The Workplace Wellness Conundrum with Special Guest Kaz Maurice-O’Leary

[00:00:00] Welcome everyone to another episode of HR amp. Payroll 2.0. I'm Pete Tilliakas and as always I'm joined by the very busy and the very legendary Julie Fernandez. How are you Julie?

[00:00:18] Hey Pete, doing good. It's spring has sprung and so it's exciting to actually get a little bit of sun rays here and there. Yeah. And it's almost lunchtime and I know that will come into our guest introduction in some way shape or form.

[00:00:33] Yeah, yeah. How you been though? You doing alright? I know you've been busy. You've been heads down with demos and all kinds of use cases, I think, right?

[00:00:39] Absolutely, yeah. Clients are busy, busy looking and evaluating and I know we'll do a news episode soon because there is just so much going on in the market.

[00:00:47] Yes, we are. That's another thing we have to figure out after this and so yeah I'm excited. But today we have a guest and I'm really, really excited to talk about the subject.

[00:00:55] Today we have Kaz Maurice O'Leary, the founder and chief well-being officer at the Balinese philosophy. She and I got introduced in Long Beach, California at the rethink HR tech conference.

[00:01:05] We started talking about wellness and I was like you gotta come on our show, Kaz. I think there's a lot we could share. So welcome. Really excited to have you.

[00:01:13] Lovely to be here. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. So look we ask every guest who comes on the show how in the world did you land in the world of HR and what on earth keeps you here?

[00:01:23] So I'd love to start there.

[00:01:25] There's a part of me that also believes that no matter what kind of team role you're in, there's an element of HR that we're thrown into right from a way of environment or people dynamics or welfare.

[00:01:37] But I was first fully thrown into it when I started my own agency in my early 30s. So anyone who's run a small business, you're doing all the roles and HR was one of those that was thrown upon myself and my co-founder.

[00:01:52] So in my early 30s, a deep dive and a quick learning cliff on that one as well. And then from there being a wellness speaker in the space around people experiences and burnout prevention automatically lands me into the HR realm.

[00:02:09] And I stay here because it's people and what is more important than the wellness of the people around us that we work with every single day. It's our human experience.

[00:02:21] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Go ahead, Julie.

[00:02:24] No, is that amen?

[00:02:25] Yeah.

[00:02:26] Those are people.

[00:02:27] It is right. We can't transform without the people and I hope that we're not losing sight of that in the AI sort of rush here and I love that that felt like a lot of the theme coming across in many of the speakers at everything HR tech was don't forget the humanity and all this.

[00:02:43] So I really love that part of it. That's great.

[00:02:45] So look, I got to know tell me a little bit about your passion for wellness in the workplace and what you're on a mission to do and tell me about the Balak Nee's philosophy like where did you come up with that? That name.

[00:02:56] How did that come about and maybe we even need to talk about what the difference between spaghetti sauce and Balak Nee's it because I always mess it up.

[00:03:03] All the foodies.

[00:03:04] Yeah, exactly.

[00:03:06] How did you get into this?

[00:03:08] I'll start all as you know, all about people and I my mission is to not separate the health and 360 view of a human being and their ability to create and contribute and innovate.

[00:03:22] Those things for me are all connected and somewhere along the line. I know we'll talk about this a bit today.

[00:03:27] We've kind of wobbled in that world. We've lost it some some somewhere we get our burnout is the highest it's ever been so the things that we're doing aren't working and we really need to look at how we can create better environments and look after each other.

[00:03:41] The Balak Nee's philosophy is a way of coming into truly ask some big questions.

[00:03:48] It is inspired by the fact I almost unknowingly missed the last meal of a Balak Nee's with my husband before losing him in an accident the following day.

[00:04:01] So sorry.

[00:04:02] Thank you. And that meal was his home cooked Balak Nee's he made the best Balak Nee's and I go back over that day in that moment and everything that happened over and over again and if I had have missed that meal.

[00:04:17] Like I was 20 minutes late getting home but if I had have missed that meal with him.

[00:04:23] I really believe that the grief would have been it's just so much more process and I just don't want anyone else to go through that or to miss that meal that is just so important that human connection with the people that hold us up in our lives.

[00:04:39] I love it. I love it you turn, you know, positive something negative into a positive and yeah you're right.

[00:04:44] We I think it's those little things that we take for granted and they add up right. I mean as an employee and as as human beings add up on us so I love what you're doing.

[00:04:52] It's a message that just completely resonates. Yeah, especially when you link it to the idea of, you know, being a workaholic or placing a huge priority on your work life which is something that at least several of the generations in the workforce right now have have been conditioned to do right.

[00:05:10] Yeah, and on that Julie I ask you there's two questions I asked and I'd love your responses on these as well.

[00:05:18] It seems to just cut through everything to get to the heart of the culture in the way that we're working as individuals and they are one.

[00:05:24] Are we getting each other home on time or just to the dinner table on time. Are we doing that question mark and if not let's break down where that's going wrong and the other one is is the way that we are working now the way that we would like our children to be working when they get to this day.

[00:05:40] Yeah, no. You know that that to me, because like a two edge sword because when you think about it applied to your children you might answer well of course not you know I'd like them to have a better work life balance than you know maybe I think I have but then when you apply it to your your workforce and your teams, you know, it's so easy to hear, you know, generational comments made about the

[00:06:07] degree of commitment and so you really it's important to flip it to that personal lens, I think. And, you know, it sounds like that's just what you're all about.

[00:06:16] Yeah, yeah, and I love when I kind of go in and talk and ask that one question like are we getting each other home on time because you to point that the human aspect of that in a working environment makes us all just breathe a little bit makes us all look at each other as human beings again if we may have been going through a really stressful time at work

[00:06:36] and I just see everyone take a big breath of like, oh that's right we're human beings. And we're working together. And you've got this life and I've got this life and we're spending nearly all about existing waking hours together from Monday to Friday.

