[00:00:11] Hi everybody, this is Bob Goodwin and welcome to another episode of Career Club Live. We're so glad that you could take a few minutes out of your day to join us. I am really excited about today's guest. This has actually been a few months in the making, so I know it's going to be worth the wait for me and I hope you guys are very excited about what we discussed today. Our guest today is the Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for AFLAC, Jeri Hawthorne. And with that, Jeri, welcome.
[00:00:39] Jeri Hawthorne Thank you so much, Bob. It's great to be here.
[00:00:41] No, it's so nice to have you. I love your background. That is so cool.
[00:00:45] Jeri Hawthorne That is our Headquarters building and the community where we're located here in Columbus, Georgia.
[00:00:50] Awesome. How far is Columbus from Atlanta?
[00:00:53] Jeri Hawthorne It's about 90 minutes south of Atlanta.
[00:00:56] Got it. Okay. Well, this is going to lead us into our first icebreaker question, which is where were you born and raised? Are you from the Georgia area?
[00:01:03] Jeri Hawthorne I am not. I'm actually from Ohio originally. So I was born in southeast Ohio and grew up, spent my formative years there.
[00:01:12] Jeri Hawthorne Okay. So this is why we ask icebreaker questions. I live in Cincinnati. Where'd you grow up?
[00:01:17] Jeri Hawthorne My niece goes to University of Cincinnati.
[00:01:20] Jeri Hawthorne There you go. Where did you grow up in southeast?
[00:01:23] Jeri Hawthorne I grew up in southeast Ohio about 45 minutes from Pittsburgh. It was very rural, small community.
[00:01:28] Jeri Hawthorne There's a lot of that going on in Ohio.
[00:01:31] Jeri Hawthorne Yes. A little, think, you know, mining towns, think a little hillbilly elegy kind of communities. That's where I grew up.
[00:01:40] Jeri Hawthorne There you go. Well, it's funny that my brother was telling me one day, it's like,
[00:01:44] you could go to Mount Everest and you're going to find somebody who's from Ohio.
[00:01:47] Jeri Hawthorne Yes.
[00:01:49] Jeri Hawthorne Yes.
[00:01:49] Jeri Hawthorne It's amazing.
[00:01:50] Jeri Hawthorne I was talking with this one gentleman who was doing some consulting work with us and he ended up, he was like,
[00:01:57] Jeri Hawthorne And I was like, you know, peeling the layer back and this little town. He was like, I know that time and then this little town.
[00:02:02] Jeri Hawthorne And layer further, layer further. And he was like, my grandparents are from there.
[00:02:06] Jeri Hawthorne It is really funny. You're right.
[00:02:10] Jeri Hawthorne So all roads seem to lead through Ohio. But somehow it sounds like you left Ohio. So maybe that's a good
[00:02:15] Jeri Hawthorne Opportunity to segue into where did you go to school? What's your college background?
[00:02:19] Jeri Hawthorne So I actually went to undergraduate in West Virginia at a small college called Willing
[00:02:24] Jesuit University. And then I went to graduate school in England. I went to the University of Bath,
[00:02:30] which is in Southwest England, about an hour and 45 minutes, Southwest of London.
[00:02:36] Jeri Hawthorne Ooh, that is a beautiful area. That's like Doc Martin territory, isn't it?
[00:02:40] Jeri Hawthorne Beautiful there. Yeah, it was a little bit like going back in time. I mean, just
[00:02:44] almost like a fairy tale town. So beautiful.
[00:02:46] Jeri Hawthorne How the heck did you end up over there?
[00:02:48] Jeri Hawthorne So I knew I wanted to go abroad. I had not gone before.
[00:02:52] I knew I didn't want to take GREs because I wasn't good at standardized testing. And so I did research.
[00:02:58] This was all pre-internet. So it was micro-patient libraries and things like that.
[00:03:02] And ended up finding a graduate program in European policy that I was very interested in and
[00:03:08] applied and got in.
[00:03:09] Jeri Hawthorne Well, I'm a southerner. So I went to Tennessee. And so like
[00:03:13] Jeri Hawthorne It would have been like,
[00:03:15] Alabama or Florida. So good for you for finding your way to England.
[00:03:19] Jeri Hawthorne Yeah, it was wonderful.
[00:03:20] Yeah. So it's been a good run.
[00:03:22] Jeri Hawthorne Good. And then just a little bit about your family.
[00:03:27] Jeri Hawthorne Yep. Married, two kids.
[00:03:29] Jeri Hawthorne My daughter's actually at Georgia. So I think Georgia's playing Tennessee in football
[00:03:32] coming up, which...
[00:03:33] Jeri Hawthorne That's true.
[00:03:34] Jeri Hawthorne Go Dawgs. We hope they win.
[00:03:36] Jeri Hawthorne That's where my money goes,
[00:03:37] the University of Georgia. And then I have a son who just graduated from Virginia Tech.
[00:03:42] Jeri Hawthorne He's studying for the LSATs right now. He lives in Baltimore. And my husband lives
[00:03:47] here with me in Georgia. He's semi-retired. He's worked in investment banking most of his career.
[00:03:52] Jeri Hawthorne Oh, that's very cool. Well, as someone who's put four kids through college,
[00:03:56] you know, I know that it's nice to get that in the rearview mirror and move on with your life.
[00:04:01] Jeri Hawthorne Yes, we're getting close. We got one more year.
[00:04:03] Jeri Hawthorne There you go.
[00:04:04] Jeri Hawthorne Awesome. Well, I wish you well. So do you mind just painting a little bit of a picture of
[00:04:08] your career arc for folks? Obviously, you're at a really, you know, prestigious job. How did you
[00:04:13] find your way to that?
[00:04:15] Jeri Hawthorne So not very directly in full transparency, meaning that, you know, I didn't
[00:04:19] have a grand plan when I started my career. I started just finding a job and it was in training and
[00:04:26] development and cross-cultural training and development at the time, working with expats and
[00:04:32] companies that were sending expats abroad. So I parlayed that and kind of moved into international HR.
