist, but they both serve different purposes, right? When you build your community as a small business owner, you're building almost a council of sorts, right?
00:06:00
Speaker
And that community could be built up of family, friends, investors, board members, consultants, and you need that, right? You need those. But when you think about the internal community that you're building, those are gonna be the people that gonna up all night making sure that the product works.
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah. Those are going to be the people that are answering the calls when someone's not happy about it. Right. And again, whether that's a contractor or a full-time employee, either way, they need to think about how they fit into the community that you're building. And I know we talked about this in our a little bit in our first conversation, especially for small business owners.
00:06:35
Speaker
You are the first sense of community and culture for your company. You are what you build. And there's a challenge as you're building a building community that's additive, right? Versus fitting.
00:06:47
Speaker
And I think that that's where for small businesses, it does become hard because if you think about it if you're building something, you are going to invite people that you trust. You're going to invite people that you know, which usually they're going to be very similar to you in some way, shape or form, whether that's lived experience, background from a job.
00:07:03
Speaker
um So you're not adding. into the community. So I think, again, that's why understanding why both communities need to exist for small business owners, the community you're building for yourself as a support, and then the community you're building internally, they actually do commingle because you a lot of times you're going to meet someone at an event that you may be going to that's part of that external community that's going to connect you to someone That's not part of your network.
00:07:29
Speaker
So it's going to challenge you to say, how can I bring this person to the internal community that I'm building, the culture that I'm building, and the direction I want to actually grow um and thrive? So I think that for small business owners, they they see it, they understand it. And and I get it. it You have to be selfish, I think, a little bit when you're starting a small business, right? It's your capital. It's your sweat equity that's going into it.
00:07:54
Speaker
But most people don't start a business to stop it.
00:07:58
Speaker
<unk> so i I like that. i see I see that turning into a meme, um but 100%. And you know as I'm hearing this, it makes me think that this likely extends to the hiring choices that leaders make, right? So it it makes me curious, like where, you know you've you've brought up, right, when when people are bringing others onto their team, right? um You know, oftentimes it's people they know or people, you know, that are that are already in their community, right? um
00:08:35
Speaker
you see that as one of the major missteps when people are building their team? um Tell me some of the ramifications, right? Yeah. These things for their business and the people.
00:08:45
Speaker
but Yeah. So i'll I'll share something maybe more anecdotal and then kind of broaden out. So whenever I'm on an interview panel, and this is throughout my career, what I always ask the hiring manager is, what are you missing?
00:08:59
Speaker
What is your team missing? What gap are you trying to fill? And usually people don't think about that when they're hiring, right? You may think about, hey, I need... An accountant, right?
00:09:12
Speaker
So I need to hire someone that has an accounting skills. Yes, but what else is your team missing? What are you not good at? Because those are going to be the areas in which I look for that person to spike.
Business Growth and Community Building
00:09:23
Speaker
So I know that they're adding something to the team. So maybe you're not good at putting together decks. And for whatever reason, this accountant candidate spikes there. That's something additive that they're bringing into the team where you have been able to identify a weakness and you're able to write like rectify that.
00:09:40
Speaker
So what are the ramifications of, I would say, hiring some you know hiring a more homogenous team or not going outside of maybe your your network? um Your product, your your service is going to then be designed for a very specific group of people.
00:10:00
Speaker
you are actually limiting your consumer base, your customer base, by limiting the experiences in which you invite to the conversation for building it.
00:10:12
Speaker
So, oh, go ahead. that No, i'm i'm I am right there with you. And I i think that that's actually really, really big. You know, the the more...
00:10:24
Speaker
ah diversity that you can add to your internal conversations, you're going to wind up reaching more people outside of your organization. You know, the more insular the conversations become inside, you start to forget what the rest of the world finds important. You're only worried about what those people in your small, little, tight-knit, homogenous group thinks are important. And that may or may not, you know,
00:10:53
Speaker
be valuable to the to the world at large. Right. And and I think, right, i am I'm comfortable being in challenged of saying, hey, I want to only build for one group. Fine. Cool. If that's the business model, I'm not going to disagree with maybe having some of that more similar experience.
00:11:10
Speaker
But I would challenge you to think about outside of just your consumer, how you're going to build it. Because I think... let's Let's see. Many moons ago, um I had started a small business with ah two young two other women, and it was focused on financial literacy for women. Now, we all happen to be women of color.
