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[00:00:00] Hi everyone, I'm Pamela Stroko and I'd like to welcome you all to the HRTech Talk sponsored
[00:00:06] by the analyst firm 3Sixty Insights. I'm a director and principal analyst at 3Sixty
[00:00:14] and I'm so excited to welcome all of you today to hear about how we can change the
[00:00:22] behaviors of the disconnected workforce. And so we're going to be talking about how connection
[00:00:27] is the key to exceptional business performance. And joining me today is Tim Bristol who's the
[00:00:33] chief operating officer of Pro Habits and what I really like about Pro Habits as I looked at
[00:00:41] its solution and how it helps organizations is it is a real solution with measurable results
[00:00:49] on how we can connect people to the work that they're doing, connect people to the organization,
[00:00:55] create belonging, improve retention by using a simple tool and a simple practice that has
[00:01:04] powerful results. So Tim why don't you start telling us about how Pro Habits got started and
[00:01:12] and what you're trying to do in the workforce today. Thanks Pamela, you're absolutely right.
[00:01:19] Today's workforce is extremely disconnected but I think that's really exacerbated by two factors.
[00:01:24] One, of course this shift towards hybrid slash remote there's no longer the water cooler,
[00:01:29] the cohabitation of the workspace where connection just naturally did come to play and come to happen.
[00:01:35] And then two, there's a cultural move towards this distrust in institutions right. And so with that
[00:01:41] the individuals who work for these large enterprises they feel like cogs in a machine and there's
[00:01:46] often such a lack of connection to what do I do day in and day out and how does that actually connect
[00:01:52] to and contribute to the value of my organization's bringing and our ability to achieve our strategic
[00:01:58] goals. And so as we thought through how do we address this connection, we came to a realization
[00:02:05] that we didn't need to reinvent the wheel. And what we did is we tried to learn, learn from marketers.
[00:02:13] And I like that because what we know marketers do is they know how to engage an audience,
[00:02:18] they know how to engage a marketplace. And tell me more about how the marketing approach
[00:02:26] helps create better performance at the individual level and at the organization level.
[00:02:32] 100%. So as I said we didn't reinvent didn't want to reinvent the wheel. And so what we did is we tried
[00:02:38] to take the same tools, technologies and really discipline that marketers have
[00:02:44] in to help to create in their case connections between the consumer and the brands they represent.
[00:02:49] And in our case between employees and the organizations they work for. And so what we came to is a
[00:02:54] very simple solution which is let's run employee campaigns the same way marketers run campaigns
[00:02:58] externally, let's run campaigns internally. So tell me about you know I read a bit about some of
[00:03:07] the things your customers and clients are working on. But tell me about the campaigns and how they're
[00:03:14] working and and and the results that there's thing like like tell me what basically I want to know
[00:03:20] what they're doing and how it's working. Absolutely. Maybe one thing I want to highlight about
[00:03:26] campaign is sort of how we think about structuring them is they're designed to do two things. One,
[00:03:32] to connect input to output. So that campaigns to the actual results and objectives that matter
[00:03:38] to the business and two, to create signal through noise. So we think about the structure of a campaign.
[00:03:43] We have an objective what are we trying to achieve as an organization? Then we have an audience
[00:03:48] who within that organization which employees actually contribute towards that objective.
[00:03:53] Three is the content that's delivered to those audiences in service to that objective.
[00:03:57] And then what really for us what we think differentiates a lot of what we do
[00:04:01] from what we see in the market. And I would say a more traditional approach to communicating and
[00:04:05] engaging with employees is what we call a call to action. Again something that exists very
[00:04:10] clearly in the marketing and advertising world. And for us it moves beyond internally it moves
[00:04:15] beyond just this concept of I'm aware as an employee I'm aware of something's happening or okay
[00:04:20] I get that there's going to be a change too. There's a very clear concise in our case small
[00:04:27] action that I can take whether it's day in and day out once a week at whatever point I receive
[00:04:32] this message. That can help me contribute towards the school right it helped me work as an individual
[00:04:36] and as a team towards the outcomes that we're actually trying to achieve as as a larger organization.