[00:04:38] Jeri Hawthorne So contract management, relocations, things like that.
[00:04:42] Jeri Hawthorne In the middle of all of that, my husband actually got expatriated to Denmark. And
[00:04:47] so I kind of took what I had been doing professionally and we became, you know, sort of guinea pigs of that.
[00:04:53] Jeri Hawthorne But I was fortunate that I found a job in Denmark, which was just,
[00:04:57] it was luck. I mean, I did a lot of networking, but it wasn't, it was just, I met an HR person at
[00:05:03] Nova Nordisk and they needed somebody in their international HR group. And so I joined them
[00:05:09] and I worked there for about four years and then we came back, we were repatriated back and I took a
[00:05:14] little bit of a break and then continued in international HR. And then I moved into being a
[00:05:19] business partner with a financial institution. I lived in Baltimore and so financial institution there,
[00:05:26] did that for a few years and then moved into talent management and leadership development.
[00:05:31] Worked in financial services, energy, business partner, talent management, leadership development.
[00:05:37] So kind of came full, full all the way around to that. I joined AFLAC in 2019, leading HR business
[00:05:43] partners for our corporate HR organization. And then as things went on, my scope got expanded to
[00:05:52] include our employee experience team, to include our learning and development team. I became head of HR
[00:05:57] for the US along with the corporate responsibilities. And then my scope was expanded for leading all of HR
[00:06:03] about a year and a half ago. Well, congratulations. Just super quick, you know, at Career Club, we work
[00:06:10] with people, you know, doing career management, as sort of the name would imply. And I love sort of that,
[00:06:17] you know, non-linear, you know, and I mean, because sometimes I think people have this expectation that
[00:06:24] there's always this master plan and that like, you know, we're just following the map and, you know, A to B to C to D.
[00:06:30] And it's not like that. And being open to trying different things and I don't know, let's go to Denmark and see what happens.
[00:06:38] You know?
[00:06:38] That's it. The other thing is that, you know, like you skim over it when you have these sorts of conversations, but it's like,
[00:06:44] I did all these things. But by the way, there were sort of failures throughout those things too. Do you know what I mean?
[00:06:49] So it's like, I skim over, here's all the great stuff. And it's been, you know, but it has not been
[00:06:54] a journey without its bumps and bruises at the same time. And so you're absolutely right. It's, it's, I think it's,
[00:07:01] I always tell folks go sideways first. It's always better to go sideways before you go up. And I think it's good to try things.
[00:07:08] I also think it's better to try things earlier in people's career because I think, you know, once you
[00:07:14] start making a certain amount of money, most of us work because we want to make money. So once you get
[00:07:18] over a certain level and a certain threshold, you almost become too specialized to go broad because
[00:07:23] it's hard to go back down. And so I always tell folks to go sideways and I, you know, and I'm a
[00:07:28] big believer. It's okay to fail. I've done it multiple times. And if you're, you know, the key is you got
[00:07:34] to kind of pick yourself back up and keep going.
[00:07:36] Well, we're going to talk about that in a little bit when we talk about resilience and things like
[00:07:40] that. But, you know, just to pick up on your point for a second, you know, particularly for people
[00:07:46] earlier in their career, it's almost like what sport are you going to play? What
[00:07:50] instrument are you going to play in bands? Like you have to try stuff, right? And, you know,
[00:07:55] there's a lot of potentially good yes answers. We just want to, at minimum, it's kind of a test for
[00:08:01] negatives. Like, I know I don't like that. That's it. Yes. Yeah. I have a son, my son,
[00:08:07] he's studying for the LSATs. He's interning at a law firm. And he said to me, what if I don't like
[00:08:12] it? And I said, that's good. Then we've ruled it out. Like decide that before you apply to law school.
[00:08:18] So I totally agree with you. I think a lot of it is just sort of ruling things out for what you
[00:08:23] dislike when you're earlier in your career. But being open to experimentation, I think is so,
[00:08:29] so important because you don't know what you don't know, because you don't know what it all
[00:08:32] is on the buffet table. Right? And so experimentation, I love what you're saying,
[00:08:37] kind of move sideways before you move up. It's really good advice. Last little icebreaker
[00:08:41] question. What do we find Sherry doing when she's not at work? Well, she works most of the time.
[00:08:50] It's a busy job. It's a busy organization and I love everything about it. But when I'm not working,
[00:08:55] my husband and I like to travel quite a bit. We have a dog, which has replaced my children. I don't
[00:09:02] know what I think about that, but it's happened nonetheless. And go see our kids, of course.
[00:09:08] And then we like to, I'm a big cook. I love to cook. So cooking and I do yoga and Peloton just to kind of
[00:09:16] keep my sanity in the middle of everything. So I don't let the grass grow. I'll say that.
[00:09:22] It doesn't sound like it. Do you marry your traveling with your love of cooking?
[00:09:26] Do you pick? We do. We try to go places, yes, where we're taking cooking classes and or
[00:09:31] places where we know we want to eat the food. So yeah, that's a big part of it.
[00:09:36] Okay. So I have to ask in the way I promise we'll move on to the real part of this.
[00:09:42] Either favorite place that you've been because you love the food or where you're really hoping
[00:09:53] to go to the food or where you're going to go. And I love France. I love, I love France. I love
[00:09:57] duck coffee. I love mussels. I love France is my favorite by far. And I had the opportunity through
[00:10:04] Aflac because we have an operation in Japan and I had the opportunity to go to Tokyo earlier this year.
[00:10:12] And that was from a culinary and just cultural perspective, one of my favorite things I've done.
[00:10:17] And it sort of really opened up my desire to go to other places in Asia. I would really like to do
[00:10:23] that from both the travel and culinary perspective.