00:11:32
Speaker
We all happen to be Black women. But guess what? It wasn't only women of color and black women that were coming. So where we had to challenge ourselves is, yes, we knew that that was our main group that we really wanted to support, but we knew that other people were going to come.
00:11:48
Speaker
So how did we, right? Like we had to challenge ourselves of who we brought into the conversation as we're thinking about building materials, or if we wanted to grow from an investor perspective, right? And if we think about current day of what investors' portfolios look like, how funding is distributed,
00:12:04
Speaker
You do have to have a little bit more breadth and width to who the audience is. And a lot of times who you're designing for is not who's going to be using it. There's so many products I can think of that were designed for a particular group of people that another group of people literally picked up and ran with.
00:12:23
Speaker
And if you weren't, right, like you may not have been able to keep up with that. You may not even have been able to think about that. So think that that's one of those places where maybe it works. Maybe you're building for a particular group in the beginning and maybe that's what you're looking for, right? Like you're looking for this to be something that is very community specific.
00:12:41
Speaker
And i I encourage that, right? I think that from an identity perspective, it's very important for us to see different things that are reflective of that. But there's also an an invitation for people to experience that, to see that, to want to be involved.
00:12:57
Speaker
And you could unintentionally limit yourself because in the room, everyone's thinking the same. And again, right, like from an identity or an experience perspective, that could even just be, you know, you're sitting around and everyone that's in their room went to an Ivy League school.
00:13:13
Speaker
that ain't the same, yeah right? Like their experience, how they grew up, even if you know, you say, well, this person was on scholarship, right? like Like let's be real, right? Like that experience, the opportunities that are available, the rooms that folks are invited to, they're different. So I think that it it really bars the question and it goes back to why I always ask when I'm on a hiring panel, where, what's missing, what's your blind spot? What did you wish that you would be better at? And I think for small businesses,
00:13:42
Speaker
there comes that point where, again, where like you're you're selfish and I encourage that, but you're going to have to let some things go. You're going to have to figure out where's the place you really want to zone in so that other people can help you grow and thrive. And I think that there's definitely that balance um as a small business owner, depending on where what stage you're at um and who who you're truly building for and why you're building um as well.
00:14:07
Speaker
it's um I think it's one of those growth planes, I think, for leadership is being ah being able to first you know be aware that your room might need to look a little bit different to invite you know different perspectives into the conversation.
00:14:25
Speaker
And then being okay with that feedback that you're going to get that might not be consistent without with how you see the world. um Because, you know, there's a lot of lenses that the world gets seen through.
00:14:37
Speaker
of You know, it's hard. And I think that that's the part, right? Because it's often easy to tell people, right? And I, I've worked in the DEI space, inclusion space, whatever we want to call it, right? Like the the trying to make the world a better place, right? Like space for a long time. And oftentimes, and ah and um I try to be cautious with this as well, it's always like, get more people in the room.
00:15:03
Speaker
Get different perspectives in the room. But if the room is not going to be a room where people are gonna be able to speak up or their feedback is going to be thrown out, maybe you're also not ready for that too. And I think that that also is a sign of, right, like,
00:15:15
Speaker
leadership and growth mindset. If you are a leader and that's what you are going to be driving for and you know it's something that's important, how do you also set that example? yeah So I think that small businesses have that, they have a little bit more, um,
00:15:29
Speaker
grace and and latitude and being able to do that versus like bigger companies, huh because you've built so many muscles in a certain way of operating, it becomes more difficult to break down and really create that space where voices are heard. It's included. Feedback is received well, and you can actually do something with it.
00:15:48
Speaker
I mean, we actually um didn't even even intend on even talking about this, but we actually just internally created a um very, very recently,
00:15:59
Speaker
um a Slack channel called Bad Ideas or Terrible Ideas. And the idea was, and the first thing I posted in there was, you know, the companies that are going to be successful are the ones where even all of the bad ideas are safe.
00:16:14
Speaker
you know So leading with curiosity you know is ah is ah valuable and important way to to kind of go about doing business. So let's let's throw things out there. Some of them might be valuable, but some of them might not. And if they're not, then that's okay too.
00:16:30
Speaker
um ah No, I love that. And I think theres there's two things that I really love about that. One, how long did it take to, you think it took someone to create the Slack channel?