[00:06:51] Okay, let's let's look after each other. Let's just get to the basics.

[00:06:56] Yeah, yeah I mean we don't we have I think I think and I think some of this is an American thing too right I mean I'm sure country by country it's different right but there's a certain amount of societal norms I think in the past that were, you know, you came to work

[00:07:12] hard you did the job until the job was done and you're just sort of a number in a lot of ways and hopefully that's changing with some of the generational shifts and the attitudes towards work but I mean how how do employers deal with all this I think sometimes about it

[00:07:27] you know there's so many little issues financial wellness mental wellness right we've got. I mean God forbid we have people having to start to help their employees go across borders to fund you know trips for abortions which is insane right we have burnout we

[00:07:42] have you know we have mothers who can't get childcare in order to get to work. We have I mean it just goes on and on, and I do think that there are some employers that think this is just some sort of fat or trend like wellness right but I keep trying to explain I think it's a conundrum that is literally at your doorstep and you're almost going to have to

[00:08:00] solve it as an employer today. But like what do you like what's the reality, Kaz I mean like what is what's going on and what what do employers need to do, or no.

[00:08:11] There's there's so much to unpack with this one I know right yeah where do we begin. I think the first thing is just to all get on the same page and to not let wellness sit in a separate bucket and a silo that is a nice to have a retreat.

[00:08:26] And I feel like the word wellness gets that fluffy packaging sometimes but if we start using things like welfare and health you know mental health is health and understanding that if people are showing up under our leadership and under our structure Monday to Friday nearly all the

[00:08:44] daylight hours that we have we are you know for majority of people we are under an obligation of care to make sure the environment we are providing is psychologically safe and a healthy place to be.

[00:08:57] Yeah, yeah, and they're bringing that stuff to work right.

[00:08:59] Yeah, and if we can. There's so much going on and to your point there are so many way there are so many forms of burnout. There is burnout through to work there is burnout from being a caregiver there is been out from being a parent looking after an elderly and an elderly parent looking after

[00:09:15] small children. There's so much that goes on and other human beings but if we just come together with as a workforce and look at how can we relieve some of that pressure and create a really healthy environment so that people aren't burning out they can just be brilliant in the space that we bring them to every day.

[00:09:33] Yeah, and when you when you understand that when you rest people and you have good leadership with timelines that are really thought through that are going to rest and sprint and create all the brilliant innovation that we want.

[00:09:48] You're going to get amazing results you're going to see it come and it does come back to the data if you look at a company and you can see how high their staff turnover turnover is increased in sick days.

[00:10:01] High achievers not making those promotional levels anymore. That's where we need to start unpacking where things going wrong like what's happening here like understanding our processes and procedures to make sure we create the best environment for teams to truly thrive.

[00:10:17] Yeah, agreed. I mean do you think I mean do you think employers.

[00:10:21] Like I've had conversations with employers that say look, or I've seen survey data where I've been working on wellness sort of questions and you know you get this sort of response of like well look I give them benefits and I give them pay they need to manage their life better.

[00:10:34] And like what do you say to that like how do you how do you convince an organization that they need to think differently about the way they care for their people and do they really have a responsibility I mean there's some that say it's not my responsibility right I do what I do and that should be enough.

[00:10:47] But is it I mean how do you how do you how do you argue that I guess.

[00:10:52] Benefits and pay are not enough anymore. Yeah, it's just not and you are creating like again the entire human experience of our teams and our staff is happening at work.

[00:11:05] And it's more than just this one way hey I'm paying you and I'm also giving you these benefits. The benefits is a whole conversation that some because a lot of something great and we and people are very thankful for them but they are band aids to what's truly happening.

[00:11:23] Yeah.

[00:11:24] You know there and I went to transform this year in Vegas and it was amazing because I've seen this uprising and how many more specialist wellness work benefits and technology are coming in it's a real rising up that's coming is giving me a really good optimistic view of we were heading with workplace culture.

[00:11:45] But back to back to your original question which is is it a responsibility. I understand what they're saying as individuals has grown adults we are in charge of our own way of well being 100%.

[00:11:58] But if people are spending a majority of their time living and under our leadership and our work structure and the conditions that we are putting upon them to complete work and answering miles and fun calls and 10 meetings a day while still wanting them to meet their KPIs and that is our responsibility because we have created that structure.

[00:12:20] And we need to understand what's not working from psychological safety and health point of view.

[00:12:25] Yeah.

[00:12:26] Agreed. I mean there's so many you mentioned I think that there's there's so many solutions right there that that can help employers but like.

[00:12:33] You know you also get that sort of burnout of like OK this is going to be another thing we have to manage right another thing we have to deploy and there doesn't seem to be any sort of silver bullet right I feel like it's more a total a total sort of effort right you're going to have to do there's needs to be some education some training maybe some support system some you know mechanisms benefits what I'm going to do.

[00:12:54] Whatever like what like where do you start if you're an employer like what do you do where do you go.

[00:13:00] You need to know your people so first of all before like creating a hard launch or finding something that one person the company is like this will be brilliant.

[00:13:09] Let's give it to everybody take a moment and take a breath and ask people what's working what's not.

[00:13:15] I mean it's the number one way of connecting and understanding what do you need.

[00:13:21] What is working and I know some really good companies do a lot of internal surveys but also get some of the smaller groups together and ask them what's working and what's not there is a.

[00:13:32] I find when I go into talk to companies there is a bit of a mismatch or a misalignment between executive leadership and management roles and then what's truly happening with the wider team.

[00:13:43] If you go in and you ask leadership and management stuff well being you know how good is everybody they're going to come in with a much higher school them usually what's actually going on.

[00:13:56] So we need to get in there for many reasons that can happen.

[00:14:01] Yeah maybe the people please go Julie.