[00:10:25] You have an explorer's personality. I can already tell.
[00:10:28] So I do. I totally do.
[00:10:30] Yeah. So, so I found you through an interview that you gave, I think in Fortune or a daily
[00:10:37] newsletter, like CHR Daily, and you were talking about burnout and that's a topic that really
[00:10:45] resonates with me. And, you know, I guess I just sort of like to start off, what's sort of your
[00:10:51] observation with the level of stress, burnout, you know, that you guys see? What do you think's
[00:10:57] behind all this? Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, anecdotally, I'm seeing what the trends are saying.
[00:11:06] Stress and burnout are high. Mental wellness is a big issue. It's an issue with our employees. I think
[00:11:13] it's an issue with many, many folks. And when I think about the drivers of that, I think there are
[00:11:19] many, you know, it's things as simple as, you know, we're surrounded by a little bit of a media blitz all
[00:11:27] the time with some negative bent, like regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, there's
[00:11:32] negativity coming from the election. There are wars that are just bombarding us on television.
[00:11:38] You know, inflation is, it's finally stabilizing, but it's been on the rise for so many years.
[00:11:44] So every, it's kind of this, it's a little bit of a perfect storm. And I honestly think that,
[00:11:49] and maybe it's my own bias, but I think that many people, myself as an example, thought that once
[00:12:00] we got through the pandemic, it would just be okay. Like it would just be, you would get through it and
[00:12:06] things would just restabilize and back everything would go. And that hasn't happened. I mean,
[00:12:12] there's still lagging effects of that. And then you combine those with all of the things I've just
[00:12:18] described. And, you know, in particular, you know, Applac is a, it's a health insurance,
[00:12:22] supplemental health insurance company. So we focus on health insurance costs. That's something that
[00:12:27] we talk about all the time. And financial fragility is a real thing. You know, we have a workforces report
[00:12:33] that we do every year. I think we're on like year 14 or 15. And one of the things that we found is,
[00:12:38] is over 60% of people, they can't pay a thousand dollar out of pocket medical expense. Right? So,
[00:12:45] you know, couple that with they're having to make a decision between, do I pay this bill?
[00:12:49] Do I pay for this for my children at school or whatever it is, and all the things I've just
[00:12:54] described. And I almost think it's a, there's not enough reprieve for people to even be able to
[00:13:01] regroup. I think it's just almost bombardment for many, many people of pressures from a variety of
[00:13:08] different directions. Yeah. I feel like I'm going to pile on for a minute, but what you say
[00:13:12] so resonates with me. There's all the externalities that you were describing, right? Then there's
[00:13:18] stress at work just because, you know, work is not called play. It's called work and deadlines and
[00:13:25] budgets and goals and everything that just makes work work. And then there's my real life,
[00:13:33] right? I've got my aging parents. I've got my kid who's off the rails. I've got my marriage. I've
[00:13:39] got, you mentioned my finances. I've got my health issues. Like, so when we talk about bringing your
[00:13:45] whole self to work, well, that's a lot of whole self to bring to work. It is. And I do think,
[00:13:53] you know, I have kids, I talked about, you know, kind of college age and right out of college. I do
[00:13:57] think social media in particular for younger folks plays a much, a very big part in kind of helping
[00:14:05] with that anxiety creation and or those externalities because I think that it creates this in many,
[00:14:12] many instances, this sort of false reality of what looks to be beautiful and perfection. And you know
[00:14:20] what I mean? And so, and that's what a lot of these kids are comparing or young people, excuse me,
[00:14:24] are comparing themselves to. And so I think that that creates an unusual level of stress because
[00:14:32] it's this never being able to kind of keep up with the perceived reality. And it's not real. It's,
[00:14:38] it's perceived. No, no, we live in a Photoshop world and it all looks amazing until you kind of figure out
[00:14:46] it's not amazing. And, but somehow people are like, well, what's wrong with me? And, or I've got to try
[00:14:53] and project that same level of awesomeness. That's right. Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah. And it's,
[00:15:00] it's, it's exhausting for people, right? Yeah. So, so maybe this is kind of an off the cuff question, but
[00:15:08] how would you define burnout? Oh, that is an off the cuff question. So honestly, I, when I think about
[00:15:15] burnout, um, you know, I think there's, you know, being tired. I think there is being overwhelmed. When I
[00:15:20] think about burnout, I actually think about it as almost a sustained emotional and physical fatigue
[00:15:28] and, and a, um, a lack of desire to try to lift out of that. Right. It's almost like you've lost
[00:15:38] your luster to say, you know, let me work through this. So, so, you know, it's this, and this is just
[00:15:44] my opinion. I don't, I don't have research on this, but I, when I think about it, it's that the,
[00:15:49] you know, I've been tired. I've been worn out. I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel.
[00:15:54] I'm just kind of moving through this with, um, either going through the motions or very little
[00:16:00] energy because I don't have the physical, emotional, or mental fortitude to try to pick myself up
[00:16:08] to move forward. That's kind of how I think I would describe it. No, I think that's right. And
[00:16:13] one of the points I appreciate that you just made, which is it is more than just a physical
[00:16:19] tiredness. It is emotional. It's mental slash psychological exhaustion. Right. And I'm just
[00:16:28] tired and I've sort of beyond my capacity to take on more stress.
[00:16:34] That's it. It's almost an exacerbation. So I'm just sort of, you know, kind of the,
[00:16:39] you know, just drop your hands and just kind of drop what's in your hands and walk away feeling.