00:16:43
Speaker
No, it takes two seconds. Right. It's not that hard. Right. So I think that sometimes when we're thinking about changing or shifting behaviors or instituting a new culture, a lot of times things don't have to be that hard.
00:16:57
Speaker
You're right. Curiosity is very key. If you kill curiosity at some point in your journey, you're actually killing the ability to grow. change, right? you're You're suffocating voices almost in a way.
00:17:11
Speaker
And I think if you learn that the only way to make sure that that and behavior, that culture has kind of continued is to create a space where it's okay,
00:17:23
Speaker
then that's what you can do, right? It could even be, right? Like, I think there's so many ways to tackle that. But if you, sometimes you just have to create the the space for it. You have to make it a part of the behaviors. And i I guess maybe there's something in the air like earlier this week, I was, or yeah, last week, um we we had a leadership onsite and we were talking about that, like, not just bad ideas, but failing, right?
00:17:46
Speaker
right? Like perfection, right? Like it drives the inability to be curious. it It drives the inability for safe, bad ideas. um So I think that one, being able to identify what's not happening and then coming up with a quick solution that may be temporary. It may not be, you're right. Like that channel may only need to exist for a period of time until it just becomes okay in all spaces to do it.
00:18:11
Speaker
Or it just becomes a thing that, hey, it's part of it's part of um our traditions or our cultural tenets that we want to keep around because it's a reminder um of where we've come. So I love that, one, that there was an identification of where there was a miss and then a simple solution, a simple fix.
00:18:29
Speaker
to just start creating that. And even the people that aren't participating in the channel, I can always guarantee there's always eyes watching in the Slack channels, even if people are not emojining or engaging. true. You'd be very surprised. So don't underestimate, or that may be, and I know we talked about this in our first time together, the data trap, right? Like that's not a full indicator of, right? Like who might be watching and how that may show up or speak to someone else.
00:18:57
Speaker
You made a comment about perfection and it's funny, like it's one of the reasons that we created this channel because oftentimes people feel that this idea has to be well-baked, right? Or there has to be some strategy around it before you can bring it to somebody else. And sometimes the the greatest ideas or plans just start with a small, you know, little curious thought, right? And perfection is a moving target, right? And that's one of the things that I teach my kids all the time. Perfection is a moving target. Don't try to be perfect. Just try to be 1% better, you know?
00:19:32
Speaker
And if you, you know, that, you know, compound interest, right, is the eighth wonder of the world there. if you could be 1% better every every day or every week, you know, by the time that you're an adult, you know, look at ah ah as much as you've ah as much as you've grown, so.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, and and and this kind of even goes back to when we talked about building teams. and One, I always say when the room is quiet, if I am like, hey, are there any questions, thoughts? I'm like, if you have it, someone else in the room has it, but someone needs to say it.
00:20:00
Speaker
But then the other piece of it is when you're when you come up with an idea, it may just be the seed of the idea. And you need the people in the room to make it grow and water it and nurture it. But if you never even put the seed on the table...
00:20:14
Speaker
and And I think, you know, I worked through this with my therapist all the time and perfection and all of the things that give us high senses of anxiety in today's world. um That 1% model is like be 1% better than yourself day after day.
00:20:28
Speaker
Right? That's who you need to be better than. That it. That's your only competition you even want to call it that. Exactly. And I think that i what was I, I and must have been a show and this really makes me think about small businesses and it,
00:20:43
Speaker
they were talking to someone and they they were coming up with ideas and every time they would come up with that idea, they'd say, yeah, but somebody is already doing that. And they have like, oh, but somebody, and there and the person responded, it's not about who's, how many people are doing it, it's who's doing it the best.
00:20:58
Speaker
So again, that 1% better mindset, there's so many, I always think about coffee and I always like, I'm always like, Dunkin' Donuts does not have a competitor.
00:21:11
Speaker
Who else? Like that is that to me is, right? Like you have the Wawa coffees now making its thing. And then the 7-Eleven. And I'm like, but it's coffee. They have been able to just have America run on Dunkin'.
00:21:26
Speaker
in the most interesting way. Like you could say oh, well, Starbucks, but it's like, yeah, but it's not the same. So I always think about it's like, find your thing. And then you could be a coffee shop, right? Because you're 1% better than every other coffee shop in your city.
00:21:39
Speaker
But I just think about it in that way of like, we could be, so right like they call it limiting beliefs. We have so many of them in our minds about what we can or cannot do or what's possible um that we become our own worst enemy.