[00:04:42] So giving an example of and and I think one I read about that I was very curious about
[00:04:48] is how these campaigns are helping improve safety performance at organizations and that could include
[00:04:55] everything from reducing workman's compensation cost to reducing incidents in a workplace. Tell
[00:05:05] me how it's impacting safety in a positive way. Absolutely I mean at the end of the day we all
[00:05:12] whether we work with our hands or work in front of computers we all want to get home safe and
[00:05:18] ask any professional and safety space, the safety field, the number one driver of instances
[00:05:24] or injuries is human behavior. So again creating a connection to try to connect what the individual does
[00:05:31] in their experience to the larger outcome that is the organization's safety metrics to their
[00:05:37] workers to come to all of the associated costs with safety as well as the general value for
[00:05:44] the individual's experience and the individual life what we want to do is we want to help individuals
[00:05:48] do the right things. So we have launched campaigns with some of our clients that are targeted at
[00:05:54] there on the ground hands-on workers to help create a connection because the the mothership,
[00:06:00] the like enterprise organization doesn't have that daily connection with them. We use our campaigns
[00:06:05] to help them stay safe to be mindful and to maximize the chance that they do the right things so as
[00:06:11] to avoid in this case an unsafe outcome. That's amazing and you know I think that's something that
[00:06:17] every organization is dealing with like you said it doesn't matter um you know what role you have
[00:06:23] everybody wants to create a safe experience. Now I have to tell you I was at a meeting oh
[00:06:30] couple months ago maybe maybe not even but was with the Center for Sales Leadership at Paul University
[00:06:36] and we got to talking about quotas and there isn't a sales manager I know that is happy with quota
[00:06:45] attainment for their entire team. In fact in my experience over the years and actually working in
[00:06:52] sales enablement what I learned is is that sometimes as little as 20% of the workforce in sales
[00:06:59] is actually delivering on their quota and I was talking to some of the professors there
[00:07:07] and what they said was is that it's all about connection and coaching and oftentimes manager sales
[00:07:14] managers don't have the time to connect and coach with everyone and so what you see is is so it
[00:07:21] may start out doing pretty well during onboarding and then as there's less connection and less
[00:07:27] coaching you see the quota performance decline and I was exciting to hear that pro habits has an
[00:07:36] approach to how you can increase quota performance and I think every salesperson I've ever met or
[00:07:45] sales manager I've ever met want to know that solution so tell us please. Yeah absolutely and
[00:07:52] I think sales is a perfect example where when we think of success for a salesperson a sales individual
[00:07:59] it's this picture this image that's a good salesperson that's that's what a good salesperson does
[00:08:04] and it's not it's not a single image it's a mosaic a good salesperson does a lot of really little
[00:08:11] things right in those small things compound and build towards successful sale can fast conversion
[00:08:19] towards continued growth and development and building of trusted and real relationships
[00:08:23] and so when we think about running employee campaigns to support sales folks really what we want to do
[00:08:28] is help those sales individuals and of course their managers supervisors and the team as a whole
[00:08:34] really to do those small things and do those right right and do those in a way that for us another benefit
[00:08:39] is we're not talking about a training that takes you out of the market or workshop or something where
[00:08:44] you you're inspired and you've learned all these new concepts and techniques and then you go back to
[00:08:48] your day to day grind and there's no better term for it right and with that we want to help people
[00:08:56] move from I've learned this knowledge I've been inspired to I can take this individual action
[00:09:01] and I can do this one small thing right today whether it's to make the hard call or to smile on dial
[00:09:07] or to reach out to your manager for success and I think you bring in a good point as a sales manager
[00:09:12] and supporting your team I think we all want to be good managers right and it's it's hard for us
[00:09:17] and we can all fall down in that activity to try to support the teams around us because we all have
[00:09:22] our own pressures lives moving fast we have a light outside of work right and so
[00:09:28] we don't only show up as our best selves and when we think about the use of employee campaigns
[00:09:33] they can do two things to support the sales manager one they can help that individual sales manager
[00:09:38] actually show up as the best versions of themselves because they've been primed they've been
[00:09:43] nudged they've received a communication just a call to action to actually do the right thing
[00:09:48] to show up for their team to check in and because everyone has so much on their play what we can
[00:09:54] do is we can actually use these nudges to supplement an augment some of that development and growth
[00:09:58] that's often relies on the manager and move it on directly to the employee and we have studies show
[00:10:03] that whether an individual contributor receives a message directly from their manager or if they
[00:10:10] receive a nudge from a system like ours or somewhere else they take the coaching it doesn't
[00:10:14] matter if it's coming from the individual or that this is a coaching point from a system they take
[00:10:18] the coaching and so what we can do is where managers can sometimes fall short or create a gap between
[00:10:26] the development of their people we can help to augment that in a way that doesn't take them out of
[00:10:30] the market and contributes towards acting living and breathing building that mosaic of what is
[00:10:36] a successful salesperson and then my last point on this is eventually you don't need nudges
[00:10:42] because you've developed a salesperson you don't need these campaigns because you've developed a
[00:10:46] salesperson that's acted time and time again and done those right things they've developed those
[00:10:52] habits and they will be carry those with them throughout the career or maybe you want to do different
[00:10:57] campaigns I mean yeah we're making sure you want to extend those campaigns you know one of the things
[00:11:02] you mentioned at the beginning and I don't want to lose sight of this you talked about
[00:11:08] you know we have hybrid teams and we have remote teams and we have mixed teams where they're
[00:11:15] you know in office like three days a week now and they have their own version of hybrid and
[00:11:20] then we have teams where they're in person and people are quite unhappy about being back in person
[00:11:27] and I want to understand I think Pro Habits can build stronger teams and more connection
[00:11:34] collaboration and really peer support how have you seen that in the market?
[00:11:41] Yeah absolutely I mean I think it takes place on two levels we all start with something
[00:11:46] we're doing with one of our clients which is supporting their onboarding program right in this
[00:11:51] client as employees who are on-site some are a hybrid some are a fully remote and so what we've
[00:11:58] done is we've used our campaigns to help them create really a unified and centralized approach
[00:12:03] to onboarding and so what we're doing is we're running campaigns that are oriented at creating
[00:12:08] connection between the individual the new hires when they first start and moving through sort of
[00:12:14] that organizations onboarding philosophy for the first six months as they continue to develop
[00:12:20] perform grow and connect to those in the organization right but we know that the new higher experience
[00:12:27] it's a two plus waste street right at least a two-way street and so at the same time as we're running
[00:12:31] those campaigns to help those new hires do the right things quickly get up to speed and start
[00:12:36] to create value at a much faster rate than those were not on campaigns we're also running campaigns
[00:12:41] with their managers to actually create what we call a virtuous cycle or virtuous experience so that
[00:12:46] as a new hire if you're being nudged to create connection and to reach out to ask your manager
[00:12:51] who you should connect with them the organization or within your team maybe the day before we're
[00:12:55] going to write we're going to be campaign will send a message to your manager asking them
[00:13:01] who's really important to your been really important to your career at the organization who do
[00:13:05] you think would be great to introduce to others so that when that employee asks they have a good
[00:13:10] experience right continuing to build those experiential blocks they create connection between the individual
[00:13:16] and their role the individual and their team members and the individual and the organization
[00:13:19] and their contributions to it you know i love how you bring this back to the manager and
[00:13:26] I know when we first started getting into what does remote work look like um there was kind of a
[00:13:33] consensus in the organization in organizations that managers didn't have a lot of experience
[00:13:39] with having to lead such diverse teams in person remote hybrid um and that that uh took a certain
[00:13:48] set of behaviors that not everyone had and as i looked through the pro habit success stories what
[00:13:55] I loved was that you are changing manager behavior for the better leadership behavior for the better
[00:14:04] I mean i love and you know i've told you this when I first read about it you know i love the job
[00:14:09] blue story where changing leadership behaviors actually changed team performance
[00:14:17] and that team performance um had a material impact on the business because they were able to turn
[00:14:23] planes around faster at the hubs and they were able to have better customer experiences
[00:14:29] so tell me about and that's just one story i know that there are other stories um so tell me
[00:14:35] about the manager and how you impact the manager in unique ways so they impact the team in unique ways
[00:14:44] yeah absolutely and i think it goes back to uh probably same story different chapter than
[00:14:49] the sales conversation we have right supporting the sales manager i think every day everyone wakes
[00:14:55] up and tries to be the best versions of themselves the best person they can um to help achieve their
[00:14:59] goals individual as a team and for the larger groups they work they work with and we don't all
[00:15:06] succeed in that every day right there is so much going against us there's so many moving pieces
[00:15:11] and so what these campaigns can do specifically for managers is really two things i'd break it down to
[00:15:18] one is to help to to prime them to prime the mindset to to help bring to the forefront
[00:15:24] what it is to show up well that day right whether they're focused on being more empathetic whether
[00:15:29] they're focused on a very technical hard skill that they're learning and applying it just brings
[00:15:34] it to the forefront so that they have a higher chance of actually doing the right thing right and
[00:15:39] and at the end of the day succeeding on their goal as an individual um and therefore i'm a
[00:15:45] t as a part of the teams that they're on then the second thing this is where i'll nerd out for a second
[00:15:50] is um you know with managers the most um manager in general development programs there's a lot of
[00:15:58] focus on knowledge and knowledge transfer right so i as an individual have learned something i've learned
[00:16:03] a theory which is great in theory but in practice there's a very real difference between the what
[00:16:10] was said or discussed in a workshop in a presentation and what life looks and feels like in my day
[00:16:15] and so what campaigns can do is they can bring those learnings to augment supplement those
[00:16:20] programs are oftentimes to replace them and say well take empathy as an example i understand the
[00:16:27] concept of empathy that's great but you don't really stress out today and i i don't do the right
[00:16:30] thing we can actually help those managers and say well let's practice empathy hey today before
[00:16:36] your team meeting pause take 30 seconds to go around the horn just ask the team how they're doing
[00:16:41] super small step very clear call to action not a disruption for the day but that's what empathy
[00:16:46] actually looks like and so now as a manager i've experienced that and i imagine i got a
[00:16:50] prudence response from my team and so that creates a virtuous experience so now i'm more likely to do
[00:16:54] it next time and by the way my team members they've now experienced that manager do the right thing
[00:17:00] which can contribute to the build and compounding growth of the culture of your organization with
[00:17:05] creating a mentor a mentee relationship and really creating a new or an improved way of working
[00:17:11] within the organization so i mean that's one example and we can take it into infinite permutations
[00:17:18] in terms of how we can shift the manager experience so that that is this really a great story and
[00:17:23] i think that will help organizations tremendously as they build leadership and manager capability
[00:17:30] so um one of the things i heard you say and i just want to briefly touch on this and
[00:17:36] and then wrap up is i think you had told me something to the effect uh the prohabit is the only
[00:17:42] platform that uses campaigns is is that correct it is yeah you absolutely did yeah i mean we are
[00:17:52] very excited about where we're where we're going and really where the field's going in terms of
[00:17:58] shifting the paradigm of how organizations engage with it supports and connect to their employees
[00:18:05] and create connection not just from your organization to the employee but create space for the
[00:18:09] employee to connect back to the organization and to connect with one another and so as we built
[00:18:15] this first employee campaign platform the prohabit's employee campaign platform we're just really
[00:18:20] excited about the opportunity to grow in the space and i think it has so many different use cases whether
[00:18:25] it's supporting and helping employees on their performance goals and development plans as an example
[00:18:33] we're able to really connect and that's an example i think probably we're going to towards the
[00:18:38] typical people in hr space really the difference is employees deserve to be treated like customers
[00:18:45] employees are the number one drivers of the outcomes the business cares about
[00:18:51] whether it's a good customer experience whether it's something being a project be completed
[00:18:54] on time whether it's a shipping deadline being met or manufacturing deadline whatever it might be
[00:19:04] we need to stop focusing just on the input just on that well i had a communications plan that i sent
[00:19:08] it we need to actually orient and move towards well how can i connect the messages that i send so
[00:19:14] they meet employees where they are and can tie that activity i'm doing to drive towards the outcomes
[00:19:20] that matter most then use that to learn about the your people as well you'll probably be surprised by
[00:19:24] what people engage with what they don't and how you can then use that to adapt to learn it to
[00:19:29] better manage your culture and ultimately your results as a business you know Tim one of the things
[00:19:34] that i'm really excited about is that you've taken prohabits and you put it out in the market in a way
[00:19:40] where people can just try it out and can you tell us about that because i think after listening to
[00:19:46] people would be interested in saying well how does it work and how can i use it so how could they do
[00:19:51] that absolutely yeah i mean i do say before we are the world's first employee campaign platform
[00:19:58] and so with that we recognize there's an adoption curve right this is a new use and application of
[00:20:03] pre-existing technologies and so we just want to help people move along that curve as quickly as
[00:20:07] possible to solve for exactly what we're talking about how do we create connection in this disconnected
[00:20:13] workforce this error this era of disconnection in the workforce and so yeah if you can for those who
[00:20:19] would love to try it go to our website there is a how we can help section we've got a handful of
[00:20:25] topic areas there select one that is the most resident and most relevant to you and in that there's
[00:20:31] a quick forum you know first name last name email address will reach out and the cool thing is
[00:20:36] this is a low lift technology doesn't add to the tech stack so everything we do we can get you off
[00:20:42] for running in less than an hour you can have you running a campaign so we are happy is amazing
[00:20:48] that's really fabulous unfortunately we are out of time for today i want to thank Tim Bristol
[00:20:55] for joining us on hr tech top and if you want to learn more about pro habits please visit prohabits.com
[00:21:02] and i hope you want to learn more about 360 insight where we post information that can help you build
[00:21:09] your hcm capability again i'm Pamela stroko this is hr tech talk and thank you for joining us
[00:21:18] thanks Pamela thanks everyone for watching
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