[00:14:03] I was going to say you know what I hear there is just a very strong acknowledgement that frontline workforce is oftentimes in a different space than you know then managers and your office workers right.

[00:14:20] And that there's some some special needs there if you will or a different approach or a different reality as well that the employer should be looking at.

[00:14:30] Yeah well yeah agreed.

[00:14:33] Do you think we talked to I even at some of the conferences now right we've really been talking a lot more and I think it's a great thing.

[00:14:41] We're talking a lot more about the frontline manager having so much more HR responsibility right so much more so much more than just their day to day being being functionally experts but also being leaders and then on top of it now they're kind of being HR.

[00:14:53] Like do you think that's the answer is is empowering them to sort of be that frontline sentiment tester to be able to act and give them the solutions to be able to help employees in that way or do you think it's a bigger push that has to come from like you said top down bottom up sort of holistic way.

[00:15:12] There are a few answers to this depending on the urgency of help that is needed to get to those frontline workers.

[00:15:18] Yeah and how big that company is because we know in a huge company it can be tricky to get top down action that can take some time when you know as a manager that your people needs of help now so I always take the approach of lead from where you are.

[00:15:35] Really take a moment to look at what you can do what how are you how the people that you are managing if you are a people manager you might not be able to wait wait for it to come top down you might just need some skills for your team for your unique case in that moment.

[00:15:50] And if you're looking at that there's some things you can do one is you know you can lead by example.

[00:15:57] If you start creating some really healthy boundaries about time to stop at night you know helping your team get to dinner on time really humanizing timelines I kind of love to talk about that it's a whole in depth area based on the technology that we're working with at the moment.

[00:16:16] You know really there's some things that managers are not that aware of that I'm seeing a creating some burnout issues one which is really interesting is a lot of frontline workers or why the teams are not taking their vacation time because they are living in fear of.

[00:16:36] Yep.

[00:16:37] Not being credited for the project they're working on if they take take two weeks off that they may affect their entire trajectory or their bonus or their promotion for the year and people are not taking their time off.

[00:16:49] Yeah, that is a problem.

[00:16:51] That funny I really thought we were past that you know it has been something symptomatic since I've been in the workforce and there's so much messaging to the contrary and yet that stigma is still there.

[00:17:03] It is I think it's a very American thing if you want my opinion I feel like other nationalities that I have worked with in the past have been much more culturally and even just maybe even legally more forward on making sure people take take vacations right I remember I used to work with some

[00:17:20] South Africans and those those guys and ladies would they would go off for a month and I thought man if you did that in America like you can take a month off that's incredible that's crazy but that's totally normal for them and so.

[00:17:31] That's great that you bring that up because I was talking I've talked to someone recently about this in their organization they were playing around with the unlimited PTO concept and they were finding people were taking less time off after deploying that so.

[00:17:45] Like what's the answer to say something like that how do you get people to take time off is that just a cultural thing or you know what do you do.

[00:17:52] As a manager you can do things at the beginning of the year with their language and then there's action that you can apply.

[00:17:59] Yeah, you can help your team like schedule their holidays and actually you know be on them to make sure they're taking their time off one because if your team are resting.

[00:18:07] They are coming back stronger healthier more alert faster to solve problems more creative they are their brains and their bodies are rested and we know that from basics of being an athlete and athletes not sprinting the whole time because that would what that would burn them out.

[00:18:24] And so the same thing applies here is like how do you create environments of brilliance and foster the best possible work and the best possible outcomes and there are obviously things that you can take now.

[00:18:36] You did mention the word legal and I think that's really important because we are also seeing a really interesting way right now of the right to disconnect law and I've been following this really closely because I think it's a shame that we're getting to this point that makes me sad makes my heart sad.

[00:18:53] Yeah, we are getting to this point now where a law is going to have to come in to protect those frontline workers and that sucks.

[00:19:02] Now I don't know if you guys know this but three days ago I got introduced into California so they it's on the table.

[00:19:10] So to speak it got introduced into Australia hasn't been past yet but it's not sitting on the table in Australia last month and obviously it's already being passed and to your point here at European countries already live in this with this law in place in Italy, Germany, some areas of Spain, part of Canada.

[00:19:28] So this is what we're looking at and to your point Julie where I thought we were past this.

[00:19:34] Yeah, we're not and so we need to kind of work out together collectively.

[00:19:41] What do you how do you want your company to if you have to be confronted by the right to disconnect law?

[00:19:47] Great companies have nothing to worry about.

[00:19:49] Nothing.

[00:19:51] Because they already have that as part of their culture.

[00:19:54] They are living it and breathing it.

[00:19:56] They are successful.

[00:19:58] They are aligned with what their goals and values are out to the world is aligned with how the staff and team are feeling internally.

[00:20:04] Nothing to worry about but the companies who haven't been working like that are going to probably come up with some confronting issues.

[00:20:13] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:14] Do you think employees fundamentally now, I think younger generations do but do you think employee the workforce fundamentally is looking to their employers to help them?

[00:20:25] I mean, I think about like the other day, well not the other day recently I was at Money 2020 this year or last year in fall.

[00:20:33] And one of the statistics that I was listening to and one of the things they were giving was the correlation between your credit score and your health and where lower credit scores tend to sometimes correlate to the other.

[00:20:44] And I think that's a way to hire diseases and you know because of a lack of means to things and education and food quality and all these things right.

[00:20:52] And I just that never left me I was like wow like I take things like that for granted having a good credit score I was always taught I have to have to have a good credit score right keep your credit score good and so luckily I've always been able to do that thankfully and and but not everyone has and not

[00:21:06] started in the same position education wise or means in order to have that opportunity.

[00:21:12] But like that's something really small that I don't know that we all sort of think of when we look at our peers and so they're bringing that to work so do you think employees are kind of looking to employers now and sort of expecting this help when you say help what are you meaning within that word.