00:21:52
Speaker
So if we split into an abundance mindset right versus a scarcity mindset and lean into that 1% every day, i think in so many ways but the world could be better if that's where we put most of our energy um then than other
Managing Distributed Teams
00:22:08
Speaker
places.
00:22:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. um You have me now missing my my days when I lived on the East Coast and was introduced to Dunkin' Donuts on every other street corner.
00:22:21
Speaker
we We know where you're from. Yes, yes. So you know it leads me to a little bit of a question. Sure. not Not really a pivot here, but I want to lean into this idea of managing distributed teams, right? Because I feel like that plays a role in a lot of people problems.
00:22:39
Speaker
um you know, that we see in business, you know, it's a major challenge for a lot lot of folks. What can business leaders do in that area to build the connection and the community? You know, so we've we've talked a lot about getting people into the conversation, getting people in the same room.
00:22:54
Speaker
And I know that's sort of a euphemism, but the reality is, is that room is is is more difficult to manage when everybody is very distributed. Yeah, no, i I love this question. um And I'm going to start with something that a lot of leaders will not like to hear.
00:23:13
Speaker
But if your distributed teams are failing and they're not connected and they're not performing, that's on the leader, not on them. and I stand by that. um I lead a completely distributed team currently.
00:23:25
Speaker
I have now a team of six. Only two of them are in the same city. Wow. Everyone i have remote, I have near offices, none of us are near each other. So, but I feel like I literally talk to everyone on my team every day. i see them multiple times a week on Zoom.
00:23:44
Speaker
We feel very connected, but it's intentional. So I think... What is important when we talk about this this room, right? One thing that's important is around setting some expectations in regards to how you communicate with your team.
00:24:00
Speaker
So it seems as though you're next to one another. So what does that look like? What are some examples of that? Everyone shares their priorities for the week on Monday. What's going on? And as a leader, maybe you'll share where you're going to be, whether that's a training you're going to, whether that's ah some company-wide things that you'd love to see presence from everyone on.
00:24:21
Speaker
But this one sets the tone of folks not feeling like they can't stop by and see what you're doing. um And two, it also creates some type of ability for collaboration.
00:24:32
Speaker
So within my team, I pretty much have three different buckets of work, but we work very cohesively. But sometimes I may miss, you know, or they may forget to say in a one-to-one with each other what they're working on and miss an opportunity for us to be more intentional about how we're working together.
00:24:47
Speaker
Setting the tone in the beginning of week allows that. um One-to-ones. I have one-to-ones with everyone on my team every single week.
00:24:56
Speaker
For a reason. it is solely for the purpose of them to feel connected. It is their time. It is not mine. My expectation is you come in with your one-to-one agenda filled out. We have some things that are recurring that we always talk about.
00:25:09
Speaker
um Quarterly, we always talk about development. and at the beginning of my one-to-ones, something that I took from a previous leader was feedback five. So the first five minutes of the one-to-one is dedicated to feedback.
00:25:22
Speaker
Good, bad, what would you like me to do differently? How can I support you? Are there any blockers? And that, again, is to set some behaviors of even if you don't see me all the time, You can always provide me feedback. You can always tell me what's going on. um I am a Slack junkie.
00:25:38
Speaker
So I am the random on a Wednesday, throw me the Giphy that's making you feel, telling me how you feel today, right? Like our Slack channel is for business, but it's also for connection.
00:25:49
Speaker
um So I definitely leverage that as a platform. We also have team meetings. um i When we first got together, because we we're distributed and we have a lot of different disciplines, they were longer and more frequent.
00:26:01
Speaker
um As the team has grown, I've shifted a little bit the cadence of them happening. But as a team collectively, we come together at least once a month. And the purpose of that is to share updates, but also just to connect.
00:26:15
Speaker
Just to talk, one one team meeting, we watched the How to Train a Dragon um live action preview because we were talking about it so much in our team meeting. was like, let's just watch it, right? So I think that there's that intentionality. Now let's talk about getting together.
00:26:32
Speaker
The buzzword, and I actually lean into it and i've I've used it for years, but creating moments that matter. When do you need to get them together? What is important?
00:26:43
Speaker
What timing of the year makes sense? So I can use an example. Part of my umbrella is in benefits. We know that we have open enrollment. We have planning that's tied to it. So I ensure that I build into our planning model actual time for us to be face-to-face.