[00:16:44] Yeah. So one of the things as I've done some research for this, I'm loving this by the way,
[00:16:48] was this, you know, whole person mentality that y'all have. Could you explain that to listeners
[00:16:54] and what you guys mean by that? Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's one of those things that sounds really,
[00:17:00] really good on paper and we try very hard to actually do this in action. So when we think
[00:17:07] about caring for the whole employee, what we've kind of framed it as there are five pillars of
[00:17:11] wellness. And so we think about there's physical wellness, there's mental wellness, emotional
[00:17:16] wellness, social wellness, and financial wellness. And so we, we thought about it through the lens of
[00:17:25] if we are offering perks and benefits. And again, because we're a benefits company,
[00:17:30] we offer very robust benefits. Like that's, you know, we should be best in class with, with this
[00:17:36] for our employees, because we, we operate in this industry. So it's something that's very,
[00:17:41] very important to us. And so as we thought about it, so things like mental wellness, well,
[00:17:45] that could be, you know, we have a career success center. So if you want help writing a resume to do
[00:17:51] a job search internally, if you need someone to proctor, you know, proctor a test for a professional
[00:17:58] certification that you're taking, if you want help preparing for an interview or job shadowing,
[00:18:04] you know, that's kind of that mental wellness, that career preparedness, online training,
[00:18:09] in-class training. That's, that's the mental, it's scholarships. We offer scholarships for our
[00:18:13] employees, tuition reimbursement, those sorts of things, that development, but those ways to kind
[00:18:18] of grow and stretch your mind, you know, and then from an emotional perspective, that's everything
[00:18:23] from your traditional EAP, you know, the, the 1-800 EAP, but it's also, we have corporate chaplains
[00:18:30] of America that we have a partnership with. They come on site once a quarter, you know, we're a southern
[00:18:36] company, we're Columbus, Georgia, we were founded in the south, right? So we are, you know, we have a lot
[00:18:41] of employees who would rather talk with a chaplain than they would rather pick up a phone and call EAP.
[00:18:47] So we have, we have our corporate chaplains. We bring service dogs on site once a quarter,
[00:18:54] where employees can sign up and come, we're piloting that, where they can come and like spend 15 minutes
[00:18:59] with the dogs and, you know, get a little bit of a mental break to, to hopefully, you know, reestablish
[00:19:05] some emotional wellness. You know, we have emotional, we have online, online emotional support. So,
[00:19:14] you know, Gen Z, they may not want to call a counselor, they may want to text somebody at night,
[00:19:19] and that's fine. So we've tried to think about it through the lens of these five kind of pillars,
[00:19:26] but we also try to think about within each of those pillars, we have different kinds of populations. And
[00:19:31] so we have a, we have an emotional support group or counseling service for LGBTQIA. So that's a small
[00:19:38] percentage of our overall population, but we want to make sure those folks know that that's there.
[00:19:43] And we want to make sure that they're at, they're able to find it and access it if they need it. So
[00:19:47] we have kind of the broad buckets, but then it's the targeted within each of those categories,
[00:19:53] thinking about the different populations of Aflac. So, you know, we have physical wellness,
[00:19:58] we have onsite fitness centers. If you're in Columbus, if you're not here,
[00:20:01] we're in our Columbia, South Carolina office. We have a partnership with Well Hub, which used to
[00:20:06] be gym pass. So you can go to gyms either at a discount or for free where you are. We have
[00:20:13] fitness challenges, which we, our leaders love, they participate in and kind of have a little trash
[00:20:18] talk with one another and get our employees engaged in, you know, weight loss and or, you know,
[00:20:24] just improving their physical wellness overall. Financial wellness, we do everything from,
[00:20:30] you know, we bring in our 401k partner to give financial advice. You know, if it's
[00:20:34] an educational program for first time home buyers, for single parents, for new parents,
[00:20:40] for adoption, people who are adopting a child. So it's not just the financial education, it's the,
[00:20:47] what are the buckets within that, that will hit a certain target population. And again,
[00:20:52] you may only get 30 people at one of those, you know, that may attend, but those 30 people,
[00:20:59] it's very specific to what they need, given where they are in their life. And, and specifically what
[00:21:06] they want to do next within their life and or their career. So we do that across each of those kind of
[00:21:12] broad categories. And like I say, it's one of those that I think we do, we do really, really,
[00:21:17] you know, we describe it really, really well. I think we are stellar in most of it, but it's,
[00:21:23] we're always working to improve. And so a great example is we offer all the things that I talked
[00:21:29] about and I didn't even go into all of them, but it's how do I make sure that my employees know?
[00:21:34] How do I make sure that they find this, that, you know, that Marathon Health. So if you live in
[00:21:41] Columbus, we have on-site clinics here in our Columbia, South Carolina location. So our employees
[00:21:46] can go in, they can get a flu shot, they can get blood work, they can get a physical,
[00:21:51] all of these things at no cost. I need to make sure they know about that because if they don't know
[00:21:56] about that or that we have an online version and they don't feel good at eight o'clock at night,
[00:22:01] and then they go to urgent care and they have to spend $50 out of pocket. Well, no,
[00:22:06] that's not good for anybody, right? And the urgent care person says, take two Tylenol
[00:22:11] and go see your doctor tomorrow. Well, Marathon Health could have told them that for free.
[00:22:15] So it's the what, it's the target population, and then it's the how we go about trying to package it
[00:22:23] and make it understandable and accessible for our employees to leverage when they really need it.
[00:22:30] Yeah. And it's a journey because sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don't. Because the other
[00:22:36] piece of it is we're running a business on top of this. And so, you know, we have shareholders,
[00:22:42] we have to perform as an organization. And so, you know, it's the balancing, ensuring that we're
[00:22:48] getting our employees everything they need and the support that they, we believe they need
[00:22:53] while ensuring that we're delivering business and value to our shareholders.
[00:22:58] Okay. So we're going to do live television now for sure. Okay. So that's an interesting point
[00:23:05] because, you know, how do you as a CHRO go to the board meeting, go to your boss, whatever,
[00:23:14] and make the business case that this isn't just an expense, right? Yeah.
[00:23:18] And a drain on the bottom line. And Jerry, can we take that $10 million and do something else with it?