[00:21:26] Well I don't know I mean you know resources right I'm coming to work I've got these challenges with my pay maybe I'm not like earned wage access has become huge right in America for a lot of frontline workers that are on sort of the lower end of the scale health care.

[00:21:40] You know particularly for home health care where it's capped by government rates for for for pay and the fact that we've got inflation going crazy right you've seen earned wage access becomes something.

[00:21:51] Employer employees are asking do you have this do you offer that right access early access to my wages.

[00:21:57] You've seen different benefits people are coming to employers for because of their maybe their needs in their family or whatever and I say benefit loosely because there's a lot of things that you could you could label benefit but I wonder if employees are coming to work and thinking thinking or expecting their employers are going to assist them.

[00:22:16] Is there that expectation growing.

[00:22:18] I think there's different levels to that expectation as well like if you are a company looking to attract the top talent in the world.

[00:22:27] You're coming you're trying to make your your package look as attractive as possible right competing competing yeah and so this is where we are seeing a lot of really specialist benefits and guaranteed we will help you grow growth as a part of our culture.

[00:22:45] We have areas where you can be promoted we have different things you know we can offer from an education on one of you.

[00:22:52] These are all things to you know really align with whatever your values and ours a company.

[00:22:59] You know it's really kind of bolster this great working environment which is a huge plus for the company as far as success and productivity and loyalty.

[00:23:10] Versus you know just please just show up and eat lunch and leave.

[00:23:15] You know you can start to see where people want to go and stay and be and have that growth opportunity.

[00:23:24] Yeah yeah you know and the thing is I don't know that and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this but I don't know that employers necessarily all together have to spend money or buy a solution to fix some of their problems.

[00:23:35] For example we've been working on a very sentiment based analysis in the payroll industry where commonly the operation has been somewhat less than in the organization and is increasingly being shown to have so much more impact as we always knew then they have maybe been

[00:23:53] been giving credit for in the past and what I'm finding in that sentiment as I'm reading between the lines and I'm looking at some of the data is a lot of these practitioners just fundamentally want to be respected.

[00:24:06] They want to be heard they want to be given the opportunity to do the best that they can but they're not being afforded that they're not it's not understood what they do it's not respected they don't invest it in and there's a you can see the tone of burnout like the signs of burnout across the industry and we're losing people right.

[00:24:21] I mean in every sector we're losing we're losing good talent to technology technology is scaring I think some people you've got a lot of media telling the world we don't need HR and payroll anymore because now we've got AI which is insane.

[00:24:33] So you know it's like there's this perfect storm that's kind of brewing out there that I think you know how like I said like what do you do as an employer right like where do you begin do you need a roadmap right should there be a wellness roadmap in the organization right we talk about roadmaps for everything else.

[00:24:49] Do you need a wellness roadmap as an employer now.

[00:24:53] There's a few things to unpack in there I love your point I love your point about you know we don't always need to be going to buy buy something as a solution to plug in I 100% agree with that because that's culture right you know by culture.

[00:25:08] Yeah, right.

[00:25:09] Yeah, this is awesome right.

[00:25:11] Yeah, culture is that you are consistently creating an environment that you say you're going to create you know all the values and ethics are being felt internally through every level of staff from top to bottom all the way through.

[00:25:26] And that's really important and that takes work and that takes humans.

[00:25:31] That's human interaction, building human relationships, genuinely checking on each other.

[00:25:37] And to your point about a road and it's well well well man roadmap.

[00:25:43] I get nervous about that term only because I don't want wellness to be separated as a new roadmap.

[00:25:51] I want it to be part of the way that we are daily thinking about our processes and our systems.

[00:25:58] And because those are the things that are having a daily effect on the people that you work with and I keep I keep coming back to this one really and it's only a tiny tiny part.

[00:26:07] But I love humanizing timelines like I will sit down with a with a team that is really struggling and I will grab a timeline that they have worked on before and I'm like taught me through this what worked what didn't work.

[00:26:20] And especially an innovation right now there is a bit of an issue where we have some people who are in charge of the timeline so you have one person who's going to put together this entire innovation timeline from beginning to end.

[00:26:33] They don't they don't know and I don't think it's on them to know the nuances of every single part of the new technology maybe five pieces of technology that are coming into this timeline.

[00:26:44] For them to know the exact nuances and how to map that out properly it's not on them to do that otherwise they would be the best technologist in the world.

[00:26:51] But it is on them to reach out and spend some time with the leads of each team to say how much time do you need in this timeline what am I not thinking about.

[00:27:01] How can I make this better for you to for your cheap brilliance that you're not rushed help me build this out.

[00:27:07] Yeah, yeah.

[00:27:09] And then the biggest thing I also say is that once we've laid well let's lay the whole thing out together.

[00:27:12] Now let's take one huge step back and hand on heart now looking at it.

[00:27:17] Do you think we can get people home to dinner for dinner on time each night in this timeline.

[00:27:21] Yeah, yeah.

[00:27:23] You're talking about making it making these things norms new new cultural norms.

[00:27:29] Every day every day.

[00:27:31] Yeah.

[00:27:33] Humanizing the timeline or humanizing our work.

[00:27:35] And in fact when I think about you know the way that you just portrayed that to me it almost became less about what we're hearing called wellness programs now and you know the little different ways we can have an impact on the personal lives our employees and more about work forecasting and and planning resource planning types of exercises.

[00:27:58] And that oftentimes comes down to you know do you have the right amount of resources the right timelines in place and if not there's there's a real business cost to you know it to adding enough resources to do that right.

[00:28:14] And and yet you know what's more difficult to quantify is the real business cost of burnout or overextension or under resourcing and and leaning instead on employees to just make that gap hole right.

[00:28:31] Yeah, 100%.

[00:28:33] Yeah, 100%.