00:27:00
Speaker
us to actually get together and work together. Because whether we like it or not, there is added value of being together in person and being collaborative.
00:27:12
Speaker
But it has to make sense and it has to have a purpose. I am not the type of person that's like, oh yeah, there's nothing going on, so let's all get together and hang out. No, I think that moments that matter needs to be a combination of learning, development, operational work, moving things forward, and community.
00:27:30
Speaker
yeah And when all of those things are together, it actually continues to bring the team. Now, again, I'll go back to my first phrase of why I say that distributed teams that are not successful are on the leader is because all of those things are because I have to do them.
00:27:46
Speaker
I'm not looking for anyone on my team to make these things happen. I'm not expecting them to create that culture because then what happens when they need support, when they need something, they can slack me.
00:27:59
Speaker
We can jump on a huddle. We can hop on a zoom that, um, you know, barrier to experience that is created because we're not next to one another doesn't exist.
00:28:13
Speaker
It's no different than them just tapping me on my shoulder so sending me ah slack and saying, can you jump on a huddle? Right. So i think that to me, it's really important to set the tone for your team from the beginning in the interview process, all of those things, and then continue those behaviors with it within, you know, the experience of your team. But again, you as a leader set the tone of that, you set the expectation um and you model the behavior you know,
00:28:44
Speaker
the engagement scores, the productivity scores of in office versus remote. I think that that's one of those places of where parity, you have more control to achieve it than you may realize.
00:29:02
Speaker
I love what you're talking about. What question that sort of comes to mind is if leaders feel like um or can sense that they're not getting it right, you know, or there are issues, where do they even start if they want to turn it around? Like, how do they become ah aware of it, that what they're doing is wrong? How do they begin to remedy these things?
00:29:26
Speaker
What are the steps? Yeah, no, really good question. um I'll give a couple different, I'll say doorways for entry because of what you may have access to. um So I'll start with like, if you have access to,
00:29:41
Speaker
data around engagement and you're able to see your engagement data for your team through the lens of location or remote versus an office, start there.
00:29:53
Speaker
is there Is there something going on? Is there something that's different, right? That's how you can identify that potentially you have some work to do. If you don't have access to that, most leaders, I will give them credit, are pretty smart.
00:30:09
Speaker
So normally, They know when something's not going well, right? They know if they have a bunch of team members on pips that are not in an office versus in an office.
00:30:20
Speaker
They're pretty intuitive. They can use their kind of discretion of what's going on. So then how do you start navigating that? One, ask your team. yeah Come up with some very specific questions, right? Like, and I know we're going to probably talk a little bit about tools, but guess what? There's a handy little friend that could help you get some great questions called Chad GPT, right? Mine is called Lomi. I named him and we interact daily.
00:30:44
Speaker
um But come up with some very specific questions, like two questions, not something wild, something not something crazy, not something overwhelming to ask everyone on your team the next one to one.
00:30:56
Speaker
And tell them, I've noticed X, Y, Z, and I want to start making some changes. I would love your perspective. Or what's one thing I can do to make you feel more connected to the team and the law the larger work?
00:31:11
Speaker
And guess what? Most times when you ask, people will tell you, especially if you are approaching it through the lens of, I've noticed X, Y, Z. I want to do something better. There's a level of accountability there that your team is going to recognize, even a level of vulnerability of showing a weakness, if you you want to put it that way, of where you want to be better as a leader.
00:31:33
Speaker
They will give you some ideas. yeah Try different things. Also, i think that this is where, and we talked a little bit about community and we definitely talked about it through that small business lens. And this applies there, but I think if you're a for leader anywhere, you should always have some type of one accountability partner and also some leaders that you kind of look up to and or admire or see doing things right.
00:31:55
Speaker
Ask in your next leadership meeting, hey, I've noticed this. i'm trying Has anyone found anything that's worked? If you have a Slack channel, hey, I'm really trying to improve engagement this way. Has anyone seen, tried anything that's really been successful for them?
00:32:10
Speaker
Right? I think that... Step one, if you have a way of identifying the problem through data or access information, leverage that. If not, you probably know what maybe what is going on or it's not up to the the standard in which you would like.