[00:23:25] And demonstrate to them, guys, this is so in your best interest for us to be taking care of people
[00:23:31] this way. Yeah. So I will tell you, I think part of what makes my job probably easier than some other CHROs
[00:23:39] is that we have a CEO who has a philosophy that if you care for the employees, they care for the customers.
[00:23:46] Yes.
[00:23:46] He believes that he says it. So from the tip top of the house down, I have support for making sure that
[00:23:53] we are thinking about our employees as humans and making sure that they're cared for. So there's a
[00:23:59] humanity kind of built in the culture because of how he operates, because of our values. So that is,
[00:24:05] you know, kind of that is, I'm probably starting five or six steps ahead of many other CHROs in that
[00:24:13] philosophically there's buy-in to why this is important. And, you know, all HR people talk all
[00:24:18] the time, you know, higher levels of engagement, higher levels of discretionary effort. You're going
[00:24:22] to go above and beyond for customers, you know, higher end net promoter scores on, on, on, on.
[00:24:29] We boil, our CEO has just boiled it down to you do the right thing by your employees,
[00:24:32] they do the right thing. So start there. But then, you know, when I get to my CFO,
[00:24:37] I do have those conversations about the, you know, we pay more for our health insurance than most
[00:24:42] companies, our, our company does this. Why are we doing that, Jerry? You know, what, what's, you know,
[00:24:47] we need to get more in alignment with this and, you know, in short, we use data. So it's the,
[00:24:52] we look at things like, um, absentee rates. We look at things like, um, how many of our, uh, employees,
[00:25:00] like what's the percentage that has high cost claims, how many of our employees are actually
[00:25:05] using those wellness benefits and that those, that preventative care service that we're giving
[00:25:10] them for free. That's actually front ending things. So maybe we find something sooner
[00:25:15] and, or it doesn't get to that, that later phase. And so those are the kinds of pieces of data that
[00:25:21] we try to use to inform and influence the finance folks of the organization, because when they have
[00:25:28] to make those choices, it does come down to why are we spending this money on this when we really
[00:25:34] need X, Y, or Z. Yeah. And I appreciate you. I mean, our audience obviously has a lot of HR
[00:25:39] professionals on it and not all CHROs and big well-funded companies, but yeah, I do want to just sort of
[00:25:46] kind of reiterate some of the points that you were making, right? You know, engagement, uh,
[00:25:52] which leads to productivity, which leads to innovation. You've got absenteeism, you know,
[00:25:58] regrettable quits. And then I think, you know, clearly the healthcare costs, like if we double
[00:26:05] click on the stress related illnesses and then how that trickles into absenteeism and productivity and
[00:26:12] all those kinds of things, those are really, really big dollars that I think any HR professional
[00:26:18] should be, you know, equipping him or herself with that kind of data to your point, to be able to walk
[00:26:26] in head held high that yes, this is the right human being thing to do. It is way the right business
[00:26:33] thing to be doing. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And it's, it's, it's a little bit of a,
[00:26:39] of a virtuous cycle of value creation in a way. Right. So it's the, you know, it's the, the,
[00:26:44] the opposite is like the toxic work environment. And you said it higher levels of turnover,
[00:26:49] higher levels of absenteeism, you know, low engagement, low customer, like all of those
[00:26:54] things. And so it's, how do you turn the cycle kind of, and make it go in the forward direction.
[00:26:59] And it really is the, you know, if you have robust benefits and I, you know, and we have cafes as an
[00:27:04] example on site at our core locations. And originally those were put in place because our,
[00:27:10] we put our call center not near anything. And so people don't have a lot of time to get in their
[00:27:15] car and drive, but we have deliberately kept the cost of those meals lower. The people who take
[00:27:21] advantage of those are some of our lowest paid employees. They should be able to come in and get
[00:27:26] a healthy breakfast and a healthy lunch. And it doesn't break the bank as opposed to having that
[00:27:32] as another stress. And so there's a question of, should we subsidize that less? Well, maybe,
[00:27:37] but really, is it, is it, you know, is it going to be that much of an impact on the bottom line
[00:27:42] of the company? But it will be a really big impact for this person who makes $24 an hour
[00:27:48] and has three kids and is a single parent and is making those decisions about where they can spend
[00:27:54] their money. If they can actually have a healthy lunch, that's one less thing they have to worry
[00:27:59] about. So I think it's, it's knowing your population. It's, it's understanding the drivers
[00:28:06] of the business, because that's absolutely important. You have to understand that. And again,
[00:28:09] we're a supplemental health insurance. So we sell wellness policies. So we, we have campaigns
[00:28:15] pushing our employees to get preventative services and then saying, by the way, we pay you. So
[00:28:20] Aflac's, our wellness policies are designed that if you get preventative services each year,
[00:28:25] if you get a mammogram, if you get your physical, you get paid to do that. You just go, you submit
[00:28:30] the claim and we pay you. And because we're an insurance company, we give those policies to our
[00:28:35] employees. Wow. And so basically saying, if you don't do this, you're just leaving money on the
[00:28:40] table. Like, would you, would you walk by a $20 bill and not bend down and pick it up? Most of us
[00:28:46] wouldn't, but it's, it's understanding the business drivers and then thinking about the solutions for
[00:28:51] your employee population that tie with the business drivers, but also meet the needs of that population.
[00:28:57] Right. And using data, using data, you have to, you know, when you're talking to finance folks,
[00:29:01] you have to talk to them in their language period. Well, I, I don't know how to say it better than
[00:29:07] you just said it. So I'm going to move on because I, you made the case extremely well.
[00:29:11] Well, one of the things that I had read that you were talking about, Jerry, that is very near and
[00:29:16] dear to me, uh, that I'd love to hear you expand on a little bit is the notion of resilience and,
[00:29:22] and you've likened resilience, I think, to strength training before. Can you kind of expand on that for
[00:29:29] a minute? Yeah. You know, when I think about resilience, I think about psychological safety
[00:29:36] and I think about things that create psychological safety for humans. And those things are in some
[00:29:44] ways it's, it's, they feel supported, they feel heard, they feel like they have a voice and power.