[00:28:35] Yeah. I mean that kind of makes me think as like this does so we've seen things like chief people officer chief culture officer do we need chief wellness officer do we need some sort of wellness referee or get you know a leader in the organization is that is that coming are we already having that we already have that yeah yeah we already have chief well being officer we have seen I've seen other phrases of that which is chief of hearts chief of people you know chief of people

[00:29:03] is also you know people are these are the ways the welfare of our human being so I started seeing a lot more of those titles this year and some of the bigger HR conferences again makes me makes me happy because it's all it's all part of what we do every single day to what you guys sang before yeah.

[00:29:22] Yeah, yeah I think it is about building a culture of not just inclusivity but caring right the humanization as you as you pointed out it's it's not it doesn't cost you anything to care about people.

[00:29:33] It doesn't cost anything to ask people how they're doing and try to help them so yeah I love that.

[00:29:39] What do you sorry go ahead.

[00:29:42] Even just little questions I find can be really helpful especially as a manager is we might be you know a house of mental health or are you really stressed out.

[00:29:50] That's a really hard question for a frontline worker to want to answer to their managers so I find little things and just be humanizing the questions we asked that one is in a morning meeting is like hey how was your sleep.

[00:30:03] Yeah, it's a great.

[00:30:05] Did you sleep well I'm applying to do do I really want to know.

[00:30:09] I know.

[00:30:11] I'm tearing my head right now.

[00:30:13] But the thing is if you just ask someone how was this sleep.

[00:30:17] You're going to get a real true understanding of what's going on that person's life.

[00:30:21] So you can help lead and understand where they are at that day.

[00:30:25] Yeah yeah.

[00:30:27] What do you think has like what do you think is the biggest wellness problem we have right now what is it is it the burnout is it is it mental.

[00:30:36] I mean and can something like a I help with that sort of thing.

[00:30:42] The biggest our daily routines I think the way that we are operating on a daily basis.

[00:30:50] And how we truly bring in welfare and wellness into that because it's the daily wearing of our wearing us down that's affecting us right we're seeing that from from stress or from a timeline that was poorly managed or from resources that were pulled because the financial forecast is wrong like we're constantly getting pulled at to do more with an

[00:31:14] element of everything.

[00:31:16] We've got this element of it was always there a little bit but covered kind of magnified more which is an element of always being on or always being able to be available or to reach out and that goes on both sides we're both guilty of it.

[00:31:31] Yeah.

[00:31:33] Because you know sometimes we attach a lot of our self-worths to where the money is coming from.

[00:31:38] Yeah it's what we do with human beings and so we've got this element of always being on or reachable wanting to sell something but I love I mean we're in an amazing time with a I right amazing time and what I love about it is anyone on my team I can you know help them take

[00:31:57] care of all the administrative tasks that I think are getting in the way of their true talents and use them to do all the really important human jobs that we need to do which will be building great relationships.

[00:32:12] Yeah, my relationships creativity innovation problem solving across dynamic departments you know like a complex problem solving across all departments.

[00:32:22] These are the things that we can't give to AI.

[00:32:24] Yeah.

[00:32:26] You know it's such and those are the things that people really make them feel alive and valued and they perk up you know they've got a credible role but sometimes all those administration tasks can feel like a heavy weight because you just want to get to the thing that makes you feel great that you know you're good at and then there's all this little stuff that we need to get through sometimes.

[00:32:47] Oh I feel it myself I have a very creative job and I love the creativity part and I don't enjoy sometimes the minutiae of what I have to do around that.

[00:32:57] And you're right it's like I just want to be I want to be the creator I don't want to just be doing the you know the minutiae that's where we can get the AI to help but do you worry that just with AI coming in the way it is that we're going to do the human work in some way to where wellness will become an even bigger problem like that's one thing I worry about like are we going to create this

[00:33:17] environment where people are kind of you know symbiotically working with technology alone where there's maybe not as much human interaction anymore.

[00:33:25] I don't know I mean do you think that's going to add to new problems in some ways.

[00:33:30] My biggest concern is that we will use AI to lift all this incredible administration way off us for that to decide who and we get and we get some time back and we're like oh but we then fill all that

[00:33:47] with more stuff that we don't pause for a moment and truly understand how AI can give us some time back as human beings we just want to stuff that full of more work or more things and go faster faster faster faster because that's how that's the evolution of human beings is how it be made and I want to work out ways where we can just stop for a minute and almost

[00:34:11] I almost want to daily write down how much time AI is saving me and be like yeah it's amazing.

[00:34:17] Okay now give me a percentage now I'm going to give myself a rule which is percentage of that time I'm going to make sure that I park over here for my bolognaise time and my bolognaise time will be anything that makes me feel whole and nourished and a human being connected to the world and then yeah you go.

[00:34:34] I was going to say do you think it can rebound like the idea of work-life balance has been, I know in America we've been chasing it my whole career right and I mean can, do you think AI is the path to that?

[00:34:47] Maybe it can be that opportunity for us to be more productive, to be more effective, to have more time to return and will we return it to our families or will we just turn it around and pile more work on people.

[00:34:58] You know that's what you know that's one of the things that can happen.

[00:35:00] That's I think AI is a part of the puzzle that can truly help. It can truly help if we use it right and we look at it as a tool to remove you know these huge administration of hours and hours and hours and we get back to the things that we're really good at.

[00:35:19] It can 100% help with that. I do think as human beings we naturally want to just fill the time with other things and I think that's where it comes back to being on us.

[00:35:30] We talked about before what's on the employee and what's on the employee. On the employee is like carve off that time and thank you AI. This is like forgiving me this extra couple of hours to go and I know walk in nature, see the ocean, spend, have a beer with your dad.

[00:35:49] But we need to that's where we need to get strong and we need to have our own boundaries because we tend to not do that. So that's the two sides of it right.