00:32:25
Speaker
Right. If you see discrepancy of the performance and things of that nature. Next, ask the question. That can be some peer sourcing. That can also be from your team. Start small. No one's saying now start getting your team together every other week in person. Who has the budget for that? If you have the budget for that and you can send some to me, you can find me on LinkedIn and I will take any donations to get team to get together more often. right But start small. yeah right That to me is like the the order of operations, I would say.
00:32:57
Speaker
I like that you brought up data. I know that you talked a little bit about, right, you referenced, you know, some location data and some engagement data, you know, by team or whatnot.
00:33:09
Speaker
um Give me some ideas of of of other people related metrics that that leaders should be watching.
Data-Driven Leadership
00:33:15
Speaker
You know, are there pieces of data outside of, you know, engagement by location that could be helpful for leaders when it comes to supporting their people to to building the strong culture?
00:33:25
Speaker
you know, Do you actually think that business leaders and small businesses are actually monitoring these? Okay. Well, I'll go through it first and then we'll go to the other side.
00:33:36
Speaker
um So I'll go through it. I think the easiest way for me to maybe tackle that question is through the employee lifecycle. So the first one is attract, which is basically hiring, right? So there, most of that data is messed is going to be really tied to like your recruiting team. You may have some candidate experience data, but that again is through the interview process.
00:33:56
Speaker
What you could glean maybe from there would be more so tied to if your interview process is too long, if people still don't know what the job is after they start. So there could be some there, but less there. Let's get into once they join the company.
00:34:09
Speaker
The first would be any data that you're collecting in regards to their onboarding experience and any touch points that you may have within their first year of hiring. So that could be everything from did they learn the the essential skills of their role?
00:34:24
Speaker
Were they given an onboarding buddy? um Do they feel prepared to do their role? So those would be some touch points in the beginning of their career. If we then go into, I'll go to progression before I go to engagement. So progression is really performance related metrics.
00:34:38
Speaker
um So there you can be you can look at how your team is performing. Right. When we think about, ah let's say, distribution of performance. Right.
00:34:51
Speaker
What does it look like in regards to how folks are showing up? um If you have a rating system, do you notice in any discrepancies in between folks in different locations or based on tenure, um based on what their on onboarding experience is, which you may have some of that qualitative data that you can layer over your performance data?
00:35:11
Speaker
Another thing tied to performance would be feedback. Is your team getting feedback? if You may have a mechanism for collecting feedback for your employees, um or you may not.
00:35:23
Speaker
So if you don't necessarily have a platform, let's say, where it's all you know put in one particular area, do you have a method in which you receive feedback? Slack, email, Slack?
00:35:35
Speaker
Do some team members get more feedback than others? Is it constructive feedback or is it the nice, fluffy, I love working with this person type of feedback? Is it feedback that's actionable, timely, measurable?
00:35:47
Speaker
So in progression, that's some of what I would definitely look at. And if you're in a... sales related org, right, or role or something that has like an OTE or a metric space. You can also look at performance there where that's a little bit easier to track because it's usually very black and white on what the performance metrics are.
00:36:04
Speaker
Then we look at engagement. um This one, right, if you're collecting data, you may have an engagement survey, right? And that can track everything from an NPS, which is really um measuring the likelihood of this person to recommend the company as a great place, or just general sentiment and engagement. There's a lot of great research out there.
00:36:22
Speaker
If you're looking to maybe start a way of measuring engagement, there are a list of questions that are really tied to intent to stay, right? So that's really like the retention of employee. It's usually no more than 10 questions, so it could be something small.
00:36:36
Speaker
You don't have to have this elongated survey to track some of this data. You can come up with those ones that not only going to give you some engagement metrics, but also some of that intention to stay. um And then,
00:36:47
Speaker
When we think about attrition, um you know people will often talk about exit interviews. There's been a lot of rumblings, I would say, in and out for the past couple of years about stay interviews. And the reason I lean more towards the stay interviews or that pulse while someone is there is because once they're gone, what's the point of asking them?
00:37:04
Speaker
You didn't want to do anything when they were there. So make sure that whatever you're tracking on that side of the house is really going to be something that you can action. I think that I gave a couple, like different examples across the employee life cycle. There's so many more, but I don't want to overwhelm. And I think that what's most important and shout out to the people insights team I work with currently.