[00:29:51] They feel like they can raise concerns and questions without punitive reactions. And so I think, you know,
[00:30:00] organizations and leaders, I think it's incumbent upon them to create environments where there's that
[00:30:06] psychological safety so that people can build that level of resilience. But I think building resilience
[00:30:12] to that, I think it's hard. I think it requires mental fortitude. And I talked a little bit about
[00:30:18] at the very beginning, the failures, you know, the, you know, I glossed over everything and just talked
[00:30:23] about my career and here I am, but man, there were a lot of failures. You know, there were a lot of
[00:30:28] times when it was the, Hey, I think I'm going to get fired or, you know, Hey, I just had this horrible
[00:30:33] conversation with my boss or this awful thing happened. And then that's the work things. And then there's
[00:30:39] the personal things too. And I think there, there, it's almost a resiliency and fortitude of the
[00:30:46] trying to put that in perspective relative to other things. I talked to my team here all the time. I
[00:30:54] mean, 99.9% of the things that cause stress with my team here at Aflac are not life or death. Now,
[00:31:02] unfortunately there are tiny, they're very unique times when there are, but 99% of the time over that
[00:31:09] it's not. And when you kind of try to put things in perspective for people and try to help them put
[00:31:15] it in perspective as well to say, I understand how impactful this feels in the moment, but let's try
[00:31:21] to think about this in the context of something larger and keep it in perspective of the, you know,
[00:31:28] how, what, what are the, what is, what is the downside? If this goes wrong, what are the negative
[00:31:34] implications of what's the worst thing that can happen? Let's go to the catastrophe of this. And
[00:31:40] then let's work our way backwards because usually it doesn't go to the catastrophe. So it's, I kind of
[00:31:47] think of it like, start with the catastrophe. If you, if you're feeling that and work your way backwards
[00:31:52] and you'll probably get to a place where it's the, well, the likelihood of that catastrophe is
[00:31:59] really, really low. The likelihood of one of these more reasonable outcomes is more likely. And if the
[00:32:06] worst thing that happens, especially in a work day is that somebody is frustrated with me, disappointment
[00:32:12] is probably harder, but if they're frustrated or angry with me, you know, I can work through that.
[00:32:17] We're people and we can kind of work through all of that, but it's trying to keep those things in
[00:32:21] perspective and compartmentalizing. And again, that's another one. It's easier said than done,
[00:32:26] but it's something that you have to continue to work at and to think about each day when you reflect
[00:32:32] on what you did, what you did well, or what went wrong. How do you actually put that in perspective
[00:32:36] of that kind of the grand scheme of what's important to you as a person? Wow. You're touching on so
[00:32:42] many good points. So I'd like the, I haven't heard anybody talk about this before. It's really cool.
[00:32:47] The, what's the worst that could happen? And like, okay, well, the likelihood of that happening,
[00:32:53] it's pretty remote. Okay. So we can start to de-stress almost immediately, but it also kind of
[00:33:00] takes some of the emotionality out of something and we kind of start using our brain again and like,
[00:33:07] oh, okay. All right. Yeah, you're right. I'm not going to get fired over this or,
[00:33:11] you know, nobody's going to die over this. So, okay, let's relax.
[00:33:14] That's exactly right. So then what are the, like, what are the four things, the four worst,
[00:33:19] you know, legitimate things that can happen? And then let's talk about the likelihood of those.
[00:33:23] And, you know, I mean, look, I don't, I'm not a, you know, a heart surgeon. We,
[00:33:27] ATHLEC does a lot with the Children's Cancer Center of Atlanta, or the Children's Hospital of
[00:33:31] Atlanta. We have a cancer center. I'm in a fortunate situation. I'm not forced to make those sorts of
[00:33:37] decisions, right? So it's, I almost feel as if I don't mean to minimize, you know, oh, it's easy.
[00:33:44] Just do, because I don't think everybody is in a situation where it is that easy to compartmentalize
[00:33:51] some of the things that people have to make decisions about or what those, you know, kind of
[00:33:57] worst case scenarios are. I just think for the vast majority of us, myself included, the worst case
[00:34:04] scenario probably isn't the worst case scenario that a surgeon, you know, a brain surgeon might
[00:34:12] have sort of a thing. Exactly. So, so one of the things you were talking about some failures,
[00:34:17] and I think we can all, if we're honest with ourselves say, yeah, I've got my own portfolio
[00:34:23] of failures that I don't necessarily always feel great about, but back on the, the, the muscle
[00:34:29] piece, and I'm rarely accused of an original idea, and this is an example of that, is, is I've used,
[00:34:37] I like that example, because oftentimes when people are talking about resilience, they'll,
[00:34:43] you know, visualize like a rubber ball, and you squeeze it, and that's it, you know, coming under
[00:34:48] pressure, and then the pressure is released, and the ball goes back to its original shape. It was
[00:34:54] resilient, it went, I might know that's called recovery. That's just getting back to where you
[00:34:59] were. Actually, the muscle strengthening, and again, people know this, but you know, when you're
[00:35:05] actually lifting weights, and really straining muscle, it tears the muscle, right? And then it
[00:35:10] rebuilds itself, and it needs rest. So back to physical and other kinds of things, it needs to rest,
[00:35:16] but it actually gets stronger, and so we build up what a psychologist friend of mine has taught me
[00:35:22] called anti-fragility, that actually we raise the threshold of what actually is stressful.
[00:35:29] So if I first start lifting weights, five pounds could feel like a lot, but if I do it for six
[00:35:34] months, all of a sudden five pounds doesn't feel like very much, right? Because I've gotten stronger,
[00:35:40] and that's a way of talking about anti-fragility. And so, you know, the thing with building the
[00:35:45] muscle, and this is what it sounds like you've done in your career, is those micro failures
[00:35:53] basically built muscle over time. That you figured out it wasn't catastrophic, I can get through this,
[00:36:00] I did learn something. Could you sort of build on that notion?