[00:36:01] Yeah, oh I'm guilty of it. I'll tell you a secret time I don't do a good job and I haven't over my career of balancing my work in my personal life.

[00:36:08] I'll admit that it's something I still work on and I know my habits if I get more time at work. I'm going to do more work. Again, I'm a creative so that's you know time is money to me just like it is everyone but I have to I think it's almost like we have to be reeducated and retrained in some ways right

[00:36:25] I'm from a generation that probably came up in kind of the old way of doing things. And I think there are a lot of ways in which and I was from the military so we had very different you know viewpoints on on, you know how much load you took on and what you did and the level of pushing yourself to the limit.

[00:36:44] But I know I have to reeducate myself and try to do that but but I'm worried that are we just going to end up saying oh you've got all this time now because the AI is doing this let's just pile more on you or are people really going to turn and invest that time in themselves.

[00:36:58] I don't know what we'll have to see. Yeah, as a creative people because I am creative as well. I have questions around our current structure. It's not truly conducive to great creativity in some of the structures that workplaces place on us because you know from being in the flow of create like am I'm writing or I'm

[00:37:19] I'm concepting jumping into a meeting every 30 minutes is the word delays my entire process so yeah I think there's a whole conversation at some point just around you know how what is that what does it look like for a creative brain to truly flourish because that's different than yeah it's a totally different process and we get squished we get squished into things that are quite I don't think work.

[00:37:44] Oh yeah well and I'll tell you like one of the things being being able to work for myself like one of the things I've found that's been incredibly freeing for me is the ability to work when and as I want to and not because of.

[00:37:56] I want to do other things with my time but I like to follow my brain and my motivation for where it is and I find I'm more productive and far more creative when I allow myself to flow if you will through things versus maybe being forced into a nine to five this first this thing first this thing next this thing third.

[00:38:17] And I think the more that employers can give employees that flexibility and autonomy to shape their work.

[00:38:23] It is going to lead to them being more productive and more capable of having that effectiveness to be more have more time to invest back in themselves so and maybe even happiness so yeah.

[00:38:34] There's one thing I always ask as well which I think is a huge factor to burn out that we don't talk about often is to work out who on your team is a morning person and who is a night person.

[00:38:44] Yes because to your point about following where your brain is at its most productive I'm a morning person like ridiculous morning person.

[00:38:54] I can solve my biggest teacher created problems from five to eight a.m. that is my golden time I will machine it but if you've trying to make me work from like seven p.m. to 10 p.m.

[00:39:07] I almost want to burst into tears as my brain is like I'm off.

[00:39:12] I just can't but when I was in my advertising days I would need to know on my team who are all the designs and copyrights who are night people and who are morning people because if you're trying to force something to make someone work in an area where their brain is not at its best that's a major way to speed up burn out for that person.

[00:39:34] Yeah yeah no you're absolutely right I'm very much the same way I can relate I'm a military guy from the past so I have a very early morning routine you know as they say it as they say in the Marines you know it gives you a psychological advantage over the enemy being up that early so I don't know if that's true but

[00:39:51] but it doesn't but I'm the same way right I'm so like a lightning rod of capability at the very earliest hours of the day to where you're right later in the day I have less I'm willing to do things like go through my emails and clean things up for the next day versus trying to be creative and work and the problem is I think we try to force employees into this box right because this is the box that works for us and this is what we do and and I understand that some jobs you can't be as flexible as you'd like to be but I think the more you can create that that kind of

[00:40:21] comfortable culture supportive culture comfortable environment where you can where you can create autonomy for yourself I think you're going to get a lot more out of people than necessarily just forcing them into a box that way so great.

[00:40:35] So so guys one of the things I want to ask you about is like just a shift to hybrid work right we've got a lot of people now at home we saw a lot of challenges with mental wellness and and childcare and all kinds of things during Kobe but now that most people have kind of come back to the office there's

[00:40:51] a lot of more remote than there was we see more and more companies kind of taking these hardline stances against it and some are all in some are all out somewhere somewhere in the middle like what is that done to wellness and what do you think like what do you say to an employer who is

[00:41:06] in a hybrid environment that has employees disconnected like that in remote how do you manage your wellness differently than than a traditional workforce.

[00:41:14] The business side of me because I get this question a lot I help a lot of companies in the space and if a company comes to me and says hey we want to enforce a return to work policy.

[00:41:27] Okay, I just stopped for a minute and I just say what can you just talk me through the reasons why.

[00:41:33] Yeah, if you've got some clear data on the productivity has gone down and you're not hitting your goals and it's not working because that's great let's work with that and have a look at that dive into that and understand where that's not working.

[00:41:46] If you are coming at it just from an iron fist and we have real estate in these buildings and it's costing us a ton of money and we need everyone and there's one person at the top of the company who's like everyone has to come back to work because I said so that's a different conversation.

[00:42:00] Yeah.

[00:42:02] Those are two very what side are we talking about and because you're if you're going to start I think it should always be based on what's really working what's being productive how how what's the health of the team because if you do start forcing people to come back.

[00:42:19] You're probably going to lose some people because or you go is it goes case by case with the individual as well. Some people really want to come back to work that works for them.

[00:42:31] Leaving the house and going to an office may be a fantastic solution for someone who has children or just needs that focus and enjoys being in that environment. That's great.

[00:42:40] But that's not for everybody. It's not a one size fits all anymore and because we've had a taste for it.

[00:42:47] We know what we want as individuals and to your point to even asking the question about morning person and night person because the way you can flourish and get the most done.

[00:42:58] It's the same thing with questions with remote versus hybrid versus full time on site.

[00:43:03] Yeah.

[00:43:04] So it's a matter of who do you want to be as a company and as a leader. Do you want to truly understand what works for the people for the success of the company or do you just want to drive an ultimatum.