00:37:25
Speaker
um We always jam on not asking any question. We can't do anything with it's rude. yeah If you're asking people yeah and you're not going to do anything,
00:37:40
Speaker
That's rude. Unless you're very clear on like, I talked about the total reward saver earlier and it was very much clear. This is to gather sentiments about how you are thinking. It will not be used to impact this.
00:37:55
Speaker
If you're not going to use it, just be honest. right I think that you know data for data's sake is very annoying. you know This is why people get survey burnouts and and all of that jazz.
00:38:05
Speaker
um and they're not honest. They don't want to talk about it. So I think that if you are if you already are tra collecting data, make sure that it's data that makes sense.
00:38:16
Speaker
You're asking the right questions. It's timely, and you can actually action on it. If you haven't, Make sure you're getting that right group in the room to figure out what you should be asking, when you should be asking, and what you can actually do about it.
00:38:29
Speaker
um And then, of course, there's other ad hoc things, such as doing focus groups when you see a hotspot, particularly, and you want to get some more conversational data to include that's more qualitative. So that's just like lot of different examples now. Your second question was, do we think small businesses are doing it um I would say for the most part, probably no, but I understand probably why.
00:38:54
Speaker
i think that we talked a little bit about where do you need to kind of flip that switch of having someone focused on maybe engagement or culture or community. And we talked about what that employee base number is.
00:39:04
Speaker
And I think before that, there are some more, one, organic ways or very simple ways in which you can gather that data. Again, not to overwhelm yourself. yeah If you know that you're a new company and you have a small employee base, doing some type of pulse survey every six months can be a light lift and you can do something with it. And it can be very easy, right?
00:39:26
Speaker
Another population of like that you can always think about pulsing is like that first 30 days of a new hire, right? Now, survey is one way, but another way is, you know, if your company is small, let's say that you are under...
00:39:45
Speaker
500 employees, we'll just go with 500, right? Because that again, my brain is tied to like how we look at small and medium businesses. um You could even build into your culture that after a certain amount of time someone joins the company, they report back out what they've observed.
00:40:01
Speaker
You come up with some type of template to show that. um You build into your team meetings some type of feedback portion So, hey, every team across the company, you know, once a month, the expectation is that all leaders will gather feedback on key initiatives that we've recently rolled out.
00:40:23
Speaker
Leaders are then to aggregate that, throw it in chat GPT or whatever, you know, LLM is your your preferred tool. summarize it to roll it up to leadership for leadership to see overall, we just rolled out X, Y, Z, and this is what the overall said, right? So there are some ways that you can do that where it can be, an and again, an intentional lift where you can action on it.
00:40:47
Speaker
I would hate for people to be like, oh, I need to roll out an engagement survey tomorrow, right? It may not be the right time. Again, what do you need to know about? What's important to the business right now?
00:41:00
Speaker
And then let's figure it out from there. Again, you have to make that connection all in all, because even with all the data and all the touch points I talked about from a survey perspective, the reason that all of those touch points are important is because when we think about the cost of replacing someone, it's 1.5 to two times their salary.
00:41:19
Speaker
Right. So there's always a cost associated. There's a cost of productivity. There's a cost. There's costs associated with not paying attention to that. um I forgot what I was reading and then could continue the conversation. and when it was about.
00:41:34
Speaker
Someone posted on LinkedIn about an experience as as he was a CFO and he had hired a new CHRO He was asking her questions about the numbers and she knew nothing and he was livid.
00:41:47
Speaker
He took it upon himself to invite her and her VP into the room every, i think it was like they did like monthly meetings. He said after about the sixth meeting, she started talking through the lens of data.
00:42:02
Speaker
Oh, well, if we do this training, it costs this many hours of pay, but it actually will increase sales by the... If you're in the space of collecting the data and making, you know, being able to do something with it, you have to be able to tie it back to the business. It is a game changer, i think, for success in your role, but then also to continue to be like a leader at the table, no matter the size of your
Future of Leadership in a Technological World
00:42:23
Speaker
organization. I think that that the balance of those skill sets, again, it's not an either or, it's an and um approach. When we think about the business and we think about building community or or culture or DEI, inclusion, whatever word you may want to use, but that people experience,
00:42:38
Speaker
and driving business results.
00:42:41
Speaker
um I think that's good advice. And I think that there's probably a lot of business leaders who do, you know, take pulse surveys or do gather data for data's sake and probably don't necessarily do anything you know, with it, um or it's not meaningful, right? Or it's not the data that's actually driving some of the issues, problems or initiatives, right, that they actually want to to move towards. But um as we kind of wrap up here, i want to take another shift.