[00:36:04] Well, yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, where I was thinking when you were saying that is,
[00:36:08] I also think that experience builds wisdom and kind of reflectability. So meaning that,
[00:36:18] you know, if you talk to me, you know, 10 minutes after one of those failures,
[00:36:24] and I was in my 20s or 30s, my reaction would be very, very different. So there's that kind of time
[00:36:30] and distance. And so now as I look back, it feels very different. At the time, it felt like the muscle
[00:36:37] was just torn. And so that's, that's the other thing I think about with resilience.
[00:36:44] I, you know, for some of us, it takes longer, right? So some folks, there's a resiliency that
[00:36:50] can come much more quickly. I'm actually a little envious of those people, excuse me, because I just,
[00:36:56] you know, it's the ability to sort of put it in a, you know, put it in a compartmental,
[00:37:00] you know, kind of focus on it for a little while, and then move it forward. For many of us,
[00:37:04] myself included, it definitely does take a little time, and a little more experience to be able to
[00:37:10] sort of look back to say, Okay, what did I get from that? And so that's one thing I would say,
[00:37:16] you know, it's that allowing time and space, I think that's really important. And I think that's
[00:37:23] something that is a lot of folks don't do. And I think it's, you know, we're a go, go, go, go,
[00:37:30] go, go, immediate, this, that, and the other thing. And so I think having the ability to just
[00:37:35] find the time, and to give yourself that grace, so to speak, so that you can reflect back on it,
[00:37:43] I think that's really, really important. Well, you've kind of come to this twice,
[00:37:47] so I really want to underscore it. Like, at the end of the day, what are three things that went well?
[00:37:53] right so so and particularly for type a people right one of the things that makes people successful
[00:37:59] or some people successful is they're very good at seeing well what's the next gap what's the next
[00:38:04] thing that we need to go do but that always kind of keeps you in what's not done yet kind of mindset
[00:38:10] and and being able to just take a couple of minutes at the end of the day what did i do well today
[00:38:16] what went well today you actually get a dopamine hit from doing that right which is healthy but
[00:38:22] the other thing and you took the expression from me which which i'm really glad that you said this
[00:38:27] which is if something didn't go well reflecting out what did i learn yeah forgiving myself or to
[00:38:37] use your expression which is well said extending myself a little bit of grace yeah and then
[00:38:43] shutting the book on that and tomorrow's a new day but but again the way that our brains work i
[00:38:48] think some of this is you know just sort of the survival and kind of being focused on things that
[00:38:53] are threats and there's we focus on the negative and we take a minute to think about what went well
[00:38:59] good you know i didn't get everything done but i did get this done and i got that done and i feel
[00:39:04] good about that this one thing probably could have gone better what what can i learn from that okay
[00:39:10] does it make me a bad human being doesn't make me a bad employee or anything you know and then
[00:39:17] okay tomorrow's a new day well yeah and i and i think that it's you know not only this one thing
[00:39:24] didn't go well but it's you know in the grand scheme of the day was that you know how much of your
[00:39:30] day did that derail you know and or did it impact 5 000 people did it impact two you know like
[00:39:38] what's the scope and severity of that error that you know that mistake that you made because
[00:39:42] i think that has a lot to do with it too it's that you know putting it in that perspective to say
[00:39:48] yes i made this mistake but really in kind of all of this what is the impact of that mistake well and
[00:39:56] you talk about time and space which is really good so in five years am i going to remember this
[00:40:01] in five years as anybody can remember this yes that's exactly that that's exactly right all right
[00:40:07] then maybe it's not that big of a deal so um is there anything else that you would want to
[00:40:13] because resilience is just that is a life skill right because we talked at the beginning about you
[00:40:19] know externalities and work pressure and then everything that goes on in your personal life
[00:40:23] this life skill transcends all of that right that muscle has different contexts that it can be used
[00:40:31] and and i want to give you because i'm going to move on in just a second but so anything else that
[00:40:35] you wanted to to sort of add to this yeah the only thing i would say and when i think about work
[00:40:41] environments and leadership and leaders one of the things that i try to do that i'm very aware of is
[00:40:47] owning my mistakes and talking about with my team what i you know what we could have done better or
[00:40:54] maybe we overthought this or maybe i overthought this and we should have done it this way so
[00:40:59] i think that there i think it's very important and that goes to that sort of psychological safety
[00:41:05] to create environments by by being authentic about your own you know kind of failures and and you know
[00:41:14] we were laughing so i have this on this this duck pen this is my fourth duck pen because i lose them
[00:41:22] every time i get them i love i really like them but i lose them every time i get them and so
[00:41:26] you know it's become a little bit of a running joke but it's the you know it's okay for me to say
[00:41:31] you know i lost it again and and so and that's a tiny tiny example but i think it's really really
[00:41:37] important for leaders and for colleagues and peers and humans in general to basically be able to say
[00:41:44] i made a mistake and either you know it was deliberate like a deliberate mistake like there's
[00:41:49] culpability and i apologize and i own that or i just made a mistake because i'm a human being and
[00:41:54] that's what we do and here's what i learned from it and let's talk about that because i don't want
[00:41:59] that to happen again i don't want you to have to go through that so let's create an environment where
[00:42:03] we can actually have that kind of dialogue i think that's hugely hugely important for leaders hugely
[00:42:09] yeah and so the word that i think a lot of people would use is vulnerability
[00:42:13] right you said authenticity which you know is right in that same lane the other thing that's cool about
[00:42:20] that one it's cathartic just to be able to like yeah you know do that but two is it your model that's
[00:42:26] real leadership because you're modeling for other people oh yeah and then you talked about psychological
[00:42:31] safety you're you're literally creating the environment well crap if jerry could say that then i guess
[00:42:38] maybe when i make a mistake and i get some calculation wrong or do whatever it's like i'm not going to get
[00:42:44] fired jerry's not going to freak out on me or whatever you know it's like okay like it's okay to tell the
[00:42:50] truth here yeah you know and when we talk about kind of toxic work environments and things like that
[00:42:57] it's just you know when it becomes a you know you're more concerned about covering your mistakes than
[00:43:02] you are about helping customers and helping your colleagues yeah that's a really bad culture to work in
[00:43:07] it just really is okay so see this is always the issue we could keep going on this for another
[00:43:12] hour a couple other things i wanted to ask you please and then at career club we do a lot of help
[00:43:21] with people in job transition yep and you teaching people like what what are employers looking for so
[00:43:31] for you when you're interviewing somebody or you're building your team what are some of the qualities or
[00:43:38] the traits that you're trying to identify um i look for people who are curious um like that for me is is
[00:43:48] extremely important that they have almost as many questions that i have you know if i'm talking with
[00:43:54] someone that it's it's a you know i'm asking questions about their background and they're asking
[00:43:58] questions about the organization or the job or the you know whatever it is so i think that curiosity
[00:44:03] is important i also i you know it's probably based on my own experiences i think it's really important
[00:44:10] to have a breadth of experience like i when i see someone who it's you know kind of a narrow there are
[00:44:16] some jobs where you need that narrowness you don't talk about doctors but you know i'm not in that kind
[00:44:21] of a job and so i think many many jobs where you have people who again have kind of tried different
[00:44:27] things so i think that breadth of experience demonstrates curiosity i think it demonstrates
[00:44:34] resiliency i think it demonstrates a willingness to try new things so a little bit of a risk taking
[00:44:40] which i think are really important a willingness to adapt i think all of those those kind of competencies
[00:44:47] are really really important um i think that it's important to even if you know when when you have
[00:44:53] people who have gone in and out of careers i mean i had kids and went through the period where i stepped
[00:44:58] out of my career and then kind of had to try to get back into it and so i think it's important to to
[00:45:04] it's okay like that's okay if you didn't work for five years or you didn't work for seven years
[00:45:09] most people didn't sit on the t on the couch and watch tv for those five or seven years they probably
[00:45:15] managed a household budget or they managed you know the little league team's finances or organized
[00:45:22] this for the kids school or took care of an elderly parent and had to manage all of the things that go
[00:45:28] with that so i think it's important for people who are kind of in those transitions from one phase to
[00:45:34] another or have been out and going back to highlight the things they actually did things like you know most
[00:45:39] people do things so so it's a combination of things but it's really i think about curiosity
[00:45:45] and demonstrating that kind of adaptability and interest in trying different things yeah no i really
[00:45:52] appreciate that and um if if i had to do an analysis of the number one answer it's it's either you know
[00:46:02] naturally curious you know learning aptitude because the world is just changing so quickly
[00:46:09] right and it's not like i graduated and i got my degree and whatever and that's going to last me for
[00:46:15] 40 years it's not going to last me for four years nope right things keep changing okay last last question
[00:46:23] okay with the benefit of hindsight yep what advice would you give to 25 year old jerry
[00:46:32] that's a good question um i would say one it's okay to fail like you know because i went through
[00:46:39] some you know it was really hard the resiliency that i talk about you know those scars have healed but it
[00:46:45] was it was some healing uh so it took a little while so i think that that is one um and you know when i
[00:46:53] was younger and something like that would happen i would i would you know that would be the catalyst
[00:46:57] to move so something that happens it's time to go it's time to move and so i would say you know work
[00:47:03] your way through it don't run from it like it's okay you know it's okay to be embarrassed it's okay
[00:47:09] to make a mistake it's okay to have a bad day at work and get up and go back to work and or have made
[00:47:15] a fool of yourself and kind of keep it going that's okay yeah that last thing that you said resonates i
[00:47:21] probably physically reacted but the you know not running from something you know and not leaving a job
[00:47:29] because you're running to the next thing you're sort of running from this thing and huge and then back
[00:47:37] to your point you know what it's going to sort itself out you know now if you're in a toxic environment
[00:47:44] like that's different that's different yeah okay any other parting advice you'd want to leave this has
[00:47:50] been awesome i've really enjoyed this oh i've really enjoyed this too i mean i guess i would just say you know
[00:47:55] i think being authentic is is is huge kind of i think you know paying attention to what's happening
[00:48:02] around you um slowing down i um have a hard time doing that but i have surrounded myself you know
[00:48:10] that is one of the things i've learned as i've gone up in my career i've surrounded myself with people
[00:48:14] who keep me honest and who who remind me of you know it's so-and-so's birthday you know this is
[00:48:22] happening don't forget like it's it's when you're running hard and fast and it's easy to kind of
[00:48:29] stop or to forget to stop and pay attention to those things it's not by design it's just simply
[00:48:35] the pace at which you're going and kind of your mind can absorb so much at one time so i think
[00:48:40] it's important i would say surround yourself with those people who are willing to call you out and to
[00:48:45] point things out and to remind you of the need to be human if you're if you're losing that humanness
[00:48:51] because i think in these jobs even though i deal with human resources it's still you know a high
[00:48:58] pressure job and so i think it can be easy to lose that when you're moving a million miles an hour
[00:49:04] absolutely all right well we we need to pause right now or else i'm going to keep going so uh jerry thank
[00:49:11] you so much this has been amazing um and for listeners you know thank you so much for taking a few
[00:49:17] minutes out of your day uh i hope that you got a lot of today's episode uh we would encourage you
[00:49:22] to check out career.club if you have any interest or need in executive coaching including resilience
[00:49:28] training and so with that jerry i'll say thank you one more time thank you thank you so much it was a
[00:49:33] great i had a great time though likewise i know you're gonna find it you've got all just keep
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