[00:43:16] Yeah.

[00:43:17] Yeah I don't see the hard line in the sand being all in or all out a good idea. I think you got to take a case by case roll by roll.

[00:43:25] And why not. Right. Like look we've said this a lot on the podcast. I say this all the time flexibility is what's going to win in the in the battle for for skills and talent. You've got to be as flexible as possible.

[00:43:37] And the more I think that you can meet people with opportunities that help them achieve their goals and fit their unique needs in their lifestyle and they're whatever they're bringing to work.

[00:43:47] I think you're going to be much better off in terms of enduring and maintaining and nurturing that talent so yeah not but it's look there's a lot employers have so much on their plates now I my wife is an HR practitioner and I hear some of the things she's dealing with and she's not in the most mature organization and the frustration that she has you know it's like

[00:44:07] like what would you say to an employer who's kind of paralyzed because I feel like that's what I would say her company is right they've got all these things they'd love to do and they're very forward maybe too friendly of an organization and need to almost have some some a little bit more

[00:44:21] rigidity in some areas. But what do you tell an employer who is kind of overwhelmed or maybe just paralyzed with wellness right now like where do you start. What would be your advice.

[00:44:31] Almost sometimes it was like HR needs HR right like

[00:44:34] Right yeah yeah.

[00:44:36] I heard that a lot this year you know I hung out with a lot of senior people and I was just like they're going through it to your point.

[00:44:45] From all the things to juggle and what to prioritize as a business owner you're going to need to work out what the balance is between

[00:44:57] really understanding what people need to get to their goals that you've set because there can be a ton of things that you want to do but if they're not truly aligning to hey we've set this we've got we've got these goals as a team we're going to get here.

[00:45:14] These are the three things we think we this is the three things we're going to be doing to get us there because you need to do a couple of things amazingly well rather than doing 10 things in an all being fragmented.

[00:45:26] And a bit of a mess.

[00:45:28] Yeah yeah do you think HR is qualified for this.

[00:45:32] Qualified for what part just like we talked about we talked about the wellness officer right like do you think HR needs outside help like do you think they're qualified or do they even have the capacity to take on more right I mean there's there's so many things they're dealing with.

[00:45:48] It's a really good point and again that comes back to that specific team structure because I am seeing a few things one is there's an HR team structure they are dealing with an influx of additional parts of their role that they've never had to experience and that's not really being considered and that's tricky because those people are burning up.

[00:46:08] Yeah.

[00:46:09] And I'm seeing some teams who are making some really big leaps forward to your point with a chief wellness officer on board.

[00:46:16] And now I'm also seeing things of like chief AI officer come in to take off some of the weight and to have have an anchor because all these HR HR teams are getting all the AI questions as well.

[00:46:30] Yeah.

[00:46:31] Well it's following their lap right privacy and yeah and like they need help they need some support so you need to take a break.

[00:46:39] And look at who's on the team.

[00:46:41] Where is everything heating what assistance do we need.

[00:46:45] What extra training do we need.

[00:46:47] Is this now adding too much to this individual person's role do we need to create a new role.

[00:46:52] Yeah.

[00:46:53] Yeah absolutely it's interesting.

[00:46:55] Do you what do you find are common characteristics of companies who do wellness really well I would imagine culture right pretty obviously but what else do you see as far as like the key characteristics when you're working with companies like this is companies really

[00:47:08] nailing it this company is doing terrible.

[00:47:10] What's the what are the characteristics you see.

[00:47:13] Yeah clarity and empowerment I find really clear to your point about you know the company we're just talking about they are really clear about what their brand is to the outside world and all those ethics and values are definitely felt by the internal team.

[00:47:34] There's no disconnect there.

[00:47:37] And those are the those are the super companies.

[00:47:40] They have worked out because what happens when your brand your amazing values and ethics that you broadcast to the world is not felt internally at the culture and there's a mismatch.

[00:47:53] That's when you really got start to see people just engage you don't get as much loyalty.

[00:47:58] You don't get as many people who want to really go the extra mile to hit that goal that you're all doing together because they don't.

[00:48:06] There's not this much trust that has been built internally and when there's not trust that the thing that they signed up for is a thing that they're turning up to every day.

[00:48:15] Things go a little sideways.

[00:48:17] Yeah.

[00:48:18] We see and you see that with whistleblowers and you see that with data leaks and you see that with like that's just one element of that coming off of that misalignment.

[00:48:29] Yeah.

[00:48:30] Yeah.

[00:48:31] Yeah.

[00:48:32] Interesting.

[00:48:33] Interesting.

[00:48:34] So look I know we talked a little bit.

[00:48:35] There's so many things I want to keep asking you but I know we're kind of running long here.

[00:48:40] Look we talked a little bit about AI right.

[00:48:42] We talked a little bit about what's sort of happening out there with employers but what do you see is next and what do you hope for like what's coming for wellness.

[00:48:50] Where do you think we are wellness wise 2030 right.

[00:48:53] And what are your hopes for all of this.

[00:48:56] I think what I am seeing and definitely from some of the bigger conferences have been to this week the big transform one that I went to in Vegas in March.

[00:49:06] I don't know if you've been to that.

[00:49:08] I didn't make that one this year.

[00:49:10] No.

[00:49:11] I've really enjoyed it for because it really did give me the full landscape of where things are heading.

[00:49:17] Yeah.

[00:49:18] And my prediction and very optimistic and I think this is where we're going.

[00:49:23] And this is exactly where I'll be pushing it is really wellness becoming this integral part of the employee experience and future benefits to really dig deep about what's working and what's not.

[00:49:35] And not bandaid approaches but real preventative approaches that mean to physical social aspects but yeah moving away from reactive health care to proactive wellness strategies.

[00:49:47] That is what I'm feeling that is what definitely what I saw it transform.

[00:49:52] I was most excited I was like getting the candy store and I went to walk through all the exhibitors I was like this is amazing.

[00:49:59] And example of that would be little things that we haven't been talking about in the workplace that cause burnout grief.

[00:50:07] Oh, great grief in the workplace has not really been addressed.

[00:50:12] Yeah, especially in America only two thousand and twenty three was it enforced that have to be a employer has to give five days off for breathing leave that only happened last year.

[00:50:24] And you know, I know personally when you lose someone close to you the logistics of mapping off of unpacking that of that whole thing.

[00:50:37] I think on a way out and I found one startup called a lame that transform and I burst into tears.

[00:50:44] This is amazing because they've just specialized a benefit on the full logistics and support a person needs when someone close to them passes.

[00:50:54] Because it takes about a average of 400 like logistical hours to to to process what happens when you need the things you need to do when a close person dies.

[00:51:04] Oh, yeah.

[00:51:05] And they're still coming to work and they're trying to focus but they've got this entire bereavement unpacking paperwork lawyers, you know, like everything to do and they're burning out because of grief.

[00:51:19] Yeah, yeah.

[00:51:20] That's that one hits close to home I can tell you personally I worked next to my grandmother in a hospital.

[00:51:26] When I was taking care of her and her estate at the time and my employer was very helpful with me but but that's the level of inappropriate balance that you can see that I was talking about I have and yeah we've all been there but you know what I notice I would tell you about that's a great point because we all don't digest that the same way

[00:51:42] we don't absorb loss the exact same way and what we're dealing with at home sometimes. I mean even domestic violence I've seen a number of things about domestic violence baggage kind of coming if you will air quotes, coming to work, often with women.

[00:51:56] You know, in particular that is really really tough and so all these things right it there's so many little variables I feel like that are that we're dealing with today that are compounded by technology and compounded by our society and compounded by

[00:52:09] norms that we've allowed particularly here in America about how we treat workers that I think that's part of it we've got to change the demand for saying look we can't treat people this way right we're, we're not doing right by our workforce and we're burning them out or we're

[00:52:24] productive. People don't want to work certain jobs anymore at certain places and that's just awful right it shouldn't be that way so yeah so my hope is to write that we can we can make some progress and I'm hoping that AI and some of this great technology that we're having is going to be that opportunity for us so

[00:52:42] Well this has been great cast thank you so much. Anything that we didn't hit on I'm sure there's tons of angles we could have taken with this is there anything you'd like to add or just you know maybe a pine on that we didn't get to touch on here.

[00:52:53] I think there was a lot covered there like from a surface level obviously there's huge dips and all those topics but I think my big thing is for anyone listening is just take a look around your team check on them you know it's pretty easy to tell when someone's burning out you can get a feel for it and you know hand on heart ask are we getting people to the dinner table on time.

[00:53:19] Yeah because that does seem to annihilate a lot. Yeah no I love it and take your vacation right. You're right I mean it's the little things you know like I try to do this habit now of I try to check on somebody in my circle every day right I try to say how you doing.

[00:53:36] You need anything right and I hope that that might stimulate someone to ask someone else and it's just little things I just think that you can do to. I learned that from a celebrity comedian that was talking about how they do that and I thought that's such a great easy cheap free thing you know we can all do just to show that you know we do care and how are you doing are you

[00:53:54] doing are you alright you know do you need any help so look if we if we all look out for each other and we start acting to your point going back to the beginning about humanizing the way we do things and put it through that lens I think we'll come with better

[00:54:05] better responses better outcomes and better you know hopefully better better feelings for everyone you know in the workplace and better wellness so this is awesome thank you so much cast listen where can we I'm going to share all of your links but where would you mostly

[00:54:17] would love to have people direct to connect to you I know you speak a lot you do a lot of great work where can they reach out to you. Yeah I've got a bolognese philosophy dot com is the ball that's where the philosophy lives anyone who wants to go there and my speaker websites also

[00:54:31] Cas Marie O'Leary dot com and then I'm on LinkedIn as well as the Cas Marie O'Leary dot com and I'll have more announcements there coming soon I've got a speaker partnership series with a physician coming out for corporates to dive deep into a full wellness framework to really help

[00:54:52] people so I'll be making some more announcements about that on LinkedIn for anyone who that can help. Oh very cool I'd love to check that out I love framework so we'll keep an eye on that and I'll make sure I share that

[00:55:00] all of these links for you and yeah check out Cas if you can see her speak it's really worth your time and thank you so much Cas this has really been awesome. Thank you.

[00:55:10] Julie what do you got going on anything I know you got a survey running out there I don't know if it'll be still running by the time this comes out but what's going on there. I do we've been doing some micro surveys this year just because

[00:55:21] you know that the big meaty ones can be such an effort to pull together so right now have a survey out on AI intelligent automation and HR. And I don't know if we've posted the link Pete on our on any of our episodes but I'll share it with you.

[00:55:37] It's literally 15 questions. Beautiful. And and of course you have your survey going on. Yep it's actually done I'm working on the results and we'll be showing that you and I will be at the global payroll excuse me

[00:55:51] I will be at the payroll Congress showing that global payroll week is the week before that that's coming up but we'll be doing unveiling that at payroll Congress and leading a very interesting executive summit going on there so if you're interested in that let us know we can get

[00:56:03] an invite to private. But what else do anything else going on. Oh lots of client work which is where my heart is as you know so yeah so I love it it keeps me close to not only the vendors I'll never be as close to the vendors as you are

[00:56:17] but it keeps me very close to what clients are doing and what where they're going and what they're using and what they're interested in and what maybe is is more marketing and it's time hasn't come yet so yeah awesome my favorite part of what I do

[00:56:34] Good stuff good stuff. All right well look ladies it's been great cast thank you so much for joining us Julie everyone take care and we'll be back very soon.

[00:56:47] you