00:43:14
Speaker
I want know more about maybe what you've seen in your experience about human nature, human behavior. you know, what's like a people related insight or cultural competency that maybe tomorrow's business leaders are going to have to develop ah in order to thrive?
00:43:32
Speaker
um It's maybe different from today or yesterday.
00:43:39
Speaker
oh that's ah that's A lot of new technologies out there. AI is changing the game. No. So I'm going to... Okay. my brain There's so many things oh my goodness in my brain going on right now. But I think the first... So the the first thing that came to my mind, I will say, and then I'm going to also connect it to like where we are from a technology perspective.
00:44:02
Speaker
That's going to be important. um Everybody has a why.
00:44:08
Speaker
I think that we often forget that. Yeah. I mean, I tell say it all the time in every room. So this would not be a surprise to anyone that works with me. i have bills and I love Disney. That is why I work.
00:44:19
Speaker
But I also like helping people and I like making impact. As long as I'm continuously tied to making impact, I'm going to show up. I'm going to give 100%, 200%. People have a why. And I think it's really important. And even if it is to pay bills, then you know that anything that's going to be tied to financial things, they're going to always work harder if they see an incentive on the other side.
00:44:40
Speaker
But I think that when we think about technology right now, the constant conversation is the number number of jobs that are going to be lost. I think that people are going to have to understand, especially as leader, people are afraid.
00:44:53
Speaker
Whether it's a real fear, perceived fear, there is a fear. And when people operate in fear, in life, the way in which they react is not a always great.
00:45:07
Speaker
right So I think that there's going to be a level of um emotional intelligence of leading people through this next technological wave. of how this is a superpower and how they are able to leverage it within what they currently do. And I think that there's going to be a need for leaders, whether you are a champion or not of this technological wave, to figure out how you empower yourself and your team to use it, be good at it.
00:45:41
Speaker
And if it's not working, have those honest conversations as well. So I think for me, that's what's top of mind. I think that with the stage that we are in with technology right now, the constant conversation about like that human touch, but there's also a human touch on being able to help people move along with it. It's not just making sure that there's a human element um you know, or or a human that's validating whatever AI or whatever LLM or whatever it is that you may be leveraging at this time. But I think that for leaders, if you're not good at change management, if you're not good at driving change, you need to sharpen those skills because that is very much tied to a people skill set and an emotional intelligence skill set.
00:46:24
Speaker
And you are often the face of changes that you have nothing to do with and you do not agree with. yeah Helping your team usher through that is not the time for them to know that.
00:46:36
Speaker
You have to figure out how you are going to be able to lead your team through this next wave in a way that drives business results and is people-centric. And again, that goes back to understanding your team's why and being able to help them connect those dots. And like I always say,
00:46:52
Speaker
There is it being able to usher people into whatever the next thing is. And then there's also a way to help people self-select. There's the other side. But you are responsible for making sure that they have the information. People can do a lot with the information that they have. They can't do anything with the information they don't have.
00:47:08
Speaker
So true that to me is is, I would say, just a skill set that's kind of existed, but it's going to be extremely important, that change management and understanding your team. Otherwise you might even get left behind because your team can't keep up. no that needs you I think that that's incredibly insightful um and a really, really great point to sort of wrap up here. um And I don't think that I could possibly agree more, you know, with his his is as fast as things are changing, um you know, that need to be able to to tap into all those human centric, you know, behaviors to navigate all of that stuff is going to be critical.
00:47:52
Speaker
And um ah Bill's in Disney. Gusto, if you're listening, Bill's in Disney. um but Monique, Thank you. Thank you for today. Thanks for coming back for round two.
00:48:06
Speaker
um This was great. A lot learned. um So, you know, definitely taking notes and really glad to have you here. Awesome. Well, thank you for having me back again. I hope I always say that I hope at least, you know, everyone that, you know, listens into any place I'm speaking, they could take one thing, right? Like even if it's a I ain't going do what she said. That's something.
00:48:27
Speaker
I'll take it. You took something. I will take it. too much ah Too much here to leave behind, but um thank you for for tuning into Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build. Please like and share this episode. Subscribe while you're at it Be sure to visit mustardhub.com to learn how we help companies become destinations for workplace happiness and turn culture into a competitive edge. Until